The Catholic Church and the challenge of the pandemic

The paper analyzes how the Italian Catholic Church has dealt with the lockdown made necessary by the Covid-19 pandemic. For over two months, all celebrations and pastoral activities were of suspended, thus creating a difficult situation for the Catholic Church, since the collective moments of the sacraments are central to the religious life of Catholics. As a result of a brief, but intense, ethnographic research study, I have specified three general attitudes characterizing the response of Catholics to the quarantine: suspension, reproduction, and replacement. Suspension consisted in the interruption of all activities pending a return to normal, while reproduction was an attempt to reproduce normal liturgical activity on the Internet (in particular on Facebook and YouTube). The replacement was the most creative and original activity and consisted in the attempt, proposed by a minority of progressive Catholics, to create new rituals more suited to the situation and reflecting many of the post-council Vatican II theological acquisitions.