An Italian Experience of Spirituality from the Coronavirus Pandemic
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An Italian Experience of Spirituality from the Coronavirus Pandemic Francesco Chirico1,2 · Gabriella Nucera3,4
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract In this letter to the editor, the authors tell their personal experience in the fight against Coronavirus pandemic and call for more spirituality needed to battle in the COVID-19 emergency. They commemorate the story of many Italian priests who have died in this tragedy and claim that spiritual skills for healthcare workers are especially important in a disaster scenario like this COVID 19 pandemic, to relieve stress and psychic sufferance of the same healthcare professionals as well as of patients and their families. Keywords Clergy · COVID 19 · Healthcare workers · Spirituality Dear Editor in Chief, I live in Milan, Lombardy, the most affected Italian region by the current COVID 19 pandemic, and work as an official medical doctor for the Italian State Police. My wife is an emergency physician employed in one of the oldest hospitals in the centre of Milan. We live with two lovely sons, Luca and Francesca, aged 12 and 9. I and my wife are being both engaged in this health emergency, though in two different
* Francesco Chirico [email protected] 1
Post‑graduate School of Occupational Medicine, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy
2
Health Service Department, State Police, Ministry of Interior, Via Umberto Cagni, 21, 20162 Milan, Italy
3
Faculty of Nursing, University of Milan, Milan, Italy
4
ASST Fatebenefratelli and Sacco, FatebeneFratelli Hospital, Milan, Italy
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
Journal of Religion and Health
battlefields. We are both catholic and, in this extraordinary time, we are moving forward with faith and spiritual resilience by remembering that “Lord is our strength and shield” (Psalm 28:7).1 In Italy, many of us are infected, and, as of April 10, 2020, 105 medical doctors and 28 nursed have died. But today, inspired by your editorial (Hart 2020), we would like to commemorate the many Italian priests who have died in this tragedy. They worked tirelessly and without personal protective equipments to give spiritual assistance not only to the suffering people, but also to our patients and their families as well as to our colleagues, who are now called “healthcare soldiers” in the global war against this viral threat. During the First World War, chaplains were assigned to military units, acting as a form of moral support. During times of battle, especially before a known offensive, they went to the front to offer final blessings and last rites to departing soldiers, known in our Catholic form as General Absolution. During battle, they remained at the hospital awaiting the imminent arrival of new casualties (Houlihan 2015). In the last weeks, in Bergamo, Lombardy, bodies of the deceased have had to be taken to other Italian cities by military trucks because there were too many to cremate (Mares 2020). Moreover, an emergency national law banned civil and religious ceremonies, includi
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