Pray To Your Father In Secret

My regular correspondent sent me a screen shot of a video of Fr Bartus on the Holy Martyrs Murreita Facebook page:

By contrast, here is Pope Pius XII blessing the crowd in St Peter's square:

As far as I can see, the Holy Father is doing this all wrong. He's versus populum, which is not done, and he's nowhere near as well gotten up.

But I think there are other issues here. As of March 27, the huge Riverside County, CA as a whole had 185 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with eight deaths. Riverside County has a population of over 2.4 million. Temecula had 16 cases, Murrieta 11. Cases, not deaths. The overall US death rate, still relatively low, is well below projections, and there's a good chance there will be no COVID-19 deaths in those communities.

So why the grandstanding? Might it not be better to offer up prayers of hope and thanksgiving that so far, the plague has passed us over? In private?

After all, the public health advice we continue to have from civil authorities is to remain indoors and maintain six feet of separation, especially where vulnerable people like the elderly are concerned. Instead, Fr Bartus is conspicuously outdoors, standing right next to an elderly bearded gentleman, who is on a nonessential excursion enabling Fr Bartus's grandstanding.

I think there's some similarity here to Fr Lewis's March 12 letter, in which he conspicuously flouted prudent public health advice to prove some sort of obscure point, when US Bishops as a whole are advising Catholics to do the opposite, prayerfully absent themselves from public celebration and do what's best for their families and neighbors.

This is yet another example of the narcissism that's often visible in the North American ordinariate.

[But] take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father. When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. . . . When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.