As I write, Dublin and Donegal are under a Level 3 lockdown and there is talk of other counties having to follow suit soon. While these lockdowns are not as severe as the complete lockdown of last Spring, there are factors which make this time around feel a little worse: we’re heading into Winter, not Summer, the financial damage is beginning to show as is the emotional toll of half a year of already spent with COVID. Furthermore the buoyant national esprit de corps has faded to be replaced with an esprit of complaints and recriminations.
Civic life is shadowed by a slightly dystopian atmosphere, created by those omnipresent signs demanding masks and hand-washing, the convoluted one-way systems in public spaces, the pedestrians nervously stepping off paths to avoid on-coming pedestrians, and those heated over-reactions to poor unfortunates who forget to don their masks on entering shops.
In a recent general audience, Pope Francis (continuing his catechesis on the Church’s social teaching) suggested that the principle of subsidiarity has been lacking in international efforts to tackle COVID. The principle of subsidiarity is the (much neglected) principle that States should minimise their direct intervention in the life of a society where subsidiary social bodies – such as families, small businesses, voluntary organisations, churches, trade unions – exist to carry out that same function. These social bodies, says Pope Francis, should not be side-lined: “When a project is launched that directly or indirectly touches certain social groups, these groups cannot be left out from participating … Let everyone speak! And this is how the principle of subsidiarity works. We cannot leave out the participation of the people; their wisdom; the wisdom of the humbler groups cannot be set aside” (General Audience, 23 Sept 2020).
A State which arrogates to itself all responsibilities and all wisdom (as does the Nanny State) does not seek the input of subsidiary social realities, or hears their voices only with great reluctance. And where social participation is side-lined by the State, the sense of solidarity amongst citizens will be damaged. Such a situation is quite detrimental when society is faced with a crisis such as the one we now face:
In fact, there is no true solidarity without social participation, without the contribution of intermediary bodies: families, associations, cooperatives, small businesses, and other expressions of society. Everyone needs to contribute, everyone. This type of participation helps to prevent and to correct certain negative aspects of globalization and the actions of States, just as it is happening regarding the healing of people affected by the pandemic (General Audience, 23 Sept 2020).
It seems that here in Ireland, for instance, it has not been an easy task for the Church to have its voice heard by government with regard to public policy around COVID. Ideally the opposite should be case: the State should be positively drawing on the wisdom, experience and evident good will of an institution such as the Catholic Church. Furthermore, we have seen here a heavy-handed response to health care professionals who call into question the wisdom of the State’s COVID policies, as well as the derision poured on private individuals who have raised legitimate questions about the proportionality of the measures being imposed on the country.
That said, despite the shortcomings inherent in the autocratic approach of States to the COVID crisis, citizens must act responsibly. In the words of the Holy Father: “To emerge better from a crisis like the current one, which is a health crisis and is, at the same time, a social, political and economic crisis, every one of us is called to assume responsibility for our own part, that is, to share the responsibility” (General Audience, 23 Sept 2020).
Each of us, faced with this ongoing crisis, must respond with resilience, imagination and optimism. Resilience is the attitude of the person who rejects sterile lamentation but rises to the challenges presented by COVID. Imagination is needed to find creative solutions to the many new problems COVID has brought in its wake. This approach is exemplified in a recent news report concerning a Brazilian born chef – Giselle Makinde – who has taken to collecting surplus fruit from local Irish growers and suppliers whose sales have been hit by closures of cafes and restaurants impacted by Covid-19. She is turning this fruit into ice-cream, giving a new twist to the “make lemonade from lemons” adage. And finally optimism – of the supernatural not the facile kind – allows us to see the loving hand of God behind all the events of our lives. Seen this way, all the real – often exhausting – trials brought on by the COVID pandemic are ultimately viewed as blessings in disguise, sometimes in heavy disguise, but blessings nonetheless.