Amazon has reissued its popular Apple Watch deal, dropping the Series 5 Watches with Cellular to $399 after a $100 price cut. Multiple styles are on sale and in stock.

Eight years after it released tools to make what were then called iBooks, Apple has launched Apple Books for Authors, a new effort to get writers publishing on its platform.

Apple has just declared that it is opening up a handful of Apple Stores in the US cautiously, with more to follow as conditions warrant.

Apple's upcoming reopening of some U.S.-based retail locations will be based around guidelines that the company developed for and refined at its open South Korea Apple Store.

Apple is supposedly developing new mental health features for the Apple Watch line that allow the wearable to detect panic attacks, with the capability potentially slated for launch with a next-generation "watchOS 7" this fall.

Apple frequently places movies on sale, and this week is no exception. Here's the latest batch of movies that you can get on the cheap for this Mother's Day weekend.

Mother's Day may be tomorrow, but you can still grab a great deal on Apple hardware with prices starting at just $95. Take advantage of the return of the popular $100 discount on Apple Watch Series 5 styles, plus a new $375 markdown on 16-inch MacBook Pros and flash deals on iPod touch models.

Apple is preparing to reopen all four of its Apple Stores in Switzerland on May 12, as part of the iPhone maker's bid to slowly return its retail efforts back to normal around the world.

Volker (OM Montenegro) describes how their outdoor lessons for Roma kids were threatened by bad weather. Then God provided not only the solution - building a carport as a shelter - but also the funds and manpower needed to build it.

Anna (Germany) and Christina (Canada) are the youngest members of OM Montenegro. They describe how God called them into missions, and led them unexpectedly to Montenegro, a Balkan country neither had heard much about before. Here God is changing them as they prepare for further service...

Although church planting has progressed at a slower pace than the team first expected, a few important milestones in Bar, Montenegro, have been reached.

At 33, Igor, from Serbia, was sick, jobless and homeless. But one winter night he met Jesus. Now he serves God with OM in Montenegro.

OM’s team in Bar, Montenegro, has been praying to expand the outreach work in the country. Their prayers have finally been answered.

The OM team in Bar, Montenegro, received an enthusiastic response when they showed the JESUS film in the Roma language for the first time.

With the help of two Scottish special-needs teachers, OM Montenegro passionately improves the lives of children with autism and the lives of their families.

OM Montenegro partners with Serbian singer-songwriter Dejan Milinov to bring worship music to believers in their own language.

God transforms the hearts of teens from two people groups, who normally do not interact, to bring them together for worship, Bible study and friendship.

Robbie and Angela from OM in Montenegro take every opportunity to bring God's love into the lives of lonely elderly people in a care home.

OM uses a team car to transport teenagers with autism to Montenegro's only special needs school. But a better car is needed to continue.

After making friends at OM's English Cafe, Igor shares with them how he came from a similar background but was freed from despair when he met Jesus.

OMers visit the beachfront cafes for weekly Bible study, seeking to bless the businesses and share God's love all year round.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 7, 2020 / 02:40 pm (CNA).- The governor of Illinois has said he will continue to ban public gatherings of more than 50 people—including religious services—until a vaccine or treatment for coronavirus is available.

The announcement comes as the White House is reported to have shelved guidance from the Centers for Disease Control on gradually reopening sections of the American economy and society.

Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker announced Wednesday that gatherings of more than 50 people in the state would not be allowed until a coronavirus vaccine “or highly effective treatment” is “widely available.”

Public health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have cautioned that a COVID-19 vaccine is at least 12 to 18 months from being developed and made available.

According to Pritzker’s five-part plan for reopening the state, gatherings of ten or fewer people are not even allowed until phase 3, the “recovery” phase that can begin, at earliest, May 29. However, following a lawsuit last week, the governor has allowed citizens to leave their homes for religious services as long as ten or fewer people are gathered for worship.

Previously, religious services of any kind in the state—including drive-in and in-person services—were curtailed during the pandemic, and even other forms of sacramental practice such as drive-in confessions were not allowed.

The Archdiocese of Chicago announced on May 1 that public Masses with 10 or fewer people would resume.

Other dioceses across the United States have already begun rolling back total suspensions on the public celebration of Mass. 

Last week, CNA reported that the White House Domestic Policy Council held a series of conference calls with bishops who had begun the process of reopening churches in line with local public health orders.

During the calls, administration officials expressed their hope to be able to support faith communities with “sensitive and respectful guidance” to help restore public worship “as soon as it is feasible.”

The bishops were told that the Centers for Disease Control hoped that issuing guidance could help inform state and local leaders about the “essential” nature of religious practice, while still allowing for localized responses to the coronavirus and provide “helpful parameters” for state and local governments who are trying to safeguard public health. But, on Thursday, AP reported that the Trump administration had shelved a 17-page report titled “Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework.”

That document included a section on “Interim Guidance for Communities of Faith.”

According to AP, CDC officials expected the guidance to be released at the end of last week but were instead told it “would never see the light of day.” 

Peter Breen, executive director of the Thomas More Society,  told CNA that “policymakers that are making plans based on the development of a vaccine or other cure to this coronavirus are engaging in magical thinking.”

“While there is always a possibility that some miracle cure may emerge, that is entirely uncertain and should not be the basis for setting policy, especially policy in relation to our communities of faith,” Breen stated.

On April 30, the Thomas More Society filed a lawsuit on behalf of The Beloved Church in Lena, Illinois, and by that night, attorney Peter Breen told CNA, a paragraph had been added to an executive order of Pritzker’s allowing for people to leave their home for religious services.

“He [Pritzker] has at least brought churches out of the abyss of ‘non-essential,’ but he has not fully elevated them to the heights of being an ‘essential’ business or operation,” Breen told CNA on Wednesday, noting that businesses deemed “essential” to remain open were not subject to the 10-person rule.

Washington D.C., May 7, 2020 / 04:30 pm (CNA).- The White House service for the National Day of Prayer on Thursday focused on protection from the coronavirus pandemic. President Trump said Americans will continue to pray for divine assistance as the nation faces “unforeseen and seemingly unbearable hardships.”

Sister Eneyda Martinez of the Poor Sisters of St. Joseph community in Alexandria, Virginia was one of the religious leaders present to lead attendees in prayer.

“Merciful Savior, heal and comfort the sick so that with health restored, they may give you praise. Divine Physician, accompany our caregivers, so that serving you with patience they may heal wisely. And through wisdom, guide our leaders, so that through seeking remedies they may follow your light,” Sister Eneyda Martinez prayed at the service in the White House’s Rose Garden.

The National Day of Prayer was designated by Congress in 1952, and scheduled in 1988 to be observed annually on the first Thursday in the month of May.

In attendance at the White House service were President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, as well as Vice President Mike Pence and Second Lady Karen Pence, and Paula White, and other religious leaders from Catholic, Christian, and Mormon churches, and Jewish and Hindu faiths.

The prayer service emphasized prayer for protection from the coronavirus pandemic, as well as prayer for the sick and their families, and health care workers.

“Christ, the Anointed, protect us in body and in spirit, so that free from harm we may be delivered from all affliction,” prayed Sister Eneyda Martinez.

Vice President Pence urged Americans to be “persistent in prayer,” especially for the families of the dead, those sick with the virus, and health care workers, many who have “literally taken the place of loved ones” in being the only close contacts of COVID-19 patients.

On Thursday morning, Trump issued a proclamation, noting the importance of prayer during the pandemic.

“During the past weeks and months, our heads have bowed at places outside of our typical houses of worship, whispering in silent solitude for God to renew our spirit and carry us through unforeseen and seemingly unbearable hardships,” Trump stated.

“Even though we have been unable to gather together in fellowship with our church families, we are still connected through prayer and the calming reassurance that God will lead us through life's many valleys.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control was reportedly drafting guidance for states to reopen public accommodations and religious services, but according to the Associated Press on Thursday, the document was buried by the administration.

That document reportedly advised against churches holding services if they were not in a “community no longer requiring significant mitigation.”

However, if that and other certain conditions were in place, churches should take precautions such as ensuring social distancing, wearing of masks by congregants, and intensifying cleaning of churches, the CDC document reportedly said.

State orders have varied in their restrictions on public gatherings during the pandemic; a Kansas stay-at-home order allowed religious gatherings of 10 or fewer people, while Illinois prohibited all religious gatherings.

After every U.S. diocese stopped public Masses during March, Catholic dioceses have started offering public Masses, beginning with the diocese of Las Cruces, New Mexico, with several other dioceses following suit in ensuing days.

Officials from the CDC and the White House spoke with four of the bishops on April 28 and 29 about the resumption of public religious services.

Denver Newsroom, May 7, 2020 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- A young Catholic artist has drawn an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary on her parents' driveway bringing religious art to her local community during the quarantine.

The Diocese of Fargo posted on Facebook May 4 an image of Our Lady of Lourdes drawn by Maria Loh, a 17-year old who grew up in Fargo. She said it was an enjoyable experience to share her faith and art with her neighborhood.

“Being able to interact with people when they walked by was very moving in a way because a lot of people have never really seen sidewalk art done like that locally. So being able to share in that kind of experience, it was very, very good,” she told CNA.

Loh has recently been inspired by chalk art and pastels, which, she said, have vibrant and beautiful colors. She has drawn on the sidewalks a few times, including two images of Mary - Madonna of the Lillies and the Pieta by William Adolphe-Bouguereau.

Her most recent chalk drawing was Our Lady of Lourdes by Hector Garrido - an image she had seen as a magnet on her grandparents' refrigerator growing up. The picture has always been an inspiration, she said, noting that she decided to replicate it after Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine in France had temporarily closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“I heard that the shrine had been temporarily closed off to the public, and I remember … thinking that's really sad because especially in this time, we’re really looking for healing in more ways than one, like physically and mentally and spiritually,” she said.

“It really felt like people wouldn't be able to go to experience that. So I felt like drawing this image of Our Lady of Lourdes would be a good way to remind people that Our Lady is still with us even if we can’t go to her shrine.”

Loh, the oldest of five, has been involved with art projects and drawing for her entire life. She said, growing up in a Catholic family, she has been inspired by her faith and the religious art in churches.

“I see our faith as so precious... Especially in the form of the Eucharist - the actual body and blood of Christ, I've seen that we are very blessed to have that in our faith. It's something that has impacted a lot of my life growing up,” she said.

While she was working on the piece, Loh said, a majority of passersby did not know who the lady in the image was. She expressed hope that the picture would help remind people of Mary and the beauty of the Church, which, she said, is a powerful attraction to the faith.

“One thing that I hope this kind of art and image will evoke is a desire to come to know who Mary is and how rich our faith is. … All the beautiful art that can be seen in Catholic churches, especially like in Rome, there's almost a transcendental beauty to them that draws people into the faith to come to know things that they've never dreamed of before,” she said.

As Loh finishes her junior year of high school, she expressed the possibility of art school after graduation, but, while she is still uncertain of the future, said art will not be dropped anytime soon.

“I can definitely see [art school] being a possibility. I’ll have to spend some time, especially with God trying to figure out what he wants me to do. But, I don't think art is going out of my life anytime soon,” she said.

Denver Newsroom, May 7, 2020 / 08:19 pm (CNA).- A Christian ethic of service and solidarity must be an important feature of the business response to the coronavirus epidemic and its economic impact, Catholic business educators have said.

For Karel Sovak, associate professor in the University of Mary’s Gary Tharaldson School of Business, two of the biggest skills that business can bring to recovery efforts are self-awareness and empathy.

“A business needs to help the community identify who they are, which may have been lost during this time of stay at home,” he told CNA. “Businesses need to help communities focus on what makes it viable in the first place, which are the people. Business can be used as a force for good only if they understand what that ‘good’ means. Being aware of those strengths can help transform a community as they seek to overcome any devastating tragedy, natural or otherwise.”

He cited the symbolic unity and mutual support shown by individuals and businesses, whether by showing hearts in windows, purchasing gift cards for businesses, or taking meals to essential personnel.

Over 75,000 deaths are attributed to Covid-19 in the U.S., with over 1.25 million confirmed cases, John Hopkins University said Thursday. Efforts to prevent the spread of infection led to public officials’ orders to close businesses, with the exception of some businesses deemed essential services.

Millions of people have been left unemployed due to the closures, while those with essential jobs worry that their places of employment are newly dangerous.

Sovak emphasized the importance of trust as a business skill, but noted that low trust and polarization were problems even before the epidemic. Community is about bringing people into communion, and business has a role to play in that community building.

“Business can reassure families, non-profits and churches that they are there for them. Solidarity is the word that comes to mind when determining how to establish trust,” he said. The social and spiritual nature of the human being means people will need to come together once again “to use the gifts God gave to each person to meet the needs of others.”

Laura Munoz, associate professor of marketing at the University of Dallas’ Satish and Yasmin Gupta College of Business, said her business school emphasizes both a skill-based and a virtue-based education that can help respond to the crisis.

Business professors aim to help students become resilient and adaptable. They must become critical thinkers “aware of multiple stakeholder perceptions in an ethical way,” she told CNA. These skills can also help in the service of others, as in the case of a business student who used her business skills to fund raise for an Argentine orphanage on social media.

“Yes, skills are needed but they cannot come if the ‘business person’ is not aware of the needs of the environment and does not have love, charity, for others,” said Munoz. “Businesses that acknowledge that serving a community is give and take, not just take, will probably receive more community support as well.”

For Sovak, Catholic business education focuses on virtues, “servant-leadership,” and upholding the tenets of Catholic social teaching.

“There is no proof that any instruction can adequately prepare anyone, let alone young minds, for such a large-scale disruption as this pandemic has caused,” he said. However, teaching students the cardinal virtues of prudence, courage, justice and temperance is a good path in both strong economies and in economic downturns.

Such an education helps students “to understand that life is not about them; it is about serving others who are in need, which is what we are called to do.” Students should be prepared “to recognize their vocation is more than a job and they are called to greatness, ‘magnanimity,’ especially in dire times.” This helps them to “focus less on self and more on the situation at hand” and to bring about “true humility.” This path helps students be optimistic and trusting in innovative ways and help contribute to solutions

“Life is full of disruptions, simply because we can’t predict the future,” Jay Wesley Richards, assistant research professor at the Catholic University of America’s Busch School of Business, told CNA. “I think two of the most important business skills are simply virtues. One is courage—which means you’ll act even if you might fail. The other is resilience or anti-fragility—which means you learn from disruption and failure. The pandemic, and more precisely, the shutdown in response to it, is a historic and massive disruption. But disruption itself is part of life.”

Richards said one of his classes this semester had been discussing looming disruptions from technology and “the need to develop virtues and skills that humans will always do better than machines.”

“The discussion was mostly abstract until spring break, when the semester itself was disrupted by the pandemic shutdown, and we had to move online,” he said. “Suddenly, we were using disruptive (if imperfect) video-conferencing technology! At that point, students started asking more questions about disruption in the economy.”

Economic downturns in the business cycle are a standard topic in business education. Munoz said a pandemic is one of many possibilities taught through case studies, role playing, business planning, and discussions.

“We focus on going beyond a disruption and thinking ‘so what? How do we continue?’”

“Instead of the business coming to a stop, we think: ‘and what else can we do? How else can we do it?’” she said.

Michael Welker, an economics professor at Franciscan University of Steubenville, reflected on the need for creativity given the conditions of a pandemic event.

“Such an event, in our lifetimes, is one that is unprecedented, complex, and so widespread, that there is a need for courage, openness to failure, iteration of ideas and experiments, and a need for management decisions to frame their enterprise cultures to engender this powerful way that human beings image the Creator,” Welker said.

Efforts to re-open businesses and other social venues, including places of worship, have come to be the focus of debate, planning, and activity.

Welker said the focus on “restarting the economy” means a focus on “a critical aspect of human life--a prudent and wise engagement with the world in many dimensions.” These dimensions include work, leisure, community, worship, and recreation. He suggested any approach to “restarting” the economy should take place in a context that recognizes “the great dignity of work” with the added sense of “the essential things, which are beyond just ‘making a living’.”

“This disruption has brought much multi-dimensional damage to people,” he said. “I believe authorities are attempting to walk the fine line between a serious and known risk and the need to get people into ‘normal’ living and acting, with the heightened concerns for safety and health.”

Sovak said that while there was indeed economic disruption, in part the economy “never really stopped.” Consumers continued to purchase, many people found different ways to trade, and the government infused additional money seeking a positive impact.

“If we are discussing how to get people back into the mix of work, travel, or play, again, much of that never stopped with work at home, it just got more creative,” he said.

At the same time, Sovak said that a too cautious approach to re-opening business will mean many businesses close, unable to adapt to the coronavirus epidemic.

There is also another risk.

“The risk of being too reckless means this thing (the epidemic) will come back around in a couple of months and bring about an even more devastating grind to the economy,” he added. “Again, the virtue of prudence comes to mind on how to tell what the times call for.”

“This isn’t a one-size fits all solution – what is controllable and what is predictable will be two ways to view the danger,” Sovak continued. “How much certainty does one have in the situation? The more certainty there is, the less risk and easier the decision that can be made.”

Richards similarly said there is no one right answer for a business response.

“Every business will have specific, even unique challenges, depending on where it is and what it does,” he said. “But the same general rules apply for businesses as for everyone else: Treat every person with respect and dignity, and that includes employees and customers.”

“It’s a serious mistake to present the current debate as if it were between the ‘economy’ on one side, and ‘lives’ on the other,” Richards said. “We should care about the economy precisely because we care about human lives and well-being. Really families, real companies, employers, and employees. Real lives.”

Richards cited the massive unemployment in recent weeks. The unemployment rate was at an historic low of 3.5% in February. Since mid-March, 33.3 million people have filed unemployment claims, making the unemployment rate higher than 20%, BBC News reports.

“There’s no such thing as a zero-risk option this side of the kingdom of God,” Richards continued. “Any challenge, like the coronavirus, involves a multi-side risk: Lives were at stake no matter what path we took,” he said. “The path of wisdom lies in understanding what the real risks are, and how likely various outcomes are. Only then do we have much chance of responding so that the benefits are greater than the costs.”

In the coronavirus epidemic, policymakers face the challenge of making “far-reaching decisions without having very good information to work with.”

“A response that puts 30 million people out of work isn’t just an economic inconvenience. It leads, and will lead, to loss of life and well-being,” said Richards. “The president understood this from the beginning. This is why he worried on Twitter that the ‘cure’ not be worse than the ‘disease’.”

“The question we will be asking for the next several years is this: Did the government response, and in particular, the shutdown of businesses and shelter-in-place orders for healthy people, save more lives than, in the long run, it will have cost?”

Sovak told CNA there are signs that tell whether a business mentality is dominating a discussion or or being neglected. When there is “negativity, pessimism or placing blame,” a conversation is likely headed in a wrong direction, whether a business community is being criticized or is offering criticism.

“Business certainly can’t solve every issue or does it have all the answers; however, there can be many benefits in taking a business approach to address any situation,” he said.

At the same time, a business analysis may not appeal to many, given the human cost.

“People are acting on emotion more today than facts and reason. Thirty million people are unemployed – putting a business touch on that doesn’t help that situation,” Sovak said. “Supply and demand means prices will rise, and inflation will come about but that doesn’t mean we have to bring that approach into the conversation when many people’s lives have been disrupted both financially and health-wise. This is where empathy has to come into play.”

Denver Newsroom, May 8, 2020 / 02:59 am (CNA).- On Sunday, March 15, Nebraskans in the Diocese of Lincoln still had a choice of whether or not they wanted to attend Mass and risk possible exposure to coronavirus.

By the next day, they didn’t. Public Masses in the diocese were canceled, as they soon were throughout the country due to the pandemic.

Now that curves of infection are “flattening” and hospitals have had a chance to ramp up their capacity and supplies, many dioceses, including Lincoln, are slowly reopening Masses to the public. What exactly that will look like varies a lot depending on each parish's unique spaces and limitations. 

Archbishop George Lucas, currently serving as acting bishop of Lincoln, has followed guidelines from Governor Pete Ricketts in issuing some general guidance for re-starting public Masses. Ultimately, however, he left the decision to reopen up to each individual parish.

One place that has been offering public Masses as of Monday, May 4, is St. Wenceslaus parish in Wahoo, Nebraska, a town of 4,500 people located in the Diocese of Lincoln.

Fr. Joseph Faulkner, the pastor of St. Wenceslaus in Wahoo, said he decided to reopen public Masses at his parish after meeting virtually with the other priests in his area. The Masses, of course, will look quite different than normal - with limited capacity, social distancing, and precautions like no holy water, no hymnals, and no sign of peace.

And in many ways, Faulkner said he is encouraging his parishioners to act like it’s the weekend of March 14-15 again.

“From the get-go, we're telling people - you need to make a decision. I even put in my message (to parishioners), think back to - it's March 14th and you're trying to make a decision. Whatever decision you made then is probably still the right decision. If you need to be extra careful for yourself, for your family, for your parents, for your coworkers, for your patients you see in the nursing home, stay away,” he said.

Parishes in the cities of Lincoln and Omaha decided to wait to reopen, Faulkner said. Lincoln has a re-opening date of May 11 for non-essential businesses, and the size of Omaha parishes made re-opening at this point very difficult. Although Wahoo sees a lot of traffic from Lincoln and Omaha and other surrounding towns, Faulkner said he thought he could use appropriate precautions to make reopening safe at his parish.

“St. Wenceslaus specifically is lucky. We've got a nice big basement, so that gets you another 30%-40% seating room. We've got three priests, which is really lucky. So from five weekend Masses, we're going up to eight, so we can do more to spread our people out.”

Faulkner said he has even offered to other parishes with just one priest that he can send someone to help them out if they are offering extra Masses for social distancing and are feeling burned out.

For attendance and seating, Faulkner said he is blocking off every other pew and is going to stagger families in order to maintain six feet of distance. Instead of having people call or sign up online, Faulkner said he is hoping that the extra Mass times, the use of the basement space, as well as the people who choose to stay home, will be enough to maintain an appropriately staggered congregation.

Faulkner said he has been grateful to have public weekday Masses before the weekend to work out some of the kinks of the new restrictions. For example, he’s still working on his communion line protocol, he said. He tried a method using the side aisles and then the center aisle at his first Mass on May 4th, and “it was horrible. So I'm going to fix that tomorrow.”

Masks during communion have also been tricky.

“It's really hard to say Mass with a mask on, and then I have to make my Communion, I have to receive,” Faulkner said. The priests were donated some N95 masks, which Faulkner tried to use on Monday, but the straps made it hard to quickly receive communion and readjust the mask without touching his face or his glasses, he said, so he’s hoping to find a different kind of mask by the weekend.

From his parishioners, Faulkner said he has seen a variety of attitudes toward the closing, and now re-opening, of public Masses.

“There's really three camps,” he said. “There's the, yes, amen, be safe, meditate-on-the-saints-who-didn't-have-the-Eucharist-for-years group.”

“Then there's definitely the middle group, which is like, I don't want to take any risks, but I want the first available ‘okay’ to go to Mass,” he said.

“And then there's the, ‘I'm 85. If I die because I went to Mass, thank God’ crowd. Literally the people who are most cavalier are the older ones,” Faulkner said.

A bishop’s perspective: Oklahoma

Archbishop Paul Coakley, the bishop of Oklahoma City, told CNA that Catholic parishes throughout the state will start celebrating public Masses again on May 18th, with their first public weekend Masses on May 23-24, the Feast of the Ascension.

In a May 7 letter to Oklahoma Catholics posted on the archdiocese’s website, Coakley recognized that while the past two months without Mass have been a painful time for many, God never abandoned his people.

“The gift of the Holy Spirit assures us of God's continued presence in our lives. No matter the circumstance, he is with us. Perhaps the greatest sacrifice for the lay faithful these past few months has been fasting from Christ’s body, blood, soul and divinity given to us in his real presence in the Eucharist. We pray that in this time of Eucharistic fasting, God has graced you with a profound hunger for this communion with Jesus and the members of his Body, the Church,” he stated.
 
The timing of reopening public Masses was chosen just before the feasts of the Ascension and Pentecost “to remind us of God’s faithfulness and to prepare to celebrate the birth of our beloved Church on Pentecost,” he added.

The decision was reached through consultations with Bishop David Konderla of Tulsa, priest councils in the state, and medical experts, “including a prominent infectious disease specialist,” Coakley said.

“It won't be business as usual,” he said.  “We will be celebrating public Mass and people will be able to come and they will be able to receive Holy communion, but the churches won't be full. In fact, we're limiting it to 33% of the occupancy capacity,” he noted.

“We've been very cautious watching the numbers and putting in place pretty strict guidelines to ensure that we were able to maintain social distances and practice the appropriate kind of hygiene,” he added.

A five page document released by the state’s Catholic dioceses details the exact guidelines, such as including 6-foot social distancing between pews, the recommendation that all attendees wear masks, and the recommendation that priests have plenty of hand sanitizer readily available throughout the church.

Coakley said the document offers guidelines for pastors while still giving them the flexibility to implement the recommendations and requirements in the way that works best for their unique parishes.

“If the church fills beyond capacity, we’re asking them to consider using other space in the parish, perhaps the parish hall, to be able to put overflow crowds and continuing to social distance properly, parking lots, things of that sort,” he said. “We're going to have to rely upon the creativity of our pastors and they have been demonstrating a great deal of creativity up to now, so I'm sure they'll continue to do so.”

Coakley said he is asking priests to also continue offering livestream Masses for people who will choose not to come to the public Masses at this time. He noted in his May 7 message that the dispensation from the Sunday obligation still stands for all Oklahoma Catholics at this time.

“We are dealing with an invisible threat to people’s lives, a virus that our brightest doctors and scientists are still figuring out. The ever-present temptation in our American culture is to want solutions immediately and to act quickly, because we want what we want, and we want it now. As a Church, we must proceed more deliberatively,” he said.

Coakley told CNA that while he understands Catholics’ fear, anger and frustration during these past two months of suspended Masses, he also encouraged them to think of their time away as a way of serving others.

“We’re really living through a health crisis, a time of severe challenges, and it's impacting us in so many ways economically, and in terms of social isolation, loneliness, the liturgy also. But I think we need to think beyond individual rights and consider also our responsibilities toward one another, especially the responsibility to love and serve one another, to be mindful of one another's needs.”

Wichita, Kansas

On May 3, Bishop Carl Kemme of the Diocese of Wichita announced plans to reopen public Masses starting on Wednesday, May 6, following recommendations of the county’s local public health authorities.

Phase one of the guidelines will last until May 20, and they stipulate that parishes may hold Masses at no more than 33% capacity. Churches will use only one entrance, so that the number of people coming may be properly counted and seated, and six foot spacing should be clearly marked so that people can maintain social distance.

Mass attendees are encouraged to wear masks, and priests are required to wear them while distributing communion. Parishes are also encouraged to keep hand sanitizer available at entrances, and parishioners are “strongly encouraged” to receive communion in the hand.

Fr. Clay Kimbro is the parochial vicar at St. Anne’s parish in Wichita. Kimbro said he and the other priests of the diocese have been having weekly virtual talks with the bishop about when to re-open Masses and what that might look like, and so priests were able to give feedback as to what guidelines they thought would work well.

At St. Anne’s, which has 1,200 families, Kimbro and his leadership team have been meeting and working on logistical things, like roping off every other pew so that Mass attendees can maintain proper distancing.

He said he has also had extra meetings with his ushers, who on the weekends will “seat everyone so that they can make sure that the distance is maintained. That's a lot more responsibility than our ushers are normally given.”

Kimbro said the parish is not having parishioners sign up for Masses online. Instead, if more people show up than the allowed 33%, the overflow congregation will be directed to the school’s auditorium, where a second priest - either Kimbro or his pastor - will celebrate a concurrent Mass, also with social distancing protocols in place.

“We were a little leery of (adding Mass times), because when you add Mass times, it's hard to take them back,” Kimbro said. “Also, it's hard to turn people away. They come to the door at 10 a.m. for Mass, and we say, ‘Come back at 1:00 p.m.’ Well, it's a lot easier to say, ‘Go over to the auditorium.’”

Kimbro said the parish is working on decorating the auditorium to make it an appropriate place to have Mass, and they are also putting down tape lines to direct traffic and to mark distances.

“There's a lot of work in planning, and it can be a little overwhelming, but we're overall just really excited to see people again,” he said.

St. Anne’s parishioners have been “all over the map” in terms of their eagerness to return to Mass at this time, Kimbro said. Some have been signing up to read at Mass, or to usher or distribute communion, because they miss Mass so much and they want to be involved.

Others are a bit more anxious, Kimbro said, and he has encouraged those people to attend weekday Masses, where there are likely to be fewer people.

He also added that the Sunday obligation continues to be dispensed for everyone, as Bishop Kemme made clear in his May 3 announcement.

“I do want to emphasize that the current pandemic is far from over. Medical experts tell us that this health crisis remains a very serious threat to the lives of many people,” Kemme stated.

“Because of this, I want to urge all those in the high risk population and others who so choose to continue to use the general dispensation I am giving from the obligation to attend the Sunday celebration of the Mass, which continues indefinitely during this crisis. Please do not put yourself or others at risk by attending the Masses once they resume. This is my urgent appeal to all in our Catholic Community: use extraordinary caution and good judgment in determining if you should attend Mass. No mortal sin is committed if you decide that you and your family should not attend.”

Kimbro said that he is looking forward to having parishioners come back to Mass, even though it might not be the triumphant return that some may have envisioned just yet, with everyone packing in the pews like normal.

“I think everybody was hoping it would kind of be like this post-9/11 experience, where churches are packed and everybody recognizes that need (for God), but we're tempering that, and it's kind of like everything in this virus, right? Our expectations versus our reality - having to live in the reality of the moment and what we're given and just go with that,” he said. 

“But then I looked at the Gospel for this Sunday that we're back, and the first line is: ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled.’ So that's perfect.”

CNA Staff, May 8, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- EWTN Global Catholic Network, the world’s largest Catholic media organization, announced Friday that Andrew Walther – an experienced Catholic journalist, media executive, and advocate for persecuted Christians – has been named president and chief operating officer of EWTN News, Inc. The appointment is effective June 1.

Walther began his Catholic media career as a journalist writing for the National Catholic Register two decades ago. Most recently he has served as vice president for communications and strategic planning at the Knights of Columbus.

In his role as president of the news division, Walther will oversee EWTN’s vast news media platforms, which create content in English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese and Italian. Its holdings include Catholic News Agency, the National Catholic Register, the ACI Group, ChurchPop and EWTN’s lineup of television and radio news programming.

“As well as being an accomplished Catholic journalist and media executive, Andrew Walther brings to this role unique expertise in the global Church,” said EWTN Chairman and CEO Michael P. Warsaw.

“His leadership experience with a global Catholic communications and media operation – and his previous work with the National Catholic Register and EWTN News Nightly – gives him the added advantage of already knowing the Catholic media world and many of the people within the EWTN family. We look forward to having him lead and strengthen our news division,” Warsaw said.

Since 2005, Walther has worked in senior roles at the Knights of Columbus. During his tenure at the Knights, Walther helped launch the organization’s modern communications department, overseeing work with Catholic and secular media outlets, the launch of social media channels and video production, and the organization’s global media work, especially in Europe and the Middle East. He was also heavily involved in the organization’s charitable work and disaster relief initiatives.

Walther also organized and led the Knights’ work on behalf of persecuted Christians in the Middle East, traveling to Iraq several times and successfully leading a public effort to have ISIS’ campaign of persecution declared  a genocide by Secretary of State John Kerry.

His advocacy for persecuted Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East helped shape policy in both the Obama and Trump administrations, and he also helped play a role in forging a bipartisan legislative consensus on behalf of persecuted Christians and other victims of ISIS in the Middle East. Walther’s efforts included working with other governments and the UN as well as with Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim leaders to end violence and persecution and bring relief to persecuted Christian communities.

“Andrew Walther has been a good friend and a trusted colleague for many years,” said Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, who is president of the U.S bishop’s conference and a longtime member of EWTN’s board of governors.

“Andrew is one of the Church’s finest strategic thinkers and a highly respected advocate for international religious liberty. All of this will serve him well as head of the world’s largest Catholic news organization. I wish him great success.”

While working closely over the years with many bishops, dioceses and Catholic organizations in North America, Walther also worked closely with the Vatican on several projects under both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.

“Mother Angelica created a network dedicated to ‘the advancement of truth’ and Catholic news is a vital part of this mission,” Walther said Friday.

“I look forward to working with the talented and dedicated team of journalists at EWTN News to provide news from a Catholic perspective and to highlight important stories that might otherwise be overlooked.”

In addition to his roles in media and religious freedom advocacy, Walther also oversaw the Knights’ polling and book publishing operations, which included several New York Times bestsellers. Together with his wife, Maureen, he co-authored “The Knights of Columbus: An Illustrated History,” a book released this year.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 8, 2020 / 03:10 pm (CNA).- The Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, said that the Church must return to “normal life” after the governor announced plans to ban large gatherings until a COVID-19 vaccine or treatment is available.

Earlier in the week, the state’s Governor JB Pritzker unveiled a five-phase “Restore Illinois” plan that bans gatherings of more than 50 people until a vaccine or treatment is available, or the virus has stopped spreading for a sustained period of time. Health officials have said that a vaccine for the new coronavirus (COVID-19) might not be available for 12 to 18 months. 

Currently, people in the state are allowed to attend religious services of 10 or fewer people, but no gatherings of more than 10 people are permitted until phase 4 of Pritzker’s plan, and the state wouldn’t even be able to “advance” to phase 3 until May 29.

“The Church has certainly done her part in making great sacrifices to slow the spread of this virus,” Andrew Hansen, director of communications for the diocese of Springfield, Illinois, told CNA on Friday.

“That said, the Church must return to her normal life of liturgy and communal worship,” Hansen said, while emphasizing precautions such as social distancing “will likely be the appropriate path longer term for the return to some version of normalcy for the Church.”

Previously, in-person or drive-in religious services were banned in the state. The Thomas More Society filed a lawsuit on behalf of a church in Lena, Ill., on April 30. Later that evening a paragraph was added to the governor’s executive order allowing for people to leave their homes to attend religious services of ten or fewer people, the society’s president Peter Breen told CNA.

The next day, May 1, the archdiocese of Chicago announced it would be resuming public Masses with 10 or fewer people.

According to the “Restore Illinois” plan, there could not be any gathering of between 11 and 50 people in size until phase 4 of the plan—“Revitalization.”

That phase can start only when certain conditions have been met: the positivity rate of COVID tests is at or under 20% and doesn’t rise by more than 10 points over 14 days; hospital admissions don’t increase for 28 days; and hospitals have at least 14% “surge capacity” in ICU beds, medical and surgical beds, and ventilators.

Pitzker clarified in a Wednesday press conference that religious services would be part of this 50-person limit in phase 4, and schools would not be allowed to reopen until then, raising questions of how tuition-dependent Catholic schools might fare in the fall if remote learning is still widely utilized.

The state’s superintendent of education has said that at least some schools might have to begin the new school year with remote learning, or with students attending classes in-person only on certain days.

“So we continue to hope and pray schools will reopen next school year. Certainly, when our schools reopen, new measures and precautions will be in place,” Hansen told CNA.

The president of DePaul University, located in Chicago, announced earlier this week that the university already plans to “minimize our footprint on campus this fall,” and that an announcement of the fall plans could happen by June 15.

Portugal Field Leader Givas shares about the May 2017 outreach to religious pilgrims in Fatima.

My “holiday season” begins and ends with SOLIDWORKS. For me, the “holidays” begin with the new SOLIDWORKS Rollout events, and end with SOLIDWORKS (now 3DEXPERIENCE) World. Yeah, there’s some cider, turkey, and twinkling lights in between, but for me, SOLIDWORKS

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SOLIDWORKS Image Quality settings have the biggest impact on file size and system performance. We always assumed that it would have an impact on overall performance also. The effect varies widely across different files, so we decided to do SOLIDWORKS

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Our Data Management tools are all about getting to the right information faster, allowing engineers and designers to make better decisions. And, the 2020 release of SOLIDWORKS PDM and SOLIDWORKS Manage just got faster, helping you to harness the power

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2D design Despite the great popularity of spatial design programs and their unquestioned advantages, 2D design programs such as AutoCAD are still very popular and useful. One of such programs is DraftSight, which over the years has become very recognizable

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Learn how Kirby Downey, a user creator in our community, made a red lightsaber from scratch in honor of the latest Star Wars movie, "The Rise of Skywalker" - designing all the components in SOLIDWORKS before making it come to life!

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Documentation is always an asset for any of the company or industry. Documenting the right data always ensures the task or job, whatever assigned by the superiors in an industry. Whatever the design we do, at the end of the

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SOLIDWORKS 2020 continues our mission of delivering powerful Simulation Capabilities with enhancements that provide increased power, more realistic simulations, and more efficient workflows. When running simulation on Weldment Structures, beam elements are typically used since they are fast to setup

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eDrawings Pro 2020 now supports choosing your own 360˚ images as your custom environment in VR! This blog post will help walk you through the process of creating a 360˚ equirectangular image in SOLIDWORKS Visualize and adding it to your Virtual Reality scene in eDrawings Pro 2020.

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Have you ever been interested in SOLIDWORKS Simulation but didn’t know where to start? With such a wide variety of design analysis solutions, Simulation can be an intimidating product for someone newer to the SOLIDWORKS suite of products. Well we

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To me, one of the handiest SOLIDWORKS ease-of-use functions hides in plain view: The Command Search. Found at the top of the application, the SOLIDWORKS Search box can be set to several different types of search, but the one I

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Designing in the context of an assembly or top down design is one of the great benefits of SOLIDWORKS. The designer can use components in one assembly as a reference to design a new component in another assembly. If the

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Structure System Solidworks The term structural system or structural frame in structural engineering refers to the load-resisting sub-system of a building or object that transfers loads through interconnected elements or members. In SOLIDWORKS 2020, the structure system feature is an advanced

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Hello to all, Welcome to the new edition of the SOLIDWORKS Support Monthly News!  This monthly news blog is co-authored by members of the SOLIDWORKS Technical Support teams worldwide.   3DEXPERIENCE WORLD 2020 is right around the corner By Nicole

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Learn how to use Cut Planes to slice and dice your geometry.

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SOLIDWORKS Electrical Schematic has added many new features this release to make completing electrical design projects easier than ever. The new Project Preview option, accessed from the Project Manager, lets you review a projects’ contents prior to opening it.  This

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Who wants to work harder, using the same outdated methods, when new tools are available? Not me! There might not always be an “easy button” …. but sometimes there is: 3D Interconnect. Since its introduction in SOLIDWORKS 2017, I have

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DFMXpress is the smaller brother of the full blown version DFMPro by HCL Technologies, LTD and is included in each level of SOLIDWORKS. DFM stands for Design For Manufacturability. This is a tool we can use to improve our designs

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This SOLIDWORKS tutorial is for a Wooden Canvas Teepee, the tutorial focuses on the use of Circular Patterns of part bodies and the use of 3D sketch for extrusions between guide points, and profile sweeps along a path. This is a fun tutorial that if you follow, you can create you own Teepee model, and apply a range of designs to with decals. The decal swatches seen in the video are available to download in the description below.

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You may have heard that Windows 7 is ending support on the 14th of January 2020 but, what does this mean to you? In short, now is the time to upgrade to Windows 10 Professional. Your machines will continue to

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In every new version of SOLIDWORKS there is always some new features that steal all of the attention. In this post i will highlight five favorable features in SOLIDWORKS that may not be as known, but still can help you

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This is a two part SOLIDWORKS tutorial to create an Afternoon Tea Ferris Wheel Toy. In Part 1 of this tutorial you can learn how to draw and create the parts for a moving Ferris Wheel. The decals for the design are available to download in the description below. The Afternoon Tea Food Accessories are also available to download to be used in Part 2 of the tutorial.

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