“The government, the people, the Church and other organisations are evaluating the impact of this calamity in order to begin the work of reconstruction, inviting the international community to help,” the cardinal said in a homily during a prayer service on January 24 for the people of the islands of Tonga.

Cardinal Czerny, interim prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, said Cardinal Soane Mafi of Tonga informed the office earlier in the day that the vast majority of the people “miraculously succeeded in avoiding the worst since only three people lost their life”.

“Nonetheless, the material damage is so enormously high that it will take a lot of time to return to normal life,” according to the Tongan cardinal, he said.

“The people have lost homes, fields, machinery and equipment for fishing and agriculture,” Cardinal Czerny told people gathered for the prayer at the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere. The prayer service was sponsored by the Community of Sant’Egidio.

A massive underwater volcano erupted near Tonga on January 15, triggering a series of tsunamis that inundated coastal communities, destroying everything in its wake, contaminating water supplies with saltwater and cutting off power and communications. Ash, which continued to fall days after the blast, also was contaminating water sources and hampered initial efforts to bring in outside aid and rescue teams for the more than 100,000 people living on the archipelago’s islands.

Jim Garvin, chief scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said the eruption was hundreds of times more powerful than the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

The eruption sent volcanic material as high as 25 miles (40 km.) into the atmosphere and generated tsunami waves up to 49 feet (15 m.) high, the agency said Jan. 24 on its earthobservatory.nasa.gov website. The volcanic cloud extended to cover all the country’s roughly 170 islands, it added.

Cardinal Czerny said the people there welcomed “with joy and gratitude” Pope Francis’ appeal on January 19 for prayers.

The cardinal said, “prayer seeks to reduce the distance (between people) and overcome the isolation”.

Local and regional Caritas organisations immediately swung into action and have been providing emergency supplies, such as water, food, clothing and blankets, he said.

“We turn to God, creator of the heavens and earth, so that he may raise these brothers and sisters from dejection and discouragement,” and that “our prayers may overcome all distances, showing our belonging to the one family of God”, he said.

Photo: Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny, who is now interim prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, at the “Angels Unawares” statue in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican in 2020 (CNS Photo)

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According to Vatican News, the many people whom Mantovani befriended and who tried to help him, recently convinced him to move into a homeless shelter after he’d had numerous bouts of pneumonia. The 64-year-old died in a shelter by Rome’s main train station.

Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner, presided over the funeral Mass at the Rome parish of St Pius X; Cardinal George Pell, who lives near where Mantovani would sleep, concelebrated, as did Archbishop Arthur Roche, secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments.

Also in attendance were: volunteers from Natale 365, which runs the shelter where he was staying; Italian state police from the station on the square where Mantovani often slept; and members of the Community of Sant’Egidio, who run the Vatican’s newest homeless shelter and coordinate the distribution of food to the homeless in many areas of the city.

The funeral was celebrated the day after Pope Francis publicly mourned the death of Edwin, a Nigerian who had been sleeping near St Peter’s Square, and whose death was attributed to Rome’s overnight cold temperatures.

“Let us think of what this man, 46 years old, felt in the cold, ignored by everyone, abandoned, even by us,” the pope said Jan. 24 after reciting the Angelus prayer. “Let us pray for him.”

Carlo Santoro, a member of the Sant’Egidio Community, noted – as Pope Francis did – that at least 10 homeless people had died in Rome in the past few months. “The number of dead is probably higher; these are just the ones we know about and whose funerals we organised.”

The economic problems exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic are increasing the number of homeless in the city, while the number of beds in shelters has declined because of the need to ensure social distancing.

In early January, the Rome diocesan Caritas and the Italian Red Cross said they had opened a testing centre and temporary shelter where homeless people could be monitored for COVID-19 before being referred to a more permanent shelter.

Photo: A Missionaries of Charity nun stands in the doorway as men enter a centre run by the order for an evening meal at the Vatican in 2017 (CNS Photo) 

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“After showing some symptoms” on March 30, the 66-year-old cardinal was tested, the diocese said; when the test came back positive, he was hospitalised at the Church-owned Gemelli hospital.

“He has a fever, but his general condition is good, and he has begun anti-viral therapy,” the diocesan statement said.

Those who have been working in close contact with Cardinal De Donatis are in preventive self-isolation, it added.

According to Vatican News, the cardinal had very few meetings in recent days and “declared that he had not been at the Vatican” since the coronavirus outbreak began; instead, he has maintained “only telephone contact with the pontiff”.

While the Pope is the bishop of the Diocese of Rome, the papal vicar exercises most of the powers of a local bishop and presides over a vicariate with most of the usual offices found in the chancery of a large archdiocese, including a diocesan Caritas and offices for personnel, religious education and ecumenism.

“I, too, am living this trial,” Cardinal De Donatis said in a statement on March 30. “I trust the Lord and the support of the prayers of all of you, dear faithful of the church of Rome.”

“I am living this moment as an occasion providence has given me to share the suffering of many of our brothers and sisters,” he said. “I offer my prayers for you, for the entire diocesan community and for the inhabitants of the city of Rome.”

CNS Photo

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