One of the worst things, culturally, about this virus is the almost total lack of public mourning. There have been almost 100,000 deaths in this country. Yet we talk about the economy or we focus on positive things like the survivors. We haven't registered this huge loss of life.

100,000 irreplaceable souls are gone. Yet we're bickering about whether or not we can go to restaurants.

This is more sordid within the Church than without. How many of those nearly 100,000 souls died without final penitence or without the consolation of the last sacraments? Yet have we seen calls for more works of intercession for the dead? Mostly we've fought about mass closures.

I hope at least that priests have been offering more frequent requiems in private.

But our collective inability to bear witness to this immense and ongoing loss, along with the inevitable suffering it has brought to so many souls, is really sickening. By all means, let us have hope. But not hope at the expense of mourning.