Cardinal: ‘The Church has a great duty’ following Beirut blast (CNA)“Beirut is a devastated city. A catastrophe struck there because of the mysterious explosion which occurred in its port,” Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai, Maronite Patriarch of Antioch, said Aug. 5. “The Church, which has set up a relief network throughout Lebanese territory, today finds itself faced with a new great duty which it is unable to assume on its own,” the statement of the patriarch continued…

CNEWA launches emergency campaign for Lebanon (CNEWA.org) With Lebanon descending deeper into its worst crisis since its civil war — one made only more severe by yesterday’s massive explosion in the port of Beirut — Catholic Near East Welfare Association has launched an emergency campaign to rally prayers and collect funds urgently needed for the country…

‘It spread like wildfire’: How one man at a church service infected nearly 100 (CNN) A man with Covid-19 went to church in mid-June, then 91 other people got sick, including 53 who were at the service, according to Ohio’s governor. “It spread like wildfire, wildfire. Very, very scary,” Gov. MIke De Wine said Tuesday. “We know that our faith-based leaders want nothing more than to protect those who come to worship…”

CDF: Baptisms done with modified formulas not valid (Vatican News) The Sacrament of Baptism administered with an arbitrarily modified formula is not valid, and those for whom “baptism” was celebrated in this way must be baptized “in forma absoluta” — that is unconditionally — by repeating the rite according to the liturgical norms stipulated by the Church…

Chicago airport chapels mark Loretto jubilee (Chicago Catholic) The jubilee year celebrates the 100th anniversary of Pope Benedict XV naming Our Lady of Loretto patron of air travelers and aviators. He did so because of the House of Loretto, which tradition says is the home where the Holy Family lived in Nazareth, mysteriously appearing first in Turkey and then in Loretto, Italy…

‘Godspell’ in 2020: Masks, partitions and a contactless crucifixion (The New York Times) The 1971 musical remains enormously popular, with nearly 10,000 productions over the past two decades. Adapted from the Gospel of Matthew, the show focuses on Jesus’s uses of parables as a teaching tool; it has been staged in many, many ways (at a refugee camp, in a prison, among homeless squatters), and this production — spoiler alert — is set during the pandemic. The visible onstage public health measures — partitions, masks, social distancing — “become part of the parable of being a moral person,” said Matthew E. Adelson, the show’s lighting designer…