Is Covid God’s Punishment?

by CNS · June 30, 2021

By Fr Kenneth Doyle –

Question: On Facebook I have followed debates about whether the Covid-19 pandemic is God’s punishment for a sinful world. I don’t believe that it is, but what is God’s role in the pandemic?

Answer: The human origin of the coronavirus is disputed; among the theories are that it originated in bats and was subsequently passed on to humans, that it came from a seafood market in China, or that it was engineered in a biolab and accidentally released.

Whatever account one ascribes to, we are still left with this question: Why would a loving God let this happen?

That is the age-old “problem of evil” which theologians have grappled with for centuries, and the most honest answer is: We just don’t know. Is the coronavirus a judgment from God? My answer would be “No”, and I would call both Jesus and Pope Francis as my witnesses.

In the Gospel of John 9:1-7, Jesus was asked about the blind man: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus responded: “Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.”

In a meditation, Pope Francis said of the coronavirus that this is not a time of God’s judgment but of our judgment, “a time to choose what matters and what passes away, a time to separate what is necessary from what is not”.

In the midst of this crisis, the pope noted, God is calling people to faith — not just believing that God exists, but turning to him and trusting him.

This question was asked and answered in the May 2021 issue of The Southern Cross magazine

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