Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 7) — The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines calls on parish churches to ring their bells on Holy Wednesday in solidarity with an interfaith prayer against the COVID-19 pandemic.
CBCP President Archbishop Romulo Valles said that the simultaneous ringing of bells at 3 p.m. is “to signal the start of a televised interfaith prayer” organized by the government.
“It will be comforting and encouraging for our people when they sense and observe that a spirit of unity and working together is there in these trying times,” Valles said in a statement released Tuesday.
The prayer activity is an initiative organized by the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.
The initiative will be led by the Chaplain Services of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), said Bishop Oscar Florencio of the Military Ordinariate of the Philippines.
“The AFP chaplains will assist to invoke the mighty help of God as we plead Him to heal those affected by Covid-19 and to spare us from this present pandemic,” Florencio said.
The Health Department reported 104 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday, bringing the total number to 3,764. Meanwhile, the country now has 84 recoveries.
Worldwide, COVID-19 has killed more than 70,000 people, mostly in Italy, although the outbreak began in Wuhan, China in December 2019. More than 1.3 million people have been infected, according to the Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 global tracker.
Eight in ten, or around 80 percent, of infected patients experience “mild illness” and eventually recover from COVID-19, according to the World Health Organization. Some 15 percent experience severe illness while 5 percent were critically ill, the WHO said.
