For Mexico's Catholic church it is a tricky dilemma: how do you reach out to the faithful in a time of crisis if you are not supposed to touch them?The flu epidemic has tapped the country's deep religious sentiment, but to avoid spreading infection the church has had to suspend masses and discourage large gatherings of worshippers.
"It pains us a lot not to have mass on Sunday, but we have taken this decision in solidarity with the health authorities. They asked us to avoid having multitudes of people," said Diego Monroy Ponce, rector of Mexico City's Basilica of Guadaloupe.
In previous centuries, before science explained the transmission of germs, plagues had the one virtue – from a clerical viewpoint – of filling pews and coffers. Now, instead of harnessing anxiety for religious devotion – and boosting its influence – the church risks being sidelined.
"On weekends we would normally get 200,000 people here," lamented Monroy Ponce, gesturing to a basilica deserted save for a dozen priests on the altar singing hymns through surgical masks.
On Friday, Mexicans were heartened by figures that showed the number of deaths and new infections stabilising. Fewer people wore masks, and children – virtually invisible during the past week's lockdown – reappeared in some neighbourhoods. But late yesterday the health minister, Jose Angel Cordova, dented optimism by saying 11 people were suspected to have died within 24 hours.
The Catholic hierarchy, frustrated that it cannot convoke large gatherings, has come up with several tactics to remain relevant. Cardinal Norbeto Rivera has written a prayer, which people can recite at home, asking for divine deliverance from swine flu. He urged people to follow religious services on radio and television.
Pope Benedict XVI, speaking in Spanish to pilgrims at St Peter's Square in Rome, urged Mexicans and others to keep praying for God to help them overcome their difficulties.
The church's ace, however, is a 17th-century statue, Jesus of Health. The six-foot replica of a bloodied messiah nailed to a cross is credited with banishing medieval plagues. Last week, for the first time in three centuries, it was removed from its chapel in Mexico City's metropolitan cathedral and carried in procession around Zocalo Square.
"We took it out to ask for intercession in the epidemic," said Felipe Sanchez, a priest and cathedral spokesman. "If things do not get better and it's necessary to take it out for another procession, we will do it."
Each day a few dozen people have braved warnings to stay indoors to see the statue. It has been placed just inside the cathedral entrance where there is plenty of ventilation.
"All Mexicans have to commend themselves to the Christ of Health because he helped us during plagues and epidemics in earlier eras," said Maria Granados Martinez, 59, a widow. "Those of us that have faith believe he could deliver us from that evil again."
In New Zealand, which reported its first cases of the H1N1 virus last week, church authorities at the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Wellington banned receiving the eucharist wafer on the tongue as well as drinking communion from a shared chalice and shaking hands at the sign of peace.
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