“For those who still believe in God the question is not ‘why has all this happened?’ but ‘Lord, what do you want us to do now that it has happened?”, said Father Michael Campion, in a requiem mass for the victims of the disaster in South-East Asia, celebrated in St. Mary’s Cathedral in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 2 January. The Catholic Church of England and Wales has collected over 2.8 million pounds in parishes and in associations: “donations unprecedented in scale”, confirms CAFOD, the aid organization equivalent to Caritas that is running the humanitarian aid projects in the disaster zones. On 6 January Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, president of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, officiated a celebration in the Cathedral of Westminster in London, while a candle as a sign of prayer and solidarity with all those affected by the tragedy, in whatever way, was kept lit in the cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul from 7.30 in the morning. “The light of God is like the love we continue increasingly to see, because the disaster does not quench love said the archbishop of Birmingham Vincent Nichols -. Rather, it intensifies it during the moments of loss, difficulty and hardship. Disasters do not quench faith just as they do not quench love. On the contrary, the light of love, the light of God shines all the more brightly in darkness. It shines forth through human heroism, generosity, selflessness and courage”.
