Pope: Coronavirus pandemic should awaken 'the desire to serve'

Rome -Pope Francis has called on Catholics to allow the coronavirus pandemic to "awaken in us the desire to serve, to do good." "In this time of pandemic, how wrong narcissism is: the tendency to think only of our own needs, to be indifferent to those of others, and not to admit our own frailties and mistakes," the pontiff said on Sunday during the Pentecost Mass in St Peter's Basilica. Francis asked God to "free us from the paralysis of selfishness and awaken in us the desire to serve, to do good. Even worse than this crisis is the tragedy of squandering it by closing in on ourselves." Throughout the crisis, which has hit Italy particularly hard, the pope has repeatedly called on worshippers to follow rules to contain the spread of the coronavirus when taking part in religious services.