Some Churches in Rome Re-open

"Many shall be chosen, and made white, and shall be tried as fire: and the wicked shall deal wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand, but the learned shall understand. And from the time when the continual sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination unto desolation shall be set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred ninety days." Daniel 12: 10-11

"When therefore you shall see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place: he that readeth let him understand. Then they that are in Judea, let them flee to the mountains: And he that is on the housetop, let him not come down to take any thing out of his house: And he that is in the field, let him not go back to take his coat. And woe to them that are with child, and that give suck in those days. But pray that your flight be not in the winter, or on the sabbath." Matthew 24:15-20

The Holy Father is re-opening some churches in Rome. This is good, since people were starting to talk about the prophecy of the "abomination of desolation" which can be defined thus:

The abomination of desolation, abomination that makes desolate, or desolating sacrilege (Hebrew: הַשִּׁקּוּץ מְשׁוֹמֵֽם, ha-shikkuts meshomem, Latin: abominatio desolationis) is a term found in the Book of Daniel and the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, which means literally "an abomination that desolates" or "an abomination that depopulates."

 We will continue to watch and wait, as churches close and mass is suspended around the world. But not in Rome. From RTE:

The Pope has re-opened some churches in Rome, defying political pressure to close all public buildings in the battle to curb the spread of coronavirus. The rare standoff between the 83-year-old pontiff and Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte's government came as Italy's death toll topped 1,000. Some of Rome's Catholic churches have now re-opened after Pope Francis voiced displeasure with the Italian authorities' push to shut them because of the coronavirus pandemic. Italians have been told to avoid going outside without a good reason and machine-gun toting soldiers now patrol city streets. But churches had stayed opened in the overwhelmingly Catholic country throughout what many now see as Italy's biggest crisis since World War II. 

That changed yesterday when the vicar of Rome Angelo De Donatis said he could no longer withstand government pressure and was closing all Catholic places of worship across the Italian capital, about 900 in total. Pope Francis' response was unusually swift and blunt. 

"Drastic measures are not always good," the Argentine-born pope said in his live streamed morning prayer on Friday morning. (Read more.)