As Easter nears, virus deaths test Italian priest's faith

The circle of contagion around the Rev. Angelo Riva couldn't have been tighter.

Within two weeks of sitting with his parents and a fellow priest at lunch, the 53-year-old Catholic priest was grieving the deaths of both his father and the colleague who assisted him at three mountain parishes above Lake Como in northern Italy. As Easter approached, Riva prepared for his mother to die, too.

''All of this has put in my life in crisis. It is truly an inner revolution,'' said Riva. ''It has created a crisis with respect to my life, with respect to myself, with respect to my faith.''
Was it when his 81-year-old father suffered respiratory distress while hospitalized in nearby Bergamo over Christmas, two months before the virus was confirmed in the province? Was it from Riva's own illness nausea with fever weeks earlier? Or was it through the 71-year-old diocesan priest who served as his assistant, Don Adriano Locatelli, the first of the three to test positive after the idyllic lunch?