Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli

In 1957, pop sociologist Vance Packard made the New York Times best-seller list for an entire year. His book The Hidden Persuaders explored the dark side of advertising. He exposed the use of motivational psychology that companies were using to advertise their products and entice people to buy them. His point was well taken. People respond to what promises them comfort and security, health and happiness.

Since Packard’s book, cable news has found a way to attract viewers by the instant communication of wars, celebrity suicides, terrorist attacks, school shootings, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. They have tapped into people’s desire to know instantly all they can and thus have a sense of control and power.

However, there has been a definite downside to the media’s constant barrage of distressing news. The continual reporting of the statistics and the spread of the swine flu, the Ebola outbreak, and the SARs virus in the past and, now in the present, the coronavirus have boosted their ratings and income. But, it has also contributed to creating an age of anxiety. Fear sells.

When we are faced with a perceived threat, our immediate reaction is fear. This is nature’s way of keeping us safe. Fear is basic to survival. Confronted with something that could potentially harm or kill us, our bodies instinctively go into the fight or flight stress mode. The recent news of the fast spreading coronavirus is causing much stress. Frightened crowds are rushing to stores and emptying the shelves of hand sanitizers, bottled water, rice, bread, pasta and canned goods.

No one wants to contract any disease. We want to live full and happy lives. We value our health. And, we should do all that is required to safeguard it. But, there is something else happening beneath the surface of this growing fear of the coronavirus.

Every year, the flu sickens about 20 percent of our population. According to the Center for Disease Control, an estimated 31 million Americans have caught the flu this season. As many as 370,000 of these have been hospitalized. The CDC estimates that there has been as many as 61,000 deaths annually since 2010 that can be blamed on the flu. In addition, The World Health Organization has determined that the flu kills between 250,000 to 500,000 people each year worldwide. Yet, most people recover from the flu. We live with the flu as a part of life’s challenge and are not paralyzed by the fear of contracting it. But not so with the coronavirus.

The almost sudden appearance across the globe of the coronavirus has triggered all the hot buttons of fear: an unknown disease, the possibility of death, the absence of a vaccine and confused communication about the nature of the disease. According to recent statistics, just over 96 percent of those who catch the coronavirus recover. Some do not even realize that they have had the disease. The fact that this unknown disease could hasten our death is lurking beneath our fear of the disease itself.

Fear itself can be very harmful to health. Science has proved that fear lowers the immune system. It places us at risk for cancer, heart disease and the common cold. Fear can bring on gastrointestinal problems, hasten the aging process and even a premature death. No wonder Sacred Scripture has as a most often repeated encouragement “Be not afraid.” Over 100 times. And often on the lips of Jesus!

In the face of all fears, Jesus tells us, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?” (Mt 6: 25-26).

In 1965, Billy Graham wrote: “Historians will probably call our era ‘the age of anxiety.’ Anxiety is the natural result when our hopes are centered in anything short of God and His will for us.” Years later, with less and less thought of God, there is more and more anxiety and fear. Perhaps the exacerbated fear of any disease exposes our deepest fear about the existence of God and the afterlife. The coronavirus is a pandemic, that is, a disease that has spread across vast regions of the world. That is a fact. We face it with our faith and hope in God who brings us through the sufferings and death of this world to himself. It is up to us not to turn this pandemic into an epidemic of fear!