The last Pre-Synod Prayer and Listening Event, scheduled for March 14, has been canceled out of concerns about the novel coronavirus, said Joseph Bambenek, assistant director of the Archdiocesan Synod.

The 9 a.m. to noon gathering at St. Alphonsus in Brooklyn Center was to have been the last of 20 such prayer and listening events with Archbishop Bernard Hebda and other archdiocesan officials. 

All 11 focus events with specific groups, such as priests and school leaders, have been held, Father Bambenek said.

Cancellation of the prayer and listening event occurred as other events across Minnesota were canceled. The annual Archdiocesan Men’s Conference scheduled for March 28 at St. Thomas Academy also was called off.

The cancellations also were announced before Gov. Tim Walz held a March 13 news conference announcing a peacetime state of emergency in Minnesota to help fight spread of the virus and the respiratory illness it causes, COVID-19. Among other steps, state officials urged canceling or postponing events of 250 or more people.

Fourteen people in Minnesota have tested positive for the illness, and two were hospitalized, the governor said.

The keynote speaker for the Men’s Conference, Father Paul Scalia, son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, was disappointed but not surprised by the cancellation, said Vincenzo Randazzo, evangelization manager of the Office of Marriage, Family and Life. Father Scalia also was open to speaking in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in the coming year, Randazzo said.

Father Bambenek said people who hoped to attend the event at St. Alphonsus can still have their voices heard, including at parish-level sharing sessions, as the archdiocese prepares for the Synod itself in 2021.  

“We are so grateful to the thousands of people who have participated,” as well as Synod ambassadors in parishes and volunteers who helped put on each of the events, Father Bambenek said.