In the case of a public health issue the government has the right and the responsibility to dictate if people can or cannot congregate in  groups period.
That's what we have governments for in situations like Italy where the sheeple are too dumb to use common sense.
If people used common sense the issue would be resolved much more quickly and life would go back to norman.
People are still refusing to cancel travel plans.

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I am generally convinced by this line of reasoning.  Certainly in the theoretical.  There is ample room to debate over whether or not this or that government can/should be trusted, whether or not there are ulterior end games, etc. There likely are.  But.
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There's much more to consider than the raw 'getting' of the virus.  By all accounts, raw mortality is not as bad as the flu.  And if you get it, chances are you'll be alright unless you're old or already sick.  Yet, the healthcare system itself has a breaking point.  If you pack the healthcare system with a penetrating contagion (like COVID), that has significant effects on any and everyone who gets sick, regardless of whether or not they have COVID.
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In Italy, the doctors are being told by their governing boards to conduct themselves according to the principles of catastrophic medicine.  That's war time medicine, and that's like what you see in the movies where there's one medic and two men on the battlefield, one whose lost one limb and one whose lost three.  The doctor gives the guy who lost three limbs morphine, and then leaves him to bleed out so he can treat the guy with the better prognosis. 
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You don't want that kind of situation anywhere.  Because if you get sick, or if you have medical needs, you'd better hope they're the kind of thing that can be treated more or less on your own.  Because if you need help, you're now competing for triage will millions of other people.
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The government doesn't have the right to forbid Catholic assembly but I am not convinced that at least some Catholic churches and chapels don't, at the very least, have a duty to consider whether or not they should, say, limit mass attendance.  They can overcome that by having more masses, if need be.  I know in Italy it isn't just the SSPX but the IMCB are abiding by the regulations.  And I think by anyone's measure they're more 'hardcore' than the SSPX. 
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Your priests are tired, typically not very well fed, and many of them are old themselves.  Think about that before insisting that they conduct themselves 'business as usual.'