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| Is Masonic infiltration responsible for the widespread apostasy among Catholic clergy? |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-21-2022, 09:52 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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Archbishop Lefebvre spoke about the infiltration of Freemasonry in the Vatican upper echelons several times (see here and here, for example). But it is always a good refresher to remind ourselves that these are the same Freemasons in ecclesiastical robes who have given us the New Mass (i.e. Archbishop Annibale Bugnini) and those who were in preeminent positions to fill the ranks of the episcopacy with those friendly to the Freemasonic cause (i.e. Cardinal Baggio)!
Is Masonic infiltration responsible for the widespread apostasy among Catholic clergy?
As should be clear to anyone looking at the facts surrounding Pecorelli’s List, Freemasonry has certainly entered the walls of the Vatican at least several decades ago.
![[Image: shutterstock_1849400320-810x500.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/shutterstock_1849400320-810x500.jpg)
SKahraman/Shutterstock
Oct 20, 2022
(LifeSiteNews) Something has gone seriously wrong within the hierarchy of the Church. The widespread heresy, scandal, corruption, and apostasy of the shepherds whom Christ aptly condemned as “wolves in sheep’s clothing” is too systematic, and now overt, to have come about by mere chance or human weakness.
Ingenious planning and ruthless, calculated execution have brought the Church’s hierarchy to such a state that evil bishops no longer hide their rejection of the Deposit of Faith, their hatred of Christian morals, or their contempt toward believing, faithful Catholics.
The pro-LGBT, pro-contraception, pro-abortion, pro-women-priests agenda of the German bishops’ “Synodal Way,” the Flemish bishops’ “rite of blessing” for homosexual couples, Cardinal Arthur Roche’s derisive labelling of traditional Catholics as more Protestant than Catholic, the Pope’s elevation of numerous LGBT-promoting bishops to the College of Cardinals, the cover-up of the infamous McCarrick case, the widespread network of the gay lobby among bishops and within the walls of Rome, the handing over of the underground Church in China to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) by the Vatican, the Holy See’s endorsement and joining of the strongly pro-abortion Paris Climate Agreement, the worship of the Pachamama and participation in indigenous invocations of the spirits of the dead… the list goes on and on.
The mass apostasy that we are seeing today within the ranks of the Church’s highest members, however, has not been the work of a single day or of a single year. In this regard, a few facts will help put the present situation in perspective. The report below will include the following:
- The Masonic plan to infiltrate the Church’s hierarchy laid out in the “Alta Vendita,” and Vatican/Masonic correspondence evidencing an attempt to take over Italian seminaries in the 1960s.
- Pecorelli’s List of 1978 identifying 120 Vatican officials who were members of Freemasonry, including their dates of entry, code numbers, and acronyms.
- Facts about the Roman Masonic Lodge Propaganda Due (P2) and its leader Licio Gelli, as background to Pecorelli’s List.
- The Vatican-commissioned Gagnon investigation regarding the infiltration of Freemasons within the Holy See, and the circumstances surrounding the death of John Paul I.
- The undercover work of Father Luigi Villa against Freemasons in the Vatican, a mission assigned by Padre Pio and confirmed by Pius XII.
- Notable names on Pecorelli’s List and the damage to the Church done by Masonic prelates.
The Alta Vendita: A Masonic plan laid out
In the late nineteenth century, the document, “The Permanent Instruction on the Alta Vendita,” directed members of the Masonic Lodge to undertake a century’s long effort to undermine the Catholic Church from within. The document stated:
Quote:The Pope, whoever he may be, will never come to the secret societies. It is for the secret societies to come to the Church… The work we have undertaken is not the work of a day, nor of a month, nor of a year. It may last many years, a century perhaps, but in our ranks the soldier dies and the fight continues…
Once your reputation is established in the colleges… and in the seminaries – once you shall have captivated the confidence of professors and students, act so that those who are engaged in the ecclesiastic state should love to seek your conversation… Then little by little you will bring your disciples to the degree of cooking desired. When upon all the points of ecclesiastical state at once, this daily work shall have spread our ideas as light, then you will appreciate the wisdom of the counsel in which we take the initiative…
That reputation will open the way for our doctrines to pass to the bosoms of the young clergy, and go even to the depths of convents. In a few years the young clergy will have, by force of events, invaded all the functions. They will govern, administer, and judge. They will form the council of the Sovereign. They will be called upon to choose the Pontiff who will reign; and that Pontiff, like the greater part of his contemporaries, will be necessarily imbued with the… humanitarian principles which we are about to put into circulation…
Let the clergy march under your banner in the belief always that they march under the banner of the Apostolic Keys. You wish to cause the last vestige of tyranny and of oppression to disappear? Lay your nets like Simon Bar Jona. Lay them in the depths of sacristies, seminaries, and convents, rather than in the depth of the sea… You will bring yourselves as friends around the Apostolic Chair.
At the time of the publication of the Alta Vendita, Italian Freemasonry carried an especially anti-clerical animus and hatred of the papacy and the Church. In 1877, the Lodge, Propaganda Massonica, also known as Propaganda Due (P2), was established in Rome for political persons whose membership was kept utterly secret due to the Papal condemnations of Masonry. But by 1917, in celebration of their 200-year anniversary, the Masons brazenly marched in St. Peter’s Square flying a banner that read, “Satan will rule in the Vatican, the Pope will be his slave.”
Several decades later, following the promptings of the Alta Vendita, the Freemasons in Italy began to execute a concrete plan to undermine the Church from within. In 1961, the chairman of the Pontifical Commission for Cultural Heritage of the Church, Monsignor Francesco Marchisano, who went by the Masonic code name FRAMA, wrote three letters to the grand master of the Grand Orient of Italy (G.O.I.) regarding a plan to take over priestly seminaries in Italy’s Piedmont and Lombardy regions.
The seminaries of Trent, Turin, and Udine were identified as ideal locations for the attempt, where a good number of fellow Freemasons were known to have already infiltrated. The letters were obtained and published in September 2002, by Fr. Luigi Villa, in a dossier titled, “An Appointment Scandal,” and again in September 2019, in the journal founded by Fr. Villa, Chiesa Viva.
The 2002 publication came in response to the appointment of Marchisano to the position of vicar general for the Vatican City and president of the San Pietro Works. Villa had previously exposed Marchisano’s full Masonic registration data in June 1981 in Chiesa Viva. The monsignor’s letters to the Grand Master read as follows:
Quote:May 23, 1961
Venerable and Illustrious Grand Master,
With great joy I received, through F. MAPA [Msgr. Pasquale Macchi, Secretary of Pope Paul VI], your delicate task: to quietly organize throughout the Piedmont and Lombardy, a plan to destroy the studies and discipline in the seminaries. I don’t deny that the task is huge and I need many collaborators, especially among the teaching staff. You should notify me so I can approach them as soon as possible with some study tactics. I reserve more accurate communications after a meeting and personal interview with MAPA.
Meanwhile, please accept my prayerful greeting.
Frama
To Ven G. Master of the G.O. (delivered by hand)
Quote:September 12, 1961
Illustrious and Reverend G. Master,
After having approached and contacted F.F. [Fellow Freemasons] Pelmo and Bifra [Franco Biffi, Rector of the Lateran University] several times, I returned to MAPA to submit an initial work plan. He recommends starting with the disintegration of the curriculum, pressing upon our faithful teachers, because with a new updating of topics of pseudo-philosophy and pseudo-theology, they will cast the seed at the students, now thirsty for anything new. Thus, the disciplinary disruption will be a simple consequence that will result spontaneously, without us having to deal with it: the students will think they did it themselves. It is therefore essential that you pay these teachers well, of whom you already have the list. I will be a diligent overseer and I will refer everything to you, faithfully.
With the most devoted and friendly greeting
Frama
The Grand Master – Palazzo Giustiniani (delivered by hand)
Quote:October 14
Illustrious and Reverend G. Master,
In the meeting, last night, F.F. [Fellow Freemasons] Pelmo, Mapa, Bifra, Salma [Salvatore Marsili, O.S.B. Abbot of Finalpia], Buan [Abp. Annibale Bugnini, Commission on the Liturgy], Algo [Alessandro Gottardi, Archbishop of Trent] and Vino [Virgilio Noe, Master of Ceremonies] were present, I could conclude that: – First, we should start experiments at some seminaries of Italy, those of Trent and Turin, or that one of Udine where we have a good number of F.F.[Fellow Freemasons]; – Secondly, we must spread our concept of freedom and human dignity, in all the seminaries without any hesitation from either of the Superiors, nor by any law. We need a comprehensive printing. At this point, we need a meeting with all of you to decide how to act and to whom to entrust the various tasks.
With my prayerful greeting
Frama
The Grand Master – Palazzo Giustiniani (delivered by hand)
‘Pecorelli’s List’: 120 Vatican officials named Freemasons
On September 12, 1978, nearly a century after the publication of the Alta Vendita and just shy of two decades since the launching of the plot to take over Italy’s seminaries, Italian lawyer and investigative journalist Carmine Minor Pecorelli, director of a news agency and journal specializing in political scandals and crimes, L’Osservatorio Politico, published a list of high-ranking Vatican cardinals, bishops, and priests whom he identified as members of Masonic lodges. The list came to be known as “Pecorelli’s List,” and included the names, dates of entry into Freemasonry, code numbers, and acronyms of 120 Vatican officials.
Pecorelli himself belonged to the Roman Masonic Lodge, Propaganda Due (P2), which was discovered by the Italian police to have ranking members of nearly every branch of the country’s government, including national defense. An official investigation uncovered lists of members grouped by political office, all under the thumb of Licio Gelli, venerable master of the Masonic Lodge.
Why Pecorelli published a list of high-ranking members of the Vatican whom he claimed also numbered among the Freemasons may never be known. Was it slander? Was it to discredit the Church? Or was it because his list would have just exposed the greatest scandal within the walls of the Vatican in his (or our) lifetime, a work not unappealing to a political journalist with sensitive inside information.
What is known is that Pecorelli was shot dead in Rome six months later, almost to the day, on March 20, 1979. He was killed with four gunshots in Rome’s Prati district. Apparently, the bullets were of the Gevelot brand, a peculiarly rare type of bullet not easily found in either legal or clandestine markets. The same type of bullet was discovered in the “Banda della Magliana’s” weapon stock, concealed in the Italian government Health Ministry’s basement. Among those targeted by the police investigations was the head of Propaganda Due, Licio Gelli.
Propaganda Due and Licio Gelli
Licio Gelli had joined Italian Freemasonry only a few years before in 1965. However, he quickly rose to a role of incredible power within Masonry and within Italy when, in 1970, Lino Salvini, then Grand Master of Italy’s Grand Orient Lodge, tasked Gelli with restructuring the Propaganda Due Lodge of Rome, of which he became the venerable master in 1975. This lodge, originally founded in 1877 for Roman politicians whose membership in Masonry had to be kept utterly secret due to their public office and proximity to the papacy, rose from numbering a mere 14 members in the mid-1960’s to almost 1,000 by the end of the 1970’s under Gelli’s leadership.
On March 17, 1981, Italian police raided Gelli’s home as part of an investigation into the alleged kidnapping of the Sicilian banker, Michele Sindona. The authorities discovered lists of 962 members of the Masonic Lodge Propaganda Due. The names included 43 members of Parliament, 3 cabinet members, 43 generals, 8 admirals, the heads of all of Italy’s armed forces, heads of the security services, diplomats, police chiefs in Italy’s four biggest cities, and Vatican officials, to give only a few of the more prominent political personages.
To Italian authorities not numbering among the members of P2, Gelli’s vast network of Masons secretly answerable to him constituted a “state within a state” and threatened the nation’s stability and sovereignty. Having thrown itself into the fray of Italy’s politics, P2 was involved in such things as the “Italicus” train bombing of 1974, in which 12 people were killed, and the Bologna Station massacre, in which 85 people were killed.
Its members were also found to have taken control of the Vatican Bank, bringing the Holy See nearly to bankruptcy in a financial scandal that broke in the mid-1980s and from which the Vatican has yet to fully extricate itself. In the 1970s, the activities of P2 caused a stir even within Freemasonry, finally leading to the official dissolution of the Propaganda Due Lodge in 1981 by the Grand Orient of Italy.
The Gagnon report
Simultaneous to the publication of Pecorelli’s List, within the walls of the Vatican, the findings of a three-year official audit of all the offices of the Holy See, conducted by Archbishop Edouard Gagnon, concerning allegations that certain prelates and clerics of the Roman Curia were secretly members of Freemasonry, were presented in person to Pope John Paul I. According to the recently published memoirs of Gagnon’s secretary, Father Charles Murr, “Archbishop Gagnon compiled an exhaustive dossier which left him in no doubt that these shocking allegations were in fact true.”
Gagnon’s investigation of Freemasonry within the Roman Curia had been officially commissioned by Paul VI in response to the particular accusation that two high-ranking prelates were Freemasons: Annibale Bugnini and Sebastian Baggio. Bugnini was in charge of the Commission for the reform of the Latin Liturgy following the Second Vatican Council, which produced the Novus Ordo Missale Romanum. Baggio was Prefect for the Congregation for Bishops, responsible for the nomination and choice of bishops throughout the entire Catholic world.
While the full contents of Gagnon’s investigation are not publicly known, some details about the affair have been divulged. Among such details is the fact that Gagnon made known that he did in fact have evidence confirming that Archbishop Bugnini and Cardinal Baggio were members of Freemasonry. This evidence included the authentication of documents by INTERPOL, the International Criminal Police Organization, responsible for the investigation of international crimes. Gagnon’s findings thus corroborated Pecorelli’s List, which also included the names of these cardinals.
As a result of Gagnon’s investigation, Bugnini was sent in the last years of his life to Iran as Apostolic Nuncio, where he would ostensibly do the least harm to the Church, given the scarcity of Catholics in Iran and the nearly non-existent interaction between the Holy See and Iran’s Islamic government.
Baggio, however, proved harder to get rid of. He would, in fact, remain head of the Congregation for Bishops until 1984, several years into the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, holding a tenure of twelve years in that position. The length of his tenure would contribute considerably to the incalculable harm done to the Church by this Masonic episcopal kingmaker.
Taking a step back, a few striking facts about the month-long pontificate of John Paul I raise the question of the depth of the Masonic plots within the Vatican. On September 12, 1978, Pecorelli published his list of Vatican officials who were members of Freemasonry. On September 25, 1978, Archbishop Gagnon met privately with John Paul I to present to him the findings of his three-year investigation into the same matter. The archbishop carried a large dossier and made known to his secretary that he broached to the Pontiff the topic of Baggio’s membership in the Masonic Lodge. He also told his secretary that the Pope had agreed to deal with the Mason cardinal.
On September 28, John Paul I called Baggio personally to have him come meet the Pontiff in his office that day. Baggio met privately with the Pope in his personal apartment later that evening at 8 p.m. for about an hour and was heard to be yelling at the Pope by the Swiss Guards who were in attendance outside the room, to which they later testified. The next morning, September 29, John Paul I was found dead in his room. He was declared by the doctor to have died around 11 p.m. the night before. Six months later, on March 20, 1979, Pecorelli was shot dead in Rome.
Given the circumstances and questions surrounding the death of John Paul I – the fact that the Pontiff died so suddenly a mere two weeks after the publication of Pecorelli’s List, three days after he received Gagnon’s report in private audience, and only two hours after his confrontation with Baggio, the Mason naming the Church’s bishops and the last man to have seen the Pontiff before he was found dead – Father Luigi Villa, a Vatican official working under the protection of the Holy Office (about whom more will be said below), ordered Cardinal Palazzini to have an autopsy conducted. Three autopsies, officially called “medical examinations,” were conducted, the verdict of each confirming that the Pope had been assassinated. The results of the autopsies were not published by the Vatican, which officially gave “heart attack” as the cause of the Pope’s death, after changing the narrative several times.
Fr. Luigi Villa
To add to the Masonic intrigue within the Church, in addition to the work of Archbishop Gagnon in investigating Freemasonry within the Vatican, there was another priest who for several decades, both before and after, was also engaged in the same mission.
In 1956, Fr. Luigi Villa, on a visit to Padre Pio, was assigned by the saint with the mission to dedicate his entire life to defending the Church from the work of the Freemasons, especially those within the Church. Subsequently, Pope Pius XII personally confirmed this mission by giving Villa a papal mandate to do exactly this. The Pope placed the priest under the protection of Cardinals Alfredo Ottaviani, Prefect of the Holy Office, Pietro Parente, and Pietro Palazzini.
Villa worked tirelessly over the course of his priestly career to uncover and obstruct the maneuvers of the Freemasons who had infiltrated the ranks of the hierarchy, enduring seven assassination attempts on account of the enemies he made.
In 1971, Villa founded the journal Chiesa Viva, with correspondents from all continents, to expose the work of the Masons within the Church. Villa himself conducted investigations into the membership of prelates and priests within Freemasonry, verifying documents with police records and listings from Masonic lodges. In 1992, Chiesa Viva re-published Pecorelli’s List together with a presentation by Magistrate Carlo Alberto Agnoli, author of “La Massoneria alla Conquista della Chiesa,” who stressed the reliability of the List.
Notable names on Pecorelli’s List
Volumes could be written on the damage done to the Church by the cardinals, bishops, and priests named as Freemasons on Pecorelli’s List. I limit myself to considering only a few.
Archbishop Annibale Bugnini is listed as having joined Freemasonry on April 4, 1963, with the code number 1365/75 and the acronym BUAN. Bugnini was the man who spearheaded the changes made to the liturgy, the aims of which changes were to remove from the Roman Rite of the Mass anything that would be objectionable to Protestants. The texts of the Church’s ancient prayers and her selections from Scripture were stripped of much of their doctrinal content as well as the prized Tridentine emphasis on the sacrificial character of the Mass, so crucial to the countering of Protestant heresies. The changes to the arrangement of the sanctuary were modeled off the style of the Masonic Temple, in which the altar stands in the center rather than facing East.
The noted anthropocentric overtones of the Novus Ordo liturgy and the drastic shift toward a liberalizing of doctrine and practice in the Church, which has accompanied the liturgical changes in the Mass, are the unsurprising fruit of the work of a Freemason allowed to unscrupulously change at will whatever he pleased and thought he could impose with impunity upon the entire Latin Church.
Equally damaging to the Church was the long tenure of Cardinal Sebastian Baggio in his role as Prefect for the Congregation for Bishops, which effectively made him a Masonic puppet-master of sorts. According to Pecorelli’s List, Baggio enrolled in the Masonic Lodge on August 14, 1957, with the code number 85/2640 and the acronym SEBA. In 1962 he was appointed Prefect for the Congregation for Bishops, after Cardinal Jean Villot – also listed by Pecorelli as a Mason, and who at the time served as Secretary of State under Paul VI – lobbied hard to get Baggio appointed to the role. It would have been bad enough that a Freemason should have a hand at all in the choice of any bishop, but that Baggio was made Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops and was thus free to name liberal, modernist, homosexual, and Masonic bishops the world over for more than a decade is unfathomable.
In a letter to his venerable grand master, dated January 4, 1969, Baggio thanked the Masonic Lodge for securing his elevation to the Sacred College of Cardinals, assuring his fellow Masons of his continued cooperation in penetrating ecclesiastical circles, especially roles of leadership, for the sake of “ruining the whole Church from within in all sectors.” This letter was photographed and recently published in 2019 in Chiesa Viva:
Quote:January 4, 1969
To the Venerable Grand Master
To the Most Esteemed Assistants
I have just received the communication from Mapa of my appointment as cardinal, obtained from You through all Your powerful ways. I hasten to express to you all, beloved and esteemed Brothers, my grateful and devoted thanks. As in the past, I am always at Your disposal regarding our programs of expansion and penetration in ecclesiastical circles, especially in those spheres of leadership that will be, tomorrow, the main points for ruining the whole Church from within in all sectors.
With renewed loyalty, V.F. greets you.
SB (Sebastiano Baggio)
To add insult to injury to the Bride of Christ and assure the wholesale retreat of the rearguard of orthodox bishops in the Church, it was during Baggio’s rule as bishop-maker that the retirement age of 75 was set for bishops for the first time in the Church’s history. The immediate effect of the novel legislation was that many episcopal See’s throughout the world became vacant as bishops over 75 handed in their letters of resignation. This situation uniquely allowed Baggio an amply free hand to replace nearly the entire episcopacy of the Church in the space of a very short time and to attempt to reshape it in his own image. Rarely has any man, whether pope or bishop, been in such a position to influence so vast a part of the Catholic episcopacy in so short a time.
It was from this era that the Church in the U.S. was given such bishops as McCarrick, Weakland, Mahony, Brown, and Bernadin. The crimes and sins on these men’s hands include homosexual rape, a homosexual affair, sexual abuse of minors, cover-up of abusive priests, advocacy for women priests, a militant trampling upon the Church’s traditional music and liturgy, the forbidding of Catholics to kneel before the Blessed Sacrament for Holy Communion, and the watering-down of the Church’s teaching on the sanctity of human life for the unborn, to put just a few sins and scandals to their names.
Other persons named on Pecorelli’s List include Cardinal Villot, the Secretary of State for the Holy See under Paul VI, who acted as a kind of patron for Baggio, getting him appointed to the Congregation for Bishops. Also named was Bishop Paul Marcinkus, head of the Vatican Bank, who joined Masonry on August 21, 1967, with the code number 43/649, and the acronym MARPA, who was involved in the bank scandal that nearly toppled the Holy See financially in the 1980s.
Another prominent name was Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, Minister of Foreign Affairs under Paul VI and Secretary of State under John Paul II. Casaroli entered Masonry on September 28, 1957, with the code number 41/076, under the acronym CASA. It was Casaroli who was responsible for the Vatican’s open attitude toward the communists during the pontificate of Paul VI, a policy called Ostpolitik, which led the Pope to remove Cardinal József Mindszenty as Primate of Hungary, resulting in the establishment of a state church under the control of Hungary’s communist rulers. This policy was later rejected by John Paul II, coming as he did from behind the Iron Curtain, but the damage to the Church in Eastern Europe had already been done.
Now, lest it be thought that the Masons named on Pecorelli’s List are a thing of the past, it must be pointed out that within the last decade names on his list continue to appear in the goings-on of the Vatican. Just one such case is Monsignor Pio Vito Pinto, whom Pecorelli identified as having entered Masonry on April 2, 1970, with the code number 3317/42 and the acronym PIPIVI. Pinto ruled as Dean of the Church’s highest court, the Roman Rota, from September 2012 to March 2021, making headlines when he took it upon himself to criticize the four cardinals who had submitted the “dubia” to Pope Francis regarding his teaching in Amoris Laetitia on admitting the divorced and remarried to Holy Communion.
As should be clear to anyone looking at the facts surrounding Pecorelli’s List, Freemasonry has certainly entered the walls of the Vatican at least several decades ago. Full verification of the list, while difficult, is certainly possible, given the police seizure of Licio Gelli’s documents naming all the members of Rome’s Masonic Lodge, Propaganda Due. Archbishop Gagnon’s report also lies unpublished within the archives of the Vatican. In addition to these sources, there are the investigations conducted by Fr. Luigi Villa, some of which were published in the journal Chiesa Viva.
With Italian prelates such as Bishop Francesco Soddu of Terni recently presuming to publicly attend the inauguration of a new entrance to the Masonic Lodge of the Grand Orient of Italy, a new investigation into Freemasonry within the ranks of the Church’s hierarchy is long overdue. Only then will the damage Masonry has caused and is causing the Body of Christ begin to be brought to light.
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| Benedict XVI: [Failed] Vatican II Was "Meaningful" And "Necessary" |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-21-2022, 08:05 AM - Forum: The Architects of Vatican II
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Benedict XVI: [Failed] Vatican II Was "Meaningful" And "Necessary"
The retired pontiff defended the Second Vatican Council in a newly released letter
![[Image: benedict-xvi-810x500.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/benedict-xvi-810x500.jpg)
Oct 21, 2022
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews [slightly adapted, emphasis mine]) – Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has written a letter about the Second Vatican Council, describing it as “meaningful and necessary.”
The letter from the emeritus pope – a rare public intervention from the 95-year-old – was sent to Father Dave Pivonka, the president of Franciscan University of Steubenville, to mark the 2022 Annual Conference of the Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation currently being held at the university.
Thanking the university for the conference examining his theological stance, Benedict wrote about the meaning of the Second Vatican Council in the Church today.
The announcement of the Council by Pope John XXIII caused a stir, noted the emeritus pope, saying there were “many doubts as to whether it would be meaningful, indeed whether it would be possible at all, to organize the insights and questions into the whole of a conciliar statement and thus to give the Church a direction for its further journey.”
However, the German Pontiff argued that such concerns were not supported by the Council.
“In reality, a new council proved to be not only meaningful, but necessary,” he wrote. “For the first time, the question of a theology of religions had shown itself in its radicality.”
Continuing, Benedict wrote that “the same is true for the relationship between faith and the world of mere reason. Both topics had not been foreseen in this way before.”
As such, Vatican II “at first threatened to unsettle and shake the Church more than to give her a new clarity for her mission,” Benedict argued.
He doubled down on his support for the Council by writing that “In the meantime, the need to reformulate the question of the nature and mission of the Church has gradually become apparent. In this way, the positive power of the Council is also slowly emerging.”
Furthermore, the emeritus pontiff wrote that with the Council and the new theological attention given to ecclesiology, “the wider spiritual dimension of the concept of the Church was now joyfully perceived.”
But at the same time, he argued, the “concept of the Church as the mystical body of Christ” had “passed its peak.” It was this that prompted him to write his doctoral dissertation, stated Benedict.
While the “the complete spiritualization of the concept of the Church, for its part, misses the realism of faith and its institutions in the world,” Benedict wrote that with “Vatican II, the question of the Church in the world finally became the real central problem.”
The pope’s letter was read out to the conference participants by former Director of the Holy See Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi.
Pope Benedict spent part of his early ecclesiastical career playing a key role in Vatican II, after receiving his doctorate in 1953. During the entirety of the Council, Ratzinger – then just a priest – was theological adviser to Cardinal Josef Frings of Cologne.
READ: New biography describes great influence of Joseph Ratzinger in the revolutionary upheaval of Vatican II
Historian Roberto de Mattei, in his history of the council, described Ratzinger as one of the German theologians who “distinguished themselves” as being “in the ‘marching flank’ of progressivism.” The young German priest also worked closely with dissident clerics such as Frs. Karl Rahner, Bernard Häring and Yves Congar during the Council.
De Mattei noted, however, that in later years, Ratzinger rediscovered the “role of tradition and of Roman institutions.”
While the emeritus pontiff described the Council as “necessary” and “meaningful,” such praise for the Council has long been disputed by Catholics.
Liturgist and theologian Peter Kwasniewski wrote of the Council that “it must be remembered with shame and repentance as a moment in which the hierarchy of the Church, to varying degrees, surrendered to a more subtle (and therefore more dangerous) form of worldliness.”
“Moreover,” he continued, “the errors contained in the documents, as well as the many errors commonly attributed to the Council or prompted by it, must be drawn into a syllabus and anathematized by a future pope or council so that the controverted matters may be laid to rest, as former councils have wisely and charitably done in regard to the errors of their times.”
After Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich recently claimed that Vatican II prevented the Catholic Church from becoming “a small sect, unknown to most people,” Catholics rebuffed this argument.
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| Australia’s Commonwealth Bank begins tracking transactions, links it to carbon footprint |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-20-2022, 02:41 PM - Forum: Global News
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Australia’s Commonwealth Bank begins tracking transactions, links it to carbon footprint
Surveilling transactions to nudge social change
Reclaim the Net | October 20, 2022
Australia’s Commonwealth Bank (CBA) has added a new feature to its online banking software that tells customers their carbon footprint based on monthly spending. The move follows a partnership between the bank and CoGo, a company that provides carbon footprint management solutions.
According to the bank, the national average of carbon emitted is 1,280 kilograms, while a sustainable figure is 200. The bank has provided the option to “pay a fee” to offset the carbon footprint.
CBA said it does not share data with CoGo. It added that eventually the data will be broken down into each individual transaction.
The bank calculates a person’s carbon footprint based on the transactions using their credit or debit cards.
“By combining our rich customer data and CoGo’s industry-leading capability in measuring carbon outputs, we will be able to provide greater transparency for customers so that they can take actionable steps to reduce their environmental footprint,” CommBank Group executive Angus Sullivan said in a statement.
“Our data capability will provide greater personalization for customers overtime, including more granular information about their carbon footprint with the option to offset individual transactions.”
He added: “There are more opportunities for customers to take actionable steps to reduce and offset their emissions than ever before. From purchasing clean energy products via a 0.99 percent Green Loan and accessing renewable energy at wholesale costs with Amber, to customers now being able to offset their monthly transactions via the CommBank app using CoGo’s technology.”
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| CDC votes to add COVID shots to child vaccine schedule |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-20-2022, 02:37 PM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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‘This is corruption’: Dr. Robert Malone blasts CDC vote to add COVID shots to child vaccine schedule
I am shocked by the malfeasance. I have no trust left at all in our public health. It is broken.
Thu Oct 20, 2022
ANALYSIS
(Robert Malone) – On Wednesday afternoon, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted unanimously by 15–0 for the CDC to recommend that children get the COVID-19 “vaccines and boosters.”
The actual vote to add this experimental COVID-19 mRNA injection to the childhood vaccination schedule is on Thursday.
It is important to recognize that this is a work-around because Congress is not funding more jabs into arms. If this product is put on the childhood schedule, Congress does not have a say in the funding. Furthermore, if the emergency use authorization (EUA) vanishes, then the liability of the companies would continue under the childhood schedule. This is corruption.
I honestly didn’t think the ACIP would “go there.” For one, this is still an unlicensed product. I am still not sure an EUA vaccine product can be added to the schedule. I don’t believe it has ever been done before.
It is now predicted that CDC is almost certain to add the COVID-19 shots to its “Childhood Vaccines Schedule” on Thursday. This means that public schools, which all use this schedule, will then be able to mandate the “vaccines” in order for children to attend public school.
This is all being done at the last minute and basically behind the backs of the public, as this received virtually no media attention prior to the vote. I do not believe that this vote was announced to the public beforehand. Alternative media only figured it out due to the sharp eyes of Steve Kirsch.
The CDC very recently opened up its scheduled vote for public comment and received thousands of negative comments. You can read those comments here. Please feel free to add your own comments by clicking here.
ACIP’s decision to add the COVID-19 shots is based on regulatory capture, budgetary issues, politics, and it is not based on scientific data.
We all know the adverse event profile of the jabs. It is horrific. The small sample size in the clinical trials were poorly designed and inadequately powered.
We all know other countries have completely stopped vaccinating children with these products.
If they add these jabs to the childhood schedule, it will completely break the trust of the American family in the CDC, as it should.
I am shocked by the malfeasance. I have no trust left at all in our public health. It is broken.
Reprinted with permission from Robert Malone.
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| Salutation to Mary written by St. John Eudes |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-20-2022, 10:36 AM - Forum: In Honor of Our Lady
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Salutation to Mary
A copy was found in a book belonging to St. Margret Mary after her death Zealously propagated by Père Paul de Moll (Belgian) O.S.B. (1824 - 1896)
Quote:"This Salutation is so beautiful! Recite it daily. From her throne in Heaven the Blessed Virgin will bless you, and you must make the sign of the Cross. Yes! Yes! if only you could see - Our Lady blesses you. I know it."
"Offered for the conversion of a sinner it would be impossible not to be granted."
(Père Paul de Moll, O.S.B.)
Hail Mary! Daughter of God the Father,
Hail Mary! Mother of God the Son,
Hail Mary! Spouse of God the Holy Ghost,
Hail Mary! Temple of the Most Blessed Trinity,
Hail Mary! Celestial Rose of the ineffable love of God.
Hail Mary! Virgin pure and humble, of whom the King of Heaven willed to be born and with thy milk to be nourished.
Hail Mary! Virgin of virgins,
Hail Mary! Queen of Martyrs, whose soul a sword transfixed,
Hail Mary! Lady most Blessed! unto whom all power in Heaven and earth is given,
Hail Mary! my Queen and my Mother! my Life, my Sweetness, and my Hope,
Hail Mary! Mother most Amiable,
Hail Mary! Mother most Admirable,
Hail Mary! Mother of Divine Love,
Hail Mary! IMMACULATE; Conceived without sin!
Hail Mary! Full of Grace! the Lord is with thee! Blessed art thou among women! And blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, JESUS!
Blessed be thy Spouse, St. Joseph,
Blessed be thy Father, St. Joachim,
Blessed be thy Mother, St. Anne,
Blessed be thy Guardian, St. John,
Blessed be thy Holy Angel, St. Gabriel,
Glory be to God the Father, who chose thee,
Glory be to God the Son, who loved thee,
Glory be to God the Holy Ghost, who espoused thee,
Glorious Virgin Mary, may all men love and praise thee,
Holy Mary, Mother of God! pray for us and bless us, now and at death in the Name of JESUS, thy Divine Son!
* * * * * *
The holy Benedictine, Père Paul de Moll, was born in 1824. His life was spent in great sanctity, in extraordinary virtue, and in working wonders. Early in his religious life, being at the point of death, Our Blessed Lord with Our Lady, St. Joseph and St. Benedict appeared to him and said: "Be healed! ... I will grant all that thou ask of Me for others." He died at the Abbey of Termonde in 1896, and three years later his body was found intact from corruption. His Cause is now in Rome.
At each recitation of this prayer so pleasing to Mary, let us offer to her through the hands of Père Paul, one of the Apostate Countries of to-day, begging her blessing upon it and her intercession for its conversion.
It is requested that all undertake to widely spread and make known this Salutation to the Glory of Mary.
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| SSPX Asia Archives: THE NEW MASS: A Catholic or ... A Protestant Mass? |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-20-2022, 10:30 AM - Forum: New Rite Sacraments
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THE CHURCH OF CHRIST was founded for a double mission: a mission of faith and a mission of sanctification of those redeemed by the blood of the Saviour. She must bring to men faith and grace: the faith by her teaching and grace by the sacraments, which were confided to her by Christ the Lord. Her mission of faith consists in transmitting to men the revelation of spiritual and supernatural realities made by God to the world, and to safeguard this revelation without change through the passing centuries. The Catholic Church is, first of all, the faith which does not change; she is, as St. Paul says, "the Pillar of truth" (I Tim. 4, 15), which travels through the ages, always faithful to herself, an inflexible witness of God in a world of perpetual change and contradiction. Through the course of the centuries, the Catholic Church has taught and defended her faith on the basis of one sole criterion: "That which she has always believed and taught." All the heresies which the Church has faced have been judged and repudiated in the name of their non-conformity to this principle. The "first reflex principle" of the hierarchy of the Church and especially of the Roman Church, has been to maintain without change the truth received from the Apostles and Our Lord. The doctrine of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass belongs to the Church's treasure of truth. And if today, in this particular domain, there appears to be some kind of break with the Church's past, then such a novelty should alert every Catholic conscience, as in the times of the great heresies, and should provoke univocally a confrontation with the Church's faith which does not change.
What is the New Mass?
We know, of course, that the ancient Mass was not given to us ready made. It has kept the essential rituals performed by the Apostles at Christ's command; and new prayers, praises and precisions have been added to it in a slow elaboration so as to make more explicit the Eucharistic mystery and to preserve it from the denials of the heretics. The Mass was thus progressively elaborated, fashioned around the primitive kernel bequeathed by the Apostles, the witnesses of Christ's institution. Like a case containing a precious stone or the treasure confided to the Church, it was thought about, adjusted, adorned as a piece of music. The best was retained, just as in the construction of a cathedral. What the Mass explicitly contains in its mystery was carefully made more explicit. Just like the mustard seed, it spread forth its branches, but everything was already contained in the seed. This progressive elaboration, or explicitation, was achieved according to the essentials by the time of Pope St. Gregory the Great in the sixth century. Only a few secondary additions were made in later years. This work accomplished during the first centuries of Christianity has brought forth a basis for our faith in order to impress upon the human intelligence the institution of Christ in its recognized truth. Thus the Mass is the unfolding or explicitation of the Eucharistic mystery and its celebration.
The Catholic Doctrine Defined
In reaction to Luther's negations, the Council of Trent recalled and defined the unchanged doctrine of the Catholic Church concerning the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, essentially in the following three points of doctrine: 1) in the Eucharist, the Presence of Christ is real; 2) the Mass is a true sacrifice: in its substance it is the sacrifice of the cross renewed, a true sacrifice of propitiation or expiation for the forgiveness of sins, and not just a sacrifice of praise or thanksgiving; 3) the role of the priest in offering the Holy Sacrifice is essential and exclusive: the priest, and he alone, has received by the Sacrament of Orders the power to consecrate the Body and Blood of Christ. The ancient millennial Mass, Latin and Roman, expresses most clearly the complete profundity of this doctrine, without detracting in the slightest from the mystery .
What is the Situation with the New Mass?
It is a fact that the New Mass was imposed on the Catholic world in order to fulfill the needs of ecumenism: the ancient Mass was the major obstacle to the reconstruction of unity with the reformers of the seventeenth century. Without the slightest room for doubt, it affirmed precisely the Catholic Faith denied by the Protestants, especially concerning the three essential points of doctrine, namely: the reality of the Real Presence, the reality of the Sacrifice, the reality of the power of the priest.
The New Mass, quite simply, was to turn a deaf ear to this Catholic Faith. Once introduced and having become indifferent to all dogma, the new rite would be able to suit a purely Protestant faith. It would be used as a meeting-point of ecumenical unity for the world, for a single celebration where the contested dogmas would have been prudently veiled, and where the only gestures, expressions and attitudes to be retained would be those open to an interpretation according to the faith of the individual. Can the evidence of the facts be denied? The changes wrought by the New Mass bear precisely on the points of doctrine disputed by Luther.
I. THE NEW MASS AND THE REAL PRESENCE
In the New Mass, the Real Presence no longer plays the central role which was highlighted by the ancient eucharistic liturgy.
All reference, even indirect, to the Real Presence has been eliminated. One recognizes with amazement that the gestures and signs which spontaneously expressed our Faith in the Real Presence have been either abolished or seriously changed. Thus the genuflexions, the most expressive signs of the Catholic Faith, have been suppressed as such. And if the genuflexion after the elevation has been maintained as an exception, one must recognize unfortunately that it has lost its precise meaning of adoring the Real Presence. In the ancient Mass, the priest makes the first genuflexion immediately after the words of consecration; this signifies, without any possible ambiguity, that Christ is really present on the altar by virtue of the very words of consecration pronounced by the priest. He genuflects a second time after the elevation: this genuflexion has the same meaning as the first and re-enforces it.
In the New Mass, the first genuflexion has been suppressed. The second genuflexion, on the other hand, has been kept. This is where the trap is for those minds not sufficiently acquainted with the wiles of Modernism: in fact, this second genuflexion isolated from the first, can now receive a Protestant interpretation. If the Protestant faith does not admit the Real Physical Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, it does nevertheless recognize a certain spiritual presence of Our Lord on account of the faith of the believers. Thus, in the New Mass, the celebrant does not firstly adore the Host which he has just consecrated, but he elevates it, presenting it to the assembly of the faithful which engages its faith in Christ, and this faith renders Christ spiritually present; one kneels and adores, and this can be done simply in the Protestant sense of a presence purely spiritual. The exterior ceremonial can thus be adapted to fit a purely subjective faith, and even a denial of the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence.
The genuflexion retained after the elevation of the Host and Chalice has become capable, in effect, of a Protestant interpretation. It has taken on a meaning which can be adapted to the faith of the individual, and which is therefore ambiguous. A rite such as this is no longer the clear expression of the Catholic Faith. Other changes made to the ancient rite - even if they are less serious than those touching the very heart of the Mass - all nevertheless point to a decreasing respect for the Real Presence. Under this heading mention must be made of the following suppressions which, when taken in isolation, may seem unimportant, but when considered as a whole, are no less indicative of the spirit which prevailed in the reforms. The following have been suppressed: the purification of the priest's fingers over the chalice and into the chalice; the obligation for the priest to keep joined together those fingers which have touched the Host after the consecration, in order to avoid all contact with the profane; the pall protecting the chalice; the obligatory gilding of the inside of the sacred vessels; the consecration of the altar if it is fixed; the altar stone and the relics placed in the altar if it is movable; the number of altar cloths reduced from three to one; the prescriptions concerning the case where a consecrated Host falls on the ground. All these suppressions represent a decrease in the expression of respect due to the Real Presence; to them can be added the posture of those present, which again tends in the same direction, and which has been practically imposed on the faithful: Communion received standing and often in the hand; thanksgiving after Communion, which, although extremely brief, one is urged to make sitting down; standing after the consecration; These changes, made worse by the removal of the tabernacle, which is often relegated to a corner of the sanctuary, all converge in the same direction - away from the doctrine of the Real Presence. These observations can be applied to the Novus Ordo Missae as a whole, whatever Canon is chosen, and even if the New Mass is said with the so-called Roman Canon.
II. THE NEW MASS AND EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE
Apart from the dogma of the Real Presence, the Council of Trent also defined the reality of the Sacrifice of the Mass, which is the renewal of the sacrifice of Calvary, the saving fruits of which are applied to us for the forgiveness of sins and for our reconciliation with God.
The Mass is, therefore, a sacrifice. It is also a communion, but a communion at a sacrifice previously celebrated - a meal, where the immolated victim of the sacrifice is eaten. The Mass is first and foremost, then, a sacrifice, and secondly a communion or meal. But the whole structure of the New Mass is geared to the meal aspect of the celebration, to the detriment of the sacrifice. Again, and more seriously, this is in the direction of the Protestant heresy. The substitution of the table facing the people in the place of the altar of sacrifice bears witness already to a specific orientation. For if the Mass is a meal, it is in conformity with custom to gather round a table, whereas an altar raised against the cross of Calvary is quite out of place. The Liturgy of the Word has been developed to the point where it now occupies the greater part of the time-space of the new celebration, and diminishes in the same proportion, the attention due to the eucharistic mystery and sacrifice. Essentially, one must note the suppression of the Offertory of the victim of the sacrifice, and its replacement by the offering of the gifts. This substitution is truly grotesque, and tends toward the farcical: for what do they mean by this offering of a few bread crumbs and drops of wine - "fruit of the earth and work of human hands" - that they dare to present before the Sovereign Lord? The pagans did much better - they offered to their divinity not just bread crumbs, but something a bit more substantial: a bull, or some other animal whose immolation was a real sacrifice for them. Luther railed very violently against the presence of the sacrificial Offertory in the Catholic Mass. And in fact, he was not mistaken in the way he looked at it - the simple presence of an offering of the victim is the undeniable affirmation that there really is a sacrifice involved, and indeed a sacrifice of expiation for the forgiveness of sins. Thus the Offertory of the Catholic Mass was an obstacle to ecumenism. There was no hesitation to make it look ridiculous and here again to undermine the Catholic Faith. The old Offertory specified the oblation of the actual sacrifice of Christ: "receive, O holy Father . . . this spotless host . ." (hanc immaculatam hostiam), "We offer unto Thee, O Lord, the chalice of salvation. . ." (calicem salutaris). It was neither the bread nor the wine which was offered to God, but already the spotless Host, the chalice of salvation, within the perspective of the approaching consecration.
Certain liturgists, too preoccupied with the letter of the rite, had held that this was an anticipation. But this opinion is quite wrong. The intention of the Church, expressed by the priest, is in fact to offer the actual victim of the sacrifice (and not bread and wine at all). In the Sacrifice of the Mass, everything takes place at the precise moment of Consecration, in which the priest operates in persona Christi and where the bread and wine are transubstantiated into the Body and Blood of Christ. However, given the impossibility of saying everything at once about the spiritual riches of the mystery of the Eucharist, the liturgy of the Mass begins to make an exposition of these riches at the Offertory. It is therefore not a matter of anticipation, but of perspective. In the New Mass, the Offertory of the sacrificial victim has therefore been suppressed, as well as the signs of the cross over the oblations, which were a constant reference to the Cross of Calvary.
And thus in this cumulative manner the prime reality of the Mass as the renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary is de-emphasized in its concrete expressions. This is the case right up to the central moment of the celebration. The actual words of Consecration in the new rite, are in fact pronounced by the priest as a narrative, as if it were simply the recital of an event in the past; it is no longer pronounced in the intimate tone of a Consecration made in the present and proffered in the Name of Him in Whose person the priest is acting. This is extremely serious. What could be the intention of the priest - celebrant in this new perspective? - The intention, which, according to the Council of Trent's reminder, is one of the conditions for the validity of the celebration. This intention is no longer signified by the ceremonial of the rite. The priest-celebrant can of course supply it by his own will and the Mass can then be valid.
But what about the progressive priests, who are concerned above all else with breaking with ancient tradition? In this case doubt becomes legitimate. And there is nothing else then, it seems, to distinguish the New Mass in its general structure from the Protestant Communion Service. They say that they have kept the Roman Canon. At first glance at the new rite, it is offered to the choice of the celebrant, along with three other Eucharistic Prayers. What is the meaning of this choice? The Roman Canon they have kept is no longer the former Canon. It has in fact been mutilated in many different ways: it has been mutilated in the very act of the Consecration as we have just seen; it has been mutilated by the suppression of the repeated signs of the cross; it has been mutilated by the suppression of the genuflexions which were an expression of belief in the Real Presence; it is no longer presignified by the sacrificial Offertory. In the official vernacular versions, which, in practice are the only ones used, it has been translated in a tendencious fashion, brushing away the rigorous expression of the Catholic Faith. Moreover, it has lost its proper character as "Canon," that is as a fixed prayer, as unchangeable as the very rock of the faith. It has become interchangeable. It can be substituted, according to each individual whim or belief, with one of the other Eucharistic prayers. And this, obviously, is the supreme trickery of the new ecumenism. Officially, there are three new "Preces" offered as choices to the celebrant. But, in fact, the door is open to all kinds of innovations and it has become impossible to list all the different Eucharistic prayers introduced and practiced in the various dioceses.
We need not stop here to consider these "wildcat" liturgies, which, although unofficial still blow in all directions in the same wind of reform, or rather revolution. We will just give a brief analysis of the three new Eucharistic Prayers, introduced with the New Mass. The second prayer, presented as the Canon of St. Hippolytus, older than the Roman Canon, is in fact the canon of the anti-pope Hippolytus at the time of his revolt before the martyrdom which merited his return to the unity of the Church. This Canon has probably never been in use in the pontifical Church of Rome and has only come down to us in a few verbal souvenirs recorded by the recension of Hippolytus. It has in no way been retained by the Tradition of the Church. In this extremely short Canon which - apart from the recital of the Last Supper - contains only a few prayers of sanctifying the offerings, of thanksgiving and of eternal salvation, there is absolutely no mention of sacrifice. In the third Eucharistic Prayer, there is a mention made of sacrifice, but in the explicit sense of a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise. No mention is made of the expiatory sacrifice renewed in the present sacramental reality, which can win us the forgiveness of sins. The fourth Prayer is a history of the benefits of the Redemption wrought by Christ. But here again, the propitiatory sacrifice - actually renewed - is not explicitated more than elsewhere. Thus in the three new texts proposed the Catholic doctrine on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, a doctrine defined by the Council of Trent, is in fact left in the shadow, and, being no longer affirmed in the very act of celebrating the Mass, this doctrine is in fact abandoned and, with such a significant omission, denied.
III. THE NEW MASS AND THE ROLE OF THE PRIEST
The exclusive role of the priest as instrument of Christ in offering the sacrifice is a third point of Catholic doctrine defined by the Council of Trent. This role of the priest in offering the sacrifice disappears in the new celebration, along with the sacrifice itself. The priest appears as the president of the assembly. The laity invade the sanctuary and attribute to themselves the clerical functions, readings, distribution of Communion, sometimes preaching. One must not be surprised by certain former terms still in use, as they are now capable of having a different meaning. Thus, as we have already observed, the word "offertory" is maintained, but no longer in the sense of an oblation of the sacrificial victim, just as the word "sacrifice" is retained here and there, but no longer necessarily in the sense of the renewed sacrifice of Our Saviour. It is capable of signifying nothing more than thanksgiving or praise, according to the faith of the believer. Concluding this brief analysis of the new rites, we can only remark - in the light of the facts - that the New Mass has been totally conceived and elaborated in the direction of ecumenism, adaptable to the various faiths of the various churches. This is what the Protestants of Taize recognized immediately, declaring that it was now theologically possible for Protestant communities to celebrate the communion service with the same prayers as the Catholic Church. The Protestant Church of Alsace spoke out in the same vein of thought: "There is no longer anything in the Mass as it is now renewed to upset the evangelical Christian." And an important Protestant paper has said: "The new Catholic Eucharistic prayers have dropped the false perspective of sacrifice offered to God." Already the presence of six Protestant theologians, duly authorized to participate in the elaboration of the new texts, had been a significant presence. This ecumenical Mass is therefore no longer the expression of the Catholic Faith. In their entreaty to Pope Paul VI, Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci were not afraid to make the following observation, and no one today can contest its rigor: "The Novus Ordo Missae departs in an impressive fashion, both as a whole and in its details, from the Catholic theology of the Holy Mass."
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| St. John Mary Vianney: The Dreadful State of the Lukewarm Soul |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-20-2022, 09:53 AM - Forum: Resources Online
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THE DREADFUL STATE OF THE LUKEWARM SOUL
In speaking to you today, my dear brethren, of the dreadful state of the lukewarm soul, my purpose is not to paint for you a terrifying and despairing picture of the soul which is living in mortal sin without even having the wish to escape from this condition. That poor unfortunate creature can but look forward to the wrath of God in the next life. Alas! These sinners hear me; they know well of whom I am speaking at this very moment. . . . We will go no further, for all that I would wish to say would serve only to harden them more. In speaking to you, my brethren, of the lukewarm soul, I do not wish, either, to speak of those who make neither their Easter duty nor their annual Confession.
They know very well that in spite of all their prayers and their other good works they will be lost. Let us leave them in their blindness, since they want to remain that way . . . .
Nor do I understand, brethren, by the lukewarm soul, that soul who would like to be worldly without ceasing to be a child of God. You will see such a one at one moment prostrate before God, his Saviour and his Master, and the next moment similarly prostrate before the world, his idol.
Poor blind creature, who gives one hand to God and the other to the world, so that he can call both to his aid, and promise his heart to each in turn! He loves God, or rather, he would like to love Him, but he would also like to please the world. Then, weary of wanting to give his allegiance to both, he ends by giving it to the world alone. This is an extraordinary life and one which offers so strange a spectacle that it is hard to persuade oneself that it could be the life of one and the same person. I am going to show you this so clearly that perhaps many among you will be hurt by it. But that will matter little to me, for I am always going to tell you what I ought to tell you, and then you will do what you wish about it . . . .
I would say further, my brethren, that whoever wants to please both the world and God leads one of the most unhappy of lives. You shall see how. Here is someone who gives himself up to the pleasures of the world or develops some evil habit.
How great is his fear when he comes to fulfil his religious duties; that is, when he says his prayers, when he goes to Confession, or wants to go to Holy Communion! He does not want to be seen by those with whom he has been dancing and passing nights at the cabarets, where he has been giving himself over to many kinds of licentiousness. Has he come to the stage when he is going to deceive his confessor by hiding the worst of his actions and thus obtain permission to go to Holy Communion, or rather, to commit a sacrilege? He would prefer to go to Holy Communion before or after Mass, that is to say, when there is no one present. Yet he is quite happy to be seen by the good people who know nothing about his evil life and among whom he would like to arouse good opinions about himself. In front of devout people he talks about religion. When he is with those who have no religion, he will talk only about the pleasures of the world. He would blush to fulfil his religious practices in front of his companions or those boys and girls who share his evil ways . . . .
This is so true that one day someone asked me to allow him to go to Holy Communion in the sacristy so that no one would see him. Is it possible, my brethren, that one could think upon such horrible behaviour without shuddering?
But we shall proceed further and you will see the embarrassment of these poor people who want to follow the world without-outwardly at any rate-leaving God. Here is Easter approaching. They must go to Confession. It is not, of course, that they want to go or that they feel any urge or need to receive the Sacrament of Penance. They would be only too pleased if Easter came around about once every thirty years. But their parents still retain the exterior practice of religion. They will be happy if their children go to the altar, and they keep urging them, then, to go to Confession. In this, of course, they make a mistake. If only they would just pray for them and not torment them into committing sacrileges. So to rid themselves of the importunity of their parents, to keep up appearances, these people will get together to find out who is the best confessor to try for absolution for the first or second time
'Look, says one, 'my parents keep nagging at me because I haven't been to Confession. Where shall we go? 'It is of no use going to our parish priest; he is too scrupulous. He would not allow us to make our Easter duty. We will have to try to find So-and-So. He let this one and that one go through, and they are worse than we are. We have done no more harm than they have.
Another will say: 'I assure you that if it were not for my parents I would not make my Easter duty at all. Our catechism says that to make a good Confession we must give up sin and the occasions of sin, and we are doing neither the one nor the other. I tell you sincerely that I am really embarrassed every time Easter comes around. I will be glad when the time comes for me to settle down and to cease gallivanting. I will make a confession then of my whole life, to put right the ones I am making now. Without that I would not die happy.
'Well, another will say to him, 'when that time comes you ought to go to the priest who has been hearing your confessions up to the present. He will know you best. 'Indeed no! I will go to the one who would not give me absolution, because he would not want to see me damned either.
'My word, aren't you good! That means nothing at all. They all have the same power.
'That is a good thing to remember when we are doing what we ought to do. But when we are in sin, we think otherwise.
One day I went to see a girl who was pretty careless. She told me that she was not going back to Confession to the priests who were so easy and who, in making it seem as if they wanted to save you, pushed you into Hell. That is how many of these poor blind people behave! 'Father, they will say to the priest, 'I am going to Confession to you because our parish priest is too exacting. He wants to make us promise things which we cannot hold to. He would have us all saints, and that is not possible in the world. He would want us never to go to dances, nor to frequent cabarets or amusements. If someone has a bad habit, he will not give Absolution until the habit has been given up completely. If we had to do all that we should never make our Easter duty at all. My parents, who are very religious, are always after me to make my Easter duty. I will do all I can. But no one can say that he will never return to these amusements, since he never knows when he is going to encounter them.
'Ah! says the confessor, quite deceived by this sincere sounding talk, 'I think your parish priest is perhaps a little exacting. Make your act of contrition, and I will give you Absolution. Try to be good now.
That is to say: Bow your head; you are going to trample in the adorable Blood of Jesus Christ; you are going to sell your God like Judas sold Him to His executioners, and tomorrow you will go to Holy Communion, where you will proceed to crucify Him. What horror! What abomination! Go on, vile Judas, go to the holy table, go and give death to your God and your Saviour! Let your conscience cry out, only try to stifle its remorse as much as you can. . . . But I am going too far, my brethren. Let us leave these poor blind creatures in their gloom.
I think, brethren, that you would like to know what is the state of the lukewarm soul. Well, this is it. A lukewarm soul is not yet quite dead in the eyes of God because the faith, the hope, and the charity which are its spiritual life are not altogether extinct. But it is a faith without zeal, a hope without resolution, a charity without ardour . . . .
Nothing touches this soul: it hears the word of God, yes, that is true; but often it just bores it. Its possessor hears it with difficulty, more or less by habit, like someone who thinks that he knows enough about it and does enough of what he should.
Any prayers which are a bit long are distasteful to him. This soul is so full of whatever it has just been doing or what it is going to do next, its boredom is so great, that this poor unfortunate thing is almost in agony. It is still alive, but it is not capable of doing anything to gain Heaven . . . .
For the last twenty years this soul has been filled with good intentions without doing anything at all to correct its habits.
It is like someone who is envious of anyone who is on top of the world but who would not deign to lift a foot to try to get there himself. It would not, however, wish to renounce eternal blessings for those of the world. Yet it does not wish either to leave the world or to go to Heaven, and if it can just manage to pass its time without crosses or difficulties, it would never ask to leave this world at all. If you hear someone with such a soul say that life is long and pretty miserable, that is only when everything is not going in accordance with his desires. If God, in order to force such a soul to detach itself from temporal things, sends it any cross or suffering, it is fretful and grieving and abandons itself to grumbles and complaints and often even to a kind of despair. It seems as if it does not want to see that God has sent it these trials for its good, to detach it from this world and to draw it towards Himself. What has it done to deserve these trials? In this state a person thinks in his own mind that there are many others more blameworthy than himself who have not to submit to such trials.
In prosperous times the lukewarm soul does not go so far as to forget God, but neither does it forget itself. It knows very well how to boast about all the means it has employed to achieve its prosperity. It is quite convinced that many others would not have achieved the same success. It loves to repeat that and to hear it repeated, and every time it hears it, it is with fresh pleasure. The individual with the lukewarm soul assumes a gracious air when associating with those who flatter him. But towards those who have not paid him the respect which he believes he has deserved or who have not been grateful for his kindnesses, he maintains an air of frigid indifference and seems to indicate to them that they are ungrateful creatures who do not deserve to receive the good which he has done them . . . .
If I wanted to paint you an exact picture, my brethren, of the state of a soul which lives in tepidity, I should tell you that it is like a tortoise or a snail. It moves only by dragging itself along the ground, and one can see it getting from place to place with great difficulty. The love of God, which it feels deep down in itself, is like a tiny spark of fire hidden under a heap of ashes.
The lukewarm soul comes to the point of being completely indifferent to its own loss. It has nothing left but a love without tenderness, without action, and without energy which sustains it with difficulty in all that is essential for salvation. But for all other means of Grace, it looks upon them as nothing or almost nothing. Alas, my brethren, this poor soul in its tepidity is like someone between two bouts of sleep. It would like to act, but its will has become so softened that it lacks either the force or the courage to accomplish its wishes.
It is true that a Christian who lives in tepidity still regularly-in appearance at least-fulfils his duties. He will indeed get down on his knees every morning to say his prayers. He will go to the Sacraments every year at Easter and even several times during the course of the twelve months. But in all of this there will be such a distaste, so much slackness and so much indifference, so little preparation, so little change in his way of life, that it is easy to see that he is only fulfilling his duties from habit and routine . . . . because this is a feast and he is in the habit of carrying them out at such a time. His Confessions and his Communions are not sacrilegious, if you like, but they are Confessions and Communions which bear no fruit-which, far from making him more perfect and more pleasing to God, only make him more unworthy. As for his prayers, God alone knows what-without, of course, any preparation-he makes of these.
In the morning it is not God who occupies his thoughts, nor the salvation of his poor soul; he is quite taken up with thoughts of work. His mind is so wrapped up in the things of earth that the thought of God has no place in it. He is thinking about what he is going to be doing during the day, where he will be sending his children and his various employees, in what way he will expedite his own work. To say his prayers, he gets down on his knees, undoubtedly, but he does not know what he wants to ask God, nor what he needs, nor even before whom he is kneeling. His careless demeanour shows this very clearly. It is a poor man indeed who, however miserable he is, wants nothing at all and loves his poverty. It is surely a desperately sick person who scorns doctors and remedies and clings to his infirmities.
You can see that this lukewarm soul has no difficulty, on the slightest pretext, in talking during the course of his prayers.
For no reason at all he will abandon them, partly at least, thinking that he will finish them in another moment. Does he want to offer his day to God, to say his Grace? He does all that, but often without thinking of the one who is addressed. He will not even stop working. If the possessor of the lukewarm soul is a man, he will turn his cap or his hat around in his hands as if to see whether it is good or bad, as though he had some idea of selling it. If it is a woman, she will say her prayers while slicing bread into her soup, or putting wood on the fire, or calling out to her children or maid. If you like, such distractions during prayer are not exactly deliberate. People would rather not have them, but because it is necessary to go to so much trouble and expend so much energy to get rid of them, they let them alone and allow them to come as they will.
The lukewarm Christian may not perhaps work on Sunday at tasks which seem to be forbidden to anyone who has even the slightest shred of religion, but doing some sewing, arranging something in the house, driving sheep to the fields during the times for Masses, on the pretext that there is not enough food to give them-all these things will be done without the slightest scruple, and such people will prefer to allow their souls and the souls of their employees to perish rather than endanger their animals. A man will busy himself getting out his tools and his carts and harrows and so on, for the next day; he will fill in a hole or fence a gap; he will cut various lengths of cords and ropes; he will carry out the churns and set them in order. What do you think about all this, my brethren? Is it not, alas, the simple truth?
A lukewarm soul will go to Confession regularly, and even quite frequently. But what kind of Confessions are they? No preparation, no desire to correct faults, or, at the least, a desire so feeble and so small that the slightest difficulty will put a stop to it altogether. The Confessions of such a person are merely repetitions of old ones, which would be a happy state of affairs indeed if there were nothing to add to them. Twenty years ago he was accusing himself of the same things he confesses today, and if he goes to Confession for the next twenty years, he will say the same things. A lukewarm soul will not, if you like, commit the big sins. But some slander or back-biting, a lie, a feeling of hatred, of dislike, of jealousy, a slight touch of deceit or double-dealing-these count for nothing with it. If it is a woman and you do not pay her all the respect which she considers her due, she will, under the guise of pretending that God has been offended, make sure that you realise it; she could say more than that, of course, since it is she herself who has been offended. It is true that such a woman would not stop going to the Sacraments, but her dispositions are worthy of compassion.
On the day when she wants to receive her God, she spends part of the morning thinking of temporal matters. If it is a man, he will be thinking about his deals and his sales. If it is a married woman, she will be thinking about her household and her children. If it is a young girl, her thoughts will be on her clothes.
If it is a boy, he will be dreaming about passing pleasures and so on. The lukewarm soul shuts God up in a n obscure and ugly kind of prison. Its possessor does not crucify Him, but God can find little joy or consolation in his heart.
All his dispositions proclaim that his poor soul is struggling for the breath of life.
After having received Holy Communion, this person will hardly give another thought to God in all the days to follow. His manner of life tells us that he did not know the greatness of the happiness which had been his.
A lukewarm Christian thinks very little upon the state of his poor soul and almost never lets his mind run over the past. If the thought of making any effort to be better crosses his mind at all, he believes that once he has confessed his sins, he ought to be perfectly happy and at peace. He assists at Holy Mass very much as he would at any ordinary activity. He does not think at all seriously of what he is doing and finds no trouble in chatting about all sorts of things while on the way there. Possibly he will not give a single thought to the fact that he is about to participate in the greatest of all the gifts that God, all-powerful as He is, could give us. He does give some thought to the needs of his own soul, yes, but a very small and feeble amount of thought indeed. Frequently he will even present himself before the presence of God without having any idea of what he is going to ask of Him. He has few scruples in cutting out, on the least pretext, the Asperges and the prayers before Mass. During the course of the service, he does not want to go to sleep, of course, and he is even afraid that someone might see him, but he does not do himself any violence all the same. He does not want, of course, to have distractions during prayer or during the Holy Mass, yet when he should put up some little fight against them, he suffers them very patiently, considering the fact that he does not like them. Fast days are reduced to practically nothing, either by advancing the time of the main meal or, under the pretext that Heaven was never taken by famine, by making the collation so abundant that it amounts to a full meal. When he performs good or beneficial actions, his intentions are often very mixed-sometimes it is to please someone, sometimes it is out of compassion, and sometimes it is just to please the world. With such people everything that is not a really serious sin is good enough. They like doing good, being faithful, but they wish that it did not cost them anything or, at least, that it cost very little. They would like to visit the sick, indeed, but it would be more convenient if the sick would come to them. They have something to give away in alms, they know quite well that a certain person has need of help, but they wait until she comes to ask them instead of anticipating her, which would make the kindness so very much more meritorious. We will even say, my brethren, that the person who leads a lukewarm life does not fail to do plenty of good works, to frequent the Sacraments, to assist regularly at all church services, but in all of this one sees only a weak, languishing faith, hope which the slightest trial will upset, a love of God and of neighbour which is without warmth or pleasure. Everything that such a person does is not entirely lost, but it is very nearly so.
See, before God, my brethren, on what side you are. On the side of the sinners, who have abandoned everything and plunge themselves into sin without remorse? On the side of the just souls, who seek but God alone? Or are you of the number of these slack, tepid, and indifferent souls such as we have just been depicting for you? Down which road are you travelling?
Who can dare assure himself that he is neither a great sinner nor a tepid soul but that he is one of the elect? Alas, my brethren, how many seem to be good Christians in the eyes of the world who are really tepid souls in the eyes of God, Who knows our inmost hearts . . . .
Let us ask God with all our hearts, if we are in this state, to give us the grace to get out of it, so that we may take the route that all the saints have taken and arrive at the happiness that they are enjoying. That is what I desire for you . . . .
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| Prospective Juror Sent To Jail Without Bond For Refusing To Wear Mask In Courtroom |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-20-2022, 09:12 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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Prospective Juror Sent To Jail Without Bond For Refusing To Wear Mask In Courtroom
![[Image: flag2a.jpg?itok=qNcxAipL]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/flag2a.jpg?itok=qNcxAipL)
ZH | OCT 19, 2022 - 05:05 PM
Authored by Venus Upadhayaya via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A prospective juror had to spend 24 hours in jail for refusing to wear a mask in a North Carolina courtroom on Oct. 10.
Gregory Hahn, 47, of Harnett County was found in contempt of court and booked without bond by the North Carolina Superior Court judge, Charles Gilchrist, for his refusal to follow the judge’s mask order, according to the WRAL News.
Hahn, a single father, later appeared on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Friday and said it had been the worst 24 hours of his life and he was refused a phone call to check on his minor child who was at home.
“I never thought I would show up to jury duty and end up behind bars. So it happened,” Hahn told Carlson. “We were in [an assembly room] for about 20 to 30 minutes, shoulder-to-shoulder, with three-quarters of us not wearing masks.”
“So the virus–if there was virus out there–contaminated us anyway. So I was called when they called roll call, I made eye contact with the clerk, and she said, ‘I need you to come over here for not wearing the mask.’”
The judge told Hahn that for contempt of court, he would have to pay a $500 fine and serve 30 days in prison. When he refused to put on the mask, he was put in Harnett County jail for 24 hours.
Hahn, a Navy veteran who reportedly served on the President’s Honor Guard at Arlington National Cemetery, said he was not made aware of the mandate, and his court summons had no mention of it. He alleged that the courthouse did not have any signs of the mandatory rule that were visible to him.
North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper lifted a statewide mask mandate for most indoor settings over a year ago. However, Gilchrist remains the only judge who still enforces it in the courthouse, reported WRAL News.
He has a mask mandate unlike other courts and the jurors were informed about the mask rule and the court provided them with masks if they didn’t carry one, said Clerk of Superior Court Renee Whittenton in a statement, according to the media.
“You can go in any district courtroom without a mask, you can come into superior clerk court without a mask and the [district attorney’s] office without a mask, but with Judge Gilchrist, he has a mandate that you must wear a mask,” she said.
However, Hahn told WRAL News that it’s an “irony” that Gilchrist was himself not wearing a mask while talking to him. “If safety was such a concern, I go to jail [with] no mask requirements with inmates.”
Hahn’s ordeal caught the attention of Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) who released a statement about the incident on Sunday, saying that the prospective juror should have been treated differently.
“Judge Gilchrist’s ruling is outrageous. Even if you agree with the Judge’s perspective on masks, Hahn should have never been arrested. There are other ways it could have been handled,” Hudson said.
Gilchrist didn’t respond to WRAL News’ request for a comment and Hahn told the media that a lawsuit is not out of the question.
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| Vatican has reportedly renewed its secretive deal with Communist China for a second time |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-20-2022, 08:13 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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Vatican has reportedly renewed its secretive deal with Communist China for a second time
The pact has been widely panned as harmful to the faithful Catholics of the country, causing even more persecution.
![[Image: China_Vatican_flags-810x500.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/China_Vatican_flags-810x500.jpg)
shutterstock
Oct 19, 2022
ROME (LifeSiteNews) – The Vatican has renewed its secretive deal with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that allows the latter the right to select the country’s Catholic bishops, according to an Italian news outlet.
The Sino-Vatican agreement was reached originally in 2018 with heavy influence of now-disgraced former Cardinal Ted McCarrick, and was renewed in October 2022. The deal has been extended for another two years and will be reconsidered in 2024. The pact has been widely panned as harmful to the faithful Catholics of the country. Notably, in addition to allowing the CCP to determine bishop selection, it also gives Vatican recognition to the state-established and approved church, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.
The Vatican delegation met with CCP representatives in late August and early September in Tianjin, in northern China.
READ: Pope Francis’ deal with Communist China has led to greater persecution of Catholics
Italian outlet Corriere Della Sera reported that the text of the deal – still confidential – “requires that the papal appointment of a bishop be communicated to the Chinese side for assent.”
Since the agreement was reached, the Vatican has appointed six bishops with the assent of the Communist party, and a handful of bishops of the underground Chinese Church have joined the Communist-approved “church.”
Despite massive criticism of the Sino-Vatican agreement, supporters of the Vatican’s harshly criticized political maneuver have taken to defending proponents of the deal and castigating opponents.
Corriere Della Sera labeled Cardinal Joseph Zen, the bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, as “the most tenacious opponent of dialogue.” Zen has been critical of the deal between the Vatican and the CCP. Zen maintains that it has harmed the decades-old underground Church, which would not compromise with the communist government, even under threat of grave harm.
READ: Pope refuses to defend Cdl. Zen ahead of trial in Communist China, calls for ‘dialogue’
Zen is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the CCP over what are seen as trumped up charges, and the Pope has refused to meet with him in recent years.
Steven Mosher, an expert on China, sat down with LifeSiteNews at the Catholic Identity Conference and said that the deal between China and the Vatican is harmful to Chinese Catholics because: “The religion of China in the view of the Chinese Communist Party is communism… that religion already has a pope and its pope is the leader of the Chinese Communist Party.”
Mosher said that the official “Catholic Patriotic Association” was “second fiddle” compared to the underground Church, because “Catholics always thrive under persecution.”
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| Prophecies of St. Francis de Paola - Seven Letters |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-19-2022, 09:38 AM - Forum: Catholic Prophecy
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St. Francis of Paola (1416-1507)
Taken from here
![[Image: st%2Bfrancis%2Bof%2Bpaola%2B2.png]](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mJHQ73xmZL4/XJ1o6pVgnaI/AAAAAAAACBE/vj0awT3tzRMGa7HkqXGFfDEt2URlI6M2ACLcBGAs/s400/st%2Bfrancis%2Bof%2Bpaola%2B2.png)
ST. FRANCIS OF PAOLA (1416-1507) St. Francis of Paola the 'Wonder Worker' was born March 27, 1416 at Paola, a small city near the Tyrrhenian Sea, in Calabria, Italy. His parents, Giacomo and Vienna d'Alessio, were remarkable for the holiness of their lives. Remaining childless for some years after their marriage they had recourse to prayer, especially commending themselves to the intercession of St. Francis of Assisi. Three children were eventually born to them, eldest of whom was Francis.
At the age of fifteen, Saint Francis left his poor home at Paola, to live as a hermit in a cave on the seacoast. When he was 19, two other men joined him.
Francis was especially influenced by his patron saint, Francis of Assisi. In 1436, he and two companions founded the Order of the Minims, which means the Least. The Minims is a severely ascetic order that does charitable work and refrains from eating meat, eggs, or dairy products.
The people of Paola built a church and monastery for him and his followers, where he had led his eremitical life some fifteen years later and set a Rule for his followers emphasizing penance, charity, and humility, and added to the three monastic vows, one of fasting and abstinence from meat; he also wrote a rule for tertiaries and nuns.
In 1474, Pope Sixtus IV officially approved the new order and named it the Franciscan Minim Friars.
As the order grew in size, its founder's reputation increased as a holy man, a defender of the poor and the oppressed, a healer, and a worker of miracles.
In the year 1464, he was refused passage by a boatman while trying to cross the Strait of Messina to Sicily. He reportedly laid his cloak on the water, tied one end to his staff as a sail, and sailed across the strait with his companions following in the boat.
He also raised the dead, which included his nephew, and, he also raised his favourite pet animals from the dead, including a trout that had already been cooked, and a pet lamb that had already been eaten. Calling the lamb's name into the furnace where the bones and fleece had been thrown in by the workmen who had eaten the creature, the lamb skipped out alive from the oven!
St. Francis also had the gift of prophecy. He apparently foretold to several persons, in the years 1447, 1448, and 1449, the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, which happened on 29 May 1453, under the command of Mahomet II, when Constantine Palaeologus, the last Christian emperor, was killed in battle. He also predicted the capture of Otranto by the Ottoman Turks in 1480, and its subsequent recovery by the King of Naples to the Count of Arena who was sent by the king to fight the Turks. St. Francis told the Count to remain calm and gave him and those with him blessed candles: In the battle, all the soldiers who went with the count and who had received the blessed candle were saved except for one who refused to receive the blessed candle and died in the combat.
King Louis XI called for St. Francis when he was dying. Just the thought of dying made the king terrified. He hoped Francis would cure him. Instead, the saint gently helped the frightened man to prepare well to die a holy death. The king had a change of heart. He accepted God's will and died quietly in the arms of the saint.
St. Francis himself died on Good Friday, 2 April 1507 at Plessis, France, when he was ninety-one years old. He spent the last three months of his life alone preparing to appear before Jesus, since he knew when he was going to die. He was canonized in 1519, by Pope Julius II, twelve years after his death. In 1562 Protestant Huguenots broke open his tomb, found his body incorrupt, and burned it. The bones were salvaged by Catholics, and distributed as relics to various churches.
St. Francis of Paola made several of the most detailed prophecies regarding the Great Catholic Monarch armies and how he will found the last and greatest military order of the Church in seven letters to to a certain Simeon de Limena, Count of Montalto, (now called Montalto Uffugo), in the provence of Cosenza, Kingdom of Naples, who was a very pious Christian, originally from Spain, and a great benefactor to St. Francis and to his spiritual children.
They were first published in Spanish by Lucas de Montoya and printed in Madrid in 1619 in his book about the foundation of St. Francis' order entitled: "Cronica General de la Orden de los Minimos", and not only Montoya but many learned scholars of the time believed in them. They have been reprinted may times by several respected authors, ... details of these prophecies were foretold again by the approved stigmatist and mystic Marie-Julie Jahenny, which shows they are indeed authentic.
Here are the letters of St. Francis of Paola:
First Letter
The original of the following letter is allegedly preserved as a precious relic by the respectable family Benedetti in the city of Spoleto:
My most esteemed Lord, — Through the grace of the Holy Spirit, and through your merits, but not through my virtue, the spirit of prophecy is granted to me often to foretell most wonderful events in relation to the reformation of the Church of the Most High.
From your Lordship shall be born the great leader of the Holy Militia of the Holy Spirit which shall overcome the world, and shall possess the earth so completely that no king or lord shall be able to exist, except he belongs to the Sacred Host of the Holy Ghost. These devout men shall wear on their breasts, and much more within their hearts, the sign of the living God, namely, the cross.
The first members of this holy Order shall be natives of the city of ... . where iniquity, vice, and sin abound. But they shall be converted from evil to good; from rebels against God they shall become most fervent and most faithful in his divine service. That city shall be cherished by God and by the great monarch, the elect and the beloved of the Most High Lord. For the sake of that place all holy souls who have done penance in it shall pray in the sight of God for that city and for its inhabitants.
When the time shall come of the immense and most right justice of the Holy Spirit, his Divine Majesty wills that such city become converted to God, and that many of its citizens follow the great Prince of the Holy Army. The first person that will openly wear the sign of the living God shall belong to that city, because he will through a letter be commanded by a holy hermit to have it impressed in his heart and to wear it externally on his breast.
That man will begin to meditate on the secrets of God about the long visitation which the Holy Spirit will make and the dominion that he will exercise over the world through the Holy Militia. O! happy man, who shall receive from the Most High the greatest privileges! He will interpret the hidden secrets of the Holy Ghost, and he shall often excite the admiration of men by his revealed knowledge of the internal secrets of their hearts. O, rejoice, my lord, because that Prince above other princes, and King over other kings will hold you in the greatest veneration, and, after having been crowned with three most admirable crowns, will exalt that city, will declare it free and the seat of the Empire, and it shall become one of the first cities of the world. I say nothing more. Kissing your hand, together with the inhabitants of ... . whom I beg, when they shall see this letter, to receive it as a prophecy,
I remain,
Perpetual servant,
Friar Francis di Paola.
From our house of Paola, 5th February, 1482.
Second Letter
The original letter is allegedly preserved in the city of Montalto in Calabria:
My excellent Lord, — You and your consort desire to have children; you shall have them. Your holy offspring shall be admired upon earth. Among your descendants there will be one who shall be like the sun amidst the stars. He shall be a first-born son; in his childhood he will be like a saint; in his youth, a great sinner; then he will be converted entirely to God and will do great penance; his sins will be forgiven him, and he shall become a great saint.
He shall be a great captain and prince of holy men, who shall be called the holy Crociferi (I.e the Cruciferi, cross-bearers) of Jesus Christ, with whom he shall destroy the Mahometan sect and the rest of the infidels. He shall annihilate all the heresies and tyrannies of the world. He shall reform the Church of God by means of his followers, who shall be the best men upon earth in holiness, in arms, in science, and in every virtue, because such is the will of the Most High. They shall obtain the dominion of the whole world, both temporal and spiritual, and they shall support the Church of God until the end of time. I say no more.
Friar Francis di Paola.
25th March, 1485.
Third Letter
My excellent Lord, — O great treasurer of the Holy Spirit! O new Abraham upon earth! [After these words St. Francis gives a long and severe reproach to ecclesiastics for their covetousness, indolence, and want of charity and zeal for the spiritual welfare of the people; then he says]: Let the kings and princes in Christendom be ashamed of themselves, who live without charity. God has granted them means to lead a good life, and they are bad, having their hands shut up with the accursed lock of avarice; they are stingy in good works and prodigal in doing evil; they spend more than what they have in vanities and in useless things, in order to indulge their passions, oppressing their poor subjects. O wretched, unhappy men! Do you know what vanity is? Do you understand that your people are the creatures and subjects of the Most High God? They are men like you; children of Adam like you; they have been given to you as subjects, not that you might rob and maltreat them, but in order that you govern them with that diligence and care required in the shepherd towards his own sheep. They are worse by far than ravenous wolves and worse than hungry lions! Be ashamed of your wicked actions, ye Christians by name, but without truth; you are worse than the infidels, O ye tyrants of the people of God! You turn to spiritual principles, much worse than your secular and worldly principles.
O comrades of Judas Iscariot! To you I say, evil prelates, greedy for robbery to devour the sheep of Jesus Christ bought back with His Most Precious Blood: what care do you have of the holy fold of Christ? Good care, you say; but what? You have no other care than to devour and eat the goods of Holy Church without ever remembering the poor of the blessed Jesus Christ. Your benefits are not enough for you, I call evil deeds for you, not the abbeys of the monks you have tyrannized, but hospitals, giving them their income, and the poor are starving to death in the fields and on the streets. (NOTE: -hospitals: it became a status symbol in towns in the medieval period to be able to set up a hospital, which were quite luxurious in Florence for one example, and therefore could be a point of pride. Obviously St. Francis is upset great funds were possibly being used wrongfully and spreading the vices of pride and greed, are not actually go to help those it is meant to help. This could also be a prophecy of our times, i.e. of great funds going to huge charitable organisations, that actually do don't what they were set up to do but get funneled into the pockets of the managers at the top).
Woe to you because God Almighty will exalt a very poor man of the blood of the Emperor Constantine, son of St. Helena, and of the seed of Pepin, (i.e King Pepin of France) who shall on his breast wear the sign which you have seen at the beginning of this letter (t) (I.e. a cross). Through the power of the Most High he shall confound the tyrants, the heretics, and infidels. He will gather a grand army, and the angels shall fight for them; they shall kill all God’s enemies. O my Lord that man shall be one of your posterity, because you come from the blood of Pepin.
Friar Francis di Paola.
25th of April, 1486.
(NOTE: Apparently, this condemnation in the letter to corrupt leaders in the world and the Church is also a prophecy that this era of lack of charity, tyranny, coldness and sin will come before the Great King. It is for this reason the King will be sent to bring renewal.)
Fourth Letter
My excellent Lord and Benefactor, — From the beginning of the world, after the creation of man, and to the end of human generation, there have been and there shall be seen wonderful events upon the earth. Four hundred years shall not pass when his Divine Majesty shall visit the world with a new religious order much needed, which shall effect more good among men than all other religious institutions combined. This religious order shall be the last and the best in the Church; it shall proceed with arms, with prayer, and with hospitality. Woe to tyrants, to heretics, and to infidels, to whom no pity shall be shown, because such is the will of the Most High! An infinite number of wicked men shall perish through the hands of the Cross-bearers, the true servants of Jesus Christ. They shall act like good husbandmen when they extirpate noxious weeds and prickly thistles from the wheat-field. These holy servants of God shall purify the earth with the deaths of innumerable wicked men. The head and captain of these holy servants of God shall be one of your posterity, and he shall be the great reformer of the Church of God.
Francis di Paola.
From Spezzako, 13th of January, 1489.
(Note: According to this prophecy by St. Francis, God would plan to bring the Great Monarch and his new Military Order of the Cruciferi sometime in the mid 1800s. Of interest, Our Lord also revealed this to Marie-Julie Jahenny, and that He had also revealed something similar to St. Margaret Mary, but, Our Lord revealed to Marie-Julie Jahenny He had prepared to send the King then (i.e it was the 1800s), but that France was proving unworthy then to receive him, having rejected the King of His choice. Therefore the King was REMOVED as the first chastisement, but he would be 'returned' to his subjects and that the 'Lily' would 'resurrect'. The time for the Great Monarch had therefore been delayed to a futue date due to sin and the rejection of His chosen king. See Marie-Julie Jahenny's prophecies, click here.)
Fifth Letter
The original of the following letter is allegedly preserved in the city of Montalto in Calabria, Kingdom of Naples, and has been copied by John Baptist Francesco, a public notary:
My Lord and Brother in Jesus Christ our Lord, — May his Divine Majesty reign in every place, namely, in heaven, upon earth, and even in hell. How spiritually blind are those persons who, having no thought about the things of God, fix their end in earthly objects! Wretched men! by far worse than the very beasts which are guided by their senses, because they cannot have reason; but when men abandon the use of their reason, they become brutalized. Hence they shall ever be in confusion. Let, therefore, the princes of this world be prepared for the greatest scourges to fall upon them. But from whom? First from heretics and infidels, then from the holy and most faithful Cruciferi elected by the Most High, who, not succeeding in converting heretics with science, shall have to make a vigorous use of their arms. Many cities and villages shall be in ruins, with the deaths of an innumerable quantity of bad and good men. The infidels also will fight against Christians and heretics, sacking, destroying, and killing the largest portion of Christians. Lastly, the army, styled of the Church, namely, the holy Cruciferi, shall move, not against Christians or Christianity, but against the infidels in pagan countries, and they shall conquer all those kingdoms with the death of a very great number of infidels. After this they shall turn their victorious arms against bad Christians, and shall destroy all the rebels against Jesus Christ. These holy Cruciferi shall reign and dominate holily over the world until the end of time. The founder of these holy men shall, my lord, be one of your posterity. But when shall this take place? When crosses with the stigmas shall be seen, and the crucifix shall be carried as the standard. May our blessed Lord Jesus Christ reign! Gaudeamus omnes; let us all rejoice who are in the service of the Most High, because the great visitation and reformation of the world is approaching when there shall be only one fold and one Shepherd.
F. Francis di Paola.
26th of March, 1490.
Sixth Letter
My excellent Lord, — The time is coming when his Divine Majesty will visit the world with a new religious order of holy Cruciferi, who will carry a crucifix, or the image of our crucified Lord, lifted up upon the principal standard in view of all. This standard will be admired by all good Catholics; but at the beginning it will be derided by bad Christians and by infidels. Their sneers shall, however, be changed into mourning when they shall witness the wonderful victories achieved through it against tyrants, heretics, and infidels. Many wicked men and obstinate rebels against God shall perish; their souls will be plunged into hell. This punishment shall fall upon all those transgressors of the Divine commandments who with new and false doctrines will attempt to corrupt mankind and turn men against the ministers of God’s worship. The same chastisement is due to all obstinate sinners, but not to those who sin through weakness, because these being converted, doing penance, and amending the conduct of their life, shall find the divine mercy of the Most High full of kindness towards them.
O holy Cross-bearers of the Most High Lord, how very pleasing you will be to the great God, much more than the children of Israel! God will through your instrumentality work more wonderful prodigies than he has ever done before with any nation. You shall destroy the sect of Mahomet, and all infidels of every kind and of every sect. You shall put an end to all the heresies of the world by extinguishing all
tyrants. You will remove every cause of complaint by establishing a universal peace, which shall last until the end of time. You will work the sanctification of mankind.
O holy men ! People blessed of the Most Holy Trinity ! Your victorious founder shall triumph over the world, the flesh, and the Devil. Laos Deo et omnibus Sanctis ejus. May God and all his saints be praised .
Friar Francis di Paola.
7th of March, 1495.
Seventh Letter
My excellent Lord, — Let your soul rejoice! for his Divine Majesty manifests through you such wonderful signs and great miracles, according to what I, by God’s will, have often and again written and foretold to you. One of your posterity shall achieve greater deeds and work greater wonders than your lordship. That man will be a great sinner in his youth, but like St. Paul he shall be drawn and converted to God. He shall be the great founder of a new religious order different from all the others. He shall divide it into three classes, namely:
1. Military knights;
2. Solitary priests;
3. Most pious hospitallers
This shall be the last religious order in the Church, and it will do more good for our holy religion than all other religious institutes. By force of arms he shall take possession of a great kingdom. He shall destroy the sect of Mahomet, extirpate all tyrants and heresies. He shall bring the world to a holy mode of life. There will be one fold and one Shepherd. He shall reign until the end of time. On the whole earth there shall be only twelve kings, one emperor, and one pope. Rich gentlemen shall be very few, but all saints. May Jesus Christ be praised and blessed; for he has vouchsafed to grant to me, a poor unworthy sinner, the spirit of prophecy, not in an obscure way as to his other servants, but has enabled me to write and to speak in a most clear manner. I know that unbelieving and reprobate persons will scoff at my letters and will reject them; but they will be received by those faithful Catholic souls who aspire to the possession of heaven. These letters shall infuse such sweetness of divine love in their hearts, that they will be delighted in perusing them often, and in taking copies of them, because such is the will of the Most High. In these letters it will be found out who belongs to our blessed Lord Jesus Christ and who does not, who is a predestinate or a reprobate. Much better will this be known through the holy sign of the living God. He shall be a saint of God who will take it, love it, and wear it.
Nothing more occurs to me.
Friar Francis di Paola.
18th August, 1496.
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| BBC prepares secret scripts for possible use in winter blackouts |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-19-2022, 08:52 AM - Forum: Global News
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BBC prepares secret scripts for possible use in winter blackouts
Exclusive: Scripts set out how corporation will reassure public in event of major power loss
![[Image: 3647.jpg?width=620&quality=85&dpr=1&s=none]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/12fe472e0e42d95008be3a76f128a878863716da/0_0_3647_2188/master/3647.jpg?width=620&quality=85&dpr=1&s=none)
BBC Broadcasting House in London.
Broadcasting House in London. The draft scenario suggests a reduced BBC radio service would operate from an emergency broadcasting centre in a rural location. Photograph: P Amedzro/Alamy
The Guardian | Tue 18 Oct 2022
The BBC has prepared secret scripts that could be read on air if energy shortages cause blackouts or the loss of gas supplies this winter.
The scripts, seen by the Guardian, set out how the corporation would reassure the public in the event that a “major loss of power” causes mobile phone networks, internet access, banking systems or traffic lights to fail across England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland would be unaffected because its electricity grid is shared with the Republic of Ireland.
The public would be advised to use car radios or battery-powered receivers to listen to emergency broadcasts on FM and long-wave frequencies usually reserved for Radio 2 and Radio 4.
One draft BBC script warns that a blackout could last for up to two days, with hospitals and police placed under “extreme pressure”.
Another says: “The government has said it’s hoped power will be restored in the next 36 to 48 hours. Different parts of Britain will start to receive intermittent supplies before then.”
It is understood they were written by BBC journalists as part of routine emergency planning to deal with hypothetical scenarios. They include local details for the different regions and nations of Britain.
In a national emergency, the BBC has a formal role in helping to spread information across the country, as part of the government’s civil contingencies planning. The broadcaster’s governance framework states: “If it appears to any UK government minister that an emergency has arisen, that minister may request that the BBC broadcast or otherwise distribute any announcement or other programme.”
The government works with the BBC as part of its emergency planning process, although it is unclear whether it had any input on these scripts. A spokesperson said: “The government is confident that this is not a scenario we will face this winter.”
The BBC said it did not comment on its emergency broadcasting plans.
Ministers have been at pains to reassure businesses and householders that blackouts are unlikely. However, National Grid, which oversees electricity supplies in Great Britain, has issued a rare warning that power supplies could be at risk. The organisation said that in a worst-case scenario it could order planned blackouts for up to three hours a day if Russia cuts off all gas supplies to Europe.
On Monday, National Grid’s chief executive, John Pettigrew, went further and said that if everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong, there could be rolling blackouts between 4pm and 7pm on “really, really cold” days in January and February, when wind speeds are too low to power turbines.
The BBC’s draft scenario suggests that in a national blackout it would run a greatly reduced temporary radio service from the UK’s emergency broadcasting centre, called the EBC, based in a rural location not acknowledged by the BBC.
This would provide half-hourly news bulletins on Radio 4’s FM and long-wave frequencies and a “music service”, with news updates on the FM spectrum used by Radio 2.
One scenario used in some of the scripts assumes that mains electricity is available in only a few lightly populated parts of Scotland – the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland, and some parts of the Highlands.
The draft scripts for on-air news bulletins include space for a quote from a Cabinet Office minister, given the fictitious name Jose Riera.
The scripts report that these blackouts would affect gas supply systems, and knock out mobile phone networks, cashpoints and internet access. Traffic lights would stop working, causing disruption on the roads.
One script, written for a hypothetical news bulletin, warns: “The emergency services are under extreme pressure. People are being advised not to contact them unless absolutely necessary.”
It states that in Wales an emergency coordination centre has been set up, while in Scotland the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, is chairing the devolved government’s emergency planning meeting. It adds: “Officials are saying there is no current risk to food supply and distribution. But they’re asking people to look out for vulnerable neighbours and relatives.”
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| Pope appoints pro-abortion World Economic Forum speaker to Pontifical Academy for Life |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-19-2022, 07:50 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
- Replies (1)
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Pope appoints pro-abortion World Economic Forum speaker to Pontifical Academy for Life
In addition to her close ties to the World Economic Forum, economist Mariana Mazzucato is also a self-described 'atheist' and enthusiastically pro-abortion.
![[Image: Mariana_Mazzucato_2016-810x500.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Mariana_Mazzucato_2016-810x500.jpg)
Mariana Mazzucato
Simon Fraser University/Wikimedia Commons
Oct 17, 2022
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews (adapted)) — The Pontifical Academy for Life on Saturday announced Pope Francis’ appointment of pro-abortion, World Economic Forum-linked economist Mariana Mazzucato as one of its new “Ordinary Academicians.”
Mazzucato, a self-described “atheist” and professor of economics at University College London (UCL), was first announced as one of the PAL’s new appointees in an October 15 press release which stated, “The Pontifical Academy for Life is organizing the next Assembly, which is set for Feb. 20-22, 2023, on the theme ‘Converging on the Person. Emerging Technologies for the Common Good.'”
According to the release, “This is a topic of great relevance in these years because ethical reflection is unavoidable in the face of a world that is profoundly changing before our eyes … In this sense, it is important that the Pontifical Academy for Life include women and men with expertise in various disciplines and from different backgrounds, for a constant and fruitful interdisciplinary, intercultural and interreligious dialogue.”
“On behalf of all the Academicians, we express heartfelt thanks to Pope Francis for the attention with which he follows our work,” added the release. “And we reaffirm our commitment to bring into the world that Gospel-based prophetic inspiration and vocation in order to promote human life always and everywhere.”
While the PAL says this appointment is part of its larger goal of fostering an “ethical” and “Gospel-based” reflection to “promote human life always and everywhere,” in addition to being a speaker at the WEF – the globalist group behind the socialist, anti-Christian “Great Reset” agenda – Mazzucato is also enthusiastically pro-abortion, in direct contradiction to the infallible and unchangeable teaching of the Catholic Church.
In June, following the United States Supreme Court’s overturning of the landmark 1973 pro-abortion Roe v. Wade decision, Mazzucato tweeted “So good!” in response to a pro-abortion commentator making anti-Christian statements disparaging the Bible while condemning the court’s pro-life ruling.
“I don’t care that you’re a Christian, I don’t care what the Bible says, like I feel like its a clown show like sitting here trying to decipher what your little mythical book has to say about these very real political issues,” said left-wing political commentator Ana Kasparian in the video which Mazzucato threw her support behind.
“I do not believe in Christianity which means that you do not get to dictate the way I live my life based on your religion, I don’t care what the Bible says … I don’t care about your [expletive] religion.”
In 2016, Mazzucato also tweeted favorably about Pope Francis’ support of the so-called “climate change” agenda, saying, “As an atheist, never thought I would love a Pope this much.”
READ: Pope joins population control activist Jeffrey Sachs to push ‘climate change’ agenda at conference
Appointing people who hold positions in direct opposition to the Catholic faith has become a trend in the Vatican during Francis’ pontificate.
Last year, Francis appointed pro-abortion population control activist Jeffrey Sachs to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, and in 2017, appointed a pro-abortion Anglican minister to the PAL.
Outside of his appointments of non-Catholics to official positions in Rome, Francis also has a history of appointing heterodox prelates to high-ranking positions of authority within the Church’s clerical hierarchy.
In September, Francis appointed pro-LGBT Portuguese Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça as Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, just months after his June decision to promote a collection of pro-LGBT and anti-Latin Mass cardinals to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
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| Abortion advocates vandalize Michigan church with anti-Catholic, anti-life graffiti |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-18-2022, 10:11 AM - Forum: Anti-Catholic Violence
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Abortion advocates vandalize Michigan church with anti-Catholic, anti-life graffiti
Vandals spray-painted the Church of the Resurrection’s sidewalk, front doors, and parish sign in Lansing, Michigan with hateful messages directed at the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade.
![[Image: Lansing-church-graffiti-810x500.png]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Lansing-church-graffiti-810x500.png)
Church of the Resurrection in Lansing, Michigan
Facebook
Oct 14, 2022
(LifeSiteNews) — A church in Michigan has been vandalized with pro-abortion and anti-Catholic graffiti.
On October 8, the Church of the Resurrection in Lansing released footage of three hooded vandals spray-painting the Church’s sidewalk, front doors, and parish sign. The vandals left hateful messages that were directed at the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Our hope and our prayer is that those who did this to our parish church are not just brought to justice but are also brought to conversion, brought to an encounter with the love of Jesus, brought to a realization that anger corrodes the soul while life in Christ brings only freedom, peace and healing,” said the parish pastor, Father Steve Mattson. “That’s our hope. That’s our prayer.”
“Three hooded individuals caught on camera vandalizing a Catholic church in Lansing, Michigan, Oct. 8 with pro-abortion and anti-Catholic graffiti,” tweeted Joe Bukuras, Catholic News Agency journalist, with a video of the incident from the Church’s video footage.
Other videos and photos of the vandalism show graffiti messages such as “feminism not fascism,” “smash patriarchy,” “restore Roe,” and “is overturning Roe worth your life or your democracy?”
The front doors of the church were also emblazoned with two upside-down red crosses, with the words “Death to Christian nationalism” and “abort the court” painted nearby. The parish’s sign was also vandalized, spray-painted with the words “kill all Christian nationalists.”
“I’m just really hurt and sorrowful that people would have vandalized our place of worship, our church,” said a parishioner in a video released by the parish. “Abortion is an act of violence against a vulnerable human. So the fact that the proponents of abortion are then using violence against other people just shows that this is a violent movement.”
“Motherhood is really a gift,” said another parishioner. “Children are gifts, and to be persistent in this belief that we are the god of our own bodies and that we can kill our own children and that that is a fundamental human right are some of the messages that I’ve seen and I’m so sad to see that.”
This attack is only one of many acts of vandalism that have targeted Catholic churches in the past few months since the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. However, despite the violence against their parish, Our Lady of the Resurrection Church has taken the path of forgiveness.
The sign outside Our Lady of the Resurrection, now clean of the grafiti, has a new message displayed on its electric screen: “To whomever vandalized our church: We forgive you and we are praying for you.”
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| Boston University Creates COVID Strain With 80% Mortality In Mice |
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Posted by: Stone - 10-18-2022, 10:07 AM - Forum: Health
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Boston University Creates COVID Strain With 80% Mortality In Mice
![[Image: experiment-mice-orig.jpg?itok=YzYkY0UH]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/experiment-mice-orig.jpg?itok=YzYkY0UH)
ZH | MONDAY, OCT 17, 2022
Researchers at Boston University have created a new strain of Covid-19 that has an 80% kill rate in humanized mice.
In an effort to research what makes Omicron so transmissible, the researchers cobbled the Omicron spike protein to the original strain of Covid-19. The resulting virus was five times more infectious than Omicron.
"The Omicron spike (S) protein, with an unusually large number of mutations, is considered the major driver of these phenotypes. We generated chimeric recombinant SARS-CoV-2 encoding the S gene of Omicron in the backbone of an ancestral SARS-CoV-2 isolate and compared this virus with the naturally circulating Omicron variant," reads the pre-print.
The new research, which has not been peer-reviewed, was conducted by a team from Boston and Florida.
"In...mice, while Omicron causes mild, non-fatal infection, the Omicron S-carrying virus inflicts severe disease with a mortality rate of 80 percent," the researchers wrote, adding that while the spike protein is responsible for infectivity, changes to other parts of its structure are responsible for its deadliness.
Researchers attached Omicron's spike to the original wildtype strain that first emerged in Wuhan at the start of the pandemic.
The researchers looked at how mice fared against the new hybrid strain compared to the original Omicron variant. -Daily Mail
The researchers also looked at the effect of different strains on human lung cells grown in the lab - which Covid latches on to before instructing healthy cells to make copies of itself. They found that the modified strain produces five times more viral particles than the original Omicron strain (which all the rodents survived).
Quote:This study provides important insights into Omicron pathogenicity. We show that spike, the single most mutated protein in Omicron, has an incomplete role in Omicron attenuation. In in vitro infection assays, the Omicron spike-bearing ancestral SARS-CoV-2 (Omi-S) exhibits much higher replication efficiency compared with Omicron. Similarly, in K18-hACE2 mice, Omi-S contrasts with non-fatal Omicron and causes a severe disease leading to around 80% mortality. This suggests that mutations outside of spike are major determinants of the attenuated pathogenicity of Omicron in K18-hACE2 mice. Further studies are needed to identify those mutations and decipher their mechanisms of action. -Biorxiv
According to the scientists, however, their chimeric virus is unlikely to be as deadly in humans as it was in the mice because the specific breed used in testing are more susceptible to severe Covid.
Last year we reported that 18 months before the pandemic, scientists in Wuhan, China submitted a proposal to release enhanced airborne coronaviruses into the wild in an effort to inoculate them against diseases that could have otherwise jumped to humans, according to The Telegraph, citing leaked grant proposals from 2018.
The bid was submitted by zoologist Peter Daszak of US-based EcoHealth Alliance, who was hoping to use genetic engineering to cobble "human-specific cleavage sites" onto bat Covid 'which would make it easier for the virus to enter human cells' - a method which would coincidentally answer a longstanding question among the scientific community as to how SARS-CoV-2 evolved to become so infectious to humans.
Daszak's proposal also included plans to commingle high-risk natural coronaviruses strains with more infectious, yet less deadly versions. His 'bat team' of researchers included Dr. Shi Zhengli from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, as well as US researchers from the University of North Carolina and the US Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center.
Darpa refused the contract - saying "It is clear that the proposed project led by Peter Daszak could have put local communities at risk," while warning that Daszak hadn't fully considered the dangers involved in enhancing the virus via gain-of-function research, or by releasing a vaccine into the air.
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