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| Abp. Viganò: Declaration regarding the apostolic letter Desiderio Desideravi |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-07-2022, 06:54 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Abp. Viganò: Declaration regarding the apostolic letter Desiderio Desideravi
Deep church and deep state move in parallel and in sync, because what moves them both is hatred for Jesus Christ.
![[Image: Abp-Vigano-810x500.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Abp-Vigano-810x500.jpg)
YouTube screenshot
Wed Jul 6, 2022
(LifeSiteNews) – In an editorial titled “Cancel Culture: The Eternal Gnostic Dream of Starting Over from Zero,” that appeared on June 30, 2022, in the Bulletin of Social Doctrine of the Church of the Cardinal Van Thuân International Observatory (here), Archbishop Giampaolo Crepaldi stigmatized, with great clarity of analysis, the “attitude that favors the new over the old, which makes virtue coincide with adhesion to historical novelties and sin coincide with the preservation of the past,” and which consists in a systematic and ruthless damnatio memoriae of all that is opposed to modernity. The Archbishop of Trieste writes: “Progress wants everything to change except for progress itself, which must remain. Progress must preserve progress as something incontestable and never able to be criticized, never surmountable, never erasable. The same may be said of the revolution: revolutions change everything except for the immutable reality of the revolution, which remains absolute. Likewise, ‘cancellation’ must cancel everything, but cancellation must remain an absolute principle.”
This denunciation highlights the return of anti-Christian gnosis, which not coincidentally is an ally “of the Enlightenment and anti-religious propaganda of the English-speaking Protestant bourgeoisie,” the fruit of “centuries of planned disinformation.” From the Lutheran pseudo-reform onward, the unity of Catholic Europe was broken apart by the heresy of the German monk and the Anglican schism, unequivocally demonstrating how civil revolutions (which we could define as political heresies) find their ideological basis in previous doctrinal and moral errors.
Archbishop Crepaldi’s courageous examination limits itself, at least apparently, to Cancel culture in civil society, while overlooking the no less serious one that has been pursued with tetragonal obstinacy in the very heart of the Catholic Church, beginning with Second Vatican Council. This confirms that the apostasy of the Christian nations, which has systematically eliminated any trace of Christianity from the social body, necessarily had to be preceded by a similar removal of the past from the ecclesial body, to which it was necessary to accompany the imposition of the new as ontologically better and morally superior, regardless of its basis, that is, regardless of the intentions of those who imposed it and above all regardless of any evaluation of its consequences. Saint Pius X defined Modernism as the heresy that derives from this philosophical error. Whatever is new is considered an absolute good simply because it is new. And this despite the evidence of the disastrous effects that the cancellation of the past in the Church would cause – on the doctrinal, moral, liturgical, and disciplinary levels, but also on the cultural, artistic, and popular level as well – as predictably happened.
The Council erected novelty and so-called progress as a norm, but it did not limit itself to this: its architects had to cancel the past, because a simple comparison between novus and vetus repudiates any idea that the new is good and the old is to be condemned, due to the results of each. The liturgical reform itself was “planned disinformation”: first of all because it was imposed on the basis of a specious lie, that is, that the faithful did not understand the celebration of the rites in Latin; and secondly because of the fact that the lex orandi became the expression of a lex credendi that was deliberately unmoored from Catholic orthodoxy, and indeed actively negated it. The principal instrument of the progressivist propaganda and of Cancel culture that was applied in the ecclesial sphere was the reformed liturgy, just as was done by the Lutheran pseudo-reform, which progressively eliminated from the Christian people the inheritance of Faith, traditions, and daily gestures which centuries of lived Catholicism had impregnated into the life of the faithful and of nations.
Cancel culture is inevitable wherever what is new must be accepted uncritically, and where what is ancient – dismissed as being “old” – must be forgotten so that it does not hang over the present as a severe warning. And it is not a coincidence if George Orwell’s novel 1984 foretold the censorship of information ex post, after the fact, making corrections to past news according to its changing utility in the present. On the other hand, the simple presence of a term of comparison, in itself, reveals a difference that stimulates thoughtful judgment, questions the dogma of progress, and reveals treasures of the past that today no one would be capable of replicating, precisely because they were the result of a world that the present rejects a priori.
But if in recent decades the followers of “Catholic progressivism” – an expression that in itself is already an oxymoron – have worked to undermine Tradition and replace it with its antithesis, in these ten years of the Bergoglian “pontificate” cancel culture has taken on the connotations of an ideological fury, ranging from the situation ethics of Amoris Laetitia to the neo-Malthusian ecologism of Laudato Si’ to the masonic ecumenism of Fratelli Tutti, but also manifesting itself in the brazen removal of exterior signs, from liturgical vestments to papal insignia and titles, and even with Traditionis Custodes and Desiderio Desideravi reaching the point of the substantial cancellation of the Apostolic Liturgy, which the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum had given a parenthesis of relative liberty after forty years of ostracism.
And it is Cancel culture in all respects, in terms of the method of realization, the purposes it intends, the ideology that underlies it, and the common denominator that unites those who promote it. A subversive operation, certainly, because it uses the authority of the Church for the purpose of destroying the Church, subverting her proper end, just as the authority of the State is usurped against the interests of the Nation and the common good of its citizens.
“Sometimes bringing some of grandma’s lace is ok, but only sometimes. It’s in order to pay homage to grandma, no?” Bergoglio said [while speaking to a group of priests in June]. And he did so with the same irreverent superficiality that someone who is ignorant would show before a great work of art or a literary masterpiece. Or rather, just like someone who knows its value well, but having only trash and junk to offer as an alternative, can only resort to discrediting and derision. Liquidating the inestimable treasures of doctrine and spirituality of the Apostolic Liturgy with simplifications from social media – “grandmother’s lace” – betrays his awareness that he has no arguments and explains the reason for so much intolerance toward something that a person with good faith would be driven to preserve, guard, and understand.
Those who still persist in individually refuting Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s “acts of magisterium and governance” are refusing to take note of a terrible and painful reality, which significantly finds its counterpart in the Western world. A world which, as has always been the case, takes its example from the Church – in the past drawing inspiration from its goodness and today following it in evil. And thus, it is useless to refute this or that document or declaration, being scandalized by what it may represent with respect to Catholic tradition: Cancel culture – as an expression of Gnostic and revolutionary thought – is ontologically the enemy of reason, even before it is an enemy of Faith. And those who denounce the incalculable damages of this criminal operation of removal and condemnation of the past, even by simply demonstrating the disastrous state into which parishes and religious communities have fallen, do not seem to realize that it is precisely these damages that were knowingly pursued. They fall into the same deception as those who, at the time of the psychopandemic, are surprised that in the presence of serious side effects and “sudden illnesses” obviously caused by the experimental serum, health authorities are not forbidding the distribution of the so-called vaccine, when it is obvious that it was intended to reduce the world’s population by 10-15%, as Mr. Gates has explained to us.
In reality, not wanting to consider the relationship between cause and effect is a consequence of the rejection of the entire Western system of logic and philosophy that is essentially Aristotelian and Thomistic. Because a deviant thought can only be accepted in blind irrationality and servile obedience. Even if, in hindsight, the architects of the revolution have a very lucid and logical plan, which however they cannot declare openly since it is subversive and criminal.
Deep church and deep state move in parallel and in sync, because what moves them both is hatred for Jesus Christ. The antichristic matrix resides in deception, which is the mark of the Liar: a deception that began with making Adam and Eve believe that their disobedience would make them similar to God, when in reality they had been created “in the image and likeness of God” precisely in freely conforming to the divine cosmos impressed by the Creator in creatures and in creation. We find the same deception in making us believe that man can deny God and rebel against his Holy Law without consequences, when Satan first of all, sinning through pride, has damned himself for eternity. The myth of liberty, of which license and libertinism are counterfeits, is a lie. The secular state, which denies the Lordship of Christ the King in society, is a lie. Ecumenism, which places the Truth of God on the same level as error in the name of a peace and fraternity that cannot exist outside the one Church of Christ, the Holy Catholic Church, is a lie. It is a lie to have erected progress as an absolute good, because what it considers a good is in reality an evil that affects individuals and society, both secular society and spiritual society. It is a lie to pass off as a victory of popular demand something that an elite of conspirators has decided to impose on the masses, with the sole intent of dominating them and leading them to perdition.
This is why, in the face of all the Bergoglian nonsense, which celebrates as beyond dispute the successes of Vatican II and the conquests of the post-conciliar church despite the presence of a huge crisis, any comment is superfluous. What is sold to us as the latest discovery of modernity – from gender ideology to neo-Malthusian health ideology – is old ideological rubbish whose only purpose is to distance souls from God, so that the adage “misery loves company” becomes an apt summary of the evil action of the devil, who is envious that creatures endowed with a soul and body have been granted by Providence the Redemption that the angels, as pure spirits, were not granted. A Redemption accomplished by means of the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, perpetuated in its fruits by the Mystical Body of Christ, the Holy Church.
Bergoglio accuses people of Gnosticism and Pelagianism if they cannot accept the idea of a Gnostic and Pelagian pope, for whom the good does not consist in conforming oneself to the model of perfection intended for us by God the Creator and Redeemer, but rather in doing whatever each one of us believes is good. But this is, after all, nothing other than the sin of Lucifer, setting up his Non Serviam as a moral rule.
Archbishop Crepaldi did well to point out the antichristic matrix of the Cancel culture. But this analysis, which is valid and true regarding what is happening in the civil world, must also be courageously extended to the Catholic world, in which the same antichristic matrix has existed uncontested ever since the Second Vatican Council made an idol out of the new and transient, denying two thousand years of Tradition founded on the Word of God and on the teaching of the Apostles and the Roman Pontiffs. The ideological fury of Bergoglio is simply the logical consequence of these premises, and the fact that a massage therapist can design the gay-friendly logo for the 2025 Jubilee (here) is merely the latest dismal confirmation of an ongoing metastasis.
I urge my brothers in the episcopate, the priests and all the faithful to understand this fundamental aspect of the present apostasy, because we will not be able to do any good to convert civil society and restore the royal Crown to Christ as long as that Crown has been usurped by His enemies within the very womb of the Church.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
July 2, 2022
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| The US Is Funding A Massive Virus Hunt That Might Cause Another Pandemic. Great Idea! |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-06-2022, 08:22 AM - Forum: Health
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The US Is Funding A Massive Virus Hunt That Might Cause Another Pandemic. Great Idea!
![[Image: 960x0.jpg?format=jpg&width=960]](https://imageio.forbes.com/specials-images/imageserve/62c347df57e1b2663be0d85c/Catching-Bats/960x0.jpg?format=jpg&width=960)
Field technicians, using a box and long sticks to catch bats beneath a railroad bridge, for an for an arbovirus study, 1974. Image courtesy Centers for Disease Control. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images) GETTY IMAGES
Steven Salzberg Contributor Forbes | July 5, 2022
I just learned that the US Agency for International Development, USAID, is pouring $125 million into an effort to seek out novel viruses in remote areas of the world. This is pretty much exactly what many scientists, including me, have been warning against for years.
How did I miss this? It was announced last October, along with articles about how excited Washington State University was to lead the project, and how pleased the University of Washington was to go out and hunt down animals that were carrying dangerous new viruses.
In any case, I know about it now, and I’m joining the voices (here and here, for example) that are warning that this is a truly terrible idea.
The USAID’s announcement seems utterly oblivious to the enormous dangers posed by this program. Their own headline says they want to find viruses that could cause pandemics! The program, called DEEP VZN (”deep vision,” get it?) is funding scientists in the US and in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to venture (”deep”) into unpopulated areas of the jungle, and to find animals carrying viruses that might infect humans. They’re particularly interested in viruses that could cause the next pandemic.
What could go wrong? Oh nothing, says USAID and the scientists who are happily taking the $125 million in funding. They’ll be super careful! So we should all be pleased with how the government is preparing for the next pandemic.
Related: White House Mandates Pfizer Vaccines for Millions of Citizens ...Before the FDA Clinical or Safety Reviews Have Been Made Public
Uh, no. As I wrote last year:
Quote:It’s also time to ask, very critically, whether anyone should be venturing out into remote areas to collect animals that are infected with possible pandemic-causing microbes, and bringing those animals [or just the viruses] back to densely populated areas. Rather than preventing pandemics, these activities are more likely to cause them.
The only tiny nod to risk in the USAID announcement is that they will “safely discover and understand new viruses from animals at high risk locations” (emphasis mine). They make no mention of how they will guarantee this is safe–because they simply can’t guarantee any such thing.
Oh wait, isn’t this how some people think the Covid-19 pandemic started? Because humans were collecting bats from remote caves? Oh, but perhaps that was different, because some of those bats were being collected for food, and the people collecting them weren’t careful enough.
Never mind that the debate about whether Covid-19 was caused by a lab leak has never been fully resolved. And never mind that the debate itself has made it clear that lab leaks happen all too often, and that it’s clearly possible that a lab leak could cause a pandemic.
(For more on the risks of lab leaks, see my previous articles, from March 2022, June 2021, October 2021, or January 2015 (when the threat was from influenza), or this New Yorker story from 2021.)
The details of DEEP VZN are even more alarming: they plan to collect over 800,000 samples from animals in the wild, and they hope (!) to discover 8,000 to 12,000 new viruses, any one of which might have the potential to start a worldwide pandemic. They’ll focus especially on coronaviruses (the family that includes the Covid-19 virus), Ebola-like viruses, and a group called paramyxoviruses.
Great, so maybe they’ll cause a novel Ebola outbreak too. I’m feeling very comforted now!
I have to note here that USAID, the funder for DEEP VZN, also funded EcoHealth Alliance to collect coronaviruses from bats in China, and EcoHealth partnered with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in that project. As I and many others have written over the past two years, the Wuhan Institute of Virology is a possible source, through a hypothesized lab leak, of the Covid-19 pandemic. We may never know if WIV was involved, because China shut down all access to the lab early in the pandemic.
But it seems USAID didn’t learn any lessons at all from the many publicly expressed concerns about whether it was wise to go into caves in remote areas of China and collect coronaviruses from bats. On the contrary: with DEEP VZN, they are doubling down.
Why do USAID and the scientists at Washington State and UW think this is a good idea? Well, here the story is very familiar. They are making the same pie-in-the-sky claims we’ve been hearing for years: “The hope is that this improved understanding will lead to prevention of future pandemics,” said a UW scientist in their press release. Or “to make sure the world is better prepared for these infectious disease events, we need to be ready” according to a Washington State scientist.
I and others have pointed out the flaws in these claim before, but it’s worth re-stating a few of them:
First, there’s not a shred of evidence that collecting these viruses will help prevent a pandemic, and we now have evidence providing the opposite. Scientists have been collecting coronaviruses since the first SARS outbreak, in 2003, and that work didn’t prevent the Covid-19 pandemic, even though both outbreaks were caused by coronaviruses.
Second, the act of going into remote areas and looking for viruses is highly likely to bring deadly new viruses back into human cities, creating opportunities for a lab leak that could easily cause a new pandemic. And despite some protests to the contrary, lab leaks can and do happen, even from the most secure facilities.
Third, having viruses in labs, even if they’re secure, will do little to help anyone design vaccines against future pandemic viruses. As expert virologists have pointed out, we simply can’t predict what viruses will cause the next pandemic: there are far too many of them, among other reasons.
There’s one more threat I have to mention. DEEP VZN proudly proclaims that it’s going to make all of its data public, including the genome sequences of the viruses that it collects. This strategy blithely ignores the fact that it’s now possible for hostile actors to use these sequences to create deadly new bioweapons. An MIT engineer estimates that some 30,000 people around the world already have this capability. Even if that is a bit alarmist (and I tend to think it is), it’s not so far-fetched to believe that generating all of these sequences greatly increases the risk that someone will create a rogue virus.
If USAID wants to help prevent the next pandemic, there are far, far better ways to spend $125 million of taxpayer money. Here are a few ideas:
1. Use the money to reduce the consumption of “bushmeat” in countries where this is still practiced. This could be done in many ways, such as training people in better farming methods, or even just providing food directly.
2. Put a halt to the use of wild animals for ineffective “traditional” medicines, which don’t cure anything and which are one of the main incentives for hunting exotic animals. This would have the additional benefit of saving a number of animal species from extinction.
3. Use the money to develop faster ways to produce and deliver vaccines, so we don’t have to wait months or years from the time a pathogen starts spreading until we have a vaccine.
Look, I know that some scientists are very excited about going out and finding new viruses, and some of them truly believe this will help prevent future pandemics. But they’ve been saying this for years, and the evidence is now overwhelming that this is a pipe dream. Sending humans out into the wild to gather viruses that would otherwise never make their way into population centers is just a terribly dangerous plan.
Or let’s put this another way: if you discovered that a research facility in your home town were working with hundreds of deadly viruses, would you have any concerns? Any at all? I know I would.
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| 'Canadians will be required to get a Covid shot every nine months for the foreseeable future' |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-05-2022, 05:39 PM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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Canada's Health Minister: "You Will Never Be Fully-Vaxxed"
![[Image: 2022-07-05_05-22-49.jpg?itok=f3JrQBQZ]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/2022-07-05_05-22-49.jpg?itok=f3JrQBQZ)
ZH | JUL 05, 2022
Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,
This is the new ‘right way’ to think about vaccinations...
Despite increasingly compelling data and peer reviewed studies coming out detailing the harms and side-effects of vaccinations, Canada’s Liberal-Socialist coalition government is doubling down on vaccinations, and appear ready move the goalposts on what constitutes vaccine compliance.
As reported via Blacklocks Reporter (@mindingottawa on Twitter),
Quote:Canadians will be required to get a Covid shot every nine months for the foreseeable future, says Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos. Previous definitions of “fully vaccinated” made no sense, he told reporters.
“Nine months is very clear and will help people understand why ‘up to date’ is the right way to think about vaccination now,” said Duclos.
“‘Fully vaccinated’ makes no sense now. It’s about ‘up to date.’ So am I up to date in my vaccination? Have I received a vaccination in the last nine months?”
Duclos previously called for the provinces to make vaccinations mandatory and when asked by reporters if mandates would return this fall, he replied “We must continue to fight against Covid.”
Canada seems to be one of the few countries outside Communist China who is frantically clinging to the COVID narrative, relentlessly pushing largely ineffective (and arguably dangerous) vaccines on an increasingly fed up population.
The Trudeau regime is increasingly unpopular, a recent Angus Reid poll finding those who “strongly support” the government falling into single digits. The largest single category was “strongly disapprove” at 41%,
Reeling with numerous scandals, corruption and gaffes, Justin Trudeau holds power solely through the merger of his party with the Canada’s Socialist NDP, headed by millionaire Jagmeet Singh.
The deal ostensibly keeps him in office until 2025. Singh is also on the ropes, frequently being jeered in public even among his base constituency in Brampton, Ontario. His brother lost his seat in the recent Ontario election, and Sing himself was run out of a campaign stop by enraged Sikhs who called him “a sell out”.
[...]
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| ‘Going well’: Pope Francis hopes for renewal of Vatican-China deal in October |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-05-2022, 03:17 PM - Forum: Pope Francis
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‘Going well’: Pope Francis hopes for renewal of Vatican-China deal in October
AsiaNews wrote in 2018 that ‘underground Catholics bitterly suspect that the Vatican has abandoned them’ since the deal was signed.
![[Image: Pope-Francis-reuters-810x500.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Pope-Francis-reuters-810x500.jpg)
Pope Francis speaking with Reuters July 2, 2022
Tue Jul 5, 2022
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Francis has praised the controversial Vatican deal with China, saying that it “is going well” and that he hopes it will be renewed in October.
Speaking to Reuters on July 2, Pope Francis doubled down on the secretive deal the Vatican has made with China, which is due for its second renewal in October of this year.
“The agreement is moving well, and I hope that in October it can be renewed,” Pope Francis told the news service. Earlier in the interview, Francis had touched on the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade in the U.S. and stamped on circling rumors about his possible resignation.
His latest comments, released on July 5, dealt with the Sino-Vatican deal which has been the subject of much criticism from China experts as well as Catholic clergy in Asia, notably Cardinal Joseph Zen.
First signed in 2018 and later renewed in 2020, the deal’s specific details remain undisclosed with a peculiar air of mystery surrounding them. China expert Stephen Mosher described the deal as an action which was “perhaps the most controversial of a papacy dogged by controversy.”
When speaking to Reuters, Francis defended the deal as being a necessary part of diplomacy and something which echoed the actions of Popes John XXII and Paul VI in their dealings with Communist nations.
“Diplomacy is like that. When you face a blocked situation, you have to find the possible way, not the ideal way, out of it,” he said.
“Diplomacy is the art of the possible and of doing things to make the possible become a reality,” he added.
READ: Pope Francis’ deal with Communist China has led to greater persecution of Catholics
Reportedly, the Vatican-China deal recognizes the state-approved version of the Catholic Church and allows the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to appoint bishops. The Pope apparently maintains a veto power although in practice it is the CCP who has control. It also allegedly allows for the removal and replacement of legitimate bishops by CCP-approved bishops.
In an earlier defense of the deal, Francis described it as forming a “new chapter of the Catholic Church in China.” However, the reality on the ground is marked by a heightened increase in religious persecution since the deal was signed, which the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China described as a direct consequence of the deal. In its 2020 report, the Commission wrote that the persecution witnessed was “of an intensity not seen since the Cultural Revolution.”
A growing number of bishops, priests and lay people have been arrested and held in isolation following the deal, with the Vatican’s official media outlet ignoring these instances and instead praising the appointment of bishops which have taken place since the deal was signed.
READ: China’s communist-run church declares ‘independence’ immediately after deal with Vatican
“It’s a “betrayal of the real Church,” Hong Kong emeritus Cardinal Joseph Zen said of the deal in July 2020 before revealing a startling detail: “It’s not an isolated episode. It’s already a long-standing policy of the Vatican not to offend the Chinese government.”
Yet announcing the deal’s renewal in 2020, Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin declared that “we are content. There are still many other problems, but we never expected the accord to resolve all the problems.”
Cardinal Zen, recently arrested by the authorities, has been an outspoken critic of the deal since its inception. His arrest is seen as a key moment testing the Vatican’s commitment either to Chinese Catholics or to Beijing. Cardinal Parolin, however, stated that his arrest “should not be read as ‘a disavowal’ of the agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China on the appointments of bishops.”
A total of six Chinese bishops are now reported to have been consecrated under the terms of the deal, with around 40 bishops still needing to be appointed.
Speaking to Catholic News Agency last year, Father Bernardo Cervellera, the former editor-in-chief of AsiaNews, said that all the bishops so far appointed under the deal had been “president or secretary of the Patriotic Association [the state-approved church]. So this means that they are very near to the government.”
Cervellera added that priests “above all, they have to praise the glory of the Communist Party.” Clerics are also required by law to sign documents promising to support the CCP.
Pope Francis appeared not to take note of such concerns when speaking with Reuters, commenting that “they (the Chinese) also have their own problems because it is not the same situation in every region of the country. It (the treatment of Catholics) also depends on local leaders.”
The Argentine pontiff described the deal’s slow progress as “‘the Chinese way,’ because the Chinese have that sense of time that nobody can rush them.”
Among the notable critics of the deal is the former senior Vatican official in Hong Kong, Monsignor Javier Herrera-Corona. Over a number of months last year, Mgr. Herrera-Corona told missionaries in Hong Kong to prepare for further religious persecution as restrictions were only going to increase.
He was removed as head of the Holy See Study Mission in Hong Kong in February this year, and appointed as Nuncio in the Republic of the Congo and in Gabon. His sudden reassignment, along with that of the senior Vatican official in Taiwan, prompted speculation that Beijing was exercising influence on the Vatican to remove clerics the authorities took issue with.
With the Vatican now looking to renew the deal, it appears that Chinese Catholics will be subject to continued persecution, as AsiaNews wrote – only hours after the deal was signed in 2018 – saying that “[u]nderground Catholics bitterly suspect that the Vatican has abandoned them.”
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| Manufacturing Plants Aren’t Just Mysteriously Getting Burned Down In The United States ... |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-05-2022, 07:30 AM - Forum: Global News
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Manufacturing Plants Aren’t Just Mysteriously Getting Burned Down In The United States,
It’s Happening Around The World…
![[Image: plant-fire.jpg]](https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/plant-fire.jpg)
GP [adapted] | July 4, 2022
As Americans tackle accelerating inflation, skyrocketing gas prices and food and baby formula shortages following the manufactured COVID pandemic, manufacturing plants are mysteriously being burned down on a regular basis.
In 2021, Resilinc, a leading global supply chain monitoring and risk management firm that has been tracking disruptions at manufacturing plants for over a decade, was prompted to create a WarRoom to track the sudden uptick of supply chain disruptions.
The company issued 11,642 to alerts notifying its, which include today’s largest multinational organizations, about supply chain disruptions; an 88 percent increase in supply chain disruptions in a single year.
North America experienced the 5,417 supply chain disruptions, more than any other developed nation, followed by Europe which saw 2,838 and Asia, 2,128.
Manufacturing plants aren’t accidentally getting destroyed in the United States. Destructive fires like those raging across in food factories across the United States have suspiciously become commonplace around the world.
More factory fires occurred in 2021 than any year in recorded history.
Nearly a quarter of the supply chain disruptions globally were attributed to manufacturing plants being set aflame, according to exclusive data compiled from Resilinc’s EventWatch monitoring database.
“Resilinc issued 1,946 Factory Fire alerts in 2021, an increase of 129 percent year-over year,” Resilinc communications director Melissa Gieringer said in a statement issued to the Gateway Pundit.
The company attributes the sudden cause of fires to labor shortages caused by the pandemic.
“The uptick is due mostly to gaps in regulatory and process execution as well as shortage of skilled labor in warehouses. Factory fires are contributing to record breaking supply shortages. If a warehouse goes down for a month due to a factory fire the trickle-down effect is huge,” Gieringer said. ” If no one is checking that the fire sprinklers work, or if there are flammable materials – like cardboard – left on the floor because there is not enough staff available to clean up, it can turn into a bad scenario.”
“Take this example: In October 2020 a fire broke out at a semiconductor manufacturing plant in Japan; it took three days to put the fire out and when the dust settled, production lines were estimated to be down a minimum of six months,” she continued. “As a result, procurement teams – from the hi-tech to automotive sectors – were scrambling. The price of some chips went from $5 to $110 in a matter of days and ultimately cost sourcing organizations tens of millions of dollars. A risk assessment survey later revealed that the site did not have anyone checking the automatic sprinkler or fire suppression system. This fire also contributed to the current chip shortage that is significantly impacting carmakers.”
While Reslinc correlates the uptick in fires at manufacturing plants to a global workforce shortage, more factories have been mysteriously set aflame in the United States than any other country.
Workers around the world were forced to leave work when the pandemic hit amid COVID lockdowns and vaccine mandates and have yet to return to factories. But there have been more than twice as many fires at manufacturing plants in the U.S. than any other country.
“Among the countries that saw the highest number of factory fire alerts [in 2021] were the United States (425), India (159), Germany (122), South Korea (117), Mexico (97), the United Kingdom (78) and Japan (72),” Resilinc reports.
Resilinc has yet to release data showcasing the number of fires at manufacturing plants throughout 2022, but the Gateway Pundit has compiled a list documenting the number of major fires that have erupted at food industry facilities to date in 2022:
1/2/22 Firefighters battled a fire that burned down 75 percent of Van Drunen Farms Tu Thill plant in Momence, Illinois
1/7/22 Damage to a poultry processing plant on Hamilton’s Mountain following an overnight fire in Oregon
1/8/22 Two warehouses and a cold storage were destroyed in a fire at Raw Far Creamery in Fresno, California
1/13/22 Firefighters worked for 12 hours to put a fire out at the Cargill-Nutrena plant in Lecompte, LA
1/20/22 A fire broke out at Washington Potato Food Processing Plant in Warden, Washington
1/31/22 Wiston Weaver Company, a fertilizer plant with 600 tons of ammonium nitrate inside caught on fire in Winston-Salem, North Carolina
2/3/22 A massive fire swept through Wisconsin River Meats in Mauston, Wisconsin
2/3/22 At least 130 cows were killed in a fire at Percy Farm in Stowe
2/4/22 Diamond Walnut Growers, a food processing plant was set aflame and permanently shut down following the fire in Live Oak, California
2/15/22 Bonanza Meat Company goes up in flames in El Paso, Texas
2/15/22 Nearly a week after the fire destroyed most of the Shearer’s Foods plant in Hermiston
2/16/22 A fire had broken at Louis Dreyfus Company, the US largest soybean processing and biodiesel plant in Claypool, Indiana
2/18/22 An early morning fire tore through the milk parlor at Bess View Farm
2/19/22 Three people were injured, and one was hospitalized, after an ammonia leak at Lincoln Premium Poultry in Fremont, Nebraska
2/22/22 The Shearer’s Foods plant caught fire after a propane boiler exploded in Hermiston, Oregon
2/28/22 A smoldering pile of sulfur quickly became a raging chemical fire at Nutrien Ag Solutions
2/28/22 A man was hurt after a fire broke out at the Shadow Brook Farm and Dutch Girl Creamery
3/4/22 294,800 chickens destroyed at farm in Stoddard, Missouri
3/4/22 644,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, Maryland
3/8/22 243,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in New Castle, Delaware
3/10/22 663,400 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, MD
3/10/22 915,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Taylor, IA
3/14/22 The blaze at 244 Meadow Drive was discovered shortly after 5 p.m. by farm owner Wayne Hoover
3/14/22 2,750,700 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Jefferson, Wisconsin
3/16/22 A fire at a Walmart warehouse distribution center has cast a large plume of smoke visible throughout Indianapolis.
3/16/22 Nestle Food Plant extensively damaged in fire and new production destroyed Jonesboro, Arkansas
3/17/22 5,347,500 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Buena Vista, Iowa
3/17/22 147,600 chickens destroyed at farm in Kent, Delaware
3/18/22 315,400 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, Maryland
3/22/22 172,000 Turkeys destroyed on farms in South Dakota
3/22/22 570,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Butler, Nebraska
3/23/22 A massive fire erupted at a Pepsi Food Processing Plant in Piscataway, New Jersey
3/24/22 Fire fighters from numerous towns are battling a major fire at the McCrum potato processing facility in Belfast.
3/24/22 418,500 chickens destroyed at farm in Butler, Nebraska
3/25/22 250,300 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Franklin, Iowa
3/26/22 311,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
3/27/22 126,300 Turkeys destroyed in South Dakota
3/28/22 1,460,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Guthrie, Iowa
3/29/22 A massive fire burned 40,000 pounds of food at Maricopa Food Pantry in Maricopa, Arizona
3/31/22 A structure fire caused significant damage to a large portion of key fresh onion packing facilities in south Texas
3/31/22 76,400 Turkeys destroyed in Osceola, Iowa
3/31/22 5,011,700 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Osceola, Iowa
4/6/22 281,600 chickens destroyed at farm in Wayne, North Carolina
4/9/22 76,400 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/9/22 208,900 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/12/22 89,700 chickens destroyed at farm in Wayne, North Carolina
4/12/22 1,746,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Dixon, Nebraska
4/12/22 259,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Minnesota
4/13/22 Fire destroys East Conway Beef & Pork Meat Market in Conway, New Hampshire
4/13/22 Plane crashes into Gem State Processing, Idaho potato and food processing plant
4/13/22 77,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/14/22 Taylor Farms Food Processing plant burns down Salinas, California.
4/14/22 99,600 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/15/22 1,380,500 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Lancaster, Minnesota
4/19/22 Azure Standard, the nation’s premier independent distributor of organic and healthy food, was destroyed by fire in Dufur, Oregon
4/19/22 A fire broke out at Nutiren AG Solutions prompting evacuations in Leoti, Kansas
4/19/22 339,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/19/22 58,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Montrose, Color
4/20/22 2,000,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Minnesota
4/21/22 A small plane crashed in the lot of a General Mills plant in Covington, Georgia
4/22/22 197,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/23/22 200,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/24 Fire broke out around 3:45 am at General Mills manufacturing site in Cedar Rapids, Iowa
4/25/22 Officials launched an investigation into the cause of a fire that broke out at Hormel Foods Facility in Suffolk, Virginia
4/25/22 1,501,200 chickens destroyed at egg farm Cache, Utah
4/26/22 307,400 chickens destroyed at farm Lancaster Pennsylvania
4/27/22 2,118,000 chickens destroyed at farm Knox, Nebraska
4/28/22 the basement of Agriway Partners was set ablaze in Kalona, Washington
4/28/22 Egg-laying facility in Iowa kills 5.3 million chickens resulting in plant firing over 200 workers
4/28/22 Allen Harim Foods processing plant killed nearly 2 million chickens in Delaware
4/28/22 110,700 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
4/29/22 1,366,200 chickens destroyed at farm Weld Colorado
4/30 A soybean processing tank caught fire at the Perdue Farms plant in Chesapeake, West Virginia
4/30/22 13,800 chickens destroyed at farm Sequoia Oklahoma
5/1/22 A fire broke out at Saladinao’s food processing plant in Fresno, California
5/3/22 58,000 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
5/3/22 118,900 Turkeys destroyed Beadle S Dakota
5/3/22 114,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
5/3/22 118,900 Turkeys destroyed Lyon Minnesota
5/7/22 20,100 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
5/7/22 A fire erupted at JBS meat packing plant in Green Bay, Wisconsin
5/10/22 72,300 chickens destroyed at farm Lancaster Pennsylvania
5/10/22 61,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
5/10/22 35,100 Turkeys destroyed Muskegon, Michigan
5/13/22 10,500 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
5/14/22 83,400 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
5/17/22 79,00 chickens destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
5/18/22 7,200 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
5/19/22 Train carrying limestone derailed in Jensen Beach FL
5/21/22 57,000 Turkeys were destroyed on a farm in Dakota Minnesota
5/23/22 4,000 ducks were destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
5/29/22 A Saturday night fire destroyed a poultry building at Forsman Farms in Howard Lake, Minneapolis
5/31/22 3,000,000 chickens were destroyed by fire at Forsman facility in Stockholm Township, Minnesota
6/2/22 30,000 ducks were destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
6/7/22 A fire occurred Tuesday evening at the JBS meat packing plant in Green Bay.
6/8/22 Firefighters from Tangipahoa Fire District 1 respond to a fire at the Purina Feed Mill in Arcola
6/9/22 Irrigation water was canceled in California (the #1 producer of food in the US) and storage water flushed directly out to the delta.
6/9/22 Freeport LNG, one of the largest US export plants that produces liquefied natural gas was shut down following an explosion at its Texas Gulf Coast facility.
6/12/22 Largest Pork Company in the US Shuts Down California Plant Due to High Costs
6/13/22 Fire Breaks Out at Festive Foods in Belmont, Wisconsin
6/14/22 Over 10,000 head of cattle have reportedly died in the recent Kansas heat wave
6/23/22 George’s Inc.: Poultry and Prepared Foods announced it will close one of its food processing plants in Campbell County, Tennessee
Fact-checkers, including Reuters and Snopes, insist claims that fires at processing plants are intentionally orchestrated to create supply chain shortages is conspiracy theory.
But the string of fires that continue to damage manufacturing plants across the United States appears to be a deliberate effort to sabotage food processing operations.
According to the FBI’s Cyber Division, cyber-attack threats on agricultural cooperatives are an imminent threat.
“Ransomware actors may be more likely to attack agricultural cooperatives during critical planting and harvest seasons, disrupting operations, causing financial loss, and negatively impacting the food supply chain,” the bureau warned in an April memo.
“A significant disruption of grain production could impact the entire food chain, since grain is not only consumed by humans but also used for animal feed … In addition, a significant disruption of grain and corn production could impact commodities trading and stocks.”
The string of fires at food plants comes as the World Economic Forum and global elites call for a “global reset.” after the Rockefeller Foundation outlined plans to exploit the COVID crisis to transform America’s food system.
The “Reset The Table: Meeting the Moment to Transform The U.S. Food System,” a document published by the Rockefeller Foundation on July 28, 2020, months after COVID was declared a national emergency, warns the U.S. food system must be seized and transformed in the name of “social justice” and “environmental protection.”
Rockefeller Foundation’s managing director of Food Initiative Sara Farley detailed plans about “How to reimagine our food system for a post-COVID world” in an article published in June on WEF’s website.
It makes you wonder [...]
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| Abp. Viganò: ‘Pride’ movement is satanic, must be conquered by ‘reparation,’ charity |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-05-2022, 07:09 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Abp. Viganò: ‘Pride’ movement is satanic, must be conquered by ‘reparation,’ charity
The 'pride' movement will lead only to 'pain, illness, and death – eternal death,' said the archbishop.
Archbishop Viganò delivering his address to the reparation event. YouTube screenshot
Jul 4, 2022
Editor’s note: The following is a message delivered by Archbishop Viganò to the march of reparation held by the Blessed Giovanna Scopelli Association of Reggio Emilia on July 2, 2022.
(LifeSiteNews) – Dear Faithful, Laudetur Iesus Christus – Praised be Jesus Christ!
For those who are participating in this evening’s procession of reparation, and especially for the participants who are less young, it seems almost incredible that in the course of a few decades Italy could have been transformed in such a radical way, canceling the legacy of Catholicism that made her great and prosperous among nations.
We are witnessing a process – apparently irreversible – of apostasy of the Faith; a process which is the opposite of what St. Leo the Great described in celebrating the solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, in which he praised the providential role of the Alma Urbe, the beloved City of Rome: having been a teacher of error, Rome became a disciple of the Truth, wrote the great Pontiff. Today we could say, with the dismay of children betrayed by their father, that the Rome of the Martyrs and Saints having been a teacher of Truth, has become a disciple of error. Because the present apostasy, which involves civil and religious authority in a rebellion against God the Creator and Redeemer, did not start from below, but from the top.
Those who govern public affairs as well as the Pastors of the Church show that they are obedient to the anti-gospel of the world, and while refusing to pay due respect to Christ the King and obedience to His holy Will, they bend their knees before the new idols of political correctness and burn incense before the simulacrum of humanity brutalized by vice and sin. Those who today lead the people in temporal and spiritual things have as their purpose not the common good of citizens and the salvation of the souls of the faithful, but their corruption, their damnation. And the masses, having abandoned the way of honesty, righteousness and holiness, abandon themselves to deception, corruption and infernal revolt against God.
It is not surprising to see the obscene manifestations of “Pride” along the streets of the cities: the public space that the aberrant have conquered in recent decades had been abandoned well before by Catholics, whose clergy considered professions in honor of the Blessed Sacrament, the Blessed Virgin, and Patron Saints as ostentations of “post-Tridentine triumphalism.”
It is not surprising to see the legalization of divorce, abortion, euthanasia, sodomitic unions and all the worst that a deviant and insane humanity is capable: if this has happened, it is because Catholics were told that they could not impose their own vision of the world and of society, and that they would have to coexist, in the name of democracy and freedom, with the enemies of Christ. And it was a deception, because the tolerance that they demanded of the Christian majority of the country is no longer allowed, and everyone must submit to the dictatorship of aligned thought, gender ideology, and LGBTQ doctrine. Don’t you remember? Marriage was not questioned, but we were asked to accept civil unions. And once the interest groups had been given legitimacy, the door was opened to same-sex marriage, adoptions for same-sex couples, surrogate motherhood, postnatal abortion, and euthanasia imposed in some nations even on young people and the poor.
Scelesta turba clamitat: Regnare Christum nolumus, we sing in the hymn Te Saeculorum Principem for the feast of Christ the King. The delirious rabble shouts: We do not want Christ to reign. That infernal cry, inspired by Satan, is perhaps the only honest thing they can say. And it is true: in the social Kingdom of Christ there is no place for vice; there can be no legitimacy for sin nor tolerance for the corruption of young people. Our adversaries know well that the Civitas Dei and the civitas diaboli are enemies, and that any coexistence is not only impossible but unthinkable and absurd, since Christian society is antithetical and irreconcilable with “secular” society.
You have gathered to give public witness to the Faith, with the intention of making reparation for the sacrileges and blasphemies of the scelesta turba against Jesus Christ and His Most Holy Mother. Because in the face of the cruel and obscene hatred of these rebellious souls we must follow the example of the Lord, outraged by His executioners at the same moment that He sacrificed Himself on the Cross for their salvation. It is in fact Christ himself, with His Incarnation, Passion and Death, who first made reparation for the infinite sins of men towards the eternal Father. For only a God could atone for disobedience to God, and only a Man could offer this reparation in the name of mankind. And we too, who are living members of the Mystical Body of Christ which is the Holy Church, can and must make reparation for the offenses and sins of our fellow human beings with the same spirit, the same obedience, and the same trusting abandonment to the Father.
And while we look with sorrow at the multitude of sins erected as a model to be imitated by a society that is against man precisely because it is against God, the duty of Charity requires us to pray for those who have allowed themselves to be seduced by the deception of the Serpent, so that they may convert and repent. The inclusive world they promised you; the supposed freedom to be and do what you want regardless of the Law of the Lord; the license and vice that is celebrated and the virtue that is mocked and discredited – these are all lies, just as the promise, “You will be like gods,” that Satan made to our first parents in the earthly paradise was also a lie.
I address myself to those who are taking part in these manifestations of so-called “gay pride.” No: you will not be like gods; you will be like beasts. You will not have happiness; you will have pain, illness, and death – eternal death. You will not have peace; you will have discord and quarrels and wars. You will not have prosperity; you will have poverty. You will not be free; you will be slaves. And this will happen indefectibly, because the Liar is a murderer from the beginning, and he wants your death, erasing in your eyes the image of God, stealing from you that blessed eternity that he first lost with his own rebellion. Because the first to sin by pride was Lucifer, with his Non serviam – I will not bend; I will not bow to God; I will not recognize Him as my Lord and Creator. How can you hope that he who hates the Author of life can love you who are His creatures? How can you believe that the one who has been condemned to eternal damnation could be capable of promising you that eternal bliss of which he was the first to be forever deprived?
This procession must not be an occasion for confrontation, but rather an opportunity to show the many people deceived by the Evil One that there exists a people who are animated by sentiments of Faith and Charity, a people which with generosity and with a supernatural gaze offers its prayers, fasts, and sacrifices to implore forgiveness for the sins of their brothers. Charity, founded on the immutable Truth of God, is a tremendous weapon against Satan and an infallible instrument to convert the world and bring many souls back to the Lord. Bring them back to the One who shed his blood even for them, out of love – an infinite, irrevocable love, a love that conquers the world, a love that moves mountains, a love that gives meaning to our life and does not frustrate our existence.
When we see the image of the Savior nailed to the Cross and think of the torments He suffered to ransom and redeem us, we cannot remain insensitive, just as the pagans, idolaters, and sinners of past centuries have not remained insensitive. Societies corrupt in intellect and will, given over to the worst vices, and ensnared by false religions have been conquered by that love – indeed: by that charity – which led the martyrs, even children, women and the elderly not to react against their executioners, so as not to fail in God’s love. How many have been converted by seeing Christians die with dignity as they are persecuted for their faith! How many have been baptized after witnessing the example of Christians and the simple Truth of the Gospel!
And so let us carry out this reparation. Let us do it with a supernatural spirit, convinced that precisely in the humble following of Christ on the way to Calvary we will be able to lead many souls to Him who today are so far away. And the more we see the unleashing of the powers of evil, let us persevere all the more in the good and in the certainty of the victory of Christ, the true and only Light of the world, over the darkness of sin and death.
Let us ask the Holy Spirit with filial trust to infuse His holy Grace into sinners, to touch their hearts, enlighten their minds, and encourage their will. So that those who have hitherto been teachers of error and examples of sin may, through the help and mercy of God and through the intercession of His Most Holy Mother and our Mother, be disciples of truth and an example of virtue. And so may it be.
+ Carlo Maria Vigano, Archbishop
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| Pope Francis speaks on resignation plans, Roe v. Wade, and pro-abortion politicians |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-04-2022, 07:38 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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Pope Francis denies he is planning to resign soon
![[Image: A2FOUCW5NRICRPDQWYQCVYM2FU.jpg]](https://www.reuters.com/resizer/yW-47qo2PYy_2NPZhAaLXidqkiI=/960x0/filters:quality(80)/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/A2FOUCW5NRICRPDQWYQCVYM2FU.jpg)
Pope Francis speaks during an exclusive interview with Reuters, at the Vatican, July 2, 2022. REUTERS/Remo Casilli
Reuters | July 4, 2022
Summary- Unsubstantiated rumours fuelled reports of imminent resignation
- Pope laughs off rumours of cancer: "Doctors didn't tell me"
- Trips to Moscow, Kyiv appear more likely; possibly in September
- On U.S. court decision, pope says abortion is 'hiring a hit man'
VATICAN CITY, July 4 (Reuters) - Pope Francis has dismissed reports that he plans to resign in the near future, saying he is on track to visit Canada this month and hopes to be able to go to Moscow and Kyiv as soon as possible after that.
In an exclusive interview in his Vatican residence, Francis also denied rumours that he had cancer, joking that his doctors "didn't tell me anything about it", and for the first time gave details of the knee condition that has prevented him carrying out some duties.
In a 90-minute conversation on Saturday afternoon, conducted in Italian, with no aides present, the 85-year-old pontiff also repeated his condemnation of abortion following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month.
Rumours have swirled in the media that a conjunction of events in late August, including meetings with the world's cardinals to discuss a new Vatican constitution, a ceremony to induct new cardinals, and a visit to the Italian city of L'Aquila, could foreshadow a resignation announcement.
L'Aquila is associated with Pope Celestine V, who resigned the papacy in 1294. Pope Benedict XVI visited the city four years before he resigned in 2013, the first pope to do so in about 600 years.
But Francis, alert and at ease throughout the interview as he discussed a wide range of international and Church issues, laughed the idea off.
"All of these coincidences made some think that the same 'liturgy' would happen," he said. "But it never entered my mind. For the moment no, for the moment, no. Really!"
Francis did, however, repeat his often stated position that he might resign someday if failing health made it impossible for him to run the Church - something that had been almost unthinkable before Benedict XVI.
Asked when he thought that might be, he said: "We don't know. God will say."
KNEE INJURY
The interview took place on the day he was to have left for Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, a trip he had to cancel because doctors said he might also have to miss a trip to Canada from July 24-30 unless he agreed to have 20 more days of therapy and rest for his right knee. read more
He said the decision to cancel the Africa trip had caused him "much suffering", particularly because he wanted to promote peace in both countries. read more
Francis used a cane as he walked into a reception room on the ground floor of the Santa Marta guest house where he has lived since his election in 2013, eschewing the papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace used by his predecessors.
The room has a copy of one of Francis' favourite paintings: "Mary, Untier of Knots", created around 1700 by the German Joachim Schmidtner.
Asked how he was, the pope joked: "I'm still alive!"
He gave details of his ailment for the first time in public, saying he had suffered "a small fracture" in the knee when he took a misstep while a ligament was inflamed.
"I am well, I am slowly getting better," he said, adding that the fracture was knitting, helped by laser and magnet therapy.
Francis also dismissed rumours that a cancer had been found a year ago when he underwent a six-hour operation to remove part of his colon because of diverticulitis, a condition common in the elderly.
"It (the operation) was a great success," he said, adding with a laugh that "they didn't tell me anything" about the supposed cancer, which he dismissed as "court gossip".
But he said he did not want an operation on his knee because the general anaesthetic in last year's surgery had had negative side-effects.
PAPAL TRIP TO MOSCOW?
Speaking of the situation in Ukraine, Francis noted that there have been contacts between Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about a possible trip to Moscow.
The initial signs were not good. No pope has ever visited Moscow, and Francis has repeatedly condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine; last Thursday he implicitly accused it of waging a "cruel and senseless war of aggression". read more
When the Vatican first asked about a trip several months ago, Francis said Moscow replied that it was not the right time.
But he hinted that something may now have changed.
"I would like to go (to Ukraine), and I wanted to go to Moscow first. We exchanged messages about this because I thought that if the Russian president gave me a small window to serve the cause of peace ...
"And now it is possible, after I come back from Canada, it is possible that I manage to go to Ukraine," he said. "The first thing is to go to Russia to try to help in some way, but I would like to go to both capitals."
ABORTION RULING
Asked about the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling establishing a woman's right to have an abortion, Francis said he respected the decision but did not have enough information to speak about it from a juridical point of view. read more
But he strongly condemned abortion, comparing it to "hiring a hit man". The Catholic Church teaches that life begins at the moment of conception.
"I ask: Is it legitimate, is it right, to eliminate a human life to resolve a problem?"
Francis was asked about a debate in the United States over whether a Catholic politician who is personally opposed to abortion but supports others' right to choose should be allowed to receive the sacrament of communion.
House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi, for example, has been barred by the conservative archbishop of her home diocese of San Francisco from receiving it there, but is regularly given communion at a parish in Washington, D.C. Last week, she received the sacrament at a papal Mass in the Vatican. read more
"When the Church loses its pastoral nature, when a bishop loses his pastoral nature, it causes a political problem," the pope said. "That's all I can say."
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| Why Does China Own So Much of Ukraine? |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-04-2022, 07:18 AM - Forum: Global News
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Opinion piece:
Why Does China Own So Much of Ukraine?
Other countries should be careful about allowing sales of farmland to hostile powers.
![[Image: 2dbc76a7972a523f333228de314f7d60c53cbcb3.jpg]](https://archive.ph/NnKAB/2dbc76a7972a523f333228de314f7d60c53cbcb3.jpg)
An employee stands near a production line that processes pork in Zhengzhou, China, April 13, 2017.
PHOTO: QILAI SHEN/BLOOMBERG NEWS
WSJ | June 29, 2022
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is causing global hunger and galloping food prices, and future supply-chain disruptions will bring more such misery. Many countries are realizing that they should grow more food, but they’ve sold much of their best land to China, which uses it to feed its own population. A few years ago, China bought nearly one-tenth of Ukraine’s arable farmland. Countries should start screening those seeking to buy their farmland, as they already do with prospective purchasers of sensitive technology.
“There can be no effective solution to the global food crisis without reintegrating Ukraine’s food production, as well as the food and fertilizer produced by Russia, into world markets,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on June 24, warning that the world faces multiple famines this year and worse in 2023. But Ukrainian grains and other foods won’t be able to enter the world market any time soon because the sea route remains blocked by Russia. Ukraine is sending some grain to world markets via rail to Poland and Romania, but doing so is laborious and expensive. Before the war, around 90% of Ukraine’s grain was exported via its sea ports.
Over the past few years, Chinese buyers have bought farmland in countries ranging from the U.S. and France to Vietnam. In 2013 Hong Kong-based food giant WH Group bought Smithfield, America’s largest pork producer, and more than 146,000 acres of Missouri farmland. In the same year, Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps bought 9% of Ukraine’s famously fertile farmland, equal to 5% of the country’s total territory, with a 50-year lease. (In 2020, the U.S. imposed sanctions on the Chinese company over human-rights abuses.) Between 2011 and 2020, China bought nearly seven million hectares of farmland around the world. Firms from the U.K. bought nearly two million hectares, while U.S. and Japanese firms bought less than a million hectares.
“What matters most is what the Chinese do with the land,” said J. Peter Pham, a longtime Africa analyst who served as the Trump administration’s envoy to Africa’s Great Lakes region. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, “they got approval from the previous regime to take 100,000 hectares to produce for palm oil,” the cultivation of which causes damaging deforestation. “And in Zimbabwe, they’re producing beef for export back to China, which is neither a sustainable nor wise use of farmland in a country where people go hungry for want of basic staples.”
Loss of arable land is becoming calamitous for countries better-positioned than Zimbabwe. By April, mostly as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, wholesale food prices had risen 18% from a year earlier. That’s the largest 12-month increase in nearly five decades, Bloomberg reports. In France, wheat prices have doubled since 2020. And China is likely to want to buy more foreign land. It has 21% of the world’s population but only 7% of productive farmland.
Ukraine’s fate highlights the peril of having another country in charge of a chunk of one’s territory. While Kyiv might be wary of an ally of Russia controlling its land, it also has to worry that China could divest its holdings abruptly, thereby exacerbating Ukraine’s economic woes.
A bill sponsored by Rep. Dan Newhouse (R., Wash.), currently before the House Appropriations Committee, proposes to ban Chinese, Russian, Iranian and North Korean companies from buying American farmland. It follows a bill introduced in 2020 by Republican Sens. Jim Inhofe and Thom Tillis, which would require screening of farmland acquisitions by foreign entities.
Such scrutiny should be accompanied by efforts to buy land back from China and any other strategic rivals. Allowing hostile powers to own farmland has become too risky. Demand for arable land will grow as the climate changes. At the same time, geopolitical confrontation will cause more disrupted food-supply chains. Every hectare counts.
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| From the Golden Legend: The Death of Simon Magus |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-03-2022, 07:57 AM - Forum: Resources Online
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The Death of Simon Magus
Adapted from The Golden Legend by Jacobus Voragine (1275), trans. by William Caston, 1483
![[Image: H233_Dea.jpg]](https://traditioninaction.org/religious/images_F-J/H233_Dea.jpg)
Death of Simon Magus from the Nuremburg Chronicle
After St. Peter had made many disputes with Simon Magus, or Simon the Magician, who was each time shamed and proved powerless, Simon returned to Rome and was received again into the friendship of the Emperor Nero.
And then, to prove to the Emperor that his gods were the greater and would not endure such humiliation, this Simon Magus assembled the people and told them that he would leave the city which he was wont to defend and protect, and set a day in which he would ascend into heaven. For he said, he could no longer endure dwelling on this earth.
Then, on the day that he had established, he went up to a high tower which was on the Capitol, and there was crowned with laurel. Afterward he called on his gods the demons and began to fly in the air.
Then said St. Paul to St. Peter, "It falls to me to pray, and to thee to command."
Then said Nero: "This man is very God, and ye be two traitors."
Then said St. Peter to St. Paul: "Paul, my brother, lift up thy head and see how Simon flys."
Then St. Paul said to St. Peter when he saw Simon Magus rising high in the air: "Peter, why dost thou tarry for God now calls us to act?"
Then said Peter: "I charge and conjure you angels of Satan, which bear Simon Magus in the air, by the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, that you bear or sustain him no longer, but let him fall to the earth."
And anon they let him fall to the ground. With great speed he descended and broke his neck and head, and he died there forthwith.
And when Nero heard that Simon was dead and that he had lost such a man, he was sorrowful, and said to the Apostles: "You have done this in despisal of me, and therefore I shall destroy you." And then the enraged Nero arrested Peter and Paul and threw them into the Mamertine prison before their execution.
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Simon Magus falls from the sky at the command of St. Peter & St. Paul, painting by Avanzino Nucci, 1620 |
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| A legacy of scandal: Pope Francis says he has ‘carried out’ plans laid during ‘pre-Conclave meetings |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-03-2022, 07:05 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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A legacy of scandal: Pope Francis says he has ‘carried out’ plans laid during ‘pre-Conclave meetings’
'I carried out the things that were asked then. I do not think there was anything original of mine. I set in motion what we all had requested.'
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Pope Francis honored Cardinal Godfried Danneels (2nd from left) by letting him stand alongside the pope on the balcony on the night of his election on March 13, 2013.
Jul 2, 2022
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) When asked in a recent interview about the agenda and objectives of his pontificate, Pope Francis said he had “carried out the things that were asked,” referring to discussions among the cardinals at their “pre-Conclave meetings.”
“I picked up everything that we the Cardinals had said at the pre-Conclave meetings,” the pontiff related, “the things we believed the new Pope should do. Then, we spoke of the things that needed to be changed, the issues to tackle. I carried out the things that were asked then. I do not think there was anything original of mine. I set in motion what we all had requested.”
The comments about the conclave were made in an interview with Argentina’s national news agency Télam. Then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was present at the pre-conclave meetings the Pope mentioned, though McCarrick was too old to vote in the conclave itself. Present also was Cardinal Walter Casper, the outspoken advocate of what later appeared in Amoris Laetitia.
From Amoris Laetitia to Pachamama – A legacy riddled with scandal
In order to understand something of what might be meant by “the things that were asked then” in those pre-conclave meetings, it may be helpful to recall some of the notable happenings that have taken place during the current pontificate that have thrown the Church into serious crisis.
In 2016, Pope Francis published the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, in which he proposed that the divorced and remarried could be admitted to Holy Communion without the obligation to live in continence, contrary to the constant teaching and discipline of the Church, expressed by Pope John Paul II in Familiaris Consortio. When four cardinals formally asked for clarification on how this teaching was compatible with several fundamental revealed doctrines concerning the moral life, the life of grace, the sacraments of Marriage, Confession, and the Eucharist, as well as the teachings of Christ in the Gospel, they were met with utter silence from the Pope.
Then in 2018, Pope Francis changed the Catechism of the Catholic Church on capital punishment, in which the universal magisterial teaching of the Church that it is always just for the State to have recourse to capital punishment for an irreparable and commensurate crime was set aside and replaced by the claim that capital punishment was “inadmissible” and “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”
Also in 2018, through Cardinal Parolin the Pope agreed to the Vatican-Beijing deal that handed over to the Chinese government, run by the Chinese Communist Party, the power to nominate the bishops of the Chinese “Catholic” Church, contrary to the current Code of Canon Law and the stance of both John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Cardinal Zen of Hong Kong denounced the deal as a complete betrayal of the underground Catholic Church in China, which has suffered for decades under persecution from the atheistic communist government of Beijing. The last time Cardinal Zen traveled to Rome for a meeting with the Pope, he was denied an audience.
In 2019, the McCarrick scandal revealed many levels of corruption within the episcopacy, including cover-up by Pope Francis himself. The world summit of bishops in Rome that was subsequently called to address the problems in the Church that were uncovered by the McCarrick scandal, itself headed by pro-LGBTQ Fr. James Martin, refused to name McCarrick’s predominant crime: homosexual adult rape—the rape of priests and seminarians who were under his episcopal authority. Following the scandal and laicization of the Cardinal, the American bishops formally requested that Rome release the full dossier on McCarrick, in particular revealing which episcopal appointments were due to McCarrick’s influence within the US and Rome. When the Vatican finally released its report, it was a retracted document that failed to make known what the American bishops had specifically requested, leaving many to wonder whether the “Lavander mafia” within the episcopacy and in Rome had kept uncomfortable facts from being published.
Then there was the 2019 Amazonian Synod with its attendant scandals. First, there was the worship of the Pachamama, the pagan goddess of fertility who demands child sacrifice, whose cult is still practiced within the Andes of South America, whose name literally means “mother earth.” The idolatry took place in the Vatican Gardens in the presence of Pope Francis during a tree-planting ceremony, in which pagan shamans led participants in a dance around the statue, then offered incense, knelt, and bowed down to the ground in homage. The statue was subsequently carried in procession during a public praying of the Stations of the Cross in Rome, was given a place of prominence in the official conference hall for the Synod Fathers, and copies were placed at the altars of Santa Maria in Transpontina, from which they were removed by Austrian Alexader Tschugguel and thrown in the Tiber River in protest against the idolatry. Pope Francis was called to public repentance by 100 priests and lay scholars, to which no response was ever made.
Then the Amazonian Synod raised the question of allowing married priests and women priests within the Church. This prompted Cardinal Sarah to write the book From the Depths of Our Hearts, Priesthood, Celibacy and the Crisis of the Catholic Church, co-authored by Pope-Emeritus Benedict XVI, defending the apostolic practice of the Roman Church of only admitting celibate men to the priesthood, in imitation of Christ, who lived chaste celibacy, and who chose only men on whom to confer the dignity of the ordained priesthood.
In 2020, when the question of homosexual civil unions came up in Italy, the Pope lent his support to it, saying he had always supported civil protection for homosexual couples, even when he was a bishop in Argentina. “What we have to create is a civil union law,” the Pope said at the time. “That way they are legally covered. I stood up for that.”
Now there is the ongoing Synod on Synodality, in which the German episcopacy and clergy have gone uncorrected by Rome in their wholesale public rejection of the Church’s teaching on homosexuality and sexual moral issues.
Again, there is the new environmental paganism afforded by the Pope’s Laudato Si, according to which a new category of “sins against the earth” has been introduced into moral theology. Such “sins” in turn give rise to an apparent need for “environmental conversion” and “reparation to the earth.” These at best are pious euphemisms for accepting the climate-change propaganda of globalists who include in their agenda abortion and population control; at worst they are an outright pagan divinization of nature. Pope Francis said in his interview with Télam that Laudato Si was planned to be written for the Paris climate conference, claiming “nature is paying us back” for “slapping” it.
Earlier this year the structure of the Roman Curia was changed. Presently all offices have equal legal authority, whereas previously the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith enjoyed preeminence. Women have also been admitted to positions of governance within the Curia, contrary to John Paul II’s insistence that such roles be held by clerics.
Regarding the matter of granting or refusing Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians, last year the Pope reportedly encouraged pro-abortion President Joe Biden to continue receiving Communion. This past Wednesday at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, pro-abortion Nancy Pelosi flaunted her disregard for the instructions of her own diocesan bishop, Archbishop Cordelione, that she was not to approach or be admitted to Communion because of her outspoken support of abortion. Pelosi received Communion at a Mass presided over by Pope Francis, immediately after a personal audience with the Pope. The gesture is seen by some as not only a slight to Cordelione, but also as something of a response on the part of the Vatican to the June 24 landmark overturning of Roe v. Wade by the United States Supreme Court, a decision Pelosi has vowed to fight, declaring again her intentions to push for a federal law allowing unrestricted abortions throughout the US.
Finally, with the publication of Traditionis Custodes last year, the Pope ushered in a new crisis for Catholics who love the Traditional Latin Mass, both priests and laymen. The severity of the restrictions on the celebration of the ancient form of the Roman Rite, concerning which Pope Francis doubled down just this week, has been justified in the name of a faithful implementation of Vatican II and its liturgical documents, while leveling heavy accusations of “disunity” and “rigidity” against those who wish to worship God in the form of the Catholic liturgy handed on by their fathers in the faith for two millennia.
Much has happened in the pontificate of Pope Francis. It may be chilling to think that this was all part of a “pre-Conclave” plan.
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| Pope Francis doubles down on restrictions of the Latin Mass in new letter: Desiderio desideravi |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-01-2022, 08:38 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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Pope Francis doubles down on restrictions of the Latin Mass in new letter
'I do not see how it is possible to say that one recognizes the validity of the [Second Vatican] Council – though it amazes me that a Catholic might presume to do so – and at the same time not accept the liturgical reform born out of Sacrosanctum Concilium,' Pope Francis wrote.
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Pope Francis leads the Mass for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul at St. Peter's Basilica on June 29, 2022, Vatican City
Jun 29, 2022
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Francis has released a new apostolic letter on the liturgy, reaffirming his restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass while promoting the reformed liturgy as “the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.”
According to Pope Francis, Desiderio desideravi, published Wednesday, follows his July 2021 motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, which took aim at the celebration of the sacraments prior to the reforms initiated by the Second Vatican Council. The letter contains his “reflections on the liturgy,” inviting “the whole Church to rediscover, to safeguard, and to live the truth and power of the Christian celebration.”
Vatican News, the media arm of the Holy See, explained that the new papal letter is “not a new instruction or a directive with specific norms, but rather a meditation on understanding the beauty of liturgical celebration and its role in evangelization.”
Writing in the newly published 15-page apostolic letter, the Pope laid out further context for his earlier motu proprio restricting the celebration of the traditional liturgy of the Church, explaining his position that the apparent “tensions … around the [traditional] celebration” are not merely “simple divergence between different tastes concerning a particular ritual form,” but rather that they are “problematic.”
“I want the beauty of the Christian celebration and its necessary consequences for the life of the Church not to be spoiled by a superficial and foreshortened understanding of its value or, worse yet, by its being exploited in service of some ideological vision, no matter what the hue,” Francis wrote, highlighting the division of opinions on the celebration of the sacraments.
“Let us abandon our polemics to listen together to what the Spirit is saying to the Church,” he said.
The Pope used his letter to again stress, as an underpinning argument for his punishing restrictions on the traditional sacraments, the notion that adherents to tradition reject the Second Vatican Council as part of their devotion to the usus antiquior of the Mass.
“I do not see how it is possible to say that one recognizes the validity of the [Second Vatican] Council – though it amazes me that a Catholic might presume to do so – and at the same time not accept the liturgical reform born out of Sacrosanctum Concilium,” Francis wrote.
The constitution, he said, promotes as foundational “full, conscious, active, and fruitful celebration” of the liturgy.
“The non-acceptance of the liturgical reform, as also a superficial understanding of it, distracts us from the obligation of finding responses to the question that I come back to repeating: how can we grow in our capacity to live in full the liturgical action? How do we continue to let ourselves be amazed at what happens in the celebration under our very eyes?”
Accordingly, the Pope stated that it is his “duty to affirm that ‘The liturgical books promulgated by Saint Paul VI and Saint John Paul II, in conformity with the decrees of Vatican Council II, are the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite,’” reiterating his decree from the document Traditionis custodes.
Later in the document, the Pope calls on “all the bishops, priests, and deacons, the formators in seminaries, the instructors in theological faculties and schools of theology, and all the catechists” to heed his command not to “go back to that ritual form which the [Second Vatican] Council fathers, cum Petro et sub Petro, felt the need to reform, approving, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and following their conscience as pastors, the principles from which was born the reform.”
Francis emphasized the work of both Popes Paul VI and John Paul II as guaranteeing “the fidelity of the reform of the Council.”
“For this reason I wrote Traditionis custodes, so that the Church may lift up, in the variety of so many languages, one and the same prayer capable of expressing her unity.”
“As I have already written, I intend that this unity be re-established in the whole Church of the Roman Rite,” Francis stated.
In conclusion, the Pope urged the faithful to “abandon our polemics to listen together to what the Spirit is saying to the Church. Let us safeguard our communion. Let us continue to be astonished at the beauty of the Liturgy.”
“The Paschal Mystery has been given to us. Let us allow ourselves to be embraced by the desire that the Lord continues to have to eat His Passover with us. All this under the gaze of Mary, Mother of the Church,” Francis said.
Reacting to the document on Twitter, Catholic author and catechist Deacon Nick Donnelly wrote that the Pope reflections constitute “chilling words for those who love the Mass of the Ages.”
Quote:Pope Bergoglio’s ‘Desiderio Desideravi’ contains chilling words for those who love the Mass of the Ages.
He makes his intention clear — Bergoglio intends to end the traditional Latin Mass by enforcing the Novus Ordo on the entire Roman Rite under the pretense of unity pic.twitter.com/HOJ6ENjRUz
— Nick Donnelly (@ProtecttheFaith) June 29, 2022
“Bergoglio intends to end the traditional Latin Mass by enforcing the Novus Ordo on the entire Roman Rite under the pretense of unity,” the cleric warned, later arguing that the Pope’s exhortation to “abandon our polemics to listen together to what the Spirit is saying to the Church” is a veiled way of saying “we must abandon Tradition and submit to his [Francis’] will.”
Traditional Catholic blog Rorate Caeli told its Twitter following that the new apostolic letter shows the Pope to have thrown “his hat on the ‘hermeneutic of rupture’ view on the liturgy.”
“Ratzinger’s life work on the liturgy and this as far apart as day and night,” the group stated.
Quote:Francis throws his hat fully on the “hermeneutic of rupture” view on the liturgy in his Apostolic Letter “Desiderio desideravi” on the liturgy — Ratzinger’s life work on the liturgy and this as far apart as day and night:https://t.co/UcMnceZqbh https://t.co/5xtSpkGbcE
— Rorate Caeli (@RorateCaeli) June 29, 2022
Vatican reporter Bree Dail wrote that, “according to several sources, that Pope Francis ‘no longer believes in ongoing debate’ over ‘hermeneutic of continuity’, but ‘made his personal position clear, breaking from his predecessor, Benedict XVI’.”
Quote:It seems clear, according to several sources, that Pope Francis “no longer believes in ongoing debate” over “hermeneutic of continuity”, but “made his personal position clear, breaking from his predecessor, Benedict XVI”.
This, however, “is not a binding position or declaration”
— Bree A Dail (@breeadail) June 29, 2022
“This, however, ‘is not a binding position or declaration,’” she wrote.
Catholic liturgical scholar Matthew Hazell lamented that the Pope has misunderstood the source of devotion to the traditional celebration of the Roman Rite, stating that Francis does not “know the reasons why I and so many others love the traditional Roman Rite,” arguing that the Pope “can’t even care to be interested.”
“To you, we’re all just psychologically damaged ‘rigid restorationists,’” Hazell wrote.
Quote:Simply put, @Pontifex, because the Con?ilium was not the Con?ilium. Ugh.
You don’t know the reasons why I & so many others love the traditional Roman Rite; worse, you can’t even care to be interested. To you, we’re all just psychologically damaged “rigid restorationists”… ? pic.twitter.com/adcTtaCgI1
— Matthew Hazell (@M_P_Hazell) June 29, 2022
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| From the Writings of St. Alphonsus Liguori: Vocation to the Religious State |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-01-2022, 06:34 AM - Forum: Resources Online
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VOCATION TO THE RELIGIOUS STATE
BY THE REV. CORNELIUS J. WARREN, C SS. R.
NIHIL OBSTAT
Patricius J. Waters Ph. D.
Die VII Augusti MCMXXVI.
IMPRIMATUR
+ GULIELMUS Cardinalis O’Connell
Archiepiscopus Bostoniensis
Die VII Augusti MCMXXVI.
Permissus Superiorum
C.S.S.R.
I. Necessity of Conforming to the Designs of God in the Choice of a State of Life
It is evident that our eternal salvation depends principally upon the choice of our state of life. Father Granada calls this choice, the main wheel of our whole existence. If the principal wheel of a clock is deranged the whole clock is out of order. So it is with the business of our salvation; a mistake with regard to our state of life, says St. Gregory of Naziansen, will disturb our whole career.
If then, we wish to secure our eternal salvation, we must embrace that state of life to which God calls us, and in which alone, God prepares the efficacious means, necessary for salvation. St. Cyprian says: “The grace of the Holy Spirit is given according to the order of God, and not in accordance with our own will” (1) Therefore St Paul writes: “Everyone hath his proper gift from God” (2) This means as Cornelius a Lapide explains, that God gives to every one his vocation, and chooses the state in which He wills him to be saved. “Whom He predestinated, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified and them He also glorified.” (3)
There are many in the world today who give this doctrine of vocation little thought or consideration. They think it a matter of indifference whether they live in the state to which God calls them, or in that which they choose themselves. As a result we find so many leading wicked lives, and hurrying along the road to destruction.
Where there is question of eternal life the matter of vocation is of vital importance. He who disturbs the order of Divine Providence and breaks the chain of graces will not be saved. St. Augustine says to such a one: “Thou runnest well, but out of the way”, that is to say, out of the way to which God has called you to attain your salvation. The Lord does not accept sacrifices that come merely from one’s inclination, “But to Cain and his offerings, He had no respect.” (4) He even threatens with chastisement those who, deaf to His call, turn their backs on Him to follow their own whims and caprice. “Woe to you, apostate children,” He says by the lips of Isaias 30, 1 “that you would take counsel, and not from me and would begin a web and not by my spirit.”
God wills that all men should be saved but not in the same way. As in heaven He has distinguished different degrees of glory, so on earth He has established different states of life, as so many different ways of gaining heaven. To enter into any state of life, a divine vocation is necessary; for without such a vocation it is, if not impossible, at least most difficult to fulfill the obligation of our state, and obtain salvation. The reason of this is evident; for it is God Who in the order of His Providence assigns to each one of us his state of life, and afterwards provides us with the graces and the help suitable to the state to which He calls us.
It is evident then that the great and only affair which ought to preoccupy the minds of young persons of both sexes is to know the designs of God relative to the state of life which they are to embrace and to obtain from Him the strength to conform to it.
1. De. Sing. Cler. 2. I. Cor. 7,7.3. Rom. 8,30.4. Gen 4, 5.
Vocation to the Religious State
The divine call to a more perfect life is undoubtedly a special grace, and a very great grace which God does not give to everyone. Consequently He has good reason to be displeased with those who despise it. Would a prince not be justly offended, if he called a vassal to serve him in his very palace, and the vassal would refuse to obey? And will God not resent such conduct on the part of His subjects? He does resent it and even threatens such subjects with the words: “Woe to him that gainsayeth his maker.” (1) Even in this life, the chastisement of the disobedient will be felt in the unrest and disquiet they feel, for Job says: “Who hath resisted Him and hath had peace?” (2) Deprived of those abundant and efficacious helps necessary for a good life, they will with great difficulty, says Habert, be able to work out their salvation, “In the body of the Church,” says the learned author, “he will be like a member of the human body, out of place. It may be able to perform its functions, but only with difficulty and in an awkward manner.” We find the same teaching in the writings of St. Bernard and St. Leo, The Emperor Maurice had published an edict forbidding soldiers to become religious, St. Gregory wrote to the Emperor, saying that this law was unjust for it closed the gates of paradise to many who would save their souls in religious life, but lose them in the world.
Lancicius relates a remarkable case. In the Roman College there was once a very talented youth. Whilst making the spiritual exercises he asked his director whether it was a sin not to correspond with a vocation to the religious life. The director replied that in itself it was not a grievous sin, since this is a thing of counsel and not of precept, but that one would expose one’s salvation to great danger as had happened to many others whose end was very sad.
The young man failed to profit by the advice. Though convinced that he had a vocation, he neglected to follow the call of God. He went to Macerata to continue his studies. Here he began to neglect prayer and Holy Communion, and finally gave himself up to a wicked life. One night on returning from the house of an accomplice of his crimes, he was mortally wounded by a jealous rival. A priest was summoned but before he arrived the unfortunate youth was dead.
Penamonti relates in his treatise on vocation that a certain novice who had resolved to leave his community was startled by a strange vision. He saw Christ sitting on a throne and giving an order that his name be blotted out of the book of life. He was so terrified by this vision that he resolved to persevere in his vocation.
How many will be found condemned on judgment day for not having followed their vocation! They are rebels to the divine light for the Holy Ghost says: “They have been rebellious to the light, they have not known his ways.” (3) Because they would not walk in the way shown them by the Lord, they shall walk without light in that chosen by their own caprice. “I called and you refused . . . you have despised my counsel . . . They shall call upon me and I shall not hear; they shall rise in the morning and shall not find me.” (4)
1. Isa. 45,9.
2. Job 9,4.
3. Ps. 94, 11.
4. Prov. 1, 28.
We Must Obey Without Delay
When God calls one to a more perfect state, He expects a prompt obedience to His call. Otherwise such a one will deserve the reproach that our Lord administered to the young man spoken of in the Gospel. “I will follow Thee, Lord,” said the young man, “but let me first take my leave of them that are at my house,” And Jesus replied: “No man putting his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” (1)
The lights which God gives are transient, not permanent gifts. Wherefore St. Thomas says that the vocation of God to a more perfect life ought to be followed as promptly as possible. In his summary he proposes the question, whether it is praiseworthy to enter religion without having asked the counsel of many, and without long deliberation? He answers in the affirmative saying that counsel and deliberation are necessary in doubtful things, but not in this matter which is certainly good. Jesus Christ has counselled it in the Gospel, for the religious state comprehends most of the counsels of Christ. How singular it is that when there is question of leading a more perfect life, free from the dangers of the world, people say they must deliberate a long time in order to find out whether the vocation comes from God or the devil. But how differently they talk and act when there is an opportunity to gain some earthly honor or preferment.
St. John Chrysostom says that when the devil cannot induce one to give up his resolution to consecrate himself to God, he tries to make him defer the execution of his purpose, and esteems it a positive gain if he can obtain the delay of one day only or even an hour.
This is the advice of St. Jerome to those who are called to quit the world: “Make haste, I beseech you, and rather cut than loosen the cord by which your bark is fastened to the land.” The saint wishes to say: a man in a boat that is sinking will cut the rope rather than wait to loosen it. So he that is in the midst of a dangerous world should endeavor to leave it as quickly as possible. Listen to what St. Francis de Sales has to say. “To have a sign of a true vocation, it is not necessary that it be a matter of feeling.” To know whether God calls you to the religious life you need not expect that God Himself will appear to you or send an angel from heaven to make known His will. Nor is it necessary that a dozen or more learned men examine to see if the vocation should be followed or not. It is necessary however, to correspond with the first movement of the inspiration and to cultivate it. Nor does it matter much, from what source the inspiration comes. The Lord makes use of many means to call His servants. Sometimes it is a sermon; at other times a good book. Some, as St. Anthony and St. Francis, were called when hearing the words of the Gospel. Others were moved to leave the world and enter religion by the troubles and afflictions they had to endure. Persons who come to God, through disgust for the world, sometimes become greater saints than those who enter religion with a more apparent vocation, be- cause they give themselves to God with their whole heart and soul. Father Flatus tells of a nobleman who was riding a fine horse one day and trying his best to appear to advantage before those who saw him. He was suddenly thrown from the horse, and landed In a mud puddle from which he arose badly besmeared. He was so filled with confusion that he resolved then and there to leave the world, “Treacherous world,” he said, “thou hast mocked me, but I will mock thee. Thou hast played me a game. I will play thee another. I will have no more peace with thee, and now I resolve to forsake thee and become a friar.” And, in fact, he became a religious and led a holy life.
1. Lu. 9, 61.
Means to Preserve a Religious Vocation
Circumstances sometimes prevent one who is called to religious life from immediately following his vocation. In such a case he ought to be exceedingly careful to guard so precious a jewel. This he can do best by secrecy, prayer and recollection. As a rule it is prudent to keep one’s vocation secret from everybody except one’s spiritual Father. Others would be apt to say that he could serve God in the world as well if not better than in religious life. Without doubt, one who is not called to religious life may serve God in every place; but one who is called, and prefers to remain in the world, will as I have said above find it extremely difficult to serve God and lead a good life.
Nor is it necessary to mention the matter to parents, unless one is certain that one has nothing but encouragement to expect from them. In this respect, all things being equal, children are not bound to obey their parents when they seek to prevent them from obeying the call of God. The Council of Toledo says: “It shall be lawful for children to take upon themselves the yoke of religious observance, whether it be with the consent of their parents, or only the wish of their own hearts.” (1) The same is prescribed by the Council of Tribur, and taught by St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Bernard, St. Thomas and St. John Chrysostom. The last mentioned saint says: “When parents stand in the way in spiritual things, they ought not even to be recognized.” (2) St. Thomas says: “Servants are not bound to obey their masters, nor children their parents with regard to contracting matrimony, preserving virginity and such like things.” (3) In his treatise on religious vocation, Father Penamonti thinks with Sanchez, Commenchio and others, that a child when contemplating marriage is bound to take counsel of his parents because in such matters they have more experience than the young. But, with regard to religious vocation, he says, a child is not bound to take counsel of his parents, because in this matter they have had no experience, and not unfrequently they are hostile to the wishes or intention of the child, St. Thomas says: “Frequently our friends according to the flesh are opposed to our spiritual good.”
St. Peter of Alcantara found it necessary to flee from the home of his mother, when he desired to enter the monastery and become a religious. In his flight he came to a river which he feared would hinder his progress. He recommended himself to God and in an instant found himself transported to the other side of the river.
St. Stanislaus Kostka, we are told, fled from home without his father’s leave. His brother took a carriage and set out after him in great haste. When about to overtake the young saints the horses that drew the carnage refused, in spite of violent urging, to go a step further. They turned in the opposite direction, and ran at full speed.
Blessed Oringa of Waldrano in Tuscany, though against her wish, was promised in marriage to a young man. She fled from the home of her parents in order to consecrate herself to God. Coming to the river Arno, she prayed to God for help. In an instant the water divided and formed two walls as it were of crystal allowing her to pass between them without even wetting her feet.
“A man’s enemies shall be those of his household,” says Holy Scripture. It some times happens that relatives, and even fathers and mothers though endowed with piety, nevertheless oppose the efforts of children to give themselves to God – Self interest and misguided passion blind such people, and under various pretexts they do not scruple to thwart the designs of God.
In the life of Father Paul Segneri the younger, we read that his mother though much given to prayer, left no means untried to prevent her son from entering the religious state. Likewise in the life of Mgr. Cavalieri, Bishop of Troja, we find that his father, a man of great piety, refused to allow him to enter the Congregation of Pius Workers and even went so far as to bring a suit against him in the ecclesiastical court.
It would seem then that under no circumstances does the evil spirit use more formidable weapons than when there is question of preventing those who are called to the religious state, from carrying out their resolution.
1. Cap. 6.
2. In. Jo. hom. 81.
3. 2, 2, q. 104.
NOTE. “The grace of a religious vocation is not only a signal favor for him who receives it, but it is also a great blessing for the whole family. Christian parents should wish it for their children as the most precious good, by giving thanks to God if He deigns to grant it, and should hasten to offer Him with their whole heart, the happy sacrifice that He requires of them. What may they not expect from Him Who rewards so liberally the least action that we perform out of love for Him? On the other hand, to oppose a vocation is to oppose God. What would be the consequence of such an attempt?
Happily there are parents who with perfect submission to the will of God, have the wisdom not to oppose the happiness of their children, but give them every liberty in reference to their vocation. Such parents acquire great merit in the sight of God.
St. Alphonsus does not wish that young people should act thoughtlessly in a matter as important as it is delicate. He counsels them to consult a prudent director who will take care to weigh maturely before God all the circumstances, and to examine, among other things, whether the parents would not have some serious reason to allege: for instance, the grave necessity in which they find themselves, etc. Thus all danger of taking a rash step is averted.” — Ed.
Excellence of Virginity
“They shall be like the angels of God in heaven” (1) says our Blessed Lord, when speaking of those who lead a virginal life. Baronius relates that when a holy virgin named Georgia died, a flock of doves was seen to hover around her. When the body was brought to the church, they rested on the roof directly above the corpse and remained there until the body was interred. These doves were thought to be angels who accompanied the virginal body.
When St. Agnes was asked to marry the son of the Prefect of Rome, she replied: “I have a much more advantageous marriage in view.” She meant of course her espousal to Christ by the vow of virginity. When St. Domitilla was urged to marry Count Aurelian, nephew of the Emperor Domitian, the saint replied: If a maiden had to choose between a monarch and a clown, whose hand should she accept? Should I marry Aurelian I should be rejecting the hand of the Monarch of heaven and earth. I will not do so. In consequence of her choice she was burned alive by order of her rejected suitor, and won thereby the crown of martyrdom as well as that of virginity.
“He feedeth among lilies.” (2) What is meant by lilies if not those devout maidens who consecrate their virginity to Jesus Christ. Theologians tell us that the Blessed Mother would have consented to forego the dignity of Mother of God, if it were to be at the expense of her virginity.
1. Matth. 22, 30.2. Cant. 2, 16.
Means to Preserve Virginal Purity
We read in the Gospel that the kingdom of heaven is likened unto virgins. But what kind of virgins? Not foolish virgins to be sure but the wise. The wise virgins were admitted to the nuptials but the door was shut in the face of the foolish. .
The spouses of Christ will follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. This means, according to St. Augustine, that they imitate the Lamb of God in body and mind. What are the means they employ?
1. The first of these means is mental prayer. To pray, it is not necessary to be always on bended knee, or in church or even in some quiet corner at home, though it is advisable when possible to adopt a reverend attitude in some place where you are not exposed to distractions. You can pray while at work; you can pray while walking the street in any place, under all circumstances, by raising your mind to God, and thinking of the Passion of Christ or any other pious subject.
2. The second means is the frequentation of confession and Communion. It is very important to select a prudent confessor and to obey his instructions. Otherwise one is not likely to make progress on the path of virtue. Frequent and fervent Communion is the best means of preserving fidelity to Christ. The Immaculate Lamb is the guardian of virginity and holiness of life. The Blessed Eucharist is ”the corn of the elect and wine springing forth virgins.” (1) But one must hunger for the Bread of heaven to taste its sweetness and be supernaturally nourished, “This is the living bread come down from heaven which if any man eat he shall not die.”
3. The third means of preserving virginal purity is to foster a love for retirement and prudent reserve. “As the lily among the thorns so is my beloved amongst the daughters.” (2) It were rash to expect to remain untarnished and undefiled while frequenting the society of worldlings and taking part in their conversations and amusements. Virginal purity can be preserved only amid the thorns of mortification and self denial, A lack of modesty and cautious reserve will cause the lily of virtue to wilt.
4. The fourth means consists in the mortification of the senses. St. Basil says: “A virgin should not be immodest in any respect, in eyes or ears, in tongue or touch, and still less in mind.” Unless we learn to curb our senses they will inevitably lead us to serious indiscretions. Acts of mortification will be necessary but only with the consent of one’s confessor. “Virgins,” we are told, ”follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.” But his path is not always strewn with roses; He frequently encounters thorns. He has left blood stained footsteps along the road to Calvary.
5. Finally in order to persevere in this holy life, it is necessary to recommend yourself constantly to the Blessed Mother of God, the Queen of Virgins. She is the mediatrix who brings virgins to espouse her Divine Son. “After her shall virgins be brought to the King.” (3) It is she too who enables them to remain faithful to their heavenly espousals.
In conclusion, therefore, if you have reason to believe you are favored by God with a religious vocation, do not neglect to thank the dear Lord for this inestimable grace, the greatest after that of baptism. Resolve to give yourself wholly to the Spouse of virginal souls. He has given Himself unreservedly to you; why should you not give yourself to Him to serve Whom is to reign. Say with the Apostle: What shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or danger or nakedness or the sword? I am sure that neither life nor death, nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come, nor might nor height nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
1. Lact. 9, 17.
2. Cant. 2, 2.
3. Ps. 44, 15.
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