Quote:Isaias, in these few lines, has directly in view the announcing of Christ; the application here made by the Church to Saint John Baptist once more shows us how closely the Messias is united with his Precursor in the work of the Redemption. Rome, once capital of the gentile world, now Mother of Christendom, delights in proclaiming, on this day, to the sons whom the Spouse has given her, the consoling prophecy which was addressed to them of yore, before she herself was founded upon the seven hills. Eight hundred years before the birth of John and of the Messias a voice had been heard on Sion, and, reaching beyond the frontiers of Jacob, had re-echoed along those distant coasts where sin’s darkness held mankind in the thraldom of hell: Give ear, ye islands; and hearken, ye people from afar! It was the Voice of Him who was to come, and of the Angel deputed to walk before him, the voice of John and of the Messias, proclaiming the one predestination, common to them both, which as servant and as Master, made them to be objects of the self-same eternal decree. And this voice, after having hailed the privilege which would designate each (though so diversely) from the maternal womb, as objects of complacency to the Almighty, went on to utter the divinely formulated oracle which was to be promulgated, in other terms, over the cradle of each by the respective ministry of Zachary and of Angels. And he said to me: Thou art my servant Israel, for in thee will I glory, in thee who art indeed Israel to Me; … And he said: It is a small thing that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to convert the dregs of Israel, who will not hearken to thee, and of whom thou shalt bring back but a small remnant. Behold I have given thee to be the Light of the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation even to the farthest part of the earth; to make up for the scant welcome my people shall have given thee, kings shall see, and princes shall rise up, at thy word, and adore for the Lord’s sake, because he is faithful, and for the Holy One of Israel, who hath chosen thee as the negotiator of his alliance.

Children of the Bridegroom, let us enter into this thought of his; let us understand what ought to be the gratitude of us Gentiles to him to whom all flesh is indebted for its knowledge of the Redeemer. From the wilderness, where his voice stung the pride of the descendants of the patriarchs, he beheld us succeeding to the haughty Synagogue; without at all minimising the divine exactions, his stern language when addressed to the Bridegroom’s chosen ones, assumed a tone of considerateness which it never had for the Jews. “Ye offspring of vipers,” said he to these latter, “who hath shown you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth, therefore, fruits worthy of penance, and do not begin to say, We have Abraham for our Father. For I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. For in your case, already is the axe laid to the root of the tree. Every tree, therefore, that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire.” But to the despised publican, to the hated soldier, to all those parched hearts of the gentile world, hard and arid as the desert rock, John the Baptist announced a flow of grace that would refresh their dried up souls making them fruitful in justice: “Ye publicans, do nothing more than what is appointed you, by the exigencies of the tax laws; ye soldiers, be content with your pay. The Law was given by Moses; but better is grace; grace and truth come by Jesus Christ whom I declare unto you: He it is who taketh away the sins of the world and of His fullness we have all received.”

What a new horizon was here opened out before these objects of reproach, held aloof so long by Israel’s scorn! But in the eyes of the Synagogue, such a blow aimed at Juda’s pretended privilege was a crime. She had borne the biting invectives of this son of Zachary; she had even, at one moment, shown herself ready to hail him as the Christ; but she who vaunted herself as pure, to be invited to go hand in hand with the unclean Gentile,—that she could never brook; it were too much: from that moment, John was judged of, by her, as his Master would afterwards be. Later on, Jesus will insist upon the difference of welcome given to the Precursor by those who listened to him. Yea, he will even make thereof the basis for his sentence of reprobation pronounced against the Jews: “Amen I say to you, that the publicans and harlots shall go into the kingdom of God before you; for John came to you in the way of justice, and you did not believe him. But the publicans and harlots believed him: but you seeing it, did not even afterwards repent, that you might believe him.”

Quote:After the places hallowed by the sojourn, here below, of the Word made Flesh, there is no spot of greater interest for the Christian soul than that wherein were accomplished the events just mentioned in our Gospel. The town illustrated by the birth of the Precursor is situated about two leagues from Jerusalem, to the west; just as Bethlehem, our Savior’s birthplace, is at the same distance southwards from the Holy City. Going out by the gate of Jaffa, the pilgrim bound for St. John of the Mountain passes on his way the Greek monastery of Holy Cross, raised on the spot where the trees which formed our Lord’s cross were hewn down: then pursuing his course through the close-set woods of the mountains of Juda, he attains a summit whence he can descry the waters of the Mediterranean. The house of Obed-Edom, that for three months harbored the sacred Ark of the Covenant, stood here, whence a by-path leads by a short cut directly to the place where Mary, the true Ark, dwelt for three happy months in the house of her cousin Elizabeth. Two sanctuaries, distant about a thousand paces one from the other, are sacred to the memory of the two great facts just related to us by Saint Luke: in the one, John the Baptist was conceived and born; in the other, the circumcision of the Precursor took place eight days after his birth. The first of these sanctuaries stands on the site of Zachary’s town-house; its present form dates from a period anterior to the Crusades. It is a beautiful church with three naves and a cupola, measuring thirty-seven feet in length. The high Altar is dedicated to St. Zachary, and another altar, on the right, to Saint Elizabeth. On the left, seven marble steps lead to a subterraneous chapel hollowed out of the rock, which is identical with the furthermost apartment of the original house: this is the sanctuary of St. John’s Nativity. Four lamps glimmer in the darkness of this venerable crypt while six others, suspended beneath the altar slab itself, throw light on the following inscription engraved upon the marble pavement: hic præcursor domini natus est. Let us unite, on this day, with the devout sons of Saint Francis, guardians of those ineffable memories; more fortunate here than at Bethlehem with its sacred grotto, they have not to dispute with schism the homage which they pay in the name of the legitimate Bride to the Friend of the Bridegroom upon the very spot of his Nativity.

Local tradition sets at some distance from this first sanctuary, as we have said, the memorable place where the circumcision of the Precursor was performed. Besides a town house, Zachary was owner of another more isolated. Elizabeth had retired thither during the first months of her pregnancy, to taste in silence the gift of God. There did the meeting between herself and Our Lady on her arrival from Nazareth take place; there, the sublime exultation of the Infants and their Mothers; there the Magnificat proclaimed to heaven, that earth henceforth could rival, and even surpass, supernal songs of praise and canticles of love. It was fitting that Zachary’s song, the morning canticle, should be first intoned there, where that of evening had ascended like incense of sweetest fragrance. In the accounts given by ancient pilgrims, it is noticed that there were here two sanctuaries placed one above the other: in the lower one Mary and Elizabeth met; in the upper story of this same country house of Zachary, the greater portion of the facts just set before us by the Church were enacted.

Urban V, in 1368, ordered that the Credo should be chanted on the day of St. John Baptist’s Nativity and during the Octave, to prevent the Precursor’s appearing to be in any way inferior to the Apostles. The more ancient custom, however, of suppressing the Symbol on this feast has nevertheless prevailed: not that it is a mark of inferiority in regard of him who rises above all others that have ever announced the kingdom of God; but to show that he completed his course before the promulgation of the Gospel.

Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, O.F.M.

Quote:“Effectively, what today’s letter appears to suggest is that (1) at least for the foreseeable future, in the main body of St. Peter’s Basilica, priests and faithful will only experience the Holy Mass concelebrated in the Novus Ordo; and (2) the Extraordinary Form [Tridentine Mass] will go underground.”

Quote:“They assert that the people are possessed of a true priestly power, while the priest acts only in virtue of an office committed to him by the community. Wherefore they look on the eucharistic sacrifice as a ‘concelebration’ in the literal meaning of that term and consider it more fitting that priests should ‘concelebrate’ with the people present than that they should offer the sacrifice privately when the people are absent.”

Quote:Three in 4 kids had fatigue and headaches, around half had chills and muscle pain, around 1 in 4 to 5 had fever and joint pain. The list goes on. In sum, all the fully vaccinated 12- to 15-year-olds avoided symptomatic COVID but most wouldn’t have gotten COVID even without the vaccine. So, the benefit is small but it came at the price of side effects that were mild to moderate in severity and lasted a few days.

Quote:… [D]octors and fathers of families have a duty to take recourse to alternative vaccines (if they exist), putting pressure on the political authorities and health systems so that other vaccines without moral problems become available. They should take recourse, if necessary, to the use of conscientious objection with regard to the use of vaccines produced by means of cell lines of aborted human foetal origin. Equally, they should oppose by all means (in writing, through the various associations, mass media, etc.) the vaccines which do not yet have morally acceptable alternatives, creating pressure so that alternative vaccines are prepared, which are not connected with the abortion of a human foetus, and requesting rigorous legal control of the pharmaceutical industry producers.

Quote: “Father, wherefore art thou fain to win me back to the worship of the Muses? Another power now pervades my soul, a God greater far than old Apollo. The true, the good have I found at the very source of Goodness and Truth,—even in God, beheld in his Christ. Exchanging his Divinity for our human nature in a sublime commerce, at once Man and God, he, the master of virtues, transforms our being and replaces former pleasures by delights wholly chaste. By means of faith in a future life, he subdues within us the vain agitations of present life. Even these riches which we seem to contemn, he does not reject as either impure or worthless; but, merely teaching us how to love them in a better way, he leads us to commit them to the care of God, who, in return, promises yet more. Call not stupid him who devotes himself to a merchandise the most advantageous and by far the most secure. And what of filial piety? can it be wanting in a Christian? could I possibly fail to pay it unto thee, O father, unto whom I owe everything, science, honors, renown; unto thee, who by thy care hast prepared me for Christ, by cultivating his gifts? Yea, verily, Christ is about to reward thee for this fruit nurtured by thy sap; reject not this his praise of thee, disown not the waters that have welled out from thy fountain. Thy tenderness is hurt at my withdrawing to a distance; but prithee, forgive one whom thou lovest, if he do but that which is expedient. I have vowed my heart to God, I have believed in Christ; on the faith of the divine counsels, I have with the goods of time bought an eternal recompense. Father, I cannot believe that thou shouldst tax me with folly for this. Such errors as these inspire me with no repentance, I rather rejoice to be held a fool by those who follow another path; it suffices me that the eternal King accounts me wise. All that is of man is short, frail, perishable, and (without Christ) but dust and shadow; whether he approve or condemn, the judgment is worth no more than the judge; he dieth, and his judgment fadeth away with himself. When at the supreme moment all is laid bare, tardy then will lamentation be, and of small avail the excuse of him who till then has cringed before the vain out cries of men’s tongues, and has not dreaded the wrathful vengeance of the divine Judge. For my part, I believe; and fear is my goad; I would not that the last day catch me asleep in darkness, or so laden as that I may not fly up on lightest wing to meet my King in mid-heaven. Wherefore, cutting short all hesitation, all ties, all pleasures of earth, I would fain be ready for any event. Alive still, I have nevertheless done with life’s cares; I have confided to God my goods for ages to come, in order to be able, with tranquil heart, to await grim death. If thou approve, congratulate a friend rich in high hope; if not, suffer that I look to Jesus Christ alone for approbation.”

Quote:Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, instructed in human letters and the holy Scriptures, composed, both in verse and prose, many elegant and remarkable works. The charity of this man was particularly celebrated: for when Campania was being ravaged by the Goths, he devoted all his substance to the feeding of the poor and the redeeming of captives, not reserving unto himself even the necessaries of life. At which time, as Saint Augustine writes, having from the greatest opulency, voluntarily come down to the utmost exigency, yet with all, most rich in sanctity, being now taken captive by the barbarians, he made this prayer to God: “Lord, suffer me not to be put to the torture for the sake of gold and silver; for verily, where all my riches are, thou well knowest.” Afterwards, when the Vandals were infesting these shores, he, being entreated by a widow to redeem her son, all his effects now being consumed in works of charity, delivered himself up to slavery in place of the young man.

Wherefore, being now taken into Africa, he received the charge of cultivating the garden of his master, who was son-in-law of the king. At length, by the gift of prophecy, having foretold to his master the death of the king, and the king himself having likewise in a dream beheld Paulinus, seated in the midst of two other judges, wrest from his hands the scourge which he held; how great a man he was, being thus made known, he was honorably dismissed, and was moreover granted the liberation of all his fellow citizens who had been led away captives with him. Being now returned to Nola and to his episcopal functions, by word and example he more and more inflamed all unto Christian piety, until at last, being seized by a pain in his side, presently the chamber wherein he lay was shaken by an earthquake, and shortly afterwards, he rendered up his soul unto God.

Quote:Aloysius was son of Ferdinand Gonzaga, Marquess of Castiglione delle Stivere. He was so hurriedly baptized on account of danger, that he seemed to be born to heaven, almost before he was born to earth, and he so faithfully kept this his first grace, that he seemed to have been well nigh confirmed therein. From his first dawn of reason, which he used in offering himself to God, he led a life more holy day by day. At Florence, when he was nine years old, he made a vow of perpetual virginity, before the altar of the Blessed Virgin, upon whom he always looked as a Mother; and by a remarkable mercy from God, he kept this vow wholly and without the slightest impure temptation, either of body or of mind, during his whole life. As for any other perturbations of the soul, he began at that age to check them so sternly, that he was never more pricked by even their first movements. His senses, and especially his eyes, he so restrained, that he never once looked on the face of Mary of Austria, whom for several years he saluted almost every day, while he was page of honor, in the court of the king of Spain; and he used the same reserve with regard to the face of even his own mother: wherefore he might truly be called a man without flesh, or an angel in human flesh.

To this custody of the senses, he added the maceration of the body. He kept three days as fasts, in every week, and that mostly upon a little bread and water. But indeed, he, as it were, fasted every day, for he hardly ever took so much as an ounce weight of food at his meal. Often also, even thrice a day, he would, with cords or chains scourge himself to blood: sometimes he would supply the place of a discipline or hair shirt, by dog-thongs or his own spurs. He secretly strewed his soft bed with pieces of broken wood or potsherds, that he might find it easier to wake to pray. He passed great part of the night even in the depth of winter clad only in his shirt, either kneeling on the ground, or lying prostrate, when too weary to remain upright, occupied in heavenly contemplation. Sometimes he would keep himself thus immovable for three, four, or five hours, until he had spent at least one, without any distraction of mind. Such constancy obtained for him the reward of being able to keep his understanding quite concentrated in prayer without any wandering of mind, as though rapt in God, in unbroken ecstasy. In order that he might henceforth adhere to Him alone, having overcome the bitter resistance of his father, in a sharp contest of three years’ duration, and having procured the transfer of his right to the Marquessate unto his brother, he joined, at Rome, the Society of Jesus, to which he had been called by a voice from heaven, when he was at Madrid.

In his very novitiate, he began to be held as a master of all virtues. His obedience even to the most trifling rules was absolutely exact, his contempt of the world extraordinary, and his hatred of self implacable. His love of God was so ardent, that it gradually undermined his bodily strength. Being commanded, therefore, to divert his mind for a while from divine things, he struggled vainly to distract himself from Him Who met him everywhere. From tender love towards his neighbor, he joyfully ministered to the sick in the public hospitals, and in the exercise of this charity, he caught the contagion. Whereby, being slowly consumed, on the very day he had predicted, the eleventh of the Kalends of July, in the twenty-fourth year of his age, he departed to heaven, having previously begged to receive the discipline and to be placed upon the ground to die. What the glory is which he there enjoys, St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi was enabled by the revelation of God to behold; and she declared that it was such as she had hardly believed existed even in heaven, and that his holiness and love were so great that she could declare him to be a hidden Martyr. On earth, God glorified him by many miracles. These being duly proved, Benedict XIII inserted the name of this angelical youth in the Calendar of the Saints, and commended him to all young scholars, both as a pattern of innocence and of chastity, and as principal Patron.

Quote:I regret that my [CDC] coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the Journal of Pediatrics.

My primary job duties while working in the immunization safety branch from 2000 to 2006 were to lead or colead three major vaccine safety studies. The MADDSP MMR-Autism Cases
Control Study was being carried out in response to the Wakefield Lancet study that suggested an association between the MMR vaccine and an autism-like health outcome.

There were several major concerns among scientists and consumer advocates outside the CDC in the fall of 2000 regarding the execution of the Verstraeten study.

One of the important goals that was determined upfront in the spring of 2001 before any of these studies started was to have all three protocols vetted outside the CDC prior to the start of the analyses so that consumer advocates could not claim that we were presenting analyses that suited our own goals and biases.
     
We hypothesized that if we found statistically significant effects at either 18- or 36-month thresholds, we would conclude that vaccinating children early with MMR vaccine could lead to autism-like characteristics or features.
     
We all met and finalized the study protocol and analysis plan. The goal was to not deviate from the analysis plan to avoid the debacle that occurred with the Verstraeten Thimerosal study published in Pediatrics in 2003.
     
At the September 5 meeting, we discussed in detail how to code race for both the sample and the birth certificate sample. At the bottom of table 7, it also shows that for the
nonbirth certificate sample, the adjusted race effect statistical significance was huge.
     
All the authors and I met and decided sometime between August and September 2002 not to report any race effects for the paper. Sometime soon after the meeting, where we decided to exclude reporting any race effects, the coauthors scheduled a meeting to destroy documents related to the study.

The remaining four coauthors all met and brought a big garbage can into the meeting room and reviewed and went through all the hard copy documents that we had thought we should discard and put them in a huge garbage can.
     
However, because I assumed it was illegal and would violate both FOIA and DOJ requests, I kept hard copies of all documents in my office, and I retained all associated computer files.
     
I believe we intentionally withheld controversial findings from the final draft of the Pediatrics paper.

--CDC Senior Scientist Dr. William Thompson, 2014

• No known investigative or disciplinary action was ever taken by Inspector Generals, law enforcement authorities, scientific authorities, Pediatrics journal or CDC.
  
• Congress, to which the pharmaceutical industry is a top donor, declined to hold hearings.
  
• Dr. Thompson is still a CDC senior scientist.
  
• CDC refused to allow him to testify in court or do media interviews.