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| Healthcare worker dies 4 days after second Pfizer vaccine, death under investigation |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-28-2021, 02:50 PM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
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Healthcare worker dies 4 days after second Pfizer vaccine, death under investigation
The wife of Tim Zook, a 60-year-old x-ray technician who became seriously ill hours after getting his second Pfizer vaccine and died four days later, says 'we need to know the cause.'
January 28, 2021 (Children’s Health Defense) — Officials in Orange County, California, are investigating the death of a 60-year-old healthcare worker who died four days after receiving his second injection of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine.
Tim Zook, an x-ray technologist at South Coast Global Medical Center in Santa Ana, was hospitalized on Jan. 5, several hours after being vaccinated. Zook’s wife, Rochelle Zook, told the Orange County Register that her husband’s health rapidly deteriorated over the next few days. He died Jan. 9.
Rochelle Zook said her husband believed in vaccines, and that she didn’t blame “any pharmaceutical company” for his death. She also said:
“But when someone gets symptoms 2 1/2 hours after a vaccine, that’s a reaction. What else could have happened? We would like the public to know what happened to Tim, so he didn’t die in vain. Severe reactions are rare. In reality, COVID is a much more deadly force than reactions from the potential vaccine itself.
“The message is, be safe, take the vaccine — but the officials need to do more research. We need to know the cause. The vaccines need to be as safe as possible. Every life matters.”
Tim Zook was “quite healthy” his wife said, though he took medication for high blood pressure and was slightly overweight. “He had never been hospitalized. He’d get a cold and be over it two days later. The flu, and be over it three days later.”
According to news reports, Zook told his wife he wasn’t afraid to get the vaccine. He even photographed himself on Jan. 5 before he became ill, with a Band-Aid on his arm and holding a picture of his vaccination card.
In an email to the Orange County Register, Pfizer said it was aware of Zook’s death:
“We closely monitor all such events and collect relevant information to share with global regulatory authorities. Based on ongoing safety reviews performed by Pfizer, BioNTech and health authorities, (the vaccine) retains a positive benefit-risk profile for the prevention of COVID-19 infections. Serious adverse events, including deaths that are unrelated to the vaccine, are unfortunately likely to occur at a similar rate as they would in the general population.”
Zook’s death is the latest in a string of reports about deaths and/or allergic reactions to both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines.
As The Defender reported earlier this week, multiple state and federal officials are investigating the Jan. 21 death of a Placer County, California, man several hours after receiving a COVID vaccine. According to news reports, the man had tested positive for COVID in December. The cause of death and specific vaccine he received have not been released.
Last week, The Defender reported on the death of baseball legend Hank Aaron, 18 days after he received the first dose of the Moderna vaccine. Aaron’s death was initially reported as undisclosed, but according to USA Today, Aaron died of a massive stroke.
Earlier this month, a Johns Hopkins scientist told the New York Times it was a “medical certainty” that Pfizer’s vaccine caused the Jan. 3 death of a 56-year-old Florida doctor. Dr. Gregory Michael, whose wife described him as “perfectly healthy,” died of idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), a rare autoimmune disease, about two weeks after getting the first Pfizer vaccine. Florida health officials are investigating his death.
More than 40 deaths following vaccinations among elderly people in Norway and Germany prompted China health officials last week to call for a pause on the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, especially among the frail elderly.
As of Jan. 15, 181 deaths have been reported to the U.S.government’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) as possibly being related to COVID vaccines. A 2010 study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services concluded that “fewer than 1% of vaccine injuries” are reported to VAERS and experts say the government’s reporting system is “broken.”
Oddly, for the second day in a row, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s VAERS WONDER System is “temporarily down.” Though you can’t see any of the data on adverse events that have been reported, you can still submit a report on any reactions to vaccines.
Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been linked to severe allergic reactions. Last week, The Defender reported that allergic reactions had caused California health officials to hit pause on a large batch of Moderna vaccines. A few days later, Moderna said it was okay to resume using that batch.
Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it was investigating severe allergic reactions to Pfizer’s vaccine “in multiple states.” Those reactions were reported by healthcare workers after receiving their first injection, and were believed to have resulted from an allergy to polyethylene glycol, or PEG, a compound used in the Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines.
So far, in the U.S. only the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, both of which use mRNA technology, have received emergency use authorization. By the FDA’s own definition, the vaccines are considered experimental.
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| Candlemas Candles Blessing - February 2nd |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 01-28-2021, 12:49 PM - Forum: Christmas
- Replies (1)
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The 5 prayers for the blessing show us how powerful these candles are.
The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Double of the First Second Class
Vestments: violet at the Blessing and Procession, white at Mass
This feast celebrates the ceremony of purification of Our Lady on the fortieth day after the birth of our Lord, and of the presentation of offering of our Lord to the Eternal Father in the Temple, as also prescribed in the Law of Moses for first-born male children. The ceremonies of today consist of four parts: the blessing of candles, their distribution, the procession with lighted candles, and the Mass which follows. The whole ceremony that precedes the Mass, and especially the lighted candles, refers to our Lord as the Light of the world according to the words of holy Simeon, who on the day of the Presentation took the divine Infant in his arms and said of Him: "A light to the revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel." (C.M.)
The feast of the Purification is one of the oldest feasts of the Virgin. At Rome in the seventh century it ranked after the Assumption. it is the last one in the Cycle that shows any connection with Christmas: Mary, wishing to obey the Mosaic law, had to go to Jerusalem forty days after the birth of Jesus (December 25-February 2) to offer the prescribed sacrifice. mothers were to offer a lamb, or if their means did not allow, "two doves or two young pigeons."
The Blessed Virgin took the Infant Jesus with her to Jerusalem. The Candlemas procession recalls the journey of Mary and Joseph going up to the temple to present "The Angel of the Covenant" (Epistle, Introit) as Malachy had prophesied, or "the light to the revelation of the Gentiles" (Gospel).
"The wax of the candles signifies the virginal flesh of the Divine Infant," says St. Anselm, "the wick figures His soul and the flame His divinity."
The Purification to which the mother of the Saviour was not obliged to conform, as her motherhood was beyond ordinary laws, is not placed in the foreground by the liturgy and the Presentation of Jesus it he principle object of this feast. (The Church has instituted for Christian mothers the fine ceremony of Churching, the meaning of which is neither a purification of the mother nor a presentation of the child, but a thanksgiving for the birth and a blessing of the mother.)
The first and fourth prayer of the blessing of candles explain the symbolism of the sanctuary lamp and the candles blessed on this day, and teach the right use to be made of them by the bed of the drying, during storms and periods of "body and soul, on land and on the waters."
If the feast of the Purification falls on a privileged Sunday (Septuagesima, Sexagesimal, or Quinquagesima), it is transferred to the Monday Febr. 3; nevertheless the blessing of the candles takes place before the Mass on Sunday 2.
Prayer:
I. The Blessing of the Candles
The priest vested in a purple cope enters the sanctuary and blesses the candles as follows:
V. The Lord be with you.
R. And With your spirit.
1st Prayer: O holy Lord Father almighty, eternal God, who didst create all things out of nothing, and by Thy command didst cause this liquid to come by the labor of bees to the perfection of wax; and on this day didst fulfill the petition of the just man Simeon, we humbly beseech Thee, that by the invocation of Thy most holy name, and by the intercession of blessed Mary ever virgin, whose festival is this day devoutly celebrated, and by the prayers of all Thy saints, Thou wouldst vouchsafed to bless + and sanctify + these candles for the use of men, and the health of bodies and souls whether upon the earth, or on the waters; and wouldst hear from Thy holy heaven, and from the seat of Thy majesty, the voices of this Thy people, who desire to bear them with honor in their hands, and to praise Thee with hymnals, whom Thou has redeemed with the precious blood of Thy Son; who lives and reigns with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.
R. Amen.
2nd Prayer: O almighty and everlasting God, who didst this day present Thy only-begotten Son to be received in the arms of holy Simeon in Thy holy temple; we humbly implore Thy clemency, that Thou wouldst vouchsafe to bless +, sanctify +, and kindle with the light of heavenly benediction these candles, which we Thy servants receiving desire to carry lighted to magnify Thy name; that by offering them to Thee, the Lord our God, being worthily inflamed with the holy fire of Thy most sweet charity, we may deserve to be presented in the holy temple of Thy glory. Though the same our Lord...
R. Amen.
3rd Prayer: O Lord Jesus Christ, the true light, who enlightenest every man coming into this world, pour forth Thy blessing + upon these candles, and sanctify + them with the light of Thy grace; and mercifully grant, that as these lights enkindled with visible fire dispel the darkness of night, so our hearts illumined by invisible fire, that is, the brightness of the Holy Spirit, may be free from the blindness of every sin; that the eye of our minds being purified, we may be able to discern what is pleasing to Thee and conducive to our salvation; so that after the perilous darkness of this life we may deserve to arrive at never-failing light. Through Thee, Christ Jesus, Saviour of the world, who in perfect Trinity livest and reignest God, world without end.
R. Amen.
4th Prayer: O almighty, everlasting God, who didst command the purest oil to be prepared by Thy servant Moses to keep lamps continually before Thee; graciously pour forth the grace of Thy blessing + upon these candles; they may so afford external light, that by Thy gift the light of Thy Spirit may not fail interiorly in our minds. Through our Lord Jesus Christ...in the unity of the same Holy Spirit....
R. Amen.
5th Prayer: O Lord Jesus Christ, who appearing this day among men in the substance of our flesh, and wast presented by Thy parents in the temple; whom the venerable and aged Simeon, enlightened by the light of Thy Spirit, recognized, received, and blessed: mercifully grant, that enlightened and taught by the grace of the same Holy Spirit, we may truly acknowledge Thee, and faithfully love Thee; who with God the Father in the unity of the same Holy Spirit livest and reignest God, world without end.
R. Amen.
Here the priest sprinkles the candles three times with holy water saying the Antiphon without chant nor psalm, and he incenses the candles three times.
Antiphon: Asperges me Domine, Ps. 50: Thou shalt sprinkle me, O Lord, with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed; thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow.
II. Distribution of Candles
The priest receives or takes a candle, and then distributes them to the rest of the clergy in turn and to the laity, who kiss first the candle, then the priest's hand.
When the distribution begins, the choir sings as follows:
Antiphon: A light to the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel.
Antiphona: Luc. 2, 32. Lumen ad revelation em gentium: et Gloria's plebis tuae Israel.
This Antiphons is repeated after each verse of the following Canticle:
Canticle: Nunc Dimittis (Luke 2, 29-32)
V. Now Thou dost dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word in peace.
Ant. A light, etc.
V. Because my eyes have seen Thy salvation.
Ant. A light, etc.
V. Which Thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples.
Ant. A light, etc.
V. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost.
Ant. A light, etc.
V. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
Ant. A light, etc.
After the distribution the following Antiphon is sung:
Antiphon. Arise, O Lord, help us, and deliver us, for Thy name's sake.
Ps. We have heard, O God, with our ears: our fathers have declared to us.
V. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
Antiphon. Arise, O Lord, help us, and deliver us, for Thy name's sake.
The priest then says:
V. Let us pray.
If after Septuagesima, and not on a Sunday, the deacon adds:
V. Let us kneel.
R. Arise.
Prayer. Hear Thy people, we beseech Thee, O Lord, and grant that we may obtain those things within by the light of Thy grace, which Thou permit test us outwardly to venerate in this yearly devotion. Through Christ our Lord.
R. Amen.
The Procession
Here the priest puts incense into the thurible and the Deacon says:
V. Let us proceed in peace
R. In the name of Christ. Amen.
All bear lighted candles in their hands; the following Antiphons from teh Greek liturgy are sung:
Antiphon: O Sion, adorn thy bridal chamber, and welcome Christ the King: embrace Mary, for she who is the very gate of heaven, brings th to Thee the glorious King of the new light. Remaining ever Virgin, in her arms she bears her Son begotten before the day-star, whom Simeon, receiving into his arms declared unto all peoples to be the Lord of life and of death and the Saviour of the world.
Antiphon 2: Luke 2, 26, 27, 28, 29. Simeon received an answer from the Holy Ghost, that he should. not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord; and when they brought the Child into the temple, he took Him into his arms, and blessed God, and said: Now doesn't Thou dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, in peace.
V. When His parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law, he took Him in his arms.
When the Procession re-entered the church, the choir sings:
Responsory: They offered for Him to the Lord a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons,
R. As it is written in the law of the Lord.
V. After the days of the purification of Mary, according to the law of Moses, were fulfilled, they carried Jesus to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord.
R. As it is written in the law of the Lord.
V. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
R. As it is written in the law of the Lord.
IV. The Mass (White Vestments)
Introit We have received Thy mercy, O God, in the midst of Thy temple; according to Thy name, O God, so also is Thy praise unto the ends of the earth: Thy right hand is full of justice. Ps. Great is the Lord, and exceedingly to be praise, in the city of God, in his holy mountain. V. Glory be to the Father.
Collect O almighty and everlasting God, we humbly beseech Thy majesty; that as Thine only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple in the substance of our flesh, so too Thou wouldst grant us to be presented unto Thee with purified souls. Through the same Lord, etc.
Lesson. Malachy 3:1-4
Gradual. Ps. 47, 10-11, 9.
Before Septuagesima:
Alleluia. The old man carried the Child: but the Child governed the old man. Alleluia.
After Septuagesima:
Tract. Luke 2, 29-32. Now Though dost dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word in peace.
V. Because my eyes have seen Thy salvation.
V. Which Thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples.
V. A light to the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel.
The blessed candle should be held lighted in the hand during the Gospel, and also from the Sanctus to the Communion.
Gospel. Luke 2, 22-32.
Offertory. Ps. 44, 3. Grace is poured abroad in thy lips: therefore hath God blessed thee for ever and for ages and ages.
Secret. Graciously hear our prayers, O Lord; and that the gifts we offer in the sight of Thy majesty may be found worthy, extend to us the help of Thy mercy, Through our Lord.
Preface of Christmas is used.
It is truly meet and just, right and availing unto salvation, that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto Thee, O holy Lord, Father almighty, and everlasting God. Because by the mystery of the Word made flesh the light of Thy glory hath shone anew upon the eyes of our mind: that while we acknowledge Him to be God seen by men, we may be drawn by Him to the love of things unseen. And therefore with Angels and Archangels, with Thrones and Dominions, and with all the heavenly hosts, we sing a hymn to Thy glory, saying without ceasing:
Communion. Luke 2, 26. Simeon received an answer from the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, until he had see the Christ of the Lord.
Postcommunion. We beseech Thee, O Lord our God, that by the intercession of blessed Mary ever Virgin Thou wouldst make the most holy mysteries, which Thou has conferred upon us for the preservation of our spiritual life, both a present and future remedy. Through our Lord, etc. Amen.
Prayer Source: Saint Andrew Daily Missal by Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, Liturgical Apostolate, 1959
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/...fm?id=1394
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| St. John Damascene - Treatise |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 01-27-2021, 09:56 PM - Forum: Doctors of the Church
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St. John Damascene,
Patristic Father and
One of the Thirty-three Doctors of the Church:
Doctor of Christian Art and Doctor of the Assumption
c. 676-749
Feast Day: March 27 [Trad.]
Whenever we look at traditional Catholic art we can thank St. John Damascene. We can thank him again when we look at the Crucifixes on our walls, or when in church we see the stained-glass windows, the paintings on the walls, the statues in their niches. All these have nourished Catholic our devotion.
St. John Damascene is the outstanding champion of sacred images. As such he is also the champion of that article in the Creed which says, "I believe in the Communion of Saints."
We often recite the Creed without thinking about each article: the precious summary of truths takes only a few moments to recite. Yet every article in it has been defended sometimes not just by verbal apologetics -----by pens dipped in ink-----but by swords that dripped blood. Men will always defend what they hold to be most precious.
Doctor of Christian Art
The Eastern Roman Emperor Leo III, the Isaurian [717-741], violently attacked a particular part of Catholic teaching on the Communion of Saints. In 726 A.D. he forbade all his subjects to keep any images, or icons, as the Greeks called them. He ordered the icons in the churches to be destroyed. A few years later, he threatened Pope Gregory II: "I will send an army to break your idols and to take you prisoner." Leo's son, Constantine V [741-775], continued the persecution. The monks were the strongest defenders of icons; many were Martyred and many monasteries were burned down. The large church of the Blessed Mother in Constantinople was stripped of its icons and repainted. People said it then looked like a bird cage or a fruit shop.
The periods of image-breaking or "iconoclasm" lasted 116 years, until the great triumphal procession when icons were carried through the streets of Constantinople on February 19, the First Sunday of Lent in 842 A.D.
Early in the controversy, about 729 A.D., St. John Damascene [St. John of Damascus] wrote three apologias defending the use of images. In these, he gave such a classical expression of the truths involved that nobody has ever had to improve upon it. He has supplied all the arguments from reason, from the past history of the Church, and from Sacred Scripture. If we wish to explain the use of statues, medals and holy pictures to ourselves or others, we need look no further.
St. John entered the conflict, not to win an argument, but to safeguard the truth. "Conquest is not my object," he said. "I raise a hand which is fighting for the truth -----a willing hand under Divine guidance."
He felt strongly the implied charge by the image-breakers that the Church could have been wrong in the past to allow the use of images.
It is supreme error to think that the Church does not know God as He is, that she degenerates into idolatry, for if she declines from perfection in but one aspect, it is as an enduring mark on a beautiful face, destroying by its unsightliness the beauty of the whole. A small thing is not small when it leads to something great, nor indeed is it a thing of no matter to give up the ancient tradition of the Church held by our forefathers, whose conduct we should observe and whose faith we should imitate.
St. John Damascene said that the repeated commands given to the Jews not to make an image referred to the making of an image of the invisible God, lest they sink into idolartry, which they were prone to. Besides until Christ, God was invisible in His Person. But, says St. John, "We have passed the stage of infancy and reached the perfection of manhood. We receive our habit of mind from God and know what may be imaged and what may not."
"Especially since the invisible God took on flesh," says St. John, "we may make images of Christ, Who was visible, and picture Him in all His activities, His birth, Baptism, transfigura tion, His sufferings and Resurrection." St. John also asks the pointed question why God, Who forbids the making of images to adore, would also command the making of the Ark of the Covenant and the cherubim above the Ark if His previous prohibition were to be absolute. Many times St. John insists that we pay an altogether particular honor to God alone, called latria.
St. John Damascene ably demonstrates why it is good to have images:
"We proclaim Him [God] also by our senses on all sides, and we sanctify the noblest sense, which is that of sight. The image is a memorial, just what words are to a listening ear. What a book is to those who can read, that an image is to those who cannot read. The image speaks to the sight as words to the ear; it brings us understanding. Hence, God ordered the Ark to be made of imperishable wood, and to be gilded outside and in, and the tablets to be put into it, and the staff and the golden urn containing the manna, for a remembrance of the past and a type of the future. Who can say these were not images and far sounding heralds?" [1, 17]
Therefore, St. John Damascene sums up, "You see that the law and everything it ordained and all our own worship consist in the consecration of what is made by hands, leading us through matter to the invisible God." [2, 23]
Acts 6 and 7 of the seventh General Council [Nicaea II of 787 -----Source #3, p. 60] name St. John Damascene, along with St. Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, and St. George of Cyprus as worthy of eternal memory for their defense of sacred images. The same three men had been singled out by the Council of the Iconoclasts held in 753 in the Palace of the Hieria near Constantinople, and anathematized. Constantine V further ordered St. John to be publicly cursed or anathematized once a year. It is not without good cause that St. John Damascene is called the "Doctor of Christian Art."
A river flows through Damascus which the ancients called Chrysorrhoas, or the golden-flowing. This epithet has also been given to St. John Damascene, "who is called Chrysorrhoas because of the golden and shining grace of the Spirit which flowed in both his words and his manner of life."
Not too much can be said with certainty regarding the details of St. John Damascene's life. He was born in Damascus of a good Christian family. His father, Sergius, was a tax collector for the Mohammedan Caliph of Damascus. St. John was also known by the surname of Mansur, after his grandfather, who had held a more important job under the Caliph. St. John Damascene succeeded his father as tax collector, but retired, perhaps before 715 A.D., to the Monastery of St. Sabbas, south of Jerusalem as one goes toward the Dead Sea. He was ordained a priest by John V, Patriarch of Jerusalem, before 726. His sermons on the Assumption of Our Lady indicate that he was called upon to preach for special occasions. "Suffer me now to revert again to her praises. This is in obedience to your orders, most excellent pastors, so dear to God." [Sermon 2].
But St. John was primarily the monk, praying, leading an ascetical life, studying and writing. The traditional date for his birth is 676 A.D. He died sometime between 743 and 753; the most accepted date is December 4, 749. He was buried at the Monastery of St. Sabbas, where his empty tomb can be seen today. His relics were transferred to Constantinople, very likely by the time of the 14th century.
The original Life of St. John Damascene by John V, Patriarch of Jerusalem, tells about the cutting off of his hand. By forging a letter, the Emperor Leo III convinced the Caliph that St. John was plotting against him. Leo was smarting under the Damascene's strong defense of images. The Caliph, believing the Emperor, had St. John's hand cut off as a punishment. But St. John prayed to the Blessed Virgin, reminding her, "This hand often wrote hymns and canticles in praise of thee, and many times offered the Sacred Body and Blood of thy Son in thy honor for the salvation of all sinners." He continued his prayer all night. Then Mary appeared to him and said, "Be comforted, my son, in the Lord. He can restore thy hand Who has made the whole man from nothing." Then she took the hand from where it had been hung in the monastery, and in a moment it was restored to his arm.
In Eastern Christendom, St. John of Damascus has the stature which St. Thomas Aquinas enjoys in the West. He has summed up for them philosophy, doctrine and morals. His original work on morals is not extant, but it has come down to us in two shortened sections known as the Sacred Parallels. These are a collection of sayings for guidance in moral and ascetic living, taken from Scripture and the Fathers.
His work known as the Fount of Knowledge [also called Fount of Wisdom] is, however, a truly original synthesis of philosophy and dogma. It is St. John's greatest work. Its latest English translator says: "The Fount of Knowledge not only contains much that is original and a fresh viewpoint on many things, but is in itself something new. It is the first real Summa Theologica." [Frederick Chase, Jr., Vol. 37 in Fathers of the Church series, p. xxvi].
The third and most important part of the Fount is known as the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith in100 chapters. It was translated into Latin at the request of Pope Eugene III. Its powerful influence on the West can be surmised from the large number of Latin manuscript copies still in existence. Peter the Lombard used it and may have owed much to it, and St. Thomas Aquinas quotes from it.
St. John Damascene is especially clear in writing about the Incarnation, and the greatest of those who wrote about Christ in later ages owe him a considerable debt. St. John's words are precise and clear.
"Christ was in all things and above all things, and at the same time He was existing in the womb of the Holy Mother of God, but He was there by the operation of the Incarnation. And so He was made flesh and took from her the first fruits of our clay, a body animated by a rational and intellectual soul, so that the very Person of God the Word was accounted to the flesh . . . And so we confess that even after the Incarnation He is the one Son of God, and we confess that the same is the Son of Man, one Christ, one Lord, the Only-begotten Son and Word of God, Jesus our Lord. And we venerate His two begettings
-----one from the Father before the ages and surpassing cause and reason and time and nature, and one in latter times for our own sake, after our own manner, and surpassing us."
St. John on why God creates a man He knows will be lost:
"Being comes first, and afterwards, being good or evil. However, had God kept from being made those who through His goodness were to have existence but who by their own choice were to become evil, then evil would have prevailed over the goodness of God. Thus, all things which God makes He makes good, but each one becomes good or evil by his own choice."
The Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith ends with a chapter on the resurrection of the body. St. John asks those who say this resurrection from the dust is impossible to consider how the body is formed in the first place from a little drop of seed that grows in the womb.
"And so, with our souls again united to our bodies, which will have become incorrupt and put off corruption, we shall rise again and stand before the terrible judgment seat of Christ. And the devil and his demons, and his man, which is to say, the Antichrist, and the impious and sinners will be given over to the everlasting fire . . . And those who have done good will shine like the sun together with the Angels unto eternal life with our Lord Jesus Christ, ever seeing Him and being seen, enjoying the unending bliss which is from Him, and praising Him, together with the Father and the Holy Ghost, unto the endless ages of ages. Amen.
A Little Treatise on Mary
by St. John Damascene
2. BRIEF OVERVIEW OF HIS MARIAN DOCTRINE
St. John Damascene at various places in his writings shows a clear belief in Our Lady's Immaculate Conception. He explains in a sermon on Mary's nativity why she was born of a sterile mother. "Since the Virgin Mother of God was to be born of Anne, nature did not dare to precede the product of grace, but remained sterile until grace had produced its fruit." In the homilies on the Assumption, St. John explains: that Mary, although not subject to death, died nonetheless. Death, of course, is the penalty for sin, and only one preserved even from Original Sin would be exempt.
For how could she who brought life to all, be under the dominion of death? But she obeys the law of her own Son and inherits this chastisement as a daughter of the first Adam, since her Son, Who is the Life, did not refuse it. As the Mother of the Living God, she goes through death to Him. [Sermon 2]
In the East, Marian devotion probably reached its high point with St. John of Damascus. It would be easy, for example, to go through his sermons on the Dormition and from them alone construct a litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is the perennial "source of true light, the treasury of life, the richness of grace, the cause of all our good. She is life-giving ambrosia, true happiness, a sea of grace, a fountain of healing, a fruitful tree, the lily of the field, the rose among thorns, the gladness of Angels, the sweetness of patriarchs, refreshment of the weary. She is as shining as the dawn, beautiful as the moon, conspicuous as the sun; she is Queen, Virgin Mother of God, a rich treasure-house of the Godhead. Mary is the Saint of Saints, the spotless Virgin, most dear among women, all fair; her fragrance is sweeter than all ointment, the Ark of God". Over and over St. John Damascene calls her "the Mother of God".
St. John was a man who sought wisdom humbly. He did not push himself. Only near the close of his life did he write his greatest work, the Fount of Knowledge, and that at the request of Cosmas, Bishop of Maiuma, once his fellow-monk.
St. John Damascene had a penetrating and exact mind that made him a great theologian; at the same time he had the fine feeling and beauty of expression that made him an outstanding poet. This combination of talents must have made him a superb orator. But the point that seems most striking and endearing about St. John Damascene is his constant gratitude for being able to serve God and sing the praises of his Lady, the Theotokos or "God-bearer." Perhaps he expressed this best when he said: "We know that in celebrating her praises we payoff our debt, and that in so doing we are again debtors, so that the debt is ever beginning afresh."
John writes on all the mariological questions that were current in his day: Mary's predestination, the Old Testament figures and prophecies that were usually applied to her, her Divine maternity, her perpetual virginity, and the meaning of the name Mary, which he interprets as "Lady", according to Syriac etymology. He was the first author to speak of consecration to Mary. Here we confine ourselves to certain aspects of mariological doctrine that are most original and most important to him, aspects for which the Church's Magisterium still invokes him today as an authority. Along with Germanus of Constantinople and Andrew of Crete, he is cited in Munificentissimus Deus, the document in which Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption and in John Paul II's encyclical Redemptoris Mater. His Marian thought has been the object of various studies and research, which have emphasized its value and depth.
John Damascene often speaks of Mary as a sublime creature, filled with spiritual treasures. Accordingly, his homily on the Nativity, for example, goes so far as to make clear and explicit allusions-----unprecedented in previous centuries-----to the mystery of the Immaculate Conception.
For John, both the Virgin Mary's conception and her birth took place completely under the influence of Divine grace. These two events also shaped the role played by her parents, Joachim and Anna. Their previous sterility is explained thus:
"Because it would come to pass that the Virgin Theotokos would be born of Anna, nature did not dare anticipate the seed of grace but remained unfruitful until grace bore fruit." [Homily on the Nativity, 2]
Anna's sterility was, therefore, a condition previously arranged in the Divine plan, so that the role of grace would appear fully predominant. This is why Damascene always names the Virgin's parents with profound respect: they would offer themselves as the passive instruments of God's miraculous intervention:
"O blessed loins of Joachim, whence the all-pure seed was poured out! O glorious womb of Anna, in which the most holy fetus grew and was formed, silently increasing! O womb in which was conceived the living heaven, wider than the wideness of the heavens." [Ibid, 2; "Fetus" means offspring in Latin. We mention this because in modern societies the term has lost its Latin and (and true) definition and has come to signify a "non-person" for all practical purposes, a distortion for political manipulation------The Web Master]
In these considerations [not devoid of realism], the author wants us to notice that even the physiological process of Mary's conception and birth unfolded in a sinless fashion, under the mysterious guidance of the Almighty. The very seed of which Mary was born was utterly perfect [panamomos]. This concept of perfection, then, is decidedly positive: it goes beyond a simple absence of sin and corruption to include an exceptional richness of grace.
Now one can understand why the Damascene gave himself over to the praise of Mary, seeing her as a new heaven:
"This Heaven is clearly much more Divine and awesome than the first. Indeed He Who created the sun in the first heaven would Himself be born of this second heaven, as the Sun of Justice."
Mary also appears as a lofty ladder, planted between Heaven and earth, a kind of means of communication between God and man:
Today [Christ] . . . built Himself a living ladder, whose base is planted in the earth and whose tip reaches Heaven. God rests upon it. Jacob saw a figure of it. God, unchanged, came down it. . . . He was made manifest on the earth and lived among men.
The author emphasizes the fact that Mary's spiritual beauty derives from her special relationship with God:
She is all beautiful, all near to God. For she, surpassing the cherubim, exalted beyond the seraphim, is placed near to God.
It is understandable that the author should treat the theme of Mary's exceptional purity and sanctity in this context, since he considers it a condition that belongs to the very beginning of her earthly existence.
3. MARY ASSUMED INTO HEAVEN
Doctor of the Assumption
On November 27, 1950, St. Peter's in Rome Pope Pius XII raised his voice to give the blessing on the occasion that commemorated the twelfth centenary of the death of St. John Damascene, the last of the Greek Fathers, proclaimed a Doctor of the Universal Church by Leo XIII on August 19, 1890.
Just a few weeks before Pope Pius XII had defined the dogma of the Assumption. The tdeclarative eaching of this truth as a dogma was new, but the truth itself was revered and ancient as Tradition itself. Pope Pius' definition only brought it into its final and sharpest focus. In Munificentissimus Deus, defining the dogma of the Assumption, the Pope called St. John Damascene "the interpreter of this Tradition par excellence." He then quoted St. John:
"There was need that the body of her who in childbirth had preserved her virginity intact, be preserved incorrupt after death. There was need that she who had carried her Creator as a babe on her bosom, should linger lovingly in the dwelling of her God. There was need that the bride whom the Father had betrothed to Himself should live in the bridal chamber of Heaven, that she who had looked so closely upon her very own Son on the Cross, and who there felt in her heart the sword-pangs of sorrow which in bearing Him she had been spared, should look upon Him seated with His Father. There was need that God's Mother should enter into her Son's possessions, and as a Mother of God and hand- maid, be reverenced by all creation." [Par. 21]
The words are taken from the second of St. John's three homilies on the Assumption of Mary. From the opening words of the third sermon it seems that all three were preached on the same day at Mary's tomb in Jerusalem. The occasion was the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady-----also called her "Dormition" or "Falling Asleep."
The third sermon opens in this way:
"Lovers are wont to speak of what they love and to let their fancy run on it by day and night. Let no one, therefore, blame me if I add a third tribute to the Mother of God on her triumphant departure. I am not profiting her, but myself and you who are here present . . . She does not need our praise. It is we who need her glory . . . "
St. John Damascene's words about the Blessed Mother overflow with love, humility and gratitude. You can feel the surging emotion and understand that the beautiful words do not satisfy his yearning to say something better and more fitting. "She is greater than all praise." In his "winter of poverty" he wants to "bring garlands to our Queen, and prepare a flower of oratory for the feast of praise." [Sermon 2]
Grateful, humble love can hardly speak more convincingly: "But what is sweeter than the Mother of my God? She has taken my mind captive and held my tongue in bondage. I think of her by day and night. She, the Mother of the Word, supplies my words." [Sermon 3]
St. John addresses Mary's empty tomb and asks:
"Where is the pure gold which apostolic hands confided to you? Where is the inexhaustible treasure? Where the precious receptacle of God? Where is the new book in which the incomprehensible Word of God is written without hands . . . Where is the life-giving fountain? Where is the sweet and loved body of God's Mother?" [Sermon 2]
St. John concludes his third homily with this prayer to Our Lady:
"Accept then my goodwill, which is greater than my capacity, and give us salvation. Heal our passions, cure our diseases, help us out of our difficulties, make our lives peaceful, send us the illumination of the Spirit. Inflame us with the desire of thy Son. Render us pleasing to Him, so that we may enjoy happiness with Him, seeing thee resplendent with thy Son's glory, rejoicing forever, keeping feast in the Church with those who worthily celebrate Him Who worked our salvation through thee: Christ, the Son of God, and our God. To Him be glory and majesty, with the uncreated Father and the all-holy and life-giving Spirit, now and forever, through the endless ages of eternity. Amen.
[Source #1, pp. 241-243]
Mary Assumed into Heaven
The three homilies on the Dormition reveal the exceptional importance of Damascene's teaching for the development of doctrine on the Assumption. John explicitly teaches the truth of Mary's bodily Assumption into Heaven. In confonnity with the teaching of his two famous contemporaries, Germanus of Constantinople and Andrew of Crete, our doctor accepts the thesis that Mary's death is a premise of her imminent glorification:
"O how could the Font of life be led to life through death? O how could she, who in giving birth surpassed the limits of nature, now yield to nature's laws and have her irnrnaculate body undergo death? She had to put aside what was mortal and put on incorruptibility, seeing that even the Lord of nature did not excuse Himself from facing death. He truly died in the flesh to destroy death by means of death; in place of corruption He gave incorruptibility; He made death into a font of resurrection!" [Homily 1 on the Dormition, 10]
Even though she must pass through death before being glorified, nevertheless the personal destiny of the Mother of God had an unusual outcome:
"Even though your most holy and blessed soul was separated from your most happy and immaculate body, according to the usual course of nature, and even though it was carried to a proper burial place, nevertheless it did not remain under the dominion of death, nor was it destroyed by corruption.
"Indeed, just as her virginity remained intact when she gave birth, so her body, even after death, was preserved from decay and transferred to a better and more Divine dwelling place. There it is no longer subject to death but abides for all ages."
In his second homily on the Dormition, Damascene uses biblical typology to present a whole series of reasons why it was fitting that Mary's body was not consumed by decay in the tomb. In this text, as in the passage cited above, one notes the homilist's tendency to explain the privilege of the Assumption by referring to the mystery of Mary's virginity in giving birth. Although this might seem to be an argument from fittingness, in Damascene's eyes it has the character of most strict necessity, because of the indispensable role played by Mary in the mystery of the Incarnation:
"It was necessary that the body of the one who preserved her virginity intact in giving birth should also be kept incorrupt after death. It was necessary that she, who carried the Creator in her womb when He was a baby, should dwell among the tabernacles of Heaven . . . .
"It was necessary that the Mother of God share what belongs to her Son and that she be celebrated by all creation. An inheritance is normally passed down from parents to children; now, however, to use the expression of a wise man, the sources of the sacred rivers flow back toward their origin, now that the Son has made all created things His Mother's slaves." [Homily 2 on the Dormition, 14]
MARY'S TOMB, PLACE OF GRACE
"Your holy and all-virginal body was consigned to a holy tomb, while the Angels went before it, accompanied it, and followed it; for what would they not do to serve the Mother of their Lord.?
"Meanwhile, the Apostles and the whole assembly of the Church sang Divine hymns and struck the lyre of the Spirit: "We shall be filled with the blessings of Your house; Your temple is holy; wondrous injustice" [Ps 65:4]. And again: 'The Most High has sanctified His dwelling' [Ps 46:5]; 'God's mountain, rich mountain, the mountain in which God has been pleased to dwell' [Ps 68:16-17].
"The assembly of Apostles carried you, the Lord God's true Ark, as once the priests carried the symbolic ark, on their shoulders. They laid you in the tomb, through which, as if through the Jordan, they will conduct you to the promised land, that is to say, the Jerusalem above, mother of all the faithful, whose architect and builder is God. Your soul did not descend to Hades, neither did your flesh see corruption. Your virginal and uncontaminated body was not abandoned in the earth, but you are transferred into the royal dwelling of Heaven, you, the Queen, the sovereign, the Lady, God's Mother, the true God-bearer.
"O, how did Heaven receive her, who surpasses the wideness of the heavens? How is it possible that the tomb should contain the dwelling place of God? And yet it received and held it. For she was not wider than heaven in her bodily dimensions; indeed, how could a body three cubits long, which is always growing thinner, be compared with the breadth and length of the sky? Rather it is through grace that she surpassed the limits of every height and depth. The Divinity does not admit of comparison.
"O holy tomb, awesome, venerable, and adorable! Even now the Angels continue to venerate you, standing by with great respect and fear, while the devils shrink in horror. With faith, men make haste to render you honor, to adore you, to salute you with their eyes, with their lips, and with the affection of their souls, in order to obtain an abundance of blessings.
"A precious ointment, when it is poured out upon the garments or in any place and then taken away, leaves traces of its fragrance even after evaporating. In the same way your body, holy and perfect, impregnated with Divine perfume and abundant spring of grace, this body which had been laid in the tomb, when it was taken out and transferred to a better and more elevated place, did not leave the tomb bereft of honor but left behind a Divine fragrance and grace, making it a wellspring of healing and a source of every blessing for those who approach it with faith."
-----John Damascene, Homily 1 on the Dormition 12-13
4. MARY MEDIATRIX BETWEEN EARTH AND HEAVEN
John introduces the concept of Mary's mediation with the Old Testament image of Jacob's ladder. As already cited, he loves to use this image for Mary:
That man [Jacob] contemplated Heaven joined to earth by the two ends of a ladder and saw Angels going up and down upon it and saw himself symbolically wrestling with the Strong One, the Invincible. So you have assumed the role of a mediatrix, having become the ladder by which God comes down to us, assuming the weakness of our nature, embracing it and uniting Himself to it, and thus making man into a mind that can see God. Thus [O Mary] you have reunited what had been divided. [Homily 1 on the Dormition, 8]
He attributes great efficacy to the holy Virgin's mediation in the plan of salvation. Mary has a very active part in causing the fruits of the Incarnation to be applied. Accordingly, he ascribes the benefits of salvation to her and to her Divine Son, almost without distinction:
Through her, the long warfare waged with the Creator has been ended. Through her, the reconciliation between us and him was ratified. Grace and peace were granted us, so that men and Angels are united in the same choir, and we, who had been deserving of disdain, have become sons of God. From her we have harvested the grape of life; from her we have cultivated the seed of immortality. For our sake she became Mediatrix of all blessings; in her God became man, and man became God. [Homily 2 on the Dormition, 16]
Damascene does speak of Mary's compassion on Calvary . . . her sorrowful experience of Mary is linked to Simeon's prophecy:
It was necessary that she who contemplated her own Son on the Cross, and who had been pierced through the heart by the sword she had avoided while giving birth, should contemplate Him reigning with the Father.
Speaking of the Divine favors that the Mother of the Lord distributes to Christians in copious measure throughout the world, our doctor exhorts his audience to acquire the dispositions that will render them open to Mary's mediation:
If we firmly abstain, then, from past vices and love the virtues with all our heart, taking them as our companions in life, the Virgin will frequently visit her servants, bringing all manner of blessings. She will be accompanied by Christ her Son, the King and Lord of all, Who will dwell in our hearts.
In this passage, the author sums up the ways in which Mary exercises her power on our behalf: In giving us the incarnate Word to be our Redeemer, she has obtained for us all the graces we need for salvation, and, like an inexhaustible spring, she continues to pour them out upon us.
5. DEVOTION TO MARY
With regard to Marian devotion, a very practical part of Christian life, it is particularly interesting to revisit the thought of St. John Damascene. He introduces the fine distinction between the cult of adoration, or latria, owed to God alone, and the honor or veneration that ought to be given to the holy Virgin. Later on the terms dulia [and hyperdulia-----the Web Master] was introduced for this, but it was unknown to the Saint.
Here is a text:
But we, who consider God the object of adoration-----a God not made out of anything, but existing from all eternity, beyond every cause, word, or concept of time and nature -----we honor and venerate the mother of God. [Homily 2 on the Dormition, 15]
The cult of Mary, even though inferior to that owed to God, is superior to the honor paid to the other Saints and to the Angels in Heaven. Because she is queen and mistress of all things, she merits the veneration suited to her greatness and unique dignity:
If the memory of all the Saints is celebrated with panegyrics, who will refuse to praise the font of justice and the treasury of holiness? This is not done to glorify her but so that God might be glorified with an eternal glory. [Homily 1 on the Dormition, 5]
Such veneration can also be extended to images of Mary. In his discourses in defense of sacred icons, Damascene makes some extremely clear distinctions about this form of veneration. . . . As for icons of the Mother of God, they merit a special veneration because of Mary's unique personal position in the economy of salvation.
In addition to the extreme theological clarity with which our doctor resolves the objective question of Marian devotion, he is not held back by any inhibition or timidity when he wants to express his personal feelings toward her. Let us choose two texts from among the most expressive:
O daughter of Joachim and Anna, O Lady, receive the word of a sinful servant, who nevertheless burns with love and places in you his only hope of joy; in you he finds the guardian of his life, not only a Mediatrix in your Son's presence, but also a sure pledge of salvation. [Homily on the Nativity, 12]
St. John Damascene proposed a practice of Marian devotion that seems to come very close to the concept of consecration to the Blessed Virgin as understood and practiced in Marian devotion today.
He explains it in a passage from a homily on the Dormition:
We today also remain near you, O Lady. Yes, I repeat, O Lady, Mother of God and Virgin. We bind our souls to your hope, as to a most firm and totally unbreakable anchor, consecrating to you [anath émenoi] mind, soul, body, and all our being and honoring you, as much as we can, with psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles. [Homily 1 on the Dormition, 14]
The Greek word used by Damascene, anatíthēmi means [inter alia] to dedicate, consecrate, offer in a religious sense. Damascene's text, therefore, is a good description of the act of a servant and devotee of Mary, who offers his whole self to her as his sovereign and lady. Thus, a consecration.
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| Litany of the Holy Name of Mary |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 01-27-2021, 09:52 PM - Forum: Marian Litanies
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Litany of the Holy Name of Mary
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Son of Mary, hear us.
Son of Mary, graciously hear us.
Heavenly Father, of Whom Mary is the Daughter,
Have mercy on us.
Eternal Word, of Whom Mary is the Mother,
Have mercy on us.
Holy Spirit, of Whom Mary is the spouse,
Have mercy on us.
Divine Trinity, of Whom Mary is the Handmaid,
Have mercy on us.
Mary , Mother of the Living God, pray for us.
Mary, daughter of the Light Eternal, pray for us.
Mary, our light, etc.
Mary, our sister,
Mary, flower of Jesse,
Mary , issue of kings,
Mary, chief work of God,
Mary, the beloved of God,
Mary, Immaculate Virgin,
Mary, all fair,
Mary, light in darkness,
Mary, our sure rest,
Mary, house of God,
Mary, sanctuary of the Lord,
Mary, altar of the Divinity,
Mary, Virgin Mother,
Mary, embracing thy Infant God,
Mary, reposing with Eternal Wisdom,
Mary, ocean of bitterness,
Mary, Star of the Sea,
Mary, suffering with thine only Son,
Mary, pierced with a sword of sorrow,
Mary, torn with a cruel wound,
Mary, sorrowful even to death ,
Mary, bereft of all consolation,
Mary, submissive to the law of God,
Mary, standing by the Cross of Jesus,
Mary, Our Lady,
Mary, Our Queen,
Mary, Queen of glory ,
Mary, glory of the Church Triumphant,
Mary, Blessed Queen,
Mary, advocate of the Church Militant,
Mary, Queen of Mercy,
Mary, consoler of the Church Suffering,
Mary, exalted above the Angels,
Mary, crowned with twelve stars,
Mary, fair as the moon,
Mary, bright as the sun,
Mary, distinguished above all,
Mary, seated at the right hand of Jesus,
Mary, our hope,
Mary, our sweetness,
Mary, glory of Jerusalem ,
Mary, joy of Israel,
Mary, honor of our people,
Mary, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception,
Mary, Our Lady of the Assumption,
Mary, Our Lady of Loreto,
Mary, Our Lady of Lourdes,
Mary, Our Lady of Fatima,
Mary, Our Lady of Czestochowa,
Mary, Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal,
Mary, Our Lady of Mount Carmel,
Mary, Our Lady of the Angels,
Mary, Our Lady of Dolors,
Mary, Our Lady of Mercy,
Mary, Our Lady of the Rosary,
Mary, Our Lady of Victory ,
Mary, Our Lady of La Trappe,
Mary, Our Lady of Divine Providence,
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Spare us, O Lord Jesus.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Graciously hear us, O Lord Jesus.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Have mercy on us, O Lord Jesus.
Son of Mary , hear us.
Son of Mary, graciously hear us.
V. I will declare thy name unto my brethren.
R. I will praise thee in the assembly of the faithful.
Let Us Pray.
O Almighty God, Who beholdest Thy servants earnestly desirous
of placing themselves under the shadow of the name and protection
of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, vouchsafe, we beseech Thee,
that by her charitable intercession, we may be delivered from all
evil on earth, and may arrive at everlasting joys in Heaven,
through Jesus Christ Our Lord. R. Amen.
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| Litany of St. Pius X |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 01-27-2021, 09:50 PM - Forum: Litanies
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Litany of Pope Saint Pius X
Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.
God the Father of Heaven,
Have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world,
Have mercy on us.
God the Holy Spirit,
Have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, One God,
Have mercy on us.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us.
Saint Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church,
Pray for us.
Saint Pius X, model for priests, etc.
Saint Pius X, wise bishop,
Saint Pius X, humble cardinal and patriarch,
Saint Pius X, zealous Pope for his flock,
Saint Pius X, pious teacher,
Saint Pius X, devoted to the poor,
Saint Pius X, consoler of the sick,
Saint Pius X, lover of poverty,
Saint Pius X, humble of heart,
Saint Pius X, faithful to duty,
Saint Pius X, heroic in the practice of all virtues,
Saint Pius X, filled with the spirit of self-sacrifice,
Saint Pius X, who didst aim to restore all things in Christ,
Saint Pius X, who didst bring little children to the the Altar rail,
Saint Pius X, who didst counsel daily and frequent Communion for all,
Saint Pius X, who didst urge us to know and to love the Holy Mass,
Saint Pius X, who didst seek everywhere the diffusion of Christian teaching,
Saint Pius X, who didst withstand and reprove all heresies,
Saint Pius X, who didst teach us righteous Catholic Action,
Saint Pius X, who didst consecrate the faithful to the lay apostolate,
Saint Pius X, who didst wish to be known as a poor pastor of souls,
Saint Pius X, who answereth the prayers of those who cry to thee,
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world,
Have mercy on us.
V. Pray for us, Saint Pius X,
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let Us Pray.
O God, who didst fill the soul of Saint Pius X with a burning charity and
called him to be the Vicar of Christ, grant that through his intercession
we may follow in the footsteps of Jesus, Our Divine Master; and may
our prayers to this saintly Pope be fruitful for life both here and hereafter,
through the same Christ Our Lord. R. Amen.
Through the Intercession of Saint Pius X
O God, Who didst raise up Saint Pius X to be the chief Shepherd of Thy flock and especially endowed him with devotion to the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar and zeal for
Thine eternal truths and a love of the priesthood and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, grant we beg of Thee, that we who venerate his memory on earth, may enjoy his
powerful intercession in Heaven. Through Christ, Our Lord. Amen.
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| Litany of St. Francis de Sales |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 01-27-2021, 09:47 PM - Forum: Litanies
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Litany of St. Francis de Sales
Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, hear us. Christ, graciously hear us.
God, the Father in Heaven, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the World, have mercy on us.
God the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy on us.
Saint Francis, admirable bishop, pray for us.
Saint Francis, beloved of God, pray for us.
Saint Francis, imitator of Jesus Christ, pray for us.
Saint Francis, filled with the gifts of the Lord, pray for us.
Saint Francis, favorite of the Mother of God, pray for us.
Saint Francis, most devout of the saints, pray for us.
Saint Francis, burning with love for the Cross of Christ, pray for us.
Saint Francis, most closely united to the divine will, pray for us.
Saint Francis, vessel of election, pray for us.
Saint Francis, light of the Church, pray for us.
Saint Francis, perfect model of religious, pray for us.
Saint Francis, source of wisdom, pray for us.
Saint Francis, defender of the Catholic Faith, pray for us.
Saint Francis, good shepherd of thy people, pray for us.
Saint Francis, incomparable preacher, pray for us.
Saint Francis, scourge of heresy, pray for us.
Saint Francis, salt of the earth, pray for us.
Saint Francis, model of justice, pray for us.
Saint Francis, mirror of humility, pray for us.
Saint Francis, despiser of the world, pray for us.
Saint Francis, lover of poverty, pray for us.
Saint Francis, type of sweetness, pray for us.
Saint Francis, conqueror of carnal passions, pray for us.
Saint Francis, terror of devils, pray for us.
Saint Francis, merciful support of penitents, pray for us.
Saint Francis, refuge of sinners, pray for us.
Saint Francis, providence of the poor, pray for us.
Saint Francis, consoler of the afflicted, pray for us.
Saint Francis, example of perfection, pray for us.
Saint Francis, ark of holiness, pray for us.
Saint Francis, imitator of the purity of the angels, pray for us.
Saint Francis, cherub of wisdom, pray for us.
Saint Francis, seraph of love, pray for us.p
Saint Francis, our holy patriarch, pray for us.
Saint Francis, our sweet light, pray for us.
Saint Francis, our mighty protector, pray for us.
Saint Francis, our guide in the ways of God, pray for us.
Saint Francis, our refuge, pray for us.
Saint Francis, emulator of the angels, pray for us.
Saint Francis, imitator of the Apostles, pray for us.
Saint Francis, sharer in the glory of the martyrs, pray for us.
Saint Francis, glory of holy confessors, pray for us.
Saint Francis, teacher and director of virgins, pray for us.
Saint Francis, glorious fellow citizen of all the saints, pray for us.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Pray for us, O blessed Francis de Sales, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let us pray:
O God, by Whose gracious will the blessed Francis, Thy confessor and bishop, became all things unto all men for the salvation of their souls, mercifully grant that being filled with the sweetness of Thy love, we may, through the guidance of his counsels and the aid of his merits, attain unto the joys of life everlasting. Amen.
Our Father... Hail Mary... Glory Be...
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| March 7th - St. Thomas Aquinas |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 01-27-2021, 06:49 PM - Forum: March
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![[Image: thomas+aquinas.jpg?content-type=image%2Fjpeg]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/50c6050ae4b0cd7ca3db88a1/1580267966400-X5B5RXQD034M82HA9BS1/thomas+aquinas.jpg?content-type=image%2Fjpeg)
Doctor of the Church
(1225-1274)
The great Saint Thomas was born of noble parents at Aquino near Naples in Italy, in 1225; his century was replete with great names and Christian works, yet he dominates it by the power of his thought and the perfection of his works. In his childhood he was the provider for the poor of the neighborhood during a famine; his father, meeting him in a corridor with the food he had succeeded in taking from the kitchen, asked him what he had under his cloak; he opened it and fresh roses fell on the ground. The nobleman embraced his son and amid his tears, gave him permission to follow thereafter all inspirations of his charity.
The young student, like the holy man Job, made a pact with his eyes and forbade them to see anything which might favor in his heart any desires for a life of ease. At the University of Naples he led a retired life of study and prayer, and continued his charities, giving all he had which was superfluous. He was recognized already by his professors as a genius, but it was Saint Albert the Great who later said of his disciple whom some called the mute ox, that some day the lowing of this ox will resound throughout the entire world.
At the age of seventeen he received the Dominican habit at Naples. His family opposed this choice, and he was set upon by his brothers on his way to Paris. They attempted in vain to remove his holy habit, but he was taken in custody and obliged to suffer a two years' captivity in their castle of Rocca Secca. Neither the caresses of his mother and sisters, nor the threats and stratagems of his brothers, could shake him in his vocation. His older sister was won over by him and renounced a brilliant marriage to embrace religious life; later she was Abbess of her convent in Capua.
While Saint Thomas was in confinement at Rocca Secca, his brothers endeavored to entrap him into sin, but the attempt only ended in the triumph of his purity. Snatching from the hearth a burning coal, the Saint drove from his chamber the courtesan whom they had concealed there. Then marking a cross upon the wall, he knelt down to pray. Immediately, while he was rapt in ecstasy, an Angel girded him with a cord, in token of the gift of perpetual chastity which God had given him. The pain caused by the girdle was so sharp that Saint Thomas uttered a piercing cry, which brought his guards into the room. But he never related this grace to anyone save Father Raynald, his confessor, a short time before his death. Thus originated the Confraternity of the Angelic Warfare, for the preservation of the virtue of chastity.
Having at length escaped, Saint Thomas went to Cologne to study under Blessed Albert the Great, and afterwards was sent with him to Paris, where for several years he taught philosophy and theology. The Church has ever venerated his numerous writings as a treasure of sacred doctrine; in naming him the Angelic Doctor she has indicated that his science is more divine than human. The rarest gifts of intellect were combined in him with the most tender piety. Prayer, he said, had taught him more than study. His singular devotion to the Blessed Sacrament shines forth in the Office and hymns which he composed for the feast of Corpus Christi. To the words miraculously uttered by a crucifix at Naples, Well hast thou written concerning Me, Thomas. What shall I give thee as a reward? he replied, Naught save Thyself, O Lord. Saint Thomas was loved for his unfailing gentleness and his readiness to lend his services or great lights to all who sought them. He died at Fossa Nuova in 1274, on his way to the General Council of Lyons, to which Pope Gregory X had summoned him.
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| Fauci endorses double-masking, even after COVID vaccine |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-27-2021, 08:02 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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Fauci endorses double-masking, even after COVID vaccine
Back in March, Fauci dismissed masks entirely.
WASHINGTON, D.C., January 26, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has changed his tune on mask-wearing once again. This time, he said he supports double-masking or using N95 masks in an interview with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie on TODAY.
Fauci said, “Wearing two masks instead of one is probably more effective to stop the spread of coronavirus.”
“I mean,” he continued, “this is a physical covering to prevent droplets and virus to get in. So, if you have a physical covering with one layer, you put another layer on, it just makes common sense that it likely would be more effective and that’s the reason why you see people either double masking or doing a version of an N95.”
This is an about-face from Fauci’s advice back in March in a 60 Minutes interview, where he dismissed masks as useless. “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you are in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it is not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.”
The New York Times jumped on the double-mask bandwagon in a post-inauguration opinion piece that gushed about Pete Buttigieg’s and others’ mask fashion during Biden’s sparsely attended outdoor event. “Double-masking is a sensible and easy way to lower your risk when you have to spend more time around others — in a taxi, on a train or plane, or at an inauguration.” The latest guidelines on the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) make no mention of the efficacy of double-masking.
One day later, in an interview on America’s Newsroom, Dana Perino pressed Fauci about double-masking and vaccinations. Would double-masking, Perino asked, still be necessary after receiving a vaccination? The short answer was yes — or at least until the “overwhelming” population has been vaccinated.
“[J]ust to be doubly sure, there are a couple of reasons to wear masks even after vaccination. One, you want to protect other people in case you have virus in your nasopharynx, and if you look in the community, there is enough virus out there that before we start pulling back on things like public health measures, you want the overwhelming population vaccinated. And as I have said, the calculation — even though it’s still an estimate — would be somewhere between 70 and 85 percent of the population.”
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| CA man dies several hours after receiving COVID Vaccine? |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-27-2021, 07:58 AM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
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California man dies several hours after receiving COVID vaccine, cause of death unclear
As of Jan. 15, 181 deaths have been reported to the U.S. government’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System
as possibly being related to COVID vaccines.
January 26, 2021 (Children’s Health Defense) — Multiple local, state and federal agencies are investigating the Jan. 21 death of a California man several hours after receiving the COVID vaccine.
Placer County Sheriff’s office said in a Jan. 23 Facebook post that agencies are “actively investigating this case.” They also mentioned that the man had tested positive for COVID in December. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that individuals who have already had COVID and fully recovered should still get vaccinated.
So far, in the U.S. only the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have received emergency use authorization. According to news reports, it was unclear which COVID vaccine the man had received.
As of Jan. 15, 181 deaths have been reported to the U.S. government’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System as possibly being related to COVID vaccines. A 2010 study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services concluded that “fewer than 1% of vaccine injuries” are reported to VAERS and experts say the government’s reporting system is “broken.”
Earlier this month, The Defender reported on the death of a 56-year-old doctor 15 days after receiving the Pfizer vaccine, and on numerous deaths among the elderly in Norway and Germany.
Meanwhile reports of injuries continue to surface in the media, including an article in the Jerusalem Post about a 17-year-old who was hospitalized in the intensive care unit after receiving the second dose of a COVID vaccine. Hospital officials told the Post they did not believe the boy’s illness was related to the vaccine.
Dr. Anthony Fauci told reporters last week that he was “knocked out” after receiving the second dose of the vaccine, but says he feels fine now. Fauci received the first dose of the Moderna vaccine in December on live television to boost the public’s confidence in the vaccine.
The CDC reported 21 cases of anaphylaxis in people who received the COVID vaccine between Dec. 14 – 23, and another 10 between Dec. 23 – Jan. 10. Anaphylaxis is a life-threatening allergic reaction.
Last week, The Defender reported that allergic reactions had caused California health officials to hit pause on a large batch of Moderna vaccines. A few days later, Moderna said it was okay to resume using that batch.
Today, multiple news outlets reported that Merck has ended its COVID-19 vaccine program after early trial data showed the vaccine maker’s two experimental vaccines failed to generate immune responses comparable to a natural infection or existing vaccines. Bloomberg reported:
Quote:“The U.S. drug giant, which has a history of successfully developing vaccines, had adopted a different strategy from rivals Pfizer Inc., Moderna Inc. and Johnson & Johnson, using a more traditional approach of focusing on shots based on weakened viruses.”
Children’s Health Defense asks that anyone who suffers any side effect, from any vaccine, report it, following these steps.
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| March 6th - St. Colette; Sts. Felicitas, Perpetua and Companions |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 01-26-2021, 11:35 PM - Forum: March
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Saint Colette
Virgin, Reformer of the Poor Clares
(1380-1447)
After a holy childhood, Colette joined a society of devout women called the Beguines. Not finding their state sufficiently austere, she entered the Third Order of Saint Francis, and lived in a hut near her parish church of Corbie in Picardy. Here she had passed four years in extraordinary penance when Saint Francis, in a vision, bade her undertake the reform of her Order, then much relaxed. She doubted for a time and was struck with muteness for three days and blindness for another three. Finally, fortified by ecclesiastical authority, she established the reform throughout a large part of Europe, and, in spite of the most violent opposition, founded seventeen convents of the strict observance.
By the same wonderful prudence she helped to heal the great schism which then afflicted the Church. The Fathers in council at Constance were in doubt as to how to deal with the three claimants to the tiara — John XXIII, Benedict XIII, and Gregory XII. At this crisis Colette, together with Saint Vincent Ferrer, wrote to the Fathers to depose Benedict XIII, who alone refused his consent to a new election. This was done, and Martin V was elected, to the great good of the Church.
Colette also assisted the Council of Basle by her advice and prayers, and when God revealed to her the spirit of revolt which was rising there, she warned the bishops and legates to retire from the council.
Saint Colette never ceased to pray for the Church, while the devils, for their part, never ceased to assault her. They swarmed round her in the form of hideous insects, buzzing and stinging her tender skin. They brought into her cell the decaying corpses of public criminals, and assuming monstrous forms themselves, struck her savage blows. Or they would appear in the most seductive guise, and tempt her by many deceits to sin. Saint Colette once complained to Our Lord that the demons prevented her from praying. Cease, then, said the devil to her, your prayers to the great Master of the Church, and we will cease to torment you; for you torment us more by your prayers than we do you. Yet the virgin of Christ triumphed alike over their threats and their allurements, and said she would count the day during which she suffered nothing for her God, the unhappiest of her life. She died March 6, 1447, in a transport of intercession for sinners and the Church.
Saints Felicitas, Perpetua
and Companions
Martyrs
(† 203)
Felicitas and Perpetua are two of the saints commemorated in the Canon of the Mass. Their feast, which actually falls on the seventh of March, is often celebrated on the sixth to avoid conflict with the feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas. The story of these martyrs and their companions is found in a kind of diary kept by Perpetua while she was in prison awaiting execution, and this was later augmented by an unknown eye-witness to the martyrdom.
The martyrs in this story lived in the North African city of Carthage, at a time when it was part of the Roman Empire; they had come under an edict issued by the emperor Severus in the year 202, declaring death to be the penalty for being a Christian. There were six of them: Perpetua, a young noblewoman recently married, with her baby boy; Felicitas, a slave girl expecting a child; and four men – Revocatus, a slave, and Secundulus, Saturninus and Saturus.
Perpetua begins her diary at the time when she had decided to be baptized and was forced to withstand the arguments of her father against this step. She endured his pleading as long as she could, and then spoke: Father, I said, Do you see this vessel lying here – waterpot or whatever it may be? I see it, he said. And I said to him, Can it be called by any other name that what it is? And he answered, No. So also I cannot call myself anything else than what I am, a Christian. Here, Perpetua's basic decision, the one that caused her martyrdom, had already been made; she had realized that to be a follower of Christ was more important to her than anything else, life included, and that she must be baptized regardless of the consequences.
She was arrested with the others a few days after their baptism. In her diary she described her first day in prison: I was in great fear, because I had never known such darkness. What a day of horror! Terrible heat, thanks to the crowds! Rough handling by the soldiers! To crown all I was tormented there by anxiety for my baby. Her concern for her baby, whom she was still nursing, was her hardest trial, and when she finally obtained permission to keep him with her in prison she wrote: My prison suddenly became a palace to me, and I would rather have been there than anywhere else.
While awaiting trial with her companions, Perpetua experienced the first of several visions that continued throughout her imprisonment: she found herself ascending a brazen ladder, to the sides of which were fastened sharp instruments – daggers, swords, lances, hooks – that tear the flesh of the unwary. When she reached the top, she found herself in a vast expanse of garden where a tall man with white hair, in the dress of a shepherd, was milking sheep. He told her, You have well come, my child, and gave her some of the milk. Perpetua writes that by this dream she and her companions understood that we must suffer, and henceforward began to have no hope in this world.
The next events in the diary are two examinations of the Christians by the Roman authorities; the second was the decisive one and took place in the market square, where a vast crowd gathered. This is Perpetua's description of it: We went up onto the platform, The others on being questioned confessed their faith. So it came to my turn. And there was my father, with my child, and he drew me down from the step beseeching me: Have pity on your baby. And the procurator Hilarion... said to me: Spare your father's white hairs; spare the tender years of your child. Offer a sacrifice for the safety of the emperors. And I answered: No. Are you a Christian? asked Hilarion. And I answered: I am... Then he passed sentence on all of us, and condemned us to the beasts; and in great joy we went down into the prison.
The martyrs were forced to wait now; they were being saved for the holiday that would be held on the birthday of the emperor's son when, in the amphitheater, the Christians were to be given to the wild animals. During this time, Perpetua experienced more visions, in the last of which she went to the amphitheater, was transformed into a man, and engaged in combat with an Egyptian, foul of look (the devil). She overcame the Egyptian and understood this to mean that she would undergo martyrdom successfully. Her account ends after the description of this vision with the words, Such were my doing up to the day before the games. Of what was done in the games themselves, let him write who will.
The unknown contributor continued the story from here, first describing some other events of the last days in prison. He writes that Felicitas was in great sorrow for fear lest, because of her pregnancy, her martyrdom should be delayed, since it is against the law for women with child to be exposed for punishment. She and the others prayed that her child might come, even though it was not yet due, and two days before the games Felicitas gave birth to a girl. But the children were taken from their mothers as the final day, March 7, 203, arrived.
The day of the victory dawned, and they proceeded from their prison to the amphitheater, as if they were on their way to heaven, with gay and gracious looks; trembling, if at all, not with fear but joy. Perpetua followed with shining steps as the true spouse of Christ, as the darling of God, abashing with the high spirit in her eyes the gaze of all. The officials tried to force the Christians to put on the costumes of pagan gods before entering the arena, as the custom was at such times, but Perpetua resisted steadfastly... For she said: Therefore we came to this issue of our own free will, that our liberty might not be violated; therefore we pledged our lives, that we might do no such thing: this was our pact with you. Injustice acknowledged justice; the commanding officer gave permission that they should enter the arena in their ordinary dress.
They proceeded into the amphitheater, and the ordeal began. Saturninus was mauled to death by a leopard and a bear, and Saturus was killed by the leopard. The two women were exposed to a mad heifer: Perpetua was tossed first, and fell on her back. Sitting down she drew back her torn tunic from her side to cover her thighs, more mindful of her modesty than of her suffering… Then she rose, and seeing that Felicitas was bruised, approached, gave a hand to her, and lifted her up. And the two stood side by side, and the cruelty of the people being now appeased, they were recalled to the Gate of Life. This was an entrance to the arena where those who were victorious in combat were allowed to leave; the mob was fickle, however, as mobs always are, and it was soon shouting for blood again. When the martyrs heard this they rose unbidden and made their way whither the people willed, after first kissing one another... The rest, without a movement, in silence received the sword... Perpetua, however, that she might taste something of the pain, was struck (by mistake) on the side and cried out, and herself guided to her throat the wavering hand of the young, untried gladiator.
This is all that is written; yet, what more can be said? The story of courage and faith speaks for itself.
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| A Short Catechism on the New Theology |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-26-2021, 12:44 PM - Forum: The Architects of Vatican II
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A SHORT CATECHISM ON THE NEW THEOLOGY
The New Theology is a false "religious" system that became popular among Catholics in Europe from the 1920s onward. Because it was recognized as resurgent modernism, it was kept under a lid by the Vatican and was condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis. Its primary founders were Maurice Blondel, Father Henri de Lubac and Hans Urs von Balthasar. It enjoys an undeserved popularity today.
What is the main contention of the partisans of the New Theology?
In 1950, The Thomist published an article by Father David Greenstock that warned against the New Theology. He explained that: "The main contention of the partisans of this new movement is that theology, to remain alive, must move with the times" and that "traditional theology is out of touch with reality." Their hallmark has always been scorn for the Magisterium.
How do they scorn the Magisterium?
The Popes have consistently taught that the philosophy and theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Scholasticism) is the irreplaceable basis for Catholic teaching. In his Encyclical Pascendi, Pope St. Pius X said that Scholasticism was the remedy for modernism. He further warned, "We admonish professors to bear well in mind that they cannot set aside St. Thomas especially in metaphysical questions, without grave disadvantage." Yet the founders of the New Theology were unanimously resolved that the Aristotelian system on which Thomism is based must be abandoned in favor of new philosophical systems.
Why is this fatally flawed?
Father Greenstock shows that modern philosophies cannot be "synthesized" into Catholic theology because: "most people outside the Church suffer from an almost complete incapacity for logical thought. Their basis for argument is sentiment rather than reason. ... This incapacity (for logical thought) is a direct result of these modern philosophies which we are now asked to adopt and to baptize — an impossible task."
Where is the difficulty?
Father Greenstock explained, "we are asked to substitute for the clear metaphysical notions of Aquinas the fluid concepts of modern philosophies, and it is very difficult indeed for us to see how that can be done without harm to the unchangeable doctrines of the Faith."
Can any examples be given of how the rejection of Thomist philosophy threatens Catholic theology?
One example among many is that it can destroy the Catholic teaching on the Real Presence in the Eucharist as defined by the Council of Trent.
How?
Our definition of transubstantiation reads that the accidents of the consecrated bread stay the same — it still looks, smells, feels and tastes like bread. But the substance is no longer bread, but the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. Substance and accidents are foundational terms of Thomistic/Aristotelian metaphysics. Our dogmatic definition of the Eucharist is based on these terms. If these metaphysical terms are not considered stable, and are now subject to new definitions and new meanings, then the very foundation of our doctrine on the Eucharist is shaken, and the definition of the Eucharist will change. Garrigou-Lagrange pointed out that the rejection of Thomistic philosophy places many doctrines in jeopardy such as original sin, sanctifying grace, the finality of the particular judgment and even truth itself.
Has this rejection of the Council of Trent's teaching on the Eucharist actually happened?
In 1946, Father Garrigou-Lagrange quoted one advocate of the New Theology who said that transubstantiation was conceived of and defined by the scholastics (Thomists) and that "their doctrine is inadmissable."
Who was Maurice Blondel?
Maurice Blondel [1861-1949], a layman, ultimately formulated the philosophy on which the New Theology is based. In order to "win over modern men" who reject objectivism (the submission of the mind to objective reality) Blondel formulated a "subjectivist" philosophy, more in line with other modern philosophies.
How did he do this?
By stating that religion is not something that goes from the head to the heart (objective reality), but from heart to head (subjective). He said, "nothing can enter man which does not come from out of him and correspondence in some way to a need he has of expansion." Hence anything supernatural (sanctifying grace) that is in man ultimately comes from the nature of man himself.
What's wrong with that?
St. Paul says "Faith comes by hearing" — that is, it comes from God presenting reality to man and then man accepting it. Also sanctifying grace (our created participation in the Divine Life of God) is not natural to us. It is a free gift that is above our nature (more on this later) Neither Faith, nor the supernatural life of grace is "inside man" already. Yet Blondel said "Nothing can enter man which does not come from out of him." Blondel's teaching, in fact, is an extension of the Modernist notion of "Divine Immanence" condemned by Pope St. Pius X. That's why many refer to Blondel as a "neo-modernist".
Was Blondel in good faith?
The great Dominican, Father Garrigou-Lagrange believed that Blondel was not in good faith. Blondel manifested the standard trademarks of a modernist:
1) Blondel quoted texts of St. Thomas to make them mean the opposite of what they say;
2) he repeatedly met well- argued criticism from his adversaries with a mere categorical denial;
3) he continually claimed to be misunderstood;
4) he was always "explaining" how his thinking is really orthodox, so that to this day it is disputed what he is actually saying;
5) years later, he admitted to Fr. Henri de Lubac that he purposely disguised his true ideas in order to escape certain censure from Catholic authorities.
Who was Father Henri de Lubac?
Father de Lubac [1896, 1991] was a Jesuit who saw in Blondel's teaching the basis of a New Theology. Blondel had rejected Thomistic philosophy, and de Lubac would incorporate this into a new system that would reject Thomistic theology.
Did the New Theology have any sympathizers in high place?
Even though Pope Pius XII had warned against these new teachings, the Vatican Secretary of State, Msgr. Montini, gave encouragement to the New Theology. At the same time, Montini was also conducting back-door dealings with the Stalinists, again, contrary to the will of Pius XII.
What is the heart of de Lubac's New Theology?
Building on Blondel's philosophy, de Lubac taught that the supernatural is a necessary perfection of nature, without which nature is frustrated in its essential aspirations. This means that the supernatural is needed to complete nature which remains incomplete without it. Hence, the supernatural is not a gratuitous gift but a part of nature owed to nature; in other words, the supernatural is not supernatural but natural, and lies within the bounds of nature.
Why is this wrong?
The Catholic Church teaches that the whole supernatural order of grace is exactly that: gratuitous — a sheer gift of God. Nature may be capable or well-suited to supernature, but it in no way strictly requires grace which is of a different order, infinitely superior, and given by God, as God wills, in a manner essentially independent of the received nature. This New Theology leads to pantheism. In 1981, in his book Gethsemane, the lone voice of Cardinal Siri got right to the heart of de Lubac's confusion. He warned that if de Lubac's theology is taken to its logical conclusion, "it would mean that either Jesus Christ is not God, or that man is Divine" — again, modernism!
Was de Lubac in good faith?
Father Garrigou-Lagrange exposed de Lubac's errors in his 1946 article "Where is the New Theology Leading Us?," pointing out that this new theology is just a re-hash of modernism. De Lubac simply responded with insults and mockery, accusing Garrigou-Lagrange of having "simplistic views on the absoluteness of truth." When Pope Pius XII condemned de Lubac's theology in Humani Generis,(#'s 29,30,32,34), de Lubac simply stated that this was "highly one-sided ... it doesn't concern me."
But wasn't de Lubac a great expert on the Fathers of the Church?
Writing in The Thomist (1950) Father David Greenstock warned that the only reason that the leaders of the New Theology overwhelm the reader with the Greek Fathers is in order to get around St. Thomas Aquinas, whom they actually disdain, no matter how much they pledge their devotion to him.
Anything else about de Lubac?
Henri de Lubac was an avid defender of the evolutionist/pantheist Teilhard de Chardin. Teilhard also propagated great confusion regarding the natural and supernatural orders, claiming that nature evolves into supernature — again, modernism!
Can Teilhard be defended as orthodox?
Not at all. How is it possible to defend a man who makes pantheistic statements such as,
"Catholicism deceived me with its narrow definitions of the World ... The World around me becomes divine ..."
Did de Lubac have any regrets?
At the end of his life, he started to wonder if perhaps he hadn't allowed himself to stray into forbidden doctrine. He wrote,
"This period is as full of error as any ... maybe I should have concentrated more on essentials ... for the last seven or eight years I have been paralyzed by the fear of confronting head on, in concrete fashion, the essential problems in their scolding reality? Out of wisdom or weakness? Was I right or wrong?"
By then, however, he had already done his damage. Today, his cult lives on.
Who Was Hans Urs von Balthasar?
Father von Balthasar was a disciple of the New Theology whose books are extremely popular within "conservative" circles. In the 1930s, he developed a powerful aversion to the scholastic theology of St. Thomas. He then became greatly influenced by Karl Barth, the famous Protestant thinker. Von Balthasar made Christ, rather than the Catholic Church, the center of Christian unity — as if Christ could somehow be divorced from His one true Church — hence, paving the way for "Catholic" ecumenism. He favored and incorporated the philosophy of Hegel, which is the philosophy of "becoming" (never ending movement), as opposed to the sound Thomistic philosophy of "being". Never-ending-movement, constant flux — again, modernism.
What effects did this have?
Many. One of the most serious is that it established a new principle of "Living Tradition" which holds that Tradition, and therefore doctrine, can change. Father Boulliard, a disciple of the New Theology said, "A theology which is not current [does not keep changing] will be a false theology."
Did these thinkers have any influence on Vatican II?
These thinkers were THE influence on Vatican II. In his book, Vatican II Revisited, Bishop Aloysius Wycislo, a rhapsodic advocate of Vatican II, writes that "Pope Pius XII's encyclical Humani Generis had . . . a devastating effect on the work of a number of pre-conciliar theologians" Wycislo then rejoiced that "theologians and biblical scholars, who had been ‘under a cloud' for years, surfaced as periti (theological experts advising the Bishops) at Vatican II." This despite the Council rules that no theologian who had ever been under suspicion should be admitted as a theological expert at the Council. Wycislo mentioned by name these theologians as Hans Kung, Karl Rahner, John Courtney Murray, Yves Congar, Edward Schillebeeckx, and Henri de Lubac.
Did their Theology prevail?
Yes. Father Henrici, S.J., an advocate of the New Theology said that de Lubac's theology;
"which insists on the non-opposition between nature and supernature ... became the official theology at Vatican II."
Further, Father Henri Boulliard, another disciple of the New Theology, wrote in triumph that the word "supernatural" does not appear in any of the major documents of Vatican II.
Who were some other admirers of the New Theology?
At Vatican II, two prominent admirers were Father Joseph Ratzinger from Germany and Archbishop Karol Wojtyla from Poland. As these two men advanced in today's Church, so did the influence and acceptance of the "New Theology," despite its condemnation by Pius XII. In the 1980s, de Lubac and von Balthasar were both named Cardinals, without ever having to retract their dangerous doctrines. Disciples of the New Theology fill many theological chairs at Catholic universities worldwide.
Doesn't the fact that some of these men were named Cardinals guarantee their orthodoxy?
No. Church history is replete with examples of various types of unsound men being promoted to high position — Judas being the first.
But why do some of the advocates of the New Theology sometimes sound somewhat conservative?
Because they don't always take the principles of their flawed system to their logical conclusion. The New Theology is subjectivist by nature. Hence there are "conservatives" and "progressives" within the New Theology, just as, St. Pius X warned, there are "conservatives" and "progressives" within Modernism. (Pascendi #27). Further, Blondel, Teilhard de Chardin and others have admitted that they disguised their new doctrine under traditional sounding terminology.
Where has the New Theology led us?
As the clear-sighted Father Garrigou-Lagrange warned in 1946, it has led straight back to modernism. Further, as Suzanne Rini rightly observes, the New Theology should not even be called a "theology" since it is simply resuscitated gnosticism.
What have been the results?
The Vatican II church of ecumenism and neo-modernism, showcase of the "New Theology", is in shambles. Boulliard's principle that "a theology that is not current (always changing) is a false theology" is in full force with Vatican II's "continuous aggiornamento". Theological confusion now reigns, especially since von Balthasar, de Lubac, et al, are now considered "conservatives" as opposed to the "extreme liberals" like Hans Kung, Charles Curran and Richard McBrien. Those who hold to the uncompromising Catholic Faith of Garrigou- Lagrange, Pope St. Pius X, Pope Pius XII and their predecessors are sneered at as "extremists-on-the-right" and "integrists."
What do we do?
Hold fast to the traditional Catholic Faith. Don't bother reading de Lubac, Von Balthasar, or any disciples of the New Theology. Ignatius Press is the main publishing house for main- streaming the leaders of the New Theology into the English-speaking world. Why waste time reading these suspect men when there are so many thoroughly orthodox saints and authors to read?
Is there any hope?
Scripture teaches "Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it." Since the New Theology is built on lies, sooner or later, it will all come crashing down upon itself. In the meantime, our duty is to pray for those infected with these erroneous ideas, live the Fatima Message and keep the Catholic Faith, as the Athanasian Creed admonishes, "integral and inviolate".
References:
* "Where is the New Theology Leading Us?" — Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Angelicum, 1946. (English translation, Catholic Family News, Aug. 1998).
* "They Think They've Won" — sì sì no no's 10 part series on the New Theology, (Originally published in 1993 in Italy, English translation by the Angelus Press, 1994).
"Thomism and the New Theology", David Greenstock, T.OP. The Thomist, 1950.
"Gnosticism Resuscitated Under the Cover of "New Theology", Suzanne M. Rini, (Catholic Famiiy News, Aug, 1998)
Pascendi Dominici Gregis (Encyclical Against Modernism), Pope St. Pius X, 1907.
Humani Generis, Pope Pius XII, Aug. 12, 1950.
Denzinger — The Source of Catholic Dogma, Herder, 1955.
Reality, A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought, Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. Herder, 1950.
Gethsemane: Reflections on the Contemporary Theological Movement. Cardinal Siri, Franciscan Herald Press, 1981.
Vatican II Revisited: Reflections by One Who Was There, Bishop Aloysius Wycislo, Alba House, 1987.
* Available from Catholic Famiy News * MPO 743 * Niagara Falls, NY 14302
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| Epistle of [St.] Polycarp to the Philippians |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-26-2021, 11:05 AM - Forum: Fathers of the Church
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Taken from the 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia
Epistle of [St.] Polycarp to the Philippians
Greeting
Polycarp, and the presbyters with him, to the Church of God sojourning at Philippi: Mercy to you, and peace from God Almighty, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour, be multiplied.
Chapter 1. Praise of the Philippians
I have greatly rejoiced with you in our Lord Jesus Christ, because you have followed the example of true love [as displayed by God], and have accompanied, as became you, those who were bound in chains, the fitting ornaments of saints, and which are indeed the diadems of the true elect of God and our Lord; and because the strong root of your faith, spoken of in days Philippians 1:5 long gone by, endures even until now, and brings forth fruit to our Lord Jesus Christ, who for our sins suffered even unto death, [but] whom God raised from the dead, having loosed the bands of the grave. In whom, though now you see Him not, you believe, and believing, rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory; 1 Peter 1:8 into which joy many desire to enter, knowing that by grace you are saved, not of works, Ephesians 2:8-9 but by the will of God through Jesus Christ.
Chapter 2. An exhortation to virtue
Wherefore, girding up your loins, 1 Peter 1:13; Ephesians 6:14 serve the Lord in fear and truth, as those who have forsaken the vain, empty talk and error of the multitude, and believed in Him who raised up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and gave Him glory, 1 Peter 1:21 and a throne at His right hand. To Him all things 1 Peter 3:22; Philippians 2:10 in heaven and on earth are subject. Him every spirit serves. He comes as the Judge of the living and the dead. Acts 17:31 His blood will God require of those who do not believe in Him. But He who raised Him up from the dead will raise us up also, if we do His will, and walk in His commandments, and love what He loved, keeping ourselves from all unrighteousness, covetousness, love of money, evil speaking, false witness; not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing, 1 Peter 3:9 or blow for blow, or cursing for cursing, but being mindful of what the Lord said in His teaching: Judge not, that you be not judged; Matthew 7:1 forgive, and it shall be forgiven unto you; be merciful, that you may obtain mercy; Luke 6:36 with what measure you measure, it shall be measured to you again; Matthew 7:2; Luke 6:38 and once more, Blessed are the poor, and those that are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God.
Chapter 3. Expressions of personal unworthiness
These things, brethren, I write to you concerning righteousness, not because I take anything upon myself, but because you have invited me to do so. For neither I, nor any other such one, can come up to the wisdom 2 Peter 3:15 of the blessed and glorified Paul. He, when among you, accurately and steadfastly taught the word of truth in the presence of those who were then alive. And when absent from you, he wrote you a letter, which, if you carefully study, you will find to be the means of building you up in that faith which has been given you, and which, being followed by hope, and preceded by love towards God, and Christ, and our neighbour, is the mother of us all. Galatians 4:26 For if any one be inwardly possessed of these graces, he has fulfilled the command of righteousness, since he that has love is far from all sin.
Chapter 4. Various exhortations
But the love of money is the root of all evils. 1 Timothy 6:10 Knowing, therefore, that as we brought nothing into the world, so we can carry nothing out, 1 Timothy 6:7 let us arm ourselves with the armour of righteousness; Ephesians 6:11 and let us teach, first of all, ourselves to walk in the commandments of the Lord. Next, [teach] your wives [to walk] in the faith given to them, and in love and purity tenderly loving their own husbands in all truth, and loving all [others] equally in all chastity; and to train up their children in the knowledge and fear of God. Teach the widows to be discreet as respects the faith of the Lord, praying continually 1 Thessalonians 5:17 for all, being far from all slandering, evil-speaking, false-witnessing, love of money, and every kind of evil; knowing that they are the altar of God, that He clearly perceives all things, and that nothing is hid from Him, neither reasonings, nor reflections, nor any one of the secret things of the heart.
Chapter 5. The duties of deacons, youths, and virgins
Knowing, then, that God is not mocked, Galatians 6:7 we ought to walk worthy of His commandment and glory. In like manner should the deacons be blameless before the face of His righteousness, as being the servants of God and Christ, and not of men. They must not be slanderers, double-tongued, 1 Timothy 3:8 or lovers of money, but temperate in all things, compassionate, industrious, walking according to the truth of the Lord, who was the servant Matthew 20:28 of all. If we please Him in this present world, we shall receive also the future world, according as He has promised to us that He will raise us again from the dead, and that if we live worthily of Him, we shall also reign together with Him, 2 Timothy 2:12 provided only we believe. In like manner, let the young men also be blameless in all things, being especially careful to preserve purity, and keeping themselves in, as with a bridle, from every kind of evil. For it is well that they should be cut off from the lusts that are in the world, since every lust wars against the spirit; 1 Peter 2:11 and neither fornicators, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, shall inherit the kingdom of God, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 nor those who do things inconsistent and unbecoming. Wherefore, it is needful to abstain from all these things, being subject to the presbyters and deacons, as unto God and Christ. The virgins also must walk in a blameless and pure conscience.
Chapter 6. The duties of presbyters and others
And let the presbyters be compassionate and merciful to all, bringing back those that wander, visiting all the sick, and not neglecting the widow, the orphan, or the poor, but always providing for that which is becoming in the sight of God and man; Romans 12:17; 2 Corinthians 8:31 abstaining from all wrath, respect of persons, and unjust judgment; keeping far off from all covetousness, not quickly crediting [an evil report] against any one, not severe in judgment, as knowing that we are all under a debt of sin. If then we entreat the Lord to forgive us, we ought also ourselves to forgive; Matthew 6:12-14 for we are before the eyes of our Lord and God, and we must all appear at the judgment-seat of Christ, and must every one give an account of himself. Romans 14:10-12; 2 Corinthians 5:10 Let us then serve Him in fear, and with all reverence, even as He Himself has commanded us, and as the apostles who preached the Gospel unto us, and the prophets who proclaimed beforehand the coming of the Lord [have alike taught us]. Let us be zealous in the pursuit of that which is good, keeping ourselves from causes of offense, from false brethren, and from those who in hypocrisy bear the name of the Lord, and draw away vain men into error.
Chapter 7. Avoid the Docetæ, and persevere in fasting and prayer
For whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is antichrist; 1 John 4:3 and whosoever does not confess the testimony of the cross, is of the devil; and whosoever perverts the oracles of the Lord to his own lusts, and says that there is neither a resurrection nor a judgment, he is the first-born of Satan. Wherefore, forsaking the vanity of many, and their false doctrines, let us return to the word which has been handed down to us from Jude 3 the beginning; watching unto prayer, 1 Peter 4:7 and persevering in fasting; beseeching in our supplications the all-seeing God not to lead us into temptation, Matthew 6:13; Matthew 26:41 as the Lord has said: The spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak. Matthew 26:41; Mark 14:38
Chapter 8. Persevere in hope and patience
Let us then continually persevere in our hope, and the earnest of our righteousness, which is Jesus Christ, who bore our sins in His own body on the tree, 1 Peter 2:24 who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth, 1 Peter 2:22 but endured all things for us, that we might live in Him. 1 John 4:9 Let us then be imitators of His patience; and if we suffer Acts 5:41; 1 Peter 4:16 for His name's sake, let us glorify Him. For He has set us this example 1 Peter 2:21 in Himself, and we have believed that such is the case.
Chapter 9. Patience inculcated
I exhort you all, therefore, to yield obedience to the word of righteousness, and to exercise all patience, such as you have seen [set] before your eyes, not only in the case of the blessed Ignatius, and Zosimus, and Rufus, but also in others among yourselves, and in Paul himself, and the rest of the apostles. [This do] in the assurance that all these have not run Philippians 2:16; Galatians 2:2 in vain, but in faith and righteousness, and that they are [now] in their due place in the presence of the Lord, with whom also they suffered. For they loved not this present world, but Him who died for us, and for our sakes was raised again by God from the dead.
Chapter 10. Exhortation to the practice of virtue
Stand fast, therefore, in these things, and follow the example of the Lord, being firm and unchangeable in the faith, loving the brotherhood, 1 Peter 2:17 and being attached to one another, joined together in the truth, exhibiting the meekness of the Lord in your intercourse with one another, and despising no one. When you can do good, defer it not, because alms delivers from death. Tobit 4:10, Tobit 12:9 Be all of you subject one to another 1 Peter 5:5 having your conduct blameless among the Gentiles, 1 Peter 2:12 that you may both receive praise for your good works, and the Lord may not be blasphemed through you. But woe to him by whom the name of the Lord is blasphemed! Isaiah 52:5 Teach, therefore, sobriety to all, and manifest it also in your own conduct.
Chapter 11. Expression of grief on account of Valens
I am greatly grieved for Valens, who was once a presbyter among you, because he so little understands the place that was given him [in the Church]. I exhort you, therefore, that you abstain from covetousness, and that you be chaste and truthful. Abstain from every form of evil. 1 Thessalonians 5:22 For if a man cannot govern himself in such matters, how shall he enjoin them on others? If a man does not keep himself from covetousness, he shall be defiled by idolatry, and shall be judged as one of the heathen. But who of us are ignorant of the judgment of the Lord? Do we not know that the saints shall judge the world? 1 Corinthians 6:2 as Paul teaches. But I have neither seen nor heard of any such thing among you, in the midst of whom the blessed Paul laboured, and who are commended in the beginning of his Epistle. For he boasts of you in all those Churches which alone then knew the Lord; but we [of Smyrna] had not yet known Him. I am deeply grieved, therefore, brethren, for him (Valens) and his wife; to whom may the Lord grant true repentance! And be then moderate in regard to this matter, and do not count such as enemies, 2 Thessalonians 3:15 but call them back as suffering and straying members, that you may save your whole body. For by so acting you shall edify yourselves. 1 Corinthians 12:26
Chapter 12. Exhortation to various graces
For I trust that you are well versed in the Sacred Scriptures, and that nothing is hid from you; but to me this privilege is not yet granted. It is declared then in these Scriptures, Be angry, and sin not, and, Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Ephesians 4:26 Happy is he who remembers this, which I believe to be the case with you. But may the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ Himself, who is the Son of God, and our everlasting High Priest, build you up in faith and truth, and in all meekness, gentleness, patience, long-suffering, forbearance, and purity; and may He bestow on you a lot and portion among His saints, and on us with you, and on all that are under heaven, who shall believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, and in His Father, who raised Him from the dead. Galatians 1:1 Pray for all the saints. Pray also for kings, 1 Timothy 2:2 and potentates, and princes, and for those that persecute and hate you, Matthew 5:44 and for the enemies of the cross, that your fruit may be manifest to all, and that you may be perfect in Him.
Chapter 13. Concerning the transmission of epistles
Both you and Ignatius wrote to me, that if any one went [from this] into Syria, he should carry your letter with him; which request I will attend to if I find a fitting opportunity, either personally, or through some other acting for me, that your desire may be fulfilled. The Epistles of Ignatius written by him to us, and all the rest [of his Epistles] which we have by us, we have sent to you, as you requested. They are subjoined to this Epistle, and by them you may be greatly profited; for they treat of faith and patience, and all things that tend to edification in our Lord. Any more certain information you may have obtained respecting both Ignatius himself, and those that were with him, have the goodness to make known to us.
Chapter 14. Conclusion
These things I have written to you by Crescens, whom up to the present time I have recommended unto you, and do now recommend. For he has acted blamelessly among us, and I believe also among you. Moreover, you will hold his sister in esteem when she comes to you. Be safe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with you all. Amen.
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| The Purge and Reeducation – How Radicals Are Quickly Implementing a Communist Coup of America |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-26-2021, 09:40 AM - Forum: Socialism & Communism
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A secular opinion piece...
The Purge and Reeducation – How Radicals Are Quickly Implementing a Communist Coup of America
(Photo: The “Killing Fields” of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979.
During that time millions of Cambodians died of starvation, execution, disease or overwork during the reeducation and “transformation”
of Cambodia into the “ideal” society. Pol Pot was ideologically a Marxist–Leninist and a Khmer nationalist.
He applied the horrors of Marxist philosophy just as the communist playbook directed.
Those who could not be “reformed” and “reeducated” were murdered.)
Gateway Pundit | January 23, 2021
“If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves.” (Joseph Stalin)
One of the vilest perpetrators of political purges was Joseph Stalin. Stalin’s memorable quote regarding his attitude toward those in the opposition was: “If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves.” This epitomizes the energy of the Purge—The ruling Elite decides you are wrong, you are to be punished, and you have no option but submit!
And so, I make the tragic announcement: We are walking into the “killing fields” of the 21st Century! Prepare for the Purge that is coming to YOU! Anticipate the “reeducation” centers your children and grandchildren will be forced to attend.
HOW IS THIS HAPPENING?
How can a political purge be tolerated? How can the population sit complacently while a “list” of the “undesirables” is cobbled together by the various Elite authorities? The answer is very simple. “The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better” (George Orwell). History proves that when people feel happy they will tolerate anything; they will do anything; they will cling to the happy avenue even when told it is bringing destruction. This is clearly evident in the choices of drug addicts but it is also evident in the lives of those addicted to the methods that are being used to prepare for the Purge. Happy people are going to be less vigilant, more open about every aspect of life that gives them happy feelings, and they are eager to share their personal/private with everyone! This manipulated happiness brings an unimagined harvest of personal data to the Elites.
How can personal/private data be so easily obtained by the Elite who compile a list of the “undesirables”? You safely guard your family by making sure their diet is healthy; you double-check all doors to make sure they are locked; you warn about “stranger danger”; you insist that seatbelts be worn…BUT you have served up the security and welfare of your family on a silver platter by posting photos, family details, all aspects of your life on social media (most use Facebook) and permitting anyone to “friend” you and then you are in their list and available to their pages and they have access to your pages. You have connected with untold “friends” who are connected with untold numbers who are privy to “your page.” The platform administrators know all details about you. Your posts have been mined for details that will amaze you. You have been warned BUT you continue to expose your children, grandchildren and all you love to this “social disease.”
WHAT EVIDENCES ARE AVAILABLE?
First, The DEMOCRATS/RINOS/NEVER TRUMPERS (NTs) advocate the removal of a free press. The conservative publications are classified as the seedbed of treasonous news. Having been such identified the solution is simple—destroy all publications that do not agree with the PROGRESSVE/DEMS/RINOS/NTs! “We’re going to have to figure out how we rein in our media environment so that you can’t just spew disinformation, and misinformation,” said Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). “Congress is looking into reining in our media environment to prevent the spread of disinformation.” She has not only targeted freedom of the press but has suggested that lists of Trump supporters should be compiled and used to hold the President’s supporters accountable in the future.
In an amazing Twitter exchange on January 13, 2021 AOC stated, “The only way our country is going to heal is through the actual liberation of southern states…liberation of working people from an economic, social, and racial oppression.” According to PROGRESSIVE DEMS this reeducation of the Southern States is critical if the USA is to be “healed.”
The Purge is VERBALIZED—“Here is a sitting member of Congress saying that her party intends to shut down any media that they disagree with and nobody from the liberal media has a problem with it at all. That’s probably because they know the democrats aren’t coming after them, and censorship and speech suppression don’t count when it happens to conservative media.”
Second, The DEMOCRATS/RINOS/NEVER TRUMPERS (NTs) are beginning the Purge. There are ample reports about this occurring. I have had opportunity to talk personally with those who endured the Khmer Rouge purge and lived in the reeducation camps. I have personally talked with family members who had loved ones exiled to the USSR gulags because of political views. The horrors of past history explain the unthinkable horrors that are becoming evident in the USA today. From the Halls of Congress to the rants of the news anchors on MSM that are broadcast to millions, the Purge is being encouraged.
There is a hit list targeting Trump and his supporters. It is confirmed that the PROGRESSVE/DEMS/RINOS/NTs have lists of those who need to be punished and reeducated. During the week of 10 January 2021 it was announced by Forbes that the large corporations in the USA must never hire any Trump supporter! Here is the threatening intimidation: “Donald Trump devolved from commander-in-chief to liar-in-chief.” The magazine mocks Trump associates as “fabulists.” It goes on to say, “Let it be known to the business world: Hire any of Trump’s fellow fabulists, and Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie. We’re going to scrutinize, double-check, investigate with the same skepticism we’d approach a Trump tweet.” Forbes then makes an explicit threat to report negatively on any company that dares hire any of the people supporting Trump. “Want to ensure the world’s biggest business media brand approaches you as a potential funnel of disinformation? Then hire away.”
This is not imagined—this is the current reality!
Another frightening point of the USA political Purge is documented by the action of Hillary Clinton who has called for ALL Trump supporters to be identified as “Domestic Terrorists.” Identified as such, these terrorists need to be tracked and surveilled (January 12, 2021). Clinton labeled Trump supporters “white supremacists” and “domestic terrorists” in a Washington Post op-ed. “Emboldened by the Big Tech purge of President Trump and thousands of conservatives, Hillary Clinton is now calling for Trump supporters to be surveilled and tracked.” How does HRC justify her labeling of political opponents? Listen to her own words,
Quote:“Trump ran for president on a vision of America where whiteness is valued at the expense of everything else. In the White House, he gave white supremacists, members of the extreme right and conspiracy theorists their most powerful platforms yet… he had whipped a dangerous element of our country into a frenzy. His supporters began planning their insurrection, making plans to march on the Capitol and ‘stop the steal.’ Removing Trump from office is essential, and I believe he should be impeached. Members of Congress who joined him in subverting our democracy should resign, and those who conspired with the domestic terrorists should be expelled immediately. But that alone won’t remove white supremacy and extremism from America. There are changes elected leaders should pursue immediately, including advocating new criminal laws at the state and federal levels that hold white supremacists accountable and tracking the activities of extremists…Twitter and other companies made the right decision to stop Trump from using their platforms, but they will have to do more to stop the spread of violent speech and conspiracy theories.”
Do you hear what she is advocating? The Purge is to target those with “whiteness.” It is the obvious RACIAL PURGE ever recorded in history. She calls for new laws to hold Trump supporters accountable and for their everyday activities to be tracked. She says “more” will have to be done—it is frightening to consider what this “more” involves!
The beginning of the political Purge is highlighted by a Congressional bill proposed by Dem Whip James Clyburn who intends to make the “Black National Anthem” the official USA National Hymn in order to “bring the country together.” This is acceptable to the PROGRESSVE/DEMS/RINOS/NTs because they reject “linear reasoning.” All decisions are based on their “feelings” at the moment (this is the fruit of rejecting any absolutes in life).
One of the clearest Purge actions was announced in a No-Fly order by DELTA. Common citizens were targeted by this vicious action. This article describes this action, Delta Puts Trump Supporters Who Harassed Mitt Romney, Lindsey Graham On No-Fly List. “Delta has put some of President Donald Trump’s most aggressive supporters on a no-fly list, after they harassed Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Mitt Romney (Utah) in airports last week. In an interview with Reuters on Thursday, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said that passengers who targeted the senators would no longer be able to fly on the airline. The airline confirmed the move.”
The reality of the Purge is illustrated by baseball great Curt Shilling. He received a notice that AIG was cancelling his insurance. Why? Schilling tweeted that AIG canceled his insurance policy due to his “social media profile.” Now, after this Purge, tell me that Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms are really a “nice” business! The Purge says your “social media profile” is a valid reason to terminate your insurance!
The Purge is enacted—Here is a well-written summary with the title “The Left Launches Massive Purge of Conservatives All Across Society” …We no longer live in America…We now and hence forward will live in a Banana Republic where liberals seek the utter destruction of their counterparts, not just politically, but in personal terms, and in total. Democrats and their willing quislings in big tech and society are now looking to purge this country of anyone who oppose them. We are living in a time just short of Castro’s revolution where tens of thousands were murdered to wipe out their political ideals. While we are not quite yet at the death squad stage, we are at the stage where the left intends to perpetrate intellectual genocide. It will be the end of any conservative thought on the Internet, in our schools, governments, entertainment, and society…The great purge has already begun, you see. Late last week, the gods of big tech, and the heads of corporations already began to initiate the Democrat Party’s version of Mao’s ‘cultural revolution’.”
Third, The DEMOCRATS/RINOS/NEVER TRUMPERS (NTs) fulfill their promise of “fundamental transformation” of the USA. Obama announced his intentions of “fundamentally transforming America.” Most shrugged at his devious evil objective and said “that will never happen in America!” They were blind and ignorant of the historical pattern he was following. Life in the USA will be fundamentally transformed when the PROGRESSVE/DEMS/RINOS/NTs are allowed full exercise of their plan. We are in the early stages of the Purge but a more devilish agenda lies ahead. The full impact of this evil is best presented in a report from Project Veritas that recorded PBS Principal Counsel Michael Beller inciting violence against Trump supporters in a radical leftwing rant. Read this amazing statement: “Even if Biden wins, we go for all the Republican voters, and Homeland Security will take their children away, and we’ll put Trump supporters’ children into re-education camps,” the man, identified as Beller in the undated video, says. Trump’s supporters are raising “horrible children” that will become “horrible people,” he continues. “Kids who are growing up, knowing nothing but Trump, [Trump supporters] will be raising a generation of intolerant horrible people, horrible kids.”
The Purge is promised—What is happening has been public for some time but many dismissed it as “impossible in the USA.” These refuse to accept the reality of the pure evil threatening our nation’s existence. What has been promised is now being delivered by the PROGRESSVE/DEMS/RINOS/NTs and many citizens are allowing it to happen.
Fourth, The Purge is directed by the Political Elite. There is a historical constant in the narratives of political purges. Actions are commanded and controlled by an “Elite” group. This Elite is never required to do what is commanded of the population. Pol Pot and his inner-circle never dirtied their hands with the agrarian revolution that forced the evacuation of cities and the “killing fields” of anarchy. Today the political Elite in the USA is composed of the DEMOCRATS/RINOS/NEVER TRUMPERS (NTs) who think they sit invincibly in the “catbird seat” issuing demands, damning President Trump and his supporters. But historical reality teaches that these are not “invincible” and will be replaced as the Elite turns to bite and devour one another.
The direction of the Elite will include forced reeducation. When North Vietnam captured the south, millions in the south were arrested, tortured, imprisoned, murdered and the survivors were sent to reeducation camps. In another undercover video, Kyle Jurek, an Iowa field organizer for the Sanders campaign, said the country will have to “spend billions” on reeducation. Jurek suggested the use of gulags for “reeducation” of Trump supporters and praised political labor camps. He said gulags have been misunderstood and were actually “a lot better” than described.
If you are offended by the language of the Elite and you choose neither to read nor listen to their abominable words then prepare yourself for an even greater shock when the Purge strikes your friend and family!
The Purge is Directed by the Elite—This point is best summarized: “The will of the American people has to be subordinate to the will of Pelosi” — Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) January 12, 2021.
This is where we are…
The citizens of the USA are in the most precarious position our nation has faced. Devilish forces from within are seeking to change fundamentally our nation. Our political process has been in a failed state for some years. There is no longer civil debate and reasoned laws based upon our Constitution. Foreign governments have compromised national legislators and suborned the integrity of the House of Representatives and Senate—and such is met only with shrugs and reelection of the failed politicians!
The Big Tech companies (Facebook; Apple; Google; Twitter, etc) have successfully de-platformed free speech, marked and tracked innocent citizens as national “terrorists.” We are assured that a “list” of Trump supporters is compiled and will be used to identify and punish the “terrorists.”
Quote: “Let’s be real for once. When members of the press and law openly call for child confiscation, reeducation camps and punishments for the side they don’t like. Then we live in a banana republic.”
Illustrating just how the Big Tech companies (Facebook; Apple; Google; Twitter) devilishly plan to Purge those who hold conservative views is the recent release of a leaked video from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. He attacked free speech in America with his decision to ban permanently the accounts of President Trump and many other conservative voices. Now a published video, by a Twitter insider, it is revealed that Dorsey vows that censorship will be much broader in scope. “We are focused on one account [@realDonaldTrump] right now, but this is going to be much bigger than just one account, and it’s going to go on for much longer than just this day, this week, and the next few weeks, and go on beyond the inauguration. We need to think much longer term around how these dynamics play out over time. I don’t believe this is going away anytime soon.”
America! The political Purge HAS begun. Many of you who have sat in silence and indifferently thought that you are safe from all political intrigue must awaken to the reality of life in the USA. You can continue to play around on Facebook, Twitter and the other Big Tech sites. BUT, you are fueling their efforts to destroy the USA. There is NO INNOCENCE on the Big Tech sites. Those involved on these sites are upholding the Purge!
One final reference to plead for YOU to act now to stop the Purge.
Cheryl K. Chumley (The Washington Times – Friday, January 15, 2021) posted an article titled, “Big Tech will only be halted by mass boycott.” As usual she presents an excellent read detailing how the political Purge is possible because the Big Tech gives big money. The way to stop the Purge is to stop the money.
Quote:“The only way to stop Big Tech and put an end to the social media CEOs’ hatred of and hostility to all-things-conservative is for consumers to rally in one huge mass and mount an immediate boycott of all these platforms. But the chance of that happening, seriously, is slim. Slim to none, actually. Big Tech will only be stopped from its takeover of free speech if citizens fight in a way that hits hard at the pocketbooks. But the reality is most citizens are unaware of Big Tech’s power, others are unconcerned.”
And this should be a PERMANENT boycott—not just 24 hours!
Are you concerned enough for your nation, your family, your children and your grandchildren to boycott permanently Big Tech? The decision will be difficult because as Orwell observed many will opt for “happiness” instead of “freedom.” The Big Tech knows they have you hooked with “happiness” and so you will sacrifice your freedom. “The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better” (George Orwell).
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| Traitors in the family: Stalin's informers |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-26-2021, 09:09 AM - Forum: Socialism & Communism
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Traitors in the family: Stalin's informers
Daily Mail [Slightly adapted] | 22 September 2007
Neighbours. Friends. Even your closest loved ones. In Stalin's Russia, everyone was an informer. And as a chilling new book reveals, one word from a resentful child was enough to send you to the firing squad.
When two teenage boys were found stabbed to death in a forest in western Siberia, investigators decided that they had been killed by their own relations, because one of the youngsters had denounced his father to Stalin's Soviet authorities.
The case in September 1932 became a cause celebre in Russia and the dead boy was hailed as a martyr to the people's cause.
He had chosen loyalty to the State in preference to the pernicious bourgeois notion of duty to a parent. It had been alleged that his father, Trofim Morozov, was a kulak, a rich peasant from the class which Stalin had set out to exterminate as he collectivised every farm in the Soviet Union.
More than a million so- called kulaks were dispossessed of their lands, evicted from their homes and shipped eastwards in long columns of human misery, to labour in the camps of the Gulag - and later, likely enough, to be shot, as was Trofim Morozov.
Heaven knows what boyish grievance persuaded his 15-year-old son Pavlik to denounce him.
The teenager was a "Pioneer", a member of the Soviet youth movement, a perversion of the Scouts, which trained its members to believe that to inform against the people's enemies represented a high ideal, that to betray one's own family was the highest good of all.
At Trofim's trial, he cried out despairingly to his son in the witness box: "It's me, your father!" Pavlik said coldly to the judge: "Yes; he used to be my father, but I no longer consider him my father. I am not acting as a son, but as a Pioneer."
This victory against his father, however, provoked Pavlik to a rash boldness - denouncing others in the village. In their rage, they killed him.
The murder was probably the work of local teenagers, but the Soviet authorities held a show trial of the family, following which Pavlik's grandfather, grandmother, cousin and godfather were all sent to the firing squad.
The story of the Morozovs received extensive publicity, because Russia's terrible dictator perceived it as a morality tale - of a quite different kind to any which we understand.
In the 1930s, Stalin smashed the mould of Russian society in a fashion the world had never seen before, and would not see again until the rise of Mao Tse-Tung in China.
Hitler, in Germany, did nothing remotely as radical to his own people, whatever his enormities against the Jews and other subject races.
Stalin set about building a new universe, in which every old loyalty to kin, friends, colleagues was extinguished and replaced by one fealty alone - to "The People", of whose interests he was sole arbiter.
To justify oppression and savagery, the State needed enemies.
If they did not exist, they had to be invented, through a system of informers which eventually embraced at least one in ten of Russia's citizens.
"The mildest and at the same time the most widespread form of betrayal was not to do anything directly," in the words of the great writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, "but just not to notice the doomed person next to one."
"They had arrested a neighbour, your comrade at work, or even your close friend. You kept silence. You acted as if you had not noticed."
Every apartment block, every village, every collective, every factory had its corps of official informers who, to justify their existence and often to survive themselves, needed a steady flow of denunciations.
The victims often had no clue what "crime" they had committed.
They were merely shipped to the Gulag, where they slaved until hunger, disease or execution ended their sufferings.
In 1942, the death rate in Russia's camps reached 25 per cent - in that one year, a quarter of the vast prison population died.
So mad did Stalin's world become that some people signed confessions which amounted to their own death warrants even without torture.
They were conditioned to believe that the Party must know best.
If the Party said they were "enemies of the people", so they must be.
This is the society which historian Orlando Figes chronicles in terrifying detail in his new book, The Whisperers.
Figes has become Britain's foremost expert on Revolutionary Russia, interviewing hundreds of elderly survivors of one of the most terrible experiences of the 20th century.
How anyone with a mind lived through those years and kept their sanity remains a mystery.
That phrase, "the whisperers", embraces two realities.
First, every citizen learned never to utter their thoughts aloud, even in the bosom of their family, and never to express the mildest criticism of the regime. It was safe to speak only in murmurs.
The second kind of whisperers were, of course, the great legion of informers, who told their mad tales to the NKVD (Moscow's enforcers) and then watched their victims swept away to their fate.
To be a child offered no security.
Between 1935 and 1940, Soviet courts convicted 102,000 children of petty crimes.
Millions of sons and daughters of those sent to the Gulag or executed in the Purges, at their climax in 1938-39, were sent to orphanages or joined children's gangs to live as scavengers.
Mikhail Nikolaev, who was one of them, describes how he joined a steel plant at the age of 12: "We worked in shifts - one week, 12 hours every night, the next 12 hours every day. The working week was seven days."
Yet these little slaves were told they were "the most fortunate children in the world", because everything was provided for them by the State: "If we had lived in any other country, we would have died from hunger - and of course we believed every word.
"We learned not to think or feel but to accept everything that we were told in the orphanage. All our ideas we received from Soviet power."
The most terrifying aspect of the story is that Stalin's methods worked.
By killing everyone who might conceivably dare to oppose him, he sustained his own supremacy from Lenin's death in 1924 until his own passing in 1953.
When the will of his enforcers flagged, they, too, were purged.
In July 1937, the NKVD boss in Omsk province, Edouard Salyn, protested against setting quotas for the scale of executions
In his area, he said, there were "insufficient numbers of enemies of the people and Trotskyists to warrant a campaign of repression and, in general, I consider it wrong to decide how many people to arrest and shoot".
Those remarks caused Salyn himself to be shot.
A Russian diarist, Arkadii Mankov, noted in 1937: "It is pointless to talk about the public mood.
"People talk only in secret, behind the scenes and privately. The only people who express their views in public are drunks."
Many of them were shot, too.
Some "enemies of the people" agreed to sign confessions, in return for safety for their families.
But few such promises were kept - Stalin eliminated every relative of most of his prominent foes.
One old Bolshevik named Stanislav Kosior withstood torture himself, but cracked when his 16-year-old daughter was brought into his room and raped before his eyes.
The wives of "guilty" men were often shot automatically.
Mere failure to betray their husbands was proof of complicity.
A film writer named Valerii Frid, who was arrested in 1943 but survived into old age, said later: "I can think of no analogy in human history.
"I'll have to make do with an example from zoology: the rabbit paralysed by the boa constrictor - we were all like rabbits who recognised the right of the boa constrictor to swallow us; whoever fell under the power of its gaze would walk quite calmly and with a sense of doom into its mouth."
According to one estimate, 116,885 Communist Party members were arrested or shot in 1937-38. As for the hapless small fry, at least 681,692 were shot for "crimes against the State" in the same period, while around two million were sent to the Gulag, where many died anyway. Among the Red Army, 412 out of 767 members of its high command were executed, 29 died in prison and three committed suicide.
Liubov Shaporina, who founded a puppet theatre in Leningrad, wrote in her diary for November 22, 1937: "The joys of everyday life.
"I wake up in the morning and automatically think: thank God I was not arrested last night, they don't arrest people during the day, but what will happen tonight, no one knows.
"I'm lucky. I simply don't care. But the majority of people are living in terror."
It is a reflection of the horrors of Stalin's Russia that when Hitler invaded in June 1941, many Russians felt themselves liberated by the experience which followed.
Despite the deaths of 27 million of their people, after 1945, veterans looked back on the war with nostalgia.
A Russian scientist said in the 1970s: "At that time, we felt closer to our government than at any other time in our lives.
"It was not their country then, but our country.
"It was not they who wanted this or that to be done, but we who wanted to do it. It was not their war, but our war."
Yet the war brought scant relief to the inmates of the Gulag.
While some ordinary criminals, mere thieves and cutthroats, were released to fight, political prisoners remained enslaved.
When the war ended, the Gulag population actually expanded.
A million new prisoners were admitted between 1945 and 1950.
The 2.4 million inmates of 1949 had become a vital element of the Soviet workforce and were especially useful for mining in the terrible cold of the Arctic, where voluntary labour would not go.
In the 1950s, after Stalin's death, while Soviet citizens continued to be denied anything we would call freedom, far fewer suffered extreme penalties.
The survivors of the Purges were released, though the spirit of most was broken. Liuba Babitskaia, a beautiful young woman when she was arrested in 1938, was released in 1947 as a shadow of her old self.
When her grandchildren fell over and cried, she would tell them brutally to pull themselves together, because "much worse" could happen to them. She was selfish and greedy about food, emotionally closed even to her family.
Her granddaughter said: "She kept a suitcase packed with winter clothes and dried food beneath her bed in case they came for her again.
"She was terrified of the telephone and doorbell when they rang at night, and took fright when she saw policemen in the street."
There were millions like Liuba, wrecks of human beings destroyed by a regime different from that of Hitler, but in some ways even more diabolical.
It is a frightening reflection that today, many Russians are nostalgic for Stalin.
They say: "He made our country great."
They either do not know, or - worse - do not care, what the tyrant did to the Russian people.
The most prominent modern Russian who thinks this way is, of course, President Putin.
In the unlikely event that he reads Orlando Figes's spine-chilling tale, it seems most likely that he would applaud his predecessor's achievement.
[Emphasis mine.]
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| ‘Let Us Break the Chains’: Cuban Priests Urge Rise Against Communism |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-26-2021, 08:56 AM - Forum: Socialism & Communism
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‘Let Us Break the Chains’: Cuban Priests Urge Rise Against Communism
![[Image: Catholic-Cuba-640x480.jpg]](https://media.breitbart.com/media/2021/01/Catholic-Cuba-640x480.jpg)
View of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in Santiago de Cuba, eastern Cuba on September 29, 2018.
Breitbart | January 25, 2021
A coalition of 15 Catholic priests working in Cuba defied the Communist Party and decades of Vatican distance from Cuban politics to publish a letter this weekend urging the Cuban people to “co-involve” themselves in their own liberation from communism and work to “break the chains” of the Castro regime.
The letter, published in English by the U.S.-based human rights organization Global Liberty Alliance, states plainly, “Cuba needs political changes.”
“We, as believers, consider that it is time, as a people, to return to God,” the priests write.
The letter was published to coincide with the 23rd anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s visit to Cuba, who left an extended legacy of confronting human rights atrocities under communism. The priests represent congregations nationwide, in all six traditional provinces of Cuba, and the list of signers of the letter include clergymen who prominently denounced communism in public throughout the last year, including Havana Father Jorge Luis Pérez Soto and Father Alberto Reyes Pías of eastern Camagüey.
Catholics, and other Christians on the island, have faced over half a century of intense persecution under the Castro regime, including prime positions on firing squad lists for decades, imprisonment in labor camps, politically motivated arrests, and censorship of their faith. The Communist Party of Cuba is an explicitly atheist institution that inhibits all religious worship while promoting late dictator Fidel Castro’s ties to nominally Catholic, but functionally Marxist liberation theologists.
The extreme persecution made it difficult for formal Catholicism to survive on the island and forced many priests to continue their worship delicately, without disturbing the government or triggering any significant crackdown on believers. Pope Francis, in particular, has attempted to increase the proximity between the Castro regime and the Vatican through a 2015 visit to the island and his alleged involvement in brokering the Obama-era deal that resulted in significant American concessions to dictator Raúl Castro.
During his 2015 visit, Castro agents brutally assaulted and arrested a Cuban pro-democracy dissident, Zaqueo Báez of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), for shouting “freedom” near Pope Francis’ vehicle. Despite video evidence of the pope’s proximity to the incident, he denied having any information on political arrests on the island.
“I told the prime minister if the pope continues to talk as he does, sooner or later I will start praying again and return to the Catholic Church, and I am not kidding,” Raúl Castro said of Pope Francis in 2015.
The letter published this weekend represents a significant change in tone for the Church.
“Inspired by the enlightening message of Saint John Paul II, who, twenty-three years ago, urged us to ‘be protagonists in our own personal and national history;’ We want to give voice to our thoughts and feelings … knowing that they are not just ours but also of a large part of our Cuban people,” the priests wrote.
“The people have to co-involve themselves, set out on the path, and learn to live in freedom through an immense desert that will demand numerous renunciations, the temptation to prefer certain comforts to freedom, to think that their efforts have been useless, and that they will never reach the future they so yearn for,” the letter continued.
The priests later cited Saint Augustine in their support of public participation in the eradication of communism, quoting, “The God who created you without you, will not save you without you.”
The letter then went on to condemn specific aspects of life under communism:
Quote:A lack of free thought and censorship have encouraged an incoherence between what is thought, said, and done. On the other hand, the near impossibility of living without engaging in something illegal makes the “black market” an indispensable ally for survival and an environment dominated by theft, bribery, and even blackmail. The “every man for himself” atmosphere, where anything goes, shows a corruption that permeates almost all social strata. Added to this is the sense that we are constantly being spied on, that we could “fall into disgrace.”
“Cuba needs political changes,” the letter concluded. “We need to overcome authoritarianism.”
Ending the Castro regime’s stranglehold on society, it went on, was an act of love.
“We are called to love everyone, without exception, but to love an oppressor is not to allow him to continue being that way; nor is it making him think that what he does is acceptable,” the priests observed. “On the contrary, to love him well is to seek in different ways that he stops oppressing, it is to take away that power that he does not know how to use and that disfigures him as a human being.”
“Let’s set out on the road; let’s stop listening to our fears; let’s believe in our strength as a people. Let us break the chains, the worst ones being the ones we carry in our minds and hearts,” the letter encouraged.
The awakening of the Church on the island comes in light of unprecedented protests that ended 2020, in particular, the descent of hundreds of youth in front of Havana’s Ministry of Culture in November in solidarity with the San Isidro Movement, a group of artists and intellectuals who had begun a hunger strike that month in solidarity with Denis Solís, a rapper sentenced to eight months in prison for filming a police officer illegally entering his home. Solís remains in prison today.
In defense of the San Isidro movement, over 200 laymen and clergy Catholics wrote an open letter in November against the government.
“We Christians, to be coherent with the demands of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that proclaims the dignity of all human people as an absolute value … express our desire that the events occurring at the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement in Havana do not meet a fatal end,” the letter read. At the time, San Isidro members were engaging in life-threatening hunger and thirst strikes.
[Emphasis mine.]
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![[Image: santa-coletta-large-large.jpg]](https://newdailycompass.com/storage/imgs/santa-coletta-large-large.jpg)
![[Image: felicity.jpg]](https://adeaconswife.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/felicity.jpg)
![[Image: The-Killing-Fields.jpg]](https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Killing-Fields.jpg)
![[Image: stalinDM2109_468x551.jpg]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/09_03/stalinDM2109_468x551.jpg)
