CatholicVoice Omnia possum in eo, qui me confortat
6 November - 19 November 2020
Only 50 Ire land/ NI £2 U K
€/£1.
Issue 303
“As we enter Heaven, we will see them, so many of them, coming toward us and thanking us. We will ask who they are and they will say: ‘A poor soul you prayed for in purgatory.’ ” Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
Keep up to date with CatholicVoice news and articles via The Lumen Fidei Website www.lumenfidei.ie
2 EDITORIAL
Catholic Voice
6th November 2020
And Thou Being Once Converted, Confirm Thy Brethren expressing support for same sex civil unions.
Anthony Murphy “And the Lord said: Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren. Who said to him: Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison and to death. And he said: I say to thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, till thou thrice deniest that thou knowest me.” (Luke 22:31-34) Let me start by thanking all those who have sent good wishes for my wife, it is heartening to know that there are so many praying for her recovery. We had a meeting with the doctors last week and they are hoping she will be able to return home on 26th November where the physio will continue. It will be a few more months before we know how her leg will recover and whether or not she will be able to walk again so please do keep her in your prayers. As we go to press the world’s media is reporting the news that Pope Francis is
CatholicVoice
Editor: Anthony Murphy editor@catholicvoice.ie Telephone: 059 8627268 ROI 00353 59 8627268 Outside ROI Keep up to date with news and articles via The Lumen Fidei website www.lumenfidei.ie
On pages 4 and 5 of this issue we have published Cardinal Burke’s Statement on the Declarations of Pope Francis Regarding Civil Unions and I encourage you to read it carefully, it will be a great source of help in these bewildering and confusing times. On pages 12-14 of this edition John Lacken responds to the comments made recently by the Archbishop of Dublin in support of same sex civil unions. Among other things the Archbishop suggested that opposition to same-sex civil partnerships is homophobic and he chastised bishops across the world who are opposing same. It is worthwhile recalling the teaching of the Bishops of Ireland. In 2010, the Bishops issued, ‘Why Marriage Matters’ in response to the Civil Partnership Bill. As Vice President of the Bishop’s Conference and a member of the Council for Marriage and the Family the publication would have had the full support of the Archbishop of Dublin, indeed he would have been instrumental in approving it’s content. In accord with Church teaching they opposed the Bill and appealed to Oireachtas members in particular to consider in conscience the following excerpt from it before voting on the Bill: “Oireachtas Eireann is about to pass legislation that seeks to give same-sex relationships a standing which will be as similar as possible to marriage. The Civil Partnership Bill will not permit adoption by same-sex couples. In most other respects, including tax and social welfare purposes, same-sex civil partnerships will be regarded as being equal to marriage. “This is not compatible with seeing the family based on marriage as the necessary basis of the social order and as indispensable to the welfare of the Nation and State. Nor does it ‘guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded.’” (Art. 41.3.1, Bunreacht na hÉireann) Bishop Athanasius Schneider has also issued a statement in response
to the confusion, the full statement will be available on the Lumen Fidei website (lumenfidei.ie). Here are some extracts: Every Shepherd of the Church, and the Pope above all, should always remind others of these serious words of Our Lord: “Anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:19). Every pope has to take very much to heart what the First Vatican Council proclaimed: “The Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter that by His revelation they might make known new doctrine, but that by His assistance they might inviolably keep and faithfully expound Revelation, the Deposit of Faith, delivered through the Apostles.” (Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Aeternus, chap. 4) The advocating of a legal union so that a lifestyle against the explicit Commandment of God, against human nature and against human reason will be legally covered, is a new doctrine, which “sews cushions under every elbow and makes pillows for the heads of persons” (Ez. 13:18), a new doctrine that “perverts the grace of our God into sexual pleasure” (Jude 4), a doctrine which is evidently against Divine Revelation and the perennial teaching of the Church of all times. Such a doctrine is scheming with sin, and is therefore a most anti-pastoral measure. To promote a juridical lifestyle of sin is against the core of the Gospel itself, since persons in same-sex unions through their sexual acts grievously offend God. Our Lady of Fatima made the maternal appeal to all humanity to stop offending God, who is already too much offended. By the incredible approval of samesex unions through the pope, all the true children of the Church feel like orphans, no more hearing the clear and unambiguous voice of the Pope, who should inviolably keep and faithfully expound Revelation, the Deposit of Faith, delivered through the Apostles. The true children of the Church of our days might use these words of Psalm 137, saying: We feel as if in exile, by the rivers of Babylon, weeping when
6th November 2020 Catholic Voice remembering Zion, when remembering the luminous and crystal-clear teaching of the popes, of our Holy Mother Church. Yet we unshakably believe in the words of Our Lord, that the gates of hell will not prevail against His Church. The Lord will come, even if He will come late, only in the fourth watch of the night, to calm the storm within the Church, to calm the storm within the papacy of our days, and He will say: “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid. O you of little faith, why did you doubt? And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.” (Mt. 14:27;32-33) Bishop Schneider also exhorted Pope Francis to retract his support for civil unions: “Most Holy Father, for the sake of the salvation of your own immortal soul, for the sake of the souls of all those persons who through your approval of same-sex unions are by their sexual acts grievously offending God and exposing their souls to the danger to be eternally lost, convert, retract your approval and proclaim with all your predecessors the unchangeable teaching of the Church.” In closing let us remind ourselves that Church opposition to same sex civil unions has nothing to do with homophobia it is because She loves same sex attracted people and is concerned for their salvation and this is why it is so important for every bishop who cares about the salvation of souls to preach the Truth. Let us pray for our Holy Father in the days ahead that he issues a clarification and brings an end to the confusion and turmoil which his reported comments have made.
Could you consider leaving a bequest for CatholicVoice? As a not for profit registered organisation we rely on the generosity of our benefactors for financial and prayerful support. A bequest from you in your Last Will and Testament would help us to continue growing the publication of Catholic Voice and the dissemination of Catholic Truth If you are in a position to leave a bequest, however large or small, you are assured that it will be used to promote and strengthen Catholic teaching.
May God bless you for your generosity.
“The worst kind of heretic is the one who, while teaching mostly true Catholic doctrine, add a word of heresy, like a drop of poison in a cup of water” - Pope Leo XIII
EDITORIAL 3
18 PANDEMIC OR PANIC
Catholic Voice
6th November 2020
Pandemic, Or Just Panic? Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
The Irish Government, in common with other national governments throughout Europe, is panicking. It has implemented an economicallydisastrous six-week renewed national lock-down. It is frit because as the winter approaches there are more confirmed cases of infection with the Chinese Communist virus every day than there were at the original peak of the pandemic. But just look at the deaths. There were precisely 3 last Sunday. Even allowing for the three-week average delay between a confirmed case report and a death, the worst of the pandemic is already over. If cases do not turn into ICU admissions or deaths, they are nothing much to worry about. That is what alarmed governments and their terrified peoples have not yet understood. From here on, the case-count is the least interesting statistic. In Britain, the change in the relationship between cases and deaths is similar to that shown in the Irish diagram. At the height of the first peak, a confirmed case of infection had a 1 in 6 chance of dying. Today, that is only 1 in 140. And if, as I advocated in this column
ACCOMMODATION WANTED Mature single and retired lady - non smoker - seeks accommodation. Non driver so requires to be on bus route or near services Telephone: 0864019508
some weeks ago, every hospitalised patient were immediately given bolus doses of calcifediol, a precursor hormone of Vitamin D3, the chance of death would fall 25fold to about 1 in 3500. For this virus, like all respiratory diseases, is destroyed by sunshine on the skin, which synthesises Vitamin D3 via calcifediol in the liver – which is why it is a good idea not to tax the liver by drinking too much alcohol during the pandemic. At present, about 1250 new cases a day are reported in Ireland. Even if there were ten times that many, if the universal practice in hospitals were to treat anyone ill enough to be hospitalised with the virus with three bolus doses of calcifediol in the first week and one bolus dose a week thereafter until discharged, there would only be three or four deaths a day. What is more, as Martineau et al. (2017) made plain in an important meta-analysis of clinical trials involving 10,500 patients on the efficacy of Vitamin D3 against respiratory diseases of all kinds, this astonishing wonder drug – partly vitamin, partly hormone,
partly steroid – is capable of greatly reducing the harm from all such diseases. In Britain, in an average year before the pandemic, 1000 people a week, or 52,000 a year, died of respiratory diseases. Why so many? Because in these northern climes, where we get far too little sunshine, particularly in the winter, almost half the population (and nearly all the growing non-Caucasian population) are deficient in Vitamin D3. Putting right that deficiency by giving everyone cholecalciferol, the cheap-as-chips, safe-as-houses, over-the-counter active form of Vitamin D3 would reduce deaths from respiratory disease by about 25,000 per year. The clinical trial in Spain which established that the hazard ratio – the relative risk of being transferred to ICU if not treated with calcifediol compared with those treated with it on admission to hospital – is as high as 25 has still not been followed up in most hospitals. I have been reading the medicoscientific reports of clinical trials on
6th November 2020 all the other medications most often mentioned as useful in treating the infection, but none of them is even a tenth as efficacious as calcifediol in preventing severe illness and, therefore, death in this or any respiratory disease. In the UK, I have been talking to two hospitals, one in the West Country where I live and one a major teaching hospital. I went last week to the local hospital because I had become partly deaf in one ear overnight a few weeks ago. The audiologist said that she had seen a cluster of such cases ever since March. I asked her whether she had reported it, because on-the-ground, real-world data of that kind are vital to those planning to defeat the infection. She had not, but did so at once on realising the importance of what she had been alert enough to notice. Next, I spoke to an eminent endocrinologist at a London teaching hospital. On hearing my symptoms, he drew the obvious conclusion: I had had the infection without even knowing it: the only symptom was the sudden partial deafness in one ear. He and I agreed that the daily dose of 25 micrograms (1000 international units) of cholecalciferol that I had been taking for some years had prevented the usual respiratory symptoms that are the real killers with this disease. He recommended that I should double that dose, just to be sure in case I caught the infection again. He told me he had himself had the infection not once but twice: for those who work in major hospitals are right at the front line, facing the hidden enemy with astonishing fortitude and aplomb every day. He had had to take his turn to administer the Chinese-virus wards for two weeks. Let us pray for him
Catholic Voice and all the great men and women who have shown the courage of soldiers in this war. Yet he had not heard of the Spanish clinical trial and its spectacular result. I had written to him about it some weeks previously, but he had not understood the importance of the 25-fold reduction in risk of serious illness or death in hospital patients treated with bolus doses of calcifetriol. I mentioned the trial to him again and explained my recent research showing that the very best of the other medications that had been tried (all of which are considerably more expensive than Vitamin D3) were ten times less effective in reducing the risk of serious illness or death in hospital patients. Once the specialist had grasped the order-of-magnitude difference in effectiveness, he said he would at once talk to his colleagues in the Chinese-virus wards, so that they could see if they could replicate the results of the Spanish trial. Here, then, is what you can do to help to bring this pandemic to an end. Contact everyone you know in the health system, including your doctor, and make sure that you show them this article. All restrictions on free movement and economic activity, except among those now at grave risk from the infection, can be brought to an end if it can be shown – as, on the evidence, it will be – that the Spanish clinical trial was correct in its findings. The Daily Telegraph in London wrote an agonised leading article yesterday asking the Prime Minister to come forward with an exit strategy from the pandemic. Let me assist. Here is what any nation can and should now do to bring this pandemic to an immediate end:
PANDEMIC OR PANIC 19 1. All Caucasian adults should be very strongly urged to take 25 micrograms (1000 international units) of cholecalciferol per day (cost 1 cent each). All non-Caucasian adults, and all adults over 65, should take 50 micrograms (2000 international units) daily. All children should take half the adult dose for their race. Note that this is not medical advice: if you want to protect yourself against the infection, please make sure you consult your doctor first. 2. All patients seriously enough ill with the infection to require hospital admission should be given a bolus dose of calcifediol (532 mcg) on admission and two further such bolus doses in the first week,, followed by a single 532 mcg bolus dose weekly thereafter until discharge. And that’s it. The exit strategy is as simple and safe and straightforward and cheap as that. There’s no need even for a vaccine, which will not work long-term because resistance to the virus lasts only a few weeks after first infection, just like the common cold, to which this virus is akin. That is why my brave endocrinologist ended up getting the infection twice. Please also send this article to your TD. Tell him to pass it on to the Irish Government. If it is anything like the British Government, it pays practically no attention to medico-scientific research outside its own borders. But the value of Catholicism is that it is international in its outlook. We are willing to learn from anyone on this gloriously diverse planet. Now we must pass on what we have learned to our governments, wake them up to the opportunity that now presents itself and urge them to bring this cruel pandemic to an end within a month – and, as a bonus, to halve the annual death toll from all other respiratory diseases.