Catholic Voice 6th November 2020 Issue 303

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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.

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“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

4 ON CIVIL UNIONS

Catholic Voice

6th November 2020

Statement on the Declarations of Pope Francis Regarding Civil Unions Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke

The worldwide communications media have reported with strong emphasis, as a change of course, the news that Pope Francis has declared that persons in the homosexual condition, as children of God, “have a right to have a family” and that “no one should be thrown out or be made unhappy because of it.” Moreover, they write that he has declared: “What we have to create is a civil union. In this way they will be legally covered.

I have defended this.” The declarations were made in an interview with Evgeny Afineevsky, director of a documentary, ‘Francesco,’ premièred on October 21, 2020, on the occasion of the Rome Film Festival (Festa del Film di Roma).

Such declarations generate great bewilderment and cause confusion and error among Catholic faithful, inasmuch as they are contrary to the teaching of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, and of the recent Magisterium by which the Church guards, protects and interprets the whole deposit of faith contained in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. They cause

Fr. Peter Rookey, Miracle Prayer, and Healing Cloths

wonderment and error regarding the Church’s teaching among people of good will, who sincerely wish to know what the Catholic Church teaches. They impose upon pastors of souls the duty of conscience to make fitting and necessary clarifications.

First of all, the context and the occasion of such declarations make them devoid of any magisterial weight. They are rightly interpreted as simple private opinions of the person who made them. These declarations do not bind, in any manner, the consciences of the faithful who are rather obliged to adhere with religious submission to what Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, and the ordinary Magisterium of the Church teach on the matter in question. In particular, the following are to be noted.

1. “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, Tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered’” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2357; Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Persona humana, “Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics, no.

VIII), inasmuch as they are contrary to the natural law, closed to the gift of life and void of a true affective and sexual complementarity. Therefore, they cannot be approved.

2. The particular and sometimes deep-seated tendencies of persons, men and women, in the homosexual condition, which are for them a trial, although they may not in themselves constitute a sin, represent nonetheless an objectively disordered inclination (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2358; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Homosexualitatis problema, “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons,” no. 3). They are, therefore, to be received with respect, compassion and sensitivity, avoiding any unjust discrimination.

The Catholic faith teaches the faithful to hate sin but to love the sinner.

All Enquiries to Declan & Carmel 8 Coppingers Court Powerscourt Lawns Waterford X91 TEY0

3. The faithful, and, in particular, Catholic politicians are held to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Considerations Regarding Proposals To Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons, Diverse questioni concernenti l’omosessualità, n.

6th November 2020 Catholic Voice

ON CIVIL UNIONS 5

10). The right to form a family is not a private right to vindicate but must correspond to the plan of the Creator Who has willed the human being in sexual difference, “male and female He created them” (Gen 1, 27), thus calling man, male and female, to the transmission of life.

“Because married couples ensure the succession of generations and are therefore eminently within the public interest, civil law grants them institutional recognition.

Homosexual unions, on the other hand, do not need specific attention from the legal standpoint since they do not exercise this function for the common good.” (Ibid, no. 9). To speak of a homosexual union, in the same sense as the conjugal union of the married, is, in fact, profoundly misleading, because there can be no such union between persons of the same sex. In what regards the administration of justice, persons in the homosexual condition, as all citizens, can always make use of the provisions of law to safeguard their private rights.

It is a source of deepest sadness and pressing pastoral concern that the private opinions reported with so much emphasis by the press and attributed to Pope Francis do not correspond to the constant teaching of the Church, as it is expressed in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, and is guarded, protected and interpreted by the Magisterium.

Equally sad and concerning is the turmoil, confusion, and error they cause among the Catholic faithful, as is the scandal they cause, in general, by giving the totally false impression that the Catholic Church has had a change of course, that is, has changed its perennial teaching regarding such fundamental and critical questions.

Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke Rome, October 22nd, 2020

Male And Female He Created Them - Go Forth, Multiply, And Fill The Earth

Global Catholic Appeal

To Pope Francis and the Worlds Bishops

Consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary Establish As A Universal Practice of the Catholic Church

The Five First Saturday Devotion Of Reparation

A heartfelt thanks to all those who signed our petition asking Pope Francis to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and to formally establish the Five First Saturdays Devotion of Reparation.

A total of seven hundred and nineteen names were posted to Pope Francis on September 29th, the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel. A number of extra names came in later and these will be added to the list for any future requests to Pope Francis. We ask you to pray to Our Lady asking her for the Consecration of Russia and the formal establishment of the Five First Saturdays Devotion.

6 THE SACRAMENTS

Catholic Voice

6th November 2020

Making The Most Of The Sacraments An Essential Part Of Our Spiritual Life (Part 1) Canon Francis Altiere I.C.K.S.P.

The purpose of this series of articles is to explain the essential role of the sacraments in our life as Catholics, and in particular to explain the importance of the two sacraments which we receive most regularly: Holy Communion and penance. It is divided into brief sections that can each be read in a few minutes.

I. The Sacraments And Our Spiritual Life Every Catholic knows that at certain times in our life we are supposed to participate in special religious acts called the sacraments. But what is a sacrament? Where did they come from? Can we get by without them, or are they important?

The Sacraments Come From God In order to make sense of the ultimate meaning of our life, it is necessary to know for what purpose God has created us. God created us in order to know, love and serve him in this life and to be eternally happy with him in the next life. In order to enable us to achieve this goal, which surpasses our unaided human powers, God gives us his grace. Grace is a supernatural gift

from God, given to us by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, for the sake of our salvation. Our Redeemer Jesus Christ merited for us all the graces necessary for our salvation when he died on the cross. Grace is a spiritual power which we need in order for our souls to be pleasing to God so that we may attain heaven. Grace, in the language of Scripture, makes us “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). In other words, grace makes us more like God. “It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

Grace is a supernatural gift: supernatural because, as the word implies (super is what is above or beyond), grace gives us a spiritual power beyond the possibilities of our unaided human nature; a gift, because it is freely given

by God and not something he owes us. We need grace in order to go to heaven. As Our Lord said, “without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5); in other words, on our own we are unable to earn salvation. Our spiritual life as Christians consists precisely in developing in us the divine gift of grace, which is the indispensable factor leading to salvation and eternal glory. Just as a light bulb will not work without an electric current in the wire, so too we cannot rise up to the level of God without grace in our souls. Grace is not an external condition that we need to “qualify” for heaven; grace does not simply give us permission to go to heaven the way that a ticket gives us admission to a concert or a football match. No, grace actually transforms us and gives our soul the power of knowing and loving as God knows and loves. Without grace, we are simply incapable of being saved, much like an animal without wings is incapable of flying.

Jesus Christ instituted a channel by which we may receive the graces which he won for us on the cross.

This channel is the system of seven sacraments which Our Lord left to the Church as a sure means for us to grow in holiness. A sacrament is an outward sign instituted by Jesus Christ in order to communicate his grace to our souls. A sacrament, then, is a sign that is perceptible to our senses, whereas grace as such is something invisible. A sign is something that makes us aware of another reality that goes beyond the sign itself.

For example, smoke is a sign that there is a fire. This is an example of a natural sign. A sacrament, however, is a supernatural sign. To understand the reason that Our Lord instituted these supernatural signs, we need to take a step back and consider the “big picture” of God’s plan for our salvation.

6th November 2020

SATAN’S MINIONS 7

Catholic Voice

Satan’s Minions Msgr. Stephen Rossetti

any more than harass and tempt.

But the emotional devastation can be great, such as in the first case.

A husband and wife have been harassed for years by a woman who practices witchcraft and the occult. Unfortunately, there was an indiscretion and the woman gained spiritual access into their lives.

Now she won’t let go.

Will Satan reward his human minions for their servitude? Rather, he will use them and drain them.

Then, when finished, he will torture them for an eternity for his own sadistic pleasure.

The woman sends them voluminous texts every day. They have changed their phone number over two dozen times and she immediately knows the new number and bombards them. This is clearly occult knowledge and gotten through her demonic connection.

Considerable prayers and breaking of occult ties and curses has not yet freed them from her. Moreover, despite repeated requests, the police cannot or will not help.

This individual is one of Satan’s minions, that is, she is a person who has given herself to Satan and does his bidding. Through this woman, Satan is attempting to psychologically destroy the couple and over the years has been wearing them down.

Our prayers first for these people who are targeted by Satan through his minions. Should we also pray for the minions themselves? I choose to do so. No one is outside of the possibility of salvation on this side of eternity. But I am not hopeful.

The

Dominicans

Truth ...the Only Safe

Ground to Stand On!

In another case, there was a specially gifted, holy woman whose life and ministry was, as admitted by the demons, “foiling their plans.”

Another of Satan’s minions began to stalk her, park outside her house, and harass her near the Church in an effort to get her to stop her pious life and ministry.

This minion also had occult knowledge, knowing many personal things about this holy woman’s life. She was harassed and threatened for weeks. Eventually the minion gave up and left.

"If your life is not what it could be, try telling the Truth."

It is very sad when we run into human beings who are minions of Satan. In these two cases, it appears that God did not allow them to do

Director of Vocations: Fr Colm Mannion OP

- Jordan B. Peterson

Mobile: 086-0864420 | Email: colm.mannion@dominicans.ie

8 MIRACLES

Catholic Voice

6th November 2020

“Properties Of A Wound”

The Eucharistic Miracle That Occurred After Blessed Carlo Acutis’ Death Have you heard of this Eucharistic miracle?

Fr. Mark Goring of St. Mary’s Parish in Ottawa, Canada, explained an amazing Eucharistic miracle that occurred a few days following the recently-beatified Blessed Carlos Acutis’ death.

Blessed Carlo is best known for his incredible computer programming skills and his website dedicated to Eucharistic miracles. Blessed Carlo died of leukemia on Oct. 12, 2006.

Pope Francis beatified him on Oct. 10, 2020.

Fr. Goring explains the “phenomenal” Eucharistic miracle that occurred on Oct. 21, 2006 in Tixtla, Mexico. He said many people associate it with Blessed Carlo because of his deep Eucharistic devotion and how closely it occurred following his death.

Here’s the story: “A religious sister was giving out communion at communion time…”

Fr. Goring says as he quotes the book, “Eucharistic Miracles of the World.”

“Her eyes filled with tears.

This immediately attracted the celebrant’s attention. The host she had taken to give communion to a parishioner had begun to ooze a reddish substance.”

Fr. Goring then explains what scientific researchers found:

The Miraculous Host of Tixtla, Mexico

“Two studies conducted by eminent forensic experts with different methods have shown that the substance originates from the interior, excluding the hypothesis that someone could have applied it from the outside.”

“This was a fascinating discovery – this red substance that oozed from the consecrated host had the properties of a wound,” Fr. Goring comments.

“The blood comes from inside the body and spreads out.”

“The book goes on to say, ‘the tissue corresponds to heart muscle.’

Which is so consistent in all the Eucharistic miracles we find human heart tissue.

“It says, ‘No study exists that can maintain cardiac tissue alive in this situation. Normally after 48 hours, the tissue dies. While here, three months had passed before the result could be obtained, and this is truly inexplicable for science.”

Most Rev. Alejo Zavala Castro (the bishop of the Diocese of Chilpancingo-Chilapa at the

time), requested this scientific investigation through Dr. Ricardo Castañón Gómez.

The scientific team released this statement: “The reddish substance analysed corresponds to blood in which there is hemoglobin and DNA of human origin.

“Two studies by eminent forensic experts using different methodologies have shown that the substance originates from within, excluding the hypothesis that someone could have placed it from the outside.

“The blood type is AB, similar to that found in the Lanciano Host and the Shroud of Turin. A microscopic magnification and penetration analysis reveals that the upper part of the blood has coagulated since October 2006. In addition, the underlying inner layers reveal, in February 2010, the presence of fresh blood.”

“The event explanation.”

has

no

natural

CARLO ACUTIS 9

6th November 2020 Catholic Voice

15 Stirring Quotes by Newly-Beatified Teen Blessed Carlo Acutis, First Millennial Blessed Pope Francis beatified 15-year-old Carlo Acutis on Saturday, October 10th, 2020, in Assisi, Italy.

Born on May 3rd, 1991, Blessed Carlo is best known for his incredible computer programming skills and his website dedicated to Eucharistic miracles. The Italian teen also deeply loved the Eucharist and Our Lady. He prayed the Rosary and went to Mass every day.

Blessed Carlo died of leukemia on October 12th, 2006. He offered his sufferings for “the pains of the Pope and the Church.” His tomb remains on display in Assisi, due to the vast number of pilgrims visiting before and following his beatification.

He is also the first millennial to be named “blessed.”

Here are 15 quotes from this new blessed to inspire you in your daily living: 1. “The Eucharist is the highway to heaven.”

2. “Our soul is like a hot air balloon. If by chance there is a mortal sin, the soul falls to the ground. Confession is like the fire underneath the balloon enabling the soul to rise again. . . It is important to go to confession often.”

3. “Continuously ask your guardian angel for help. Your guardian angel has to become your best friend.”

4. “All people are born as originals but many die as photocopies.”

5. “I am happy to die because I lived my life without wasting even a minute of it on anything unpleasing to God.”

Blessed Carolo Acutis - (1991 - 2006) 6. “The Virgin Mary is the only woman in my life.”

7. “I offer all the suffering I will have to suffer for the Lord, for the Pope, and the Church.”

8. “Do not be afraid because with the Incarnation of Jesus, death becomes life, and there’s no need to escape: in eternal life, something extraordinary awaits us.”

9. “The more Eucharist we receive, the more we will become like Jesus, so that on this earth we will have a foretaste of heaven”.

10. “When we face the sun we get a tan… but when we stand before Jesus in the Eucharist we become saints.”

11.

“By standing before the Eucharistic Christ, we become holy.”

12. “Our goal must be infinite, not the finite. The infinite is our homeland. Heaven has been waiting for us forever.”

13. “Sadness is looking at ourselves, happiness is looking towards God.” 14. “The only thing we have to ask God for, in prayer, is the desire to be holy.”

15. “What does it matter if you can win a thousand battles if you cannot win against your own corrupt passions? It doesn’t matter. The real battle is with ourselves.”

10 LETTERS

Catholic Voice

Letters

6th November 2020 Send your letters to: Letters Page, Catholic Voice, St Michael’s House, Castlemitchell South, Athy, Co Kildare or email to letters@catholicvoice.ie

Moral Credibilty Dear Editor The Bishop of Cloyne has spoken out against the socalled Dying with Dignity Bill. Though very welcome it is a bit late. For years now the Bishops have been encouraging us to vote for evil, as happened with the Godless Lisbon Treaty, and they have remained silent on the attacks on marriage and the family, and the killing of babies in the womb.

Why are the Bishops speaking out against euthanasia, and yet they are silent on the butchering of thousands of babies in the womb?

Dachau Concentration Camp - Germany Medical Experiments were Carried Out On Inmates From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany carried out a campaign to “cleanse” German society of individuals viewed as biological threats to the nation’s “health.”

The Nazis enlisted the help of physicians and medically trained geneticists, psychiatrists, and anthropologists to develop racial health policies. These policies began with the mass sterilization of many people in hospitals and other institutions and ended with the near annihilation of European Jewry.

They no longer have any moral credibility. Because of that, our Government have no fear in bringing in a plethora of evil laws. Though the Bishops are not minding their flock, we still need them for Mass and the Sacraments, we don’t even have those now. When the Catholics of Ireland were being persecuted in 16th and 17th Centuries and in Penal times, they still had public Mass, despite the grave dangers.

Christ, our only Saviour, died a horrible death on the Cross for our Salvation. In Islam, Christ is a lowranking prophet. Recently a priest of Our Lady of Dolours Parish Church, in Dophins Barn, invited a Muslim Imam to pray in the Church, that was a mockery of Christ in the Tabernacle.

The shepherds of the Catholic flock have not given sound teaching for a long time. Not content with that level of dereliction of duty, they seem to be handing their flock over to a false religion.

Prayer to Our Lady; O Mary Conceived without Sin pray for Ireland.

David Kelly, Dublin

Department of Health Ireland - (image courtesy dept website)

Ireland’s ‘Dying with Dignity Bill 2020’ alongside our abortion legislation is simply a repackaging of Nazi Germany’s eugenicist mission of cleansing society of undesirables which permits the murder of individuals under certain circumstances.

Dying With Dignity Bill 2020 Assistance In Dying 11. (1) An attending medical practitioner who has complied with the conditions specified in this Act may prescribe substance or substances for a qualifying person who has made a valid declaration under section 9 to enable that person to end their own life.

Dying With Dignity?

Dear Editor, It is ironic that the so-called, “Dying with Dignity Bill”, was introduced into the Dáil during Palliative Care week.

Several professionals from the Hospice and Palliative Care sector, have warned that this Bill is a “Trojan Horse” which will ruin our current, gold standard of end of life care, where the patient, family and loved ones, receive superb comfort, support, pain-management and person-to-person accompaniment to assist them through the dying process.

6th November 2020

LETTERS 11

Catholic Voice

This Bill seeks to make it possible for patients in certain circumstances, to mandate that their care-giver team, administer to them a lethal substance (section 13). What an absurdity.

where a particular trajectory may even be presumed. It is very hard to resist this ethic of ambivalence, denying our intrinsic worth and undermining the impulse of our nearest and dearest to care for us.

Two such diametrically opposed cultures cannot exist side by side.

All self-harm, suicide and selfdestructive acts are an attempt to escape pain or from being a burden one’s family. Let’s not exacerbate this by making people feel unwanted, and that the system is loaded against them, as is the experience in other states.

Rather let’s support life-affirming, relationship-sustaining, resiliencebuilding policies.

In other states where a “death on demand” cultural expectation has taken hold, the grounds are forever being broadened. Push-pull forces drive up the numbers killed. There are no known adequate safeguards.

This “slippery slope” is all too real.

It is deceptive to speak of “choice” when someone is distraught and shocked by a life altering diagnosis, feeling isolated, bereft of support, and fearful in the face of “what might happen”, and nudged, even pressured into ending their life.

All of us are disempowered by such legislation.

It surrounds decisions with loaded language,

Gearóid Duffy, Cork.

Descent To Tyranny

“As political philosophy derives its sanction from ethics and ethics from the truth of religion, it is only by retiring to the eternal source of truth that we can hope for any social organisation which will not, to its ultimate destruction ignore some essential aspect of reality.

The term “democracy”, as I have said again and again. Does not contain enough positive content to stand alone against the forces that you dislike —— it can easily be transformed by them. If you will not have God ( and He is a jealous God ) you should pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin.” T.S. Eliot.

It is impossible to remain neutral regarding the truth of the Faith.

Dear Editor,

Once we abandon it the descent to tyranny and slavery is inevitable.

I thought I would share this quote as it sums up our present political situation and deserves to be more widely appreciated:

Michael Sherlock, Corbally, Limerick

Catholic Voice Update Dear Reader, Since March when the pandemic first affected the publication of Catholic Voice we have been grateful for the support received to enable us to continue publishing.

As a not for profit organisation our income is from advertising, publication sales and donations. Both of the former have been seriously reduced for almost 6 months now due to the restrictions and closures of churches and therefore we are relying more heavily on your financial and prayerful support.

Many of you have kindly donated to Catholic Voice and we are most grateful however if you are in a position to send a further donation it would be most appreciated.

You are assured of our ongoing commitment to publish and spread Catholic truth.

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12 PENAL TIMES

Catholic Voice

6th November 2020

The Return Of The Penal Laws To Ireland John Lacken

Dear Catholic Voice reader, we really need to pray and to offer sacrifices for our Irish bishops.

Faithful Catholics are being prevented from going to Holy Mass and we need a strong response from our bishops in defence of our duty to worship almighty God. On October 22nd, the Archbishop of Dublin sided with former president Mary McAleese in calling for recognition of same-sex civil unions contrary to the unchanging teachings of the Catholic Church.

But before getting to that story, let us pray for our bishops.

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen In the last issue I looked at some of the numbers our government in Ireland is using in relation to Covid-19 and I made the point that these figures do not support the case that there is a pandemic in Ireland.

In fact what is happening is that we are being lied to by our elected representatives and by other public figures.

This continues to be the case. We are told that our hospitals are in danger of being overwhelmed. On October 23rd of this year, during an alleged pandemic, 137 patients were on trolleys in Irish hospitals with 70 of these patients having been on the trolleys for over 9 hours.

On October 23rd, 2019, the same day last year, with no covid-19 in sight, there were 406 patients on hospital trolleys with 201 having been on the trolleys for over 9 hours.

Our hospitals were in a far worse position last year with almost three times as many patients on trolleys and yet we are told that covid-19 is the problem.

On October the 15th this year, the Irish Times reported that HSE

National Clinical Advisor, Dr Colm Henry said, that 80 per cent of those testing positive for Covid-19 at the present time have either mild symptoms or are asymptomatic.

Let me translate that for you.

80 percent of those whom our government currently list as being sick with a deadly virus, are not really sick at all. Our government has locked down our country and imprisoned the population for a virus that has hardly any effect on 80% of those who test positive for it. On October 22nd there was a cumulative total of 53,410 positive tests out of a population that was recorded at 4,761,865 in 2016. That means that just over 1 percent of the population have tested positive.

Our government has spent at least €280 million euros testing people who are negative and many of these people are being tested more than once on account of where they work. This is a huge waste of our money.

It should also be remembered that it is physically impossible to stop a microscopic virus. Even if everyone were to barricade themselves inside their homes and enter solitary confinement for six weeks, it would only take one person with the virus coming into our country after people had returned to normal to begin the spread of the virus all over again.

You might as well try to stop people from getting the common cold.

As Professor John A Lee said on a recent ‘Prime Time’ programme: “We have continued to act as if covid-19 is a new Spanish plague, we’ve also continued to act in this way despite the major harms caused by lock-downs and despite very little evidence that lockdowns, social distancing, masks and all the other things that have been introduced actually work on a societal basis. So we’re actually causing more harm, clearly causing more harm, both in terms of deaths and in terms of quality of life by

the actions we’re taking for a virus, for a disease, that is within the envelope of many years within the last thirty years.”

When asked about the increased pressure on hospitals, Professor Lee responded, “My argument is, if your health service or any health service isn’t up to providing the care that’s needed you should increase capacity. What you shouldn’t do is imprison your entire population and do epidemiological and virological experiments on people which don’t have any way of being verified, which don’t have any evidence to support them, and which cause great harms.”

On Friday 23rd of October, a large force of an Garda Síochána were deployed on Grafton Street to disperse a group of peaceful protesters who were objecting to the latest unjust lock-down measures.

The Gardaí used their batons to disperse the group. The right of citizens to assemble and to protest unjust government actions is being quelled.

I have also been told of an incident where two Garda cars arrived to order people to leave a Catholic Church where the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was being celebrated.

The Irish Army have also begun recruiting extra members into the force. I am sure that you will agree, that, men with guns are just what is needed to stop an invisible covid-19 virus. I think our government is preparing in advance for the possible use of the army to quell any civil unrest that might result from prolonged lock-downs.

Clearly, we are now living in a totalitarian society where opposition to government is being forcibly suppressed, and when you see a government enacting draconian policies which seriously curtail the constitutional and God given rights of their citizens and they tell you that it is in order to

6th November 2020

Catholic Voice

PENAL TIMES 13

stop a microscopic entity which they cannot even see, then know that there is another agenda at play which they do not wish to tell you about.

We will be told that in order to be able to exercise our fundamental rights as human beings, it will be necessary for us to accept a vaccine chosen for us by our government.

Those who refuse the vaccine will have various restrictions placed upon them, such as not being allowed to fly or to use public amenities etc.

They are also in the process of bankrupting our country and driving us into further enslavement to the money overlords of this world.

Our politicians will not lose out on their benefits and salaries but many, small, family run businesses will go to the wall. Our young people are being driven into despair, and many of our old people are dying alone, some without the benefit of the sacraments. In one nursing home in Colorado the residents staged a protest saying “we’d rather die from covid-19 than from loneliness”.

Catholics are also forbidden from attending Holy Mass unless there is a funeral or a wedding. Who knew that the Covid-19 virus is a compassionate virus and will not infect those who attend a funeral or a wedding as opposed to attending Holy Mass under the same circumstances?

As if all this is not bad enough we also have an internal scandal in the Catholic Church with our Pope apparently making a pronouncement in favour of same-sex civil unions in a recent documentary he took part in. The documentary premièred in Italy on Wednesday 21st of October and since then the world’s media has been ablaze with headlines indicating that Pope Francis has changed the stance of the Catholic church with regard to same-sex civil unions.

I always caution patience in these situations and tell people to wait for a few weeks to see if there is any clarification. Also, regardless of what the Pope did or did not say, Catholics should know what is required of them, and Catholics

Coming To A Street Near You - Remember It Is Once Again An Offence In Ireland For A Priest To Celebrate Holy Mass In Public should know what the Catholic Church teaches in regard to samesex unions. We are called to live ever holier lives and to conform ourselves to the perennial and unchanging teachings of the Catholic Church regardless of whether or not the circumstances in which we find ourselves are favourable or otherwise to the living out of our Catholic Faith.

Sadly, the Archbishop of Dublin has jumped the gun, and has publicly contradicted Catholic Church teaching on marriage and family life on RTE Radio One’s News-AtOne programme on Thursday 22nd October. Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said: “What is important and this is something that has to come out , we do have countries at the moment where church leaders are opposing the idea of civil marriage, or civil unions for LGBT people. This is therefore a very strong message within, to the community in the Roman Catholic Church that our attitude has to change. There are in other countries very strong homophobic tendencies even in Church leaders. And what I find, even here ourselves we have some people whose frustration with their own gay identity is leading them to be homophobic in ways.”

When asked if Mary McAleese was right to call for the withdrawal of the Vatican Document “Considerations Regarding Proposals To Give Legal Recognition To Unions Between Homosexual Persons”, issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in June 2003, Archbishop Martin responded: “Certainly the idea that the church could not live with civil unions, this is unacceptable. For many years I’ve been saying that we should have had in Ireland civil liberties.”

These public statements by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, broadcast over the Irish national airwaves, clearly show that his thinking on this matter is contrary to what the Catholic Church teaches.

That he declares those who oppose civil unions for homosexuals to be homophobic, is a cheap slur on faithful Catholics. That he denigrates those who oppose these civil unions and who themselves struggle with same-sex attraction as also being homophobic, is deeply uncharitable.

Pope Leo XIII, in his Enclyclical on Christian Marriage, ‘Arcanum’, says the following to Catholic bishops.

14 PENAL TIMES

Catholic Voice

6th November 2020

“Lastly, since We well know that none should be excluded from Our charity, We commend, venerable brothers, to your fidelity and piety those unhappy persons who, carried away by the heat of passion, and being utterly indifferent to their salvation, live wickedly together without the bond of lawful marriage. Let your utmost care be exercised in bringing such persons back to their duty; and, both by your own efforts and by those of good men who will consent to help you, strive by every means that they may see how wrongly they have acted; that they may do penance; and that they may be induced to enter into a lawful marriage according to the Catholic rite.” (Arcanum 44) The Catholic Church condemns all civil unions and not just those between homosexuals. This is not something new, and can be traced back to Sacred Scripture, specifically to the Council of Jerusalem as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles.

“For it hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, to lay no further burden upon you than these necessary things: That you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; from which things keeping yourselves, you shall do well. Fare ye well.” (Acts 15:28-29) The Catholic Church’s condemnation of ‘fornication’ is also a condemnation of civil unions. All sexual activity outside of marriage is always sinful.

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Lest anyone try to claim that civil unions are not about sexual activity, it should be noted that a brother and sister are forbidden from entering a legal civil union in order to gain the property and other rights bestowed on such unions by the state. Civil unions are for those living in sinful sexual relationships who do not believe in, or who do not want the legal restrictions of marriage, but who want to have certain benefits regarding property and other rights.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin also said: “The big challenge will be, how do you say to people that the church regards in a special way a marriage between a man and a woman without giving the impression that therefore anybody outside that framework is second class. We have to be able to say that both are right and that there’s space for both. But sometimes we all get trapped into our absolutes and you know certainly the church’s attitude has made the life of LGBT people miserable in a way you know, even for a person of my age its very hard for me just to think that people were put in prison not terribly long ago simply because of you know, and the church contributed to that.”

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin slanders the Catholic Church and by implication slanders Jesus Christ, when he says that the attitude of the Church made LGBT people’s lives miserable. This is not correct. It is the sinful, disease prone LGBT lifestyle that makes those who engage in it miserable, not the fact that the Catholic Church rightly condemns such a sinful lifestyle without condemning the person. The lifestyle of those who engage in sexual activity outside the bonds of marriage is also objectively mortally sinful. Those who die in a state of mortal sin cannot enter Heaven, so there is a lot at stake here, we are speaking of the salvation of souls.

Archbishop Martin also seems to ignore the fact that all sinful sexual acts are offensive to Almighty God. To the best of my knowledge, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has not publicly condemned those who corrupt

6th November 2020 children in Catholic Schools by teaching them that the LGBT lifestyle is acceptable. He does not publicly condemn the organisation ‘Belong-To’, which promotes abortion and the same-sex lifestyle, and which launched their LGBT advocacy programme in a Catholic School in his Archdiocese of Dublin in 2016. The lives of any of these children who engage in these sinful lifestyles will be made miserable by so doing, but Archbishop Martin prefers to slander the perceived homophobic bogeymen who exist largely in his own imagination.

Pope Leo XIII has some words for Archbishop Diarmuid Martin to reflect upon.

“But in our own age, much more pernicious is the sin of those who would fain pervert utterly the nature of marriage, perfect though it is, and complete in all its details and parts. The chief reason why they act in this way is because very many, imbued with the maxims of a false philosophy and corrupted in morals, judge nothing so unbearable as submission and obedience; and

PENAL TIMES 15

Catholic Voice strive with all their might to bring about that not only individual men, but families, also — indeed, human society itself — may in haughty pride despise the sovereignty of God.”

astray in England. St Thomas quietly but firmly resisted those who tried to get him to betray his Catholic faith. He did not cause a scene and this was mainly to protect his family.

In saying that both the Catholic view of marriage and that civil unions, even between people of the same sex, are right, Archbishop Martin is publicly contradicting the perennial teachings of the Catholic Church.

In saying that a document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which upholds the perennial teachings of the Catholic Church should be withdrawn because some LGBT supporters are offended by it, Archbishop Martin is causing grave scandal.

Catholic parents in Ireland, especially those who have young children of school going age, must re-double their efforts to protect their children from the diabolical disorientation that pervades our society and must re-double their efforts to properly teach the Catholic faith to their children. Do not allow yourselves to be distracted from this task and keep in mind the words of Pope Leo XIII from ‘Sapientiae Christianae’ of 1890.

Catholic Voice readers, especially any who suffer with samesex attraction, should contact Archbishop Diarmuid Martin asking him to correct these public errors which can only cause harm.

Catholics should take note of the example of St Thomas More when many of the Catholic bishops went

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16 THE HOLY SOULS

Catholic Voice

6th November 2020

The Holy Souls In Purgatory Extracts with slight modifications from ‘Purgatory Surveyed’ by Father Richard Thimelby, S.J. published in 1893 The holy Canons and Doctors of the Church comprehend all the means and advantages we have to relieve the dead under these four general heads.

1.

2.

3.

4.

The oblations and sacrifices of priests; The prayers of devout people; Alms & good deeds; Fasting; under which you must include all kind of austerities. All penal works that afflict the body, in whatever way; and in a word, all that goes under the common notion of suffrages.

For the enjoying of all these helps, St. Augustine observes how greatly it may import to bury the dead in churches where the bodies of Saints and holy martyrs lie interred: not that the mere lying there can so much avail them; but for this, that devout people resorting more thither than to other places, to perform their devotions to God and His Saints, and seeing the tombs of their deceased friends, cannot but remember to apply their charitable suffrages for the help of such needy persons.

I am in love with that religious practice of Bologna; where, upon funeral days, they cause hundreds and thousands of Masses to be said for the soul departed, in lieu of other superfluous and vain ostentations.

They stay not for the anniversary, nor for any other set day; but instantly do their best to release the poor soul from her torments, who must needs think the year long if she must stay for help till her anniversary day appears. They do not, for all this, despise the laudable customs of the Church; they bury their friends with honour; they clothe great numbers of poor people; they give liberal alms; but as there is nothing so certain, nothing so efficacious, nothing so Divine, as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, they fix their whole affection there, and strive all they can to relieve the souls this way; and are by no means so lavish as the fashion is, in other idle expenses and inopportune feasting, which are often more troublesome to the living than comfortable to the dead.

But you may not only comfort the afflicted souls by procuring Masses for them, nor yet only by offering up your prayers, fasts, alms, good deeds, and such other works of piety; but you may bestow upon them all the good you do, and all the evil you suffer, in this world.

If you offer up unto God all the cruel anguish and

tribulations you must endure, which gnaw upon your stomach;if all the bitter sting and gnawings of various illnesses which buries you alive in a kind of Purgatory; if all the sensible pains of a desperate migraine when it cleaves your head in pieces; if the sullen humour of a bad fever, which steeps your very heart in the gall of a deep melancholy; if all the other evils which murder you alive, and do not kill you outright, to be still killing you with a lingering death; if, I say, you offer up unto God all that causes you any grief or affliction, for the present relief of the poor languishing souls, you cannot believe what ease and comfort they will find by it.

And as in the buckets of a well, while the one sinks down to the bottom the other mounts up to the top, so the lower you humble yourself in your sufferings, the higher you will raise the souls in their flight towards Heaven.

Nor will you have cause to fear forgetting yourself, while you satisfy for them; for it will infallibly come to pass, as St. John Chrysostom assures us, that God, Who is always prodigal of His mercies, will be sure to remember you: and the holy souls soaring up to Heaven with the wings of your charity, will there plead for you with so much eloquence as to gain your cause; or at least obtain so much patience for you, as to defy the worst of your evils which do so insult and tyrannize over you with so much insolence.

Just as you would try with all your might to free a child or a friend from some unfortunate situation, do you the same for your friends, who are detained captives in Purgatory: lend them your arms, your head, your blood, all your griefs and pains, and they will be the sooner released out of their miserable captivity; and you by their favour, shall in your turn pass through it with so much swiftness, that you shall scarce feel the scorching flames, with which they are so grievously tormented.

You have another easy but most powerful means to help these unfortunate souls; and that is, to dispense out liberally amongst them the inexhaustible treasure of Indulgences; to cause Masses to be often said at privileged altars; to gain Plenary Indulgences, which are applicable to the benefit of deceased souls. For though some extravagant writers have been so bold in their unwary speculations upon this subject, as to question whether the Pope’s power in granting Jubilees and other pardons reach to Purgatory, or be only confined to this world, yet the current of sober Doctors must bear the sway, who all conclude that as to the living,

6th November 2020

THE HOLY SOULS 17

Catholic Voice

How We Can Help The Holy Souls His Holiness proceeds by way of absolution, and as to the dead, by way of suffrages and satisfactions; but has full power over both to loose or bind, open or lock up Heaven’s gates, and to distribute the treasure of the Church; and that he has his commission for all this from the sacred mouth of Jesus Christ Himself.

penances, disciplines, and other corporal afflictions; and in a word, all the evils you suffer in body or soul, whether they be voluntary or unavoidable. This I beg, as a most welcome alms to the poor souls in Purgatory, and a charity which will be of no little comfort to yourself.

Certainly, there may be thousands that deserve to lie in Purgatory, were it only for this strange neglect, that having so rich a treasure in their hands wherewith to ransom poor captive souls, they were so careless as to make little or no use of it; but let a thousand occasions slip, in which they might have released them, and all for want of a little effort to gain Indulgences. And they are the less to be excused, because it is very probable that they may gain Indulgences, which are applicable to the dead, if they but do but the work prescribed.

Do but as Magdalene and Martha did, when they saw their brother Lazarus locked up underground, and overwhelmed with earth. They wept and took on so bitterly, that they drew tears from our Blessed Saviour, and rescued their brother out of the jaws of death.

I tell you there were some fervent Christians in past days that took a world of pains and suffered a world of austerities for the faithful departed; and so were baptised in the tears of contrition, and in the blood of a most rigorous and penitential life. I require not so much of you; only a little care of applying such Indulgences as you have in your power, to do them good, who by a little of your favourable assistance, would be soon set at liberty.

Cruel heart, can you refuse so slight a courtesy to souls so holy, and yet in so lamentable a condition? And if you had the honour to get to purgatory yourself, hereafter — I say, the honour — do you not deserve to be let alone to feel at leisure the smart of your idleness and disloyalty? Who will take the pains to help a wretch who would scarce stir a finger to help out souls whose eternal happiness he might as easily have procured as cut a small thread in two or quench a little spark of fire?

Mass For The Holy Souls

They, are your brothers whom I entreat for; they are prisoners underground. Christ Jesus has as tender a Heart as ever: give yourselves then to acts of contrition; let a tear steal now and then from your eyes; and happily sweet Jesus will be so well pleased to see them, that they may suffice to quench the flames of Purgatory; and possibly work a miracle there, in raising souls to life everlasting, and placing them above the firmament, that lie now, as it were, buried in that subterraneous lake of fire. But if you cannot afford them a tear, at least send them the sweet refreshment of a devout aspiration, or some short but vigorous ejaculatory prayer, which as a fiery dart you may be still levelling at the Heart of Almighty God.

Give them a good thought, or a cordial expression of sorrow, that you are not able to afford them the relief you could wish. Do ever so little, but do it with a good heart, and you will assuredly give them much ease in their implacable torments. The people of God were condemned to be cruelly massacred, or destroyed by fire, when Queen Esther, fetching but a deep sigh or two, and whispering but a few words into the ear I have not the confidence to propose Photo Courtesy Stephen Tyrell of King Assuerus, did so charm him as to work the redemption of above a million things of greater hardship; and of souls, who must otherwise have been delivered over therefore I will not exhort you to imitate the example of St. Catherine of Sienna, who offered to suffer the to the fury of fire and sword. pains of Purgatory itself, in place of her dear mother ; nor that of St. Catharine of Genoa, who really suffered I admire their charity, who, less solicitous for two years together what flesh and blood is not able to themselves, employ their whole care to save others endure in this mortal life ; nor that of St. Christina the out of that dreadful fire of purgatory. And I am sure Wonderful, whose excesses in this kind were incredible, they can lose nothing by the bargain, who dare thus if not attested by very credible persons.1 I know there trust God with their own souls, while they do their is no persuading you to devote yourself to such holy utmost to help others: There are those who, not content excesses: lest you should chance to be taken at your to give away all they could for the poor souls, while word, as some others have been. they lived, made the holy souls their heirs after death; and by express will bequeathed them all the Masses, I hope at least I may, without offence, remind you not Rosaries, and whatever else should be offered him by to hold back from applying in this way all your fasts, their friends upon earth.

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

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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.

20 THE NAME OF MARY

Catholic Voice

6th November 2020

THE NAME OF MARY IS A BENEDICTION ON OUR BLOOD Mary Kearns In our churches and shrines we see Our Blessed Lady depicted as she appeared at Fatima or at Lourdes. Her statues show her as The Immaculate Conception, Our Lady Queen of Heaven and in various other images that recall the Litany of Loreto and her appearances on earth. But how often do we think of Mary in her humanity? She was one of us, a human being and although she now reigns in Heaven, she is accessible to us, her children.

The Church teaches that Our Lady is our Mother and as such is our powerful advocate with God. As we turn to her in this way, it might seem that as the woman clothed with the sun, with the moon at her feet, she is far beyond us. She is the one person who could crush the head of the serpent and we can have utter confidence in her. But she is also the young girl of Nazareth.

We must never forget Mary’s humanity. As we hold the humanity of Jesus in our minds while forever acknowledging his divinity, we must also remember that his Mother is a human being and it is only through her that Jesus assumed his human nature and so also became one of us without compromising his divinity.

In his profound and prayerful meditation on the life of Mary, Woman Wrapped in Silence, Father John W. Lynch shows her to us as a woman with whom we can identify. It is: “Not true to think Her tears were not as salt as tears may be, And not as real. It is not true to say Her sweetness made a cushion for the blows That fell on her, and left her warmed and snug Against the starkness of the staring night.

This voice could laugh and sob and sing and cry: This was a woollen garment that she wore About her tired shoulders, and the hands That brushed the weight of hair from off her brow Were roughened with the water jars and knew The feel of sunlight and the form of bread.”

Mary was the first person to see the face of Jesus at his birth in Bethlehem. The tiny body she wrapped in swaddling clothes would one day be wrapped in a shroud for burial, following his brutal crucifixion.

Luke’s Gospel tells us that Mary pondered in her heart the great mysteries in which she was participating. The Fiat she had pronounced as a response to the Angel Gabriel is a response for all time, echoed at Mass, when the redeemed people of God utter the great Amen that follows the doxology at the end of the Eucharistic

Prayer. “Amen” So be it. This Amen is repeated when the sacred host is received by each person at Holy Communion.

During her entire life, Mary is a “woman of the Eucharist.” When she visited her cousin Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist, Mary was then bearing within herself the Word that was made flesh. She was the first tabernacle ever and through her the Son of God, as yet invisible to the world, radiated his light so that he was perceived by Elizabeth and the babe she carried. Elizabeth gave a loud cry and uttered the words that Catholics repeat every day “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”

Looking to Mary as a model, the Church also calls us to imitate her in the relationship with the most holy mystery of the Incarnation. But there is more. We simply could not have the Eucharist without the Blessed Virgin. It is from her that Jesus received the Body and Blood that would later be offered to the Father for the salvation of the world.

No-one has a greater right than the Mother of Our Blessed Lord, to guide and teach us to contemplate the face of Jesus. In his encyclical on the Mother of the Redeemer, ‘Redemptoris Mater’, Saint John Paul acknowledges the motherhood of Mary during the sacred liturgy when the body of Jesus once again becomes present in the mystery of our Redemption.

Mary’s name is prominent in all the Eucharistic Prayers.

Let us ponder on this same name spoken in the simple homes of Nazareth, in a time before the Aves rang.

The sacrifice of praise is offered to the Father “in communion with those whose memory we venerate, especially the glorious ever-virgin Mary, Mother of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ.” (EP I) When we pay attention to these words, we are reminded of how Jesus when he was dying, bequeathed his mother to us, represented by John, the beloved disciple. To each of us, the Saviour also says “Behold your mother!”

(John 19: 26-27).

Although the Gospels do not mention Mary at the first Eucharist, we are told she was present with the apostles after her Son had ascended to heaven. In the days after the Easter liturgy, the Acts of the Apostles are read and we hear how they prayed with one accord. We can assume with certainty that Mary was present at the Eucharistic celebrations of the infant Church who met to break bread and fulfil the command of their Master “Do this in memory of me.” (Luke: 22:19)

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Catholic Voice

THE NAME OF MARY 21

The titles attributed to the Blessed Mother are many. Among them, the Litany of Loreto invokes Mary as “Ark of the Covenant.”

We recall how in the Old Testament the Ark of the Covenant was the place where the presence of God among his people was honoured.

But with Mary’s assent at the Annunciation, the Lord became physically present in her womb, making her the new Ark. This same Lord is now held in the tabernacle of our churches. We can visit the Blessed Sacrament to pray and adore the Lord in the tabernacle and particularly when the sacred Host is exposed during Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.

The unity of the Old and New Testaments is encapsulated within the great prayer of Mary - the Magnificat, where she remembers the wonders worked by God in the story of salvation. The greatest wonder of all is the promise of redemption which Mary anticipates.

The angel had announced that God would give her son the throne of his ancestor David, completing the promises made to Abraham and the fathers in faith. Elizabeth, commended her cousin for believing that the promises made to her would be fulfilled, a faith that would be severely tested in the years to come.

Going back to earliest times, in the tradition of the Faithful, in the liturgy both East and West, and in the Marian Shrines of the world, Mary never fails to point us to the presence of her Son in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Now that we are deprived of his sacramental presence in Holy Communion, let us remember that Our Lady too was deprived of her Son. Let us call on her as our Mother Mary.

“This name is benediction On our blood, defence and refuge, hope And harbour and our one fair memory Of innocence.”

For catechesis and liturgical formation: marykeenankearns@gmail.com 087 7794687

Madonna in Glory - Carlo Dolci (1616-1686)

My soul doth magnify the Lord.

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; For behold from henceforth All generations shall call me blessed.

Because he that is mighty, hath done great things to me; And holy is his name.

And his mercy is from generation unto generations, To them that fear him.

He hath shewed might in his arm: He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat, And hath exalted the humble.

He hath filled the hungry with good things; And the rich he hath sent empty away.

He hath received Israel his servant, being mindful of his mercy: As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever.

Luke 1:46-55

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6th November 2020

God And God Alone - Do We Really Put God First?

Monsignor Charles Pope

The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 22 contains lots of interesting juxtapositions: hatred for Jesus but grudging respect, real questions vs. rhetorical ones, politics and faith, duties to Caesar and duties to God. The word “juxtaposition” comes from the Latin ‘juxta’, meaning “near” and ‘positio’, meaning “place” or “position”. Juxtaposition is the placing of two things near to each other, usually in order to see how they are similar yet different. Most often the differences are emphasised more than the similarities.

Let’s look at the juxtapositions in this chapter Gospel, concentrating most of our attention on our duties to God as compared to our duties to “Caesar.”

I. The Plotting of the Peculiar Partners

It begins by describing an extremely unlikely set of “bedfellows.” The text says, “The Pharisees went off and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech. They sent their disciples to him, with the Herodians.” A very unlikely set of allies indeed. The Pharisees hated the Herodians. It was a combination of political and racial hatred, just about as poisonous as you could get in the ancient world, yet they both agreed that this Jesus fellow had to go.

Here is an important teaching: if you’re going to be a true Christian, the world will hate you. Too many Christians think that some segment of the world will agree to live in peace with us and so we strive to forge allegiances with it. In the modern American milieu, some think that the Republicans or the Democrats are natural allies, but we

The Pharisees Question Jesus - James Tissot (1836 - 1902) really don’t fit well into either party nor any worldly “club.”

Catholicism is an “equal-opportunity offender” in its unabridged form.

Issue by issue we may appeal to one political party or another on a particular issue, but on the whole we’re a nuisance: we’re pro-life, traditional family values, immigrants’ rights, and affordable housing. We both please and annoy, which is another way of saying we don’t fit neatly into the world’s categories; everyone has some reason to hate us.

Welcome to Jesus’ world, in which groups who seemed to agree on nothing were aligned when it came to hating Jesus.

II. The Praise that is actually a Perilous Provocation

In their opening remarks to Jesus, His enemies give Him grudging respect. They do so not to praise Him, however, but rather to provoke Him. They say, Teacher, we know

that you are a truthful man and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. And you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion, for you do not regard a person’s status. Tell us, then, what is your opinion … Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?

The praise is largely a pretext that is used to provoke. In effect, they think they can they can force a definition on Jesus: “You’re ‘the Man.’ You’re the prophet. You’re the only one around here who tells the truth no matter what.” Now none of these things are false and they bespeak a grudging respect for Jesus.

However, they are only using this to draw Jesus into a worldly debate that is well “below his pay grade.”

They want Jesus to take sides in a silly human debate over politics and worldly power. They want him to get arrested and killed over something that is not worth dying for.

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Catholic Voice

Prophets die for the truth revealed

by God not for who the “big cheese” should be in human affairs. They want Jesus to opine as if He were some sort of talking head on TV rather than the prophet and Lord that He is. A question of this sort is not worthy of Jesus’ attention.

Ask this of the local senator or mayor but leave God out of human political distinctions and camps; do not expect Him to take sides.

He is beyond our distinctions and will not be confined by party lines, national boundaries, or political philosophies.

We may well contend that certain systems of government better reflect the Kingdom than others, but in the end, God cannot be reduced to being a Republican, a Democrat, or for that matter an American.

He is God and He transcends our endless debates and camps. He is not a talking head; He is God.

Generally speaking, rhetorical questions are statements or arguments posed in the form of a question. If I say to you, “Are you crazy?” I’m not really looking for an answer; I’m making a statement that I think you are crazy. This is what takes place in today’s Gospel.

The questioners already have their own opinions and aren’t going to change their minds no matter how Jesus answers. They don’t really want an answer; they want something to use against Him. If Jesus says, “Yes, pay the taxes,” it will make Him unpopular with the crowds. If He says “No, don’t pay the taxes,” He will be arrested and likely executed.

In the end, Jesus calls them what they are: hypocrites, a Greek word meaning “actor.” And that is what they are. This whole thing is an act.

This is not about discovering the truth; it is about setting a trap.

RENDER UNTO GOD 23 But Jesus will have none of it.

He will not be reduced to human distinctions and categories. The truth He proclaims transcends the passing political order and any human power struggles. He will not be drawn into choosing sides.

Rather, He will apply the rule of truth evenly to all.

Jesus is reality in the face of rhetoric, perfection in the face of politics, divinity in the face of division.

III. The Protesting of their Pretext and Pretence

Knowing their malice, Jesus said, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?” Not everyone who engages us is truly looking for an answer or for the truth. We cannot always know things, but Jesus surely could. Often, when engaged in a discussion about the truth of the Gospel, one discovers that authentic

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dialogue is not actually taking place. In that case it is permissible to merely proclaim the truth firmly, clearly, and with due charity, and then end the conversation. Jesus called them on their pretence and authoritatively announced the principle with the goal of ending the conversation and sending them away to think.

IV. The Pointed Proclamation of the Principle

Jesus says, simply, and in a way that transcends worldly “all-ornothing” scenarios, Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God. Such an answer elicits in us a desire for elaboration, but in our demands for more detail, we too often seek to conceal the fact that we really know the answer. We also betray the need of the flesh to specify everything so as to control and limit its impact.

If we really need a list, we might include some of the following things we ought to do in order “repay” to Caesar: 1. Obey all just laws.

2. Pay legally assessed taxes.

The Tribute Money - Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) 3. Pray for our country and its leaders.

4. Participate in the common defence based on our abilities and state in life.

5. Take an active and informed role in the political process.

6. Engage in movements for necessary reform.

7. Contribute to the common good through work (domestic or market-based) and through the sharing of our abilities and talents with others.

8. Maintain strong family ties and raise disciplined children who are well-prepared to contribute to the common good and to the good order of society.

9. Encourage patriotic love of our country.

10. Strive for unity and love rooted in Truth.

Here are some things we might include in a list of what we owe to God: 1. Adoration, love, and gratitude 2. Obedience to His Word and His Law 3. Worship 4. Repentance 5. Support of His Church by

attendance at sacred worship, financial support, and sharing of our gifts and talents 6. Proclamation of his Word both verbally and by witness 7. Devoted reception of the sacraments 8. Raising our children in His truth and in reverence of Him 9. Evangelisation (making disciples) 10. Preparing for death and judgment through a holy and reverent sojourn in this world.

A glance at these lists reveals that there is some overlap. One would expect this with God because He defies our human categories and distinctions. In the overlap, we see a setting forth of the great commandment of Love: that we should love the Lord our God with all our soul, strength, and mind, and our neighbour as ourself (e.g., Matthew 22:37). For while God is not Caesar and Caesar is not God, love unites both categories.

To love our country is to love our neighbour. To work for, support, and be involved in the common good is to love our neighbour. And to love our neighbour, whom we

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see, is to begin to love God, whom we do not see. Further, to seek to reform our land, secure justice, and ensure unity rooted in truth is to help usher in the Kingdom of God. To be rooted in God’s law, walk in His truth, and raise our children as strong and disciplined disciples of the Lord is to bless this country. To obey God and to walk in sobriety, love, and self-discipline is not only to render to God but also to be a good citizen.

However, it must be clear that God is and must be our supreme love. Jesus is not setting forth an equivalence here. This world is often at odds with God and thus we who would be His disciples must accept the fact that we will often be seen by this world as though we are aliens from another planet. Neither Jesus nor we should expect to fit precisely into any worldly category or club. We will be an equalopportunity irritant to any large group. If we are going to be faithful

Catholics then we must expect to be outsiders, outliers, and outcasts.

Rendering to God comes first. Too many people today, however, are more passionate about their politics than their faith. They tuck their faith underneath their politics and worldview. They are more inclined to agree with their party than with the Church or even the Scriptures.

If you point that out, though, they’re likely to accuse you of violating the separation of Church and State (a phrase that does not appear in the Constitution, by the way) or tell you that unless something is infallibly defined (as they determine it) they are free to ignore the teaching of the bishops, the Pope, and/or the Catechism.

Here is the question we must ask ourselves: Do we really put God first?

Is His Word really the foundation of our thoughts and views or are we just playing games? Loving this world and working for the common

A VISITATION 25 good are not at odds with our love for God, but submitting to worldly categories and human divisions and permitting them to drive our views is most often opposed to God, who will not simply be conformed to human political movements.

God has set forth the Catholic Church to speak for Him but He has not anointed any political movement or worldly organisation to do so. No Catholic should surrender to artificial and passing distinctions or to organisations.

No Catholic should permit worldly allegiances to trump what Scripture and the Church clearly proclaim.

Sadly, today many seem far more willing to render to some version of “Caesar” than to render obedience and allegiance to God and to the Church, which speaks for Him. The Church is an object of faith; a political party is not. Render to God what is God’s.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque Is Visited By A Holy Soul From Purgatory Sister Margaret being one day before the Blessed Sacrament, a person all on fire suddenly appeared before her, and his burning heat penetrated her so powerfully, that she thought herself consumed with the same fire. She did not recognise him, but his state caused her to shed many tears.

The suffering soul then told her that he was a Benedictine monk of the convent of Cluny, who a short time before had been prior of the convent of Paray, when she had once confessed to him, and he had given her some consolation by allowing her to receive holy Communion. In his sufferings, God had permitted him to address himself to Sister Margaret, that he might obtain relief by her prayers.

He then requested that she would offer for him, and apply to him, all that she should do and suffer for the, space of three months. He then disclosed to her three reasons for the great suffering to which he was

condemned. The first was that he had been too much ; attached to his reputation, which had sometimes made him prefer his interest on this point to the true glory of God. The second was his want of charity towards his brethren. The third was a too natural affection for creatures, and the manifestation of it in spiritual conversations with them; “which”, said he, “much displeased God.”

Sister Margaret promised that if she could obtain permission, she would perform what he asked. It was granted, but her promise did not deliver her from the sight of this afflicting spectacle, which never left her during all that time. She seemed incessantly to see this religious near her, and communicating fire to the side of her on which he appeared to remain, and in all this half of her body she felt such intense pain that she wept almost continually. The superior, who knew her state, and the cause of her pain, found that nothing gave her any alleviation but ordering her some penances, as disciplines, which holy practices appeared to give relief both to the religious and the sister. At the end of three months they were both delivered from their sufferings, for Sister Margaret saw this holy religious ascend to heaven full of joy, after having testified his gratitude, and assured her that he would protect her before God.

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A Christian Vision Of Society And Civilisation Of Love Fr. Shenan J. Boquet

“Laws which authorise and promote abortion and euthanasia are… radically opposed not only to the good of the individual but also to the common good; as such they are completely lacking in authentic juridical validity. Disregard for the right to life, precisely because it leads to the killing of the person whom society exists to serve, is what most directly conflicts with the possibility of achieving the common good. Consequently, a civil law authorising abortion or euthanasia ceases by that very fact to be a true, morally binding civil law.” ─ Pope St. John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, no. 72 It is a true but under-appreciated fact that animals in the wild almost never die of old age. Long before old age finishes them off, weakened animals succumb to disease, predators, or starvation. I say this fact is underappreciated, because it points to one of the most remarkable things about human beings: i.e. that we look out for one another, including – or rather, especially – the weakest among us. Rather than abandoning our grandmother when she can no longer work, we sacrifice our time and resources to ensure she is cared for and lives and ends her life surrounded by love.

don’t take my stuff, I won’t take your stuff.”

Two Visions Of Human Society Some early modern philosophers claimed that civilisation only came to exist because of our fear of one another, and our desire to look out for our own selfish interests. We band together into cooperative tribes, they say, only so as to counteract the threat of violence, and so that we can ultimately get the things we want.

Civilisation, in other words, is just a bunch of people who have agreed to some version of this promise: “If you

This vision is the natural outflowing of a radically different anthropology. Instead of viewing humans simply as highly developed animals striving like other animals for nothing more than food, sex, pleasure, and social status, the Christian vision understands human beings as made in the image and likeness of God, with the capacity for self-transcendence, and destined for eternal bliss in the contemplation of the Divine Essence.

This is an incredibly narrow vision of human nature, and a dangerously reductionist understanding of the nature of society. The Christian vision of society is radically different. It is perhaps best expressed in the phrase used so often by Pope St. John Paul II: i.e. “the civilisation of life and love.”

As the phrase suggests, in a truly healthy society, people are bound together not by fear or self-interest, but rather by bonds of love for one another.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes the point, when it notes that an authentic understanding of the “common good” presupposes “respect for the person as such.” In the name of the common good, public authorities are bound to respect the fundamental and inalienable rights of the human person.”

Within the civilisation of love, one person does not protect the rights and welfare of another in a calculating tit-for-tat arrangement in the hope that the other person will do the same for him. Instead, a person looks out for another because it’s the right thing to do: because the other person, by virtue of being a person, merits and even demands our protection and love.

In Evangelium Vitae, Pope St. John Paul II pointed to “those daily gestures of openness, sacrifice and unselfish care which countless people lovingly make in families, hospitals, orphanages, homes for the elderly and other centres or communities which defend life.”

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Catholic Voice

For two thousand years the Church has spearheaded countless such charitable efforts, building up the common good in imitation of our Divine Master, who commanded His disciples, “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also must love one another.”

Human beings are capable of self-transcendence, of looking out for the other with no other ulterior motive than to value the other person for the person they are, and to treat them with the dignity they deserve.

It is this incredible capacity that the cynical modern philosophers completely overlooked. And yet, without this capacity, human society is not just built on a foundation of sand, but of quicksand. Any society that is founded purely on principles of self-interest will, at the first sign of instability, tear itself apart. Inevitably, it is the weakest members who will suffer most.

The Culture Of Death The vision of “society” described by some cynical modern philosophers looks a great deal like that formed by Satan and his minions, as depicted by John Milton in Paradise Lost. Though consumed by envy and loathing for one another, the demons are united by their common hatred of God and a desire to pervert the human race. Satan is the overlord of a true society in which the members cooperate to achieve a common aim; but what sort of a society, with what sort of a culture!

A Culture Of Sin. A Culture Of Death.

In our world the civilisation of love has never existed in its pure form – not, at least, since that short-lived civilisation of two in the Garden of Eden. Instead, the civilisation of love and the culture of death are intermingled. In various times and in various places, one or another civilisation is ascendant, while the other is ailing.

My fear, however, is that not only is the culture of death now dominant, but that in many cases we have even lost sight of the fact that any other form of culture is desirable, or even possible.

Indeed, I fear that what we are experiencing now is a diabolic inversion, in which the anti-civilisation embodied by Satan and his minions, in which the only bond uniting us together is selfishness and shared hatreds, is viewed as the ideal.

Less Than Beasts St. Augustine in ‘On the Trinity’, notes the paradox that in striving to become like God, human beings inevitably debase themselves, coming instead to resemble the

CIVILISATION OF LOVE 27 beasts. In reality, however, the case is worse than this.

In striving to become like God, humans often sink beneath the level of the beasts, becoming, as it were, more bestial than beasts.

A mother cat knows enough to treasure and care for her kittens. In our worship of radical “autonomy” and a diseased notion of “freedom” (that is, in our efforts to become like God), however, we now celebrate the “right” of mothers and fathers to choose to have their own children murdered. And while an adult cat may not do much to protect its mother or grandmother in their old age, we are now championing the “right” of our grandmother to kill herself or to have our grandmother killed. The thing that most distinguishes human society from that of the animals – our valuing of other humans not for anything they can do, but for what they are – is vanishing.

At root, this total inversion of values stems from our loss of the sense of the dignity of the human person, which in turn stems from our loss of the sense of God, in whose image the human person is made. To quote Pope St. John Paul II in Evangelium Vitae again: “when the sense of God is lost, there is also a tendency to lose the sense of man, of his dignity and his life;

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in turn, the systematic violation of the moral law, especially in the serious matter of respect for human life and its dignity, produces a kind of progressive darkening of the capacity to discern God’s living and saving presence.”

Building A Civilisation Of Love Contrary to the claims of cynical pragmatists, the most useful thing in the world is an unattainable ideal. Even though this ideal be unattainable, the person with such an ideal at least knows in what direction he should be moving. The modern “pragmatic” conception of society, which views it merely as a means to protect “freedom,” without any notion of what freedom is for, at best leaves people lost and confused, and at worst sends them marching in precisely the wrong direction.

As Christians we need to constantly remind ourselves of the ideal – Pope St. John Paul II’s “civilisation of love” – and to resist the allure of the deceptions of the evil one.

Even in conservative circles one often encounters the idea that the only reason society exists is to protect our “freedom” – understood in the narrow sense of the ability to do whatever we want.

In reality, society exists to protect and promote the common good, understood in the rich sense of human flourishing. The common good, says the Catechism, is “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily.”

Human beings, however, only achieve their true fulfilment in relationships of love, firstly with one another, and ultimately with God. This Christian understanding of the “common good” as the creation of a civilisation of love is an unattainable ideal. Such a civilisation will never exist in a

perfect form this side of Heaven.

Nevertheless, to the extent that we transform this world into a foretaste of Heaven, it will only be because we have pursued such an ideal.

With such a beautiful ideal in mind, we in the pro-life and pro-family movement will gain new strength to labour against the great threats to that ideal in our own culture

of death: abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, and other such attacks on human life and dignity.

Let us pray, then, with Pope St. John Paul II, as he prayed in Evangelium Vitae, “May God strengthen us in our effort to bring about a culture of life and solidarity for the true good of the whole of human society.”

6th November 2020 Catholic Voice

NEW BOOK 29

Announcing The Latest Book From Lumen Fidei Press The Five First Saturdays Meditations On The Mysteries Of The Holy Rosary

The purpose of this book is to help people to complete the devotion of the Five First Saturdays of Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary which was given to the Catholic Church by Our Lady of Fatima.

One part of the Five First Saturday Devotion, perhaps the part where most people fail, consists in accompanying Our Lady for fifteen minutes whilst meditating on the mysteries of the Holy Rosary.

One can meditate on one or on several mysteries of the Rosary for that time.

This book is a collection of Rosary meditations composed by the celebrated French Dominican, Father Jacques-Marie-Louis Monsabré, which were translated into English in 1885. Although these were composed before Our Lady visited Fatima, they are perfectly suitable for use with the Five First Saturdays Devotion of Reparation.

The importance of the Five First Saturdays Devotion cannot be over emphasised, Our Lady specifically came from Heaven to Fatima to ask Catholics to honour her in this way. We would appreciate your help in getting this book to as many people as possible. The cost is €10.00 including post & packing to anywhere in Ireland and it would make a great Christmas present.

To order please call 085-1208779 Outside ROI phone 00353 85 1208779 Online Orders Visit: www.lumenfidei.ie

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Parenting Roadshow - Back On The Road We are now taking bookings for small home meetings to inform parents and other interested parties of the plans the sexologists and LGBT ideologists have for our schools. These programmes will corrupt the minds of children by giving them a false understanding of human sexuality.

We also look at the duties and responsibilities of Catholic parents with suggestions on how to strengthen your Faith life in order to be able to meet the challenges of rearing children in 2020s Ireland.

We are happy to host this presentation in small groups of up to six parents (or more depending on current covid restrictions), either in peoples homes or in other small venues. Please get in touch if you would like to host a small meeting and we can arrange the details with you.

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DON’T GO TO HELL Catholic Church Teaching on Hell

THE CHURCH IN OUR TIMES

This book contains three essays, one in question & answer format, from a time when pastors were more direct and ‘plain speaking’ in presenting the Truth of Catholic doctrine to their flocks.

They were primarily concerned with the salvation of the souls entrusted to their care rather than being overly concerned about whether or not their flocks would find these Truths offensive or difficult.

They sought the Praise and Glory of God, and not the praise of men.

is a series of reflections on topical issues concerning the Catholic Church and the practice of the faith ranging from ‘Faith and Culture’, to ‘GLBT – New thinking’, to ‘Purgatory and Remembrance’. Fr Hahesy’s style is conversational and he weaves through the various topics all the while pointing to the soul’s need for God. “The daily prayers at the end of this book, will ensure the salvation of our soul and a happier life here. Please believe me. It does not seem much to ask for such a great reward. To know and love God is the ultimate good whether people know this or not, accept it or not.”

€/£7 inc p&p Ireland €/£8.50 inc p&p outside Ireland

€/£10 inc p&p Ireland €/£12 inc p&p outside Ireland

EGO EIMI - IT IS I

“May the present book of Rev. Fr. de Malleray FSSP, a beautiful and impressive “paper shrine to the Most Holy Eucharist”, have a wide diffusion and be a practical spiritual aid in order to renew the Catholic Faith, the Catholic Love and the Catholic Worship of the Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist.” + Athanasius Schneider.

“This highly readable, informative, and edifying treatise on the Holy Eucharist will enrich the understanding and devotion of Catholics regardless of their prior knowledge of the subject: I recommend it wholeheartedly.” Dr Joseph Shaw PhD,

SCIENCE SAYS NO

In this book, Dr. van den Aardweg debunks many of the myths created by the global homosexualist movement. The argument for gay “marriage” is exposed as a deception in this ground breaking book. For many years the public has been indoctrinated with unfounded assertions which in fact are no more than modern fairy tales sold as science. In other words, as regards homosexuality, people hear and read mostly lies. The book explains why the deception is possible and shows why no assertion of the gay ideology has been scientifically validated. €/£9 inc p&p Ireland €/£10.50 inc p&p outside Ireland

SIN AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

This really is a fantastic book which presents Catholic teaching on sin in a simple, clear and precise way. You will learn about the nature of sin, about the different kinds of sin, mortal and venial, formal and material sins.

Reflections on the Abortion Issue in Ireland.

Oxf, Chairman of The Latin Mass Society.

The book also teaches us about sins of omission. After discussing sin, the book then speaks of the great graces offered to us in the sacrament of confession, it teaches us about temptations, about Christ’s suffering and death on the cross, and then it finishes with a very hope filled chapter on the joys of the resurrection.

Many countries, including Ireland, have removed the right to life from the Constitution and given the legislature the power to legalise abortion, which by definition is the intentional killing of the unborn child.

The assumption is that unborn babies have no human rights. The essays in this monograph expose the fallacy that unborn babies do not have the right to life and may be ‘terminated’ if that is the ‘choice’ of the mother. In the New Ireland, human killing is now legal. It is estimated that 800 – 900 unwanted unborn babies are ‘terminated’ every month. Abortion has become the murder machine of our time.”

€/£9 inc p&p Ireland €/£12 inc p&p outside Ireland

€/£10 inc p&p Ireland €/£12 inc p&p outside Ireland

€/£13.50 inc p&p Ireland €/£15 inc p&p outside Ireland

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CLASSIFIEDS 31

6th November 2020 Catholic Voice

CLASSIFIEDS From Our Lady of Fatima Do you want peace in the world?

Will you do what Our Lady tells you?

Say the Rosary every day.

Do the Five First Saturdays in honour of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Those who spread this devotion will be placed by Our Lady as flowers before the throne of Almighty God. Next issue of

CatholicVoice On sale in churches, newsagents & bookshops from

20 November 2020

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REGULAR TRADITIONAL LATIN MASSES IN IRELAND (LISTED BY DIOCESE)

DAILY & WEEKLY Armagh: New Mellifont Abbey, Collon, Co. Louth; Every Sunday 3pm.

Cork & Ross: Ss Peter’s & Paul’s, Cork: Sundays 12.00 noon Mon -Sat 10.00am.

Dromore: St.Mary’s, Newry: Sundays and Holydays 09.00.

Dublin: St. Kevin’s, Harrington Street: Sundays & non working Holy Days: 10.30; Mon - Fri 08.00; Sat 09.00.

Working Holidays & First Fridays; 08.00 and 19.00.

Dublin: St. Joseph’s, Newtownmountkennedy, Co Wicklow; Sat 11.00 Limerick: Sacred Heart, The Crescent (ICKSP); Sun10.30; Mon-Thurs 08.00 and 19.00; Friday 19.00; Saturday 08.00 & 12.00 noon.

Meath: Silverstream Priory (Benedictine monks) Stamullen: Sunday 10.00 preceded by Terce, other days 11.00.

Meath: Johnstown, Navan: Sundays 13.00; Holydays as announced.

Ossory: St. Patrick’s, College Rd, Kilkenny; Sundays 17.00.

Raphoe: St. Patrick’s, Drumkeen, Co. Donegal Sundays 11.00am.

Down & Connor: St. Therese of Lisieux, Somerton Rd, Belfast :Sundays at 4pm TWICE MONTHLY Ferns: St. Alphonsus, Barntown, Co Wexford: Second Sunday 17.00 and occasional Third Sundays Derry: St. Columba’s , Longtower: First and Third Sunday 14.00.

Waterford: St. John’s Church, Parnell Street, Waterford City - 1pm on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the Month.

MONTHLY Armagh: St. Patrick’s, Dungannon, Co Tyrone: First Saturday 14.00.

Cork & Ross: St. Francis , Liberty St. Cork : First Saturday 13.00.

Derry: St. Marys, Aughabrack, Co Tyrone: Fourth Sunday 12.45 Elphin: St. John’s, carraoe, Co Sligo ; Last Sunday 15.00.

Killaloe: St. Joseph’s, Ennis, Co Clare: First Sunday 17.30.

Tuam: St. John the Baptist, (Old Parish Church), Knock, Co Mayo; Second Sunday 17.30.

Every effort has been made to ensure this list is up to date. Please contact the Latin Mass Society of Ireland of any changes or errors. email president@latinmassireland.com

Visit our all-new website today!

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Catholic Voice

6th November 2020

AND ALL PATRIOTS Published by: Catholic Voice Newspapers, St Michael’s House, Castlemitchell South, Athy, County Kildare. Tel 059-8627268 ROI / 00353 - 59 8627268 Publisher: Anthony Murphy.

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