Catholic Voice 15th January 2021 Issue 308

CatholicVoice Omnia possum in eo, qui me confortat

15 January - 28 January 2021

Issue 308

The Conversion of St Paul

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Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me? And he said, Who are you, Lord?

And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting

The Conversion of St Paul - Nicolas Bernard Lépicié (1735 – 1784)

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2 GOD IS WITH US

Catholic Voice

15th January 2021

Lockdowns Cannot Stop God Visiting Each Of Us This Year Avery Qua It was New Year’s Eve and like every year, my family hosted a party with our relatives and friends from all over town. We sat around the dinner table sharing our hopes and dreams for 2020. For most of us, we liked how things are going and wouldn’t want to change a thing. Each of us had our health, our home, our jobs, loved ones all around and our churches open for us to go to whenever we wanted.

Personally, I was comfortable, content, and in control of my life, or so I thought.

Little did I know that the Lord had something different in mind for me in this year of 2020. As St. Therese of Lisieux once stated, “The world is thy ship, and not thy home”. The Lord knew that there was much pruning needed to be done in my life and how much I needed to be led into the desert for me to detach myself from the things of this world.

After a job loss, constant rejection from positions that I applied for, a hastened death in my family, churches on lock-down due to a global pandemic, I felt my sense of security and certainty crumble.

I was frustrated with government decisions and the lack of integrity, justice, and honesty in the world. I felt down-trodden and disappointed

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

with myself as I couldn’t come up with a solution for me to get out of this mess and felt completely lost as I couldn’t see past this long season of Good Friday.

This was what Satan wanted. The father of lies will do anything to convince us that we are alone, that hope is useless and that God’s love is non-existent. I was impatient and attached to the tangible and absolute certainties of life, and much like Eve in the garden I doubted God’s love and His plan for my life and His plan for the world. I kept grasping for the fruit of my own pride in assuming that I knew what was best for me, rather than what the Lord had in store for me.

What can I say; I’m a flawed human being! But through God’s redeeming love in the Sacrament of Reconciliation I have witnessed God’s overflowing peace in His reassurance that He is in control.

As St. Paul states to the Philippians 1:6, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of Jesus Christ”. Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ desires to make us whole and complete, but it is only possible if we humble ourselves and let Him in. I am constantly reminded that I cannot rely on my own strength and sheer will to make things better and sometimes it takes a difficult season of loss for me to open my eyes.

Praise God for this humbling realisation through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. To think, this sacrament would not be in existence without Our Mother Mary’s fiat.

Our Lady in her humility and love for God surrendered her hopes and dreams for an even greater purpose, the salvation of humanity! Our Mother Mary did not cower in fear

or succumb to despair when all seemed lost on Calvary, but rather she accepted God’s plan and the excruciating suffering that came with it without losing hope. In all things she trusted and did not lose sight of God’s everlasting love and plan for her family even when there was no room for them in the inn at Bethlehem but rather trusted in God’s providence.

Her family includes you and I. Although it may seem like there is no room for us to receive Our Lord in the Eucharist when these lock-downs have prevented many from celebrating Christmas in our churches and with our loved ones, Our Lady and St. Joseph are persistent as they journey towards each and every one of us this Christmas season to find a home for their beloved Son in the living tabernacle of our hearts.

Our Lady and St. Joseph are challenging us to surrender our plans, our pride and desire for control in our messy world and imitate their virtues of having a holy indifference, uncompromising faith, and profound humility and urge us to keep our head’s up and eyes fixed on that bright star in Bethlehem this blessed Christmas season and throughout the New Year.

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15th January 2021 Catholic Voice

ST PAUL’S CONVERSION 3

Conversion Of St Paul

by Dr Monsell

Saviour, when our souls would trace All the wonders of Thy Grace, And by sweet experience prove How, through the power of mighty love, Hardened hearts perverse and proud, Can before thy cross be bowed, Be Thy great Apostle Paul Type and Teacher of it all!

 Greater difference cannot be, Than in Saul and Paul we see ; He who Christ and Christ’s abhorred Lowly breathes “ Who art Thou, Lord? ” He who calmly stood and owned Those who holy Stephen stoned Trembling and astonished too, Sighs, “What wilt Thou have me do?”

That, which humbled to the knee, The proud-hearted Pharisee— That, which pardoned all the wrong, He had done to Christ so long— That, which with its soft control Soothed to love his stubborn soul— Still remains ; it changes never!

Yesterday, to-day, for ever!



Blessed Saviour, when we stray, Meet us on our will-ward way, Meet, and plead with us, till we Yield, repent, and turn to Thee, And beneath the beaming grace Of Thy reconciléd face, Like the great Apostle, prove Converts to Thy gentle love.



 Grace his soul with blessings reaches ; He, who persecuted, preaches ; He, who with the bigot’s rod Chastened once the Church of God, Takes up now the insulted Cross, Counts as nought its shame and loss, And, before he lays it down, Wins a martyr’s palm and crown!

 Such God’s glorious power of old!

And the story still is told Every year, that brings again This high festival to men; These glad tidings to proclaim, Jesus Christ is still the same, Still the same, He changes never, Yesterday, today, for ever!



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4 THE GREAT COVID RESET

Catholic Voice

15th January 2021

Covid Is Being Used For A ‘Great Reset’ To Attack ‘Freedom’ And ‘Families’ Cardinal Raymond Burke

‘The worldwide spread of Marxist materialism, which has already brought destruction and death to the lives of so many, and which has threatened the foundations of our nation for decades, now seems to seize the governing power over our nation.’

Editor’s note: Cardinal Burke has delivered a forthright homily, in which he outlined the widespread influence of communism, and the manner in which freedom is under attack through the measures related to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Speaking on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, December 12, at the Shrine church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, His Eminence noted how we have become reliant upon communism and the communist state of China. Below is the full transcription of Cardinal Burke’s homily: Praised be Jesus Christ!

We come to Our Lady of Guadalupe on her feast day with troubled and heavy hearts. Our nation is going through a crisis which threatens its very future as free and democratic.

The worldwide spread of Marxist materialism, which has already brought destruction and death to the lives of so

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many, and which has threatened the foundations of our nation for decades, now seems to seize the governing power over our nation.

To attain economic gains, we as a nation have permitted ourselves to become dependent upon the Chinese Communist Party, an ideology totally opposed to the Christian foundations upon which families and our nation, remain safe and prosper.

I speak of the United States of America, but evidently many other nations are in the throes of a similar, most alarming crisis.

Then there is the mysterious Wuhan virus about whose nature and prevention the mass media daily give us conflicting information. What is clear, however, is that it has been used by certain forces, inimical to families and to the freedom of nations, to advance their evil agenda. These forces tell us that we are now the subjects of the so-called ‘Great Reset,’ the ‘new normal,’ which is dictated to us by their manipulation of citizens and nations through ignorance and fear.

Now, we are supposed to find in a disease and its prevention the way to understand and direct our lives, rather than in God and in His plan for our salvation. The response of many bishops and priests, and of many faithful, has manifested a woeful lack of sound catechesis. So many in the Church seem to have no understanding of how Christ continues his saving work in times of plague and of other disasters.

What is more, our holy Mother Church, the spotless bride of Christ, in which Christ is ever at work for our eternal

15th January 2021 Catholic Voice

THE GREAT COVID RESET 5

redemption, is beset by reports of moral corruption, especially in matters of the sixth and seventh commandments, which seem to increase by the day.

In our own nation, the reports about Theodore McCarrick have rightly tempted many devoted Catholics to question the shepherds, who in accord with Christ’s plan for the Church are to be their secured guides by teaching the truths of the faith, by leading them in the fitting worship of God and in prayer to him, and by guiding them by means of the Church’s perennial discipline.

Too often the faithful receive nothing in response, or a response which is not grounded in the unchanging truths regarding faith and morals.

They receive responses that seem to come not from shepherds but secular managers.

The confusion regarding what the church truly teaches and demands of us in accord with Her teaching, generates ever greater divisions within the Body of Christ. All of this cripples the Church in Her mission of witness to divine truth and divine love, at a time when the world has never needed more, the Church to be a beacon. In encountering the world, the Church falsely wants to accommodate Herself to the world, instead of calling the world to conversion in obedience to the divine law written on every human heart and revealed in fullness in the redemptive, incarnation of God the Son. These grievous troubles of course present a formidable challenge to daily Christian living. The impact of the crisis in the world and in the Church is profound for all of us. Many are enduring the most painful suffering, physical, emotional, and spiritual, which such a situation necessarily causes.

At a time when we need to be close to one another in Christian love, worldly forces would isolate us and have us believe that we are alone and dependent upon secular forces which would make us slaves to their godless and murderous agenda.

Yes, our hearts are understandably heavy, but Christ, through the intercession of his Virgin Mother, lifts

up our hearts to his own, renewing our trust in him, who has promised us eternal salvation in the Church. He will never be unfaithful to his promises. He will never abandon us. Let us not be beguiled by the forces of the world and by false prophets. Let us not abandon Christ and seek our salvation in places where it never can be found.

of what is close to us, the Lord of heaven, the Lord of earth. I want very much that they build my sacred, little house here, in which I will show Him, I will exalt Him upon making Him manifest, I will give Him to all people in all my personal love - Him that is my compassionate gaze, Him that is my help, Him that is my salvation.’

Let us never forget the words by which Our Lady identified herself at her first apparition to St. Juan Diego: ‘Know, know for sure my dearest and youngest son, that I am truly the ever perfect, holy virgin Mary, who has the honour, to be the mother of the one, true God for whom we all live, the creator of people, the Lord of all around us, and

May the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe here, be always a worthy instrument by which the Immaculate Heart of Mary draws hearts to herself and brings them to the glorious, pierced heart of Jesus, to the only source of healing, and strength in this life, and unto eternal life.

6 THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA

Catholic Voice

15th January 2021

The World Needs The ‘Great Reset’ That Was Proposed At Fatima John Horvat II

A world with faith as its foundation is a far cry from what’s being proposed by radical change agents.

There is a major plan for change in society that is called the ‘Great Reset’. Rarely have I seen a plan so openly laid out to the public. Time magazine devoted a whole issue to the subject. Most major corporation CEOs (the Davos crowd) have signed on to the proposal. This is beyond conspiracy theory; it’s becoming policy. The Great Reset is the brainchild of Klaus Schwab and is sponsored by the World Economic Forum. He sees it as a way of “re-imagining capitalism” to make it a greener, more equitable wealth creation system. It stresses the idea of a “stakeholder” capitalism that considers the interests of all society rather than a shareholder version that concentrates on the profits of investors.

The Great Reset comes at the time of the COVID crisis, which is too good to waste. Many people are favourably disposed to its immediate and radical proposals to change the world.

The Need For A ‘Great Reset’ As much as I hate agreeing with the Davos crowd, I too think we need a great reset.

Klaus Schwab in Africa 2008 - Photo World Economic Forum We need a great reset because our present systems are frenetically intemperate. They compel people to want everything instantly and effortlessly, to the detriment of the common good.

A great reset will help us deal with the breakdown of many social networks based on the family. There is nothing to replace them. Moreover, we are in a state of polarisation and crisis, and the COVID-19 outbreak only makes things worse. Something must be done.

The time is ripe for a major change in society. We cannot sustain the present system for much longer unless we change direction. We need a great reset — but it’s not Schwab’s Great Reset.

Two Possible ‘Resets’ We can say that history revolves around great resets. There are times when nations deteriorate and cannot get anything done. They need to make crucial decisions about which way they will go. Usually, a crisis triggers a decision that determines the nation’s future.

I further hold that there are only two resets possible. No more, no less. The reset details might vary according to the circumstances, but choices on the direction are limited to two.

The two options are predictably one toward the good and the other toward evil. We have now reached a point in our history where we must choose which reset to follow.

15th January 2021

Catholic Voice

THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA 7

The Great Reset The question is not if there is to be a reset but when. This decision is forced upon us by Schwab’s Great Reset. Its promoters openly say that everyone must be on board, like it or not. All the rich and powerful have signed off on it.

Schwab claims his reset will lead down the sure path to a better future. I disagree. I believe it is an evil, a wrong choice that will take us to ruin.

For all the hullabaloo about this new program, Schwab’s plan is remarkably unoriginal. It reflects old socialist thinking about humanity, society and industry. Indeed, the left always progresses by recycling old, mouldy ideas.

The Great Reset rehashes leftist notions of grand central planning, egalitarian social structuring and changing human nature that have failed over the decades. The danger of the plan is its deceptiveness. It disguises its goals under the pretext of “re-imagining” capitalism.

Schwab’s Great Reset is total. It calls for the world to “act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions.” Every country must participate, and all industries must be transformed. There is no opt-out.

The main components of the Great Reset consist of global policies to transform the world. It would incorporate a climate-change agenda with broad powers to end fossil fuels, levy taxes and decide policy. It would promote an equality program of identity politics with calls for diversity and inclusivity. The plan will enlist Big Tech’s services to “harness the innovations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to support the public good, especially by addressing health and social challenges,” in light of the COVID-19 crisis.

Like all such brave-new-world dystopian visions, the Great Reset omits any reference to morality. It tolerates every kind of sin and persecutes those who uphold norms of virtue. It is a world without morals or God, and it will lead to chaos.

The Second Great Reset There is a better reset option that will take our society toward good. That option is not proposed by any Klaus Schwab but by the Mother of God at Fatima.

The Fatima message proposes a Great Reset tailored to our times. It is remarkably similar to the other reset since it repeats a common theme from the past, calls for a complete transformation of society and is addressed to all nations.

However, the similarities end there.

When the Blessed Mother appeared to three shepherd children at Fatima in 1917, she spoke to a world in crisis.

She called upon a sinful world to repent and convert — to reset. She provided a completely different program to effect this reset that consists of prayer, penance and amendment of life. She foretold the tragic consequences of not following her message that we have seen fulfilled. Yet worse things are to come if we continue disregarding the message.

Finally, Our Lady validated her message with a great miracle in which the sun “danced” in the sky before 70,000 people.

She proved she had the wherewithal to make great changes if people would only listen.

The Battle Of Two Resets The sad state of the world calls for a great reset. We could say that the history of the world since Fatima has been a battle between resets, one proposed by Our Lady and others promoted by communism, socialism, secularism, Islamism, and other totalitarian ideologies. Leftist options always propose totalitarian solutions that promise to transform everything without a return to moral living and virtue. Such man-centred schemes have failed miserably. That is why the latest reset option proposed by Schwab must be rejected in its entirety since it will not address the problem of our iniquities but only make them worse. It will introduce the terrible technological oversight of a Big Brother, not the solicitous gaze of a loving Mother.

Our Lady asked for a great reset, whereby we might reorient our priorities to the God that created us. She calls for a transformation of society where Christ would be King again.

Although the entire world’s power and money are arrayed against her, the ultimate victory is hers, even if humanity refuses her advice. What makes her proposal attractive is that she has promised us that her Immaculate Heart will triumph in the end, regardless of our follies.

With her victory being a given, we are outright foolish to ignore her.

8 THREE SACRED HEARTS

Catholic Voice

15th January 2021

Three Hearts Consecration Start The New Year Right This is the year of St. Joseph, husband of Mary the Mother of God. Why not be consecrated to all Three Hearts.

An Act of Consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus O Sacred Heart of Jesus, to Thee I consecrate and offer up my person and my life, my actions, trials, and sufferings, that my entire being may henceforth only be employed in loving, honouring and glorifying Thee. This is my irrevocable will, to belong entirely to Thee, and to do all for Thy love, renouncing with my whole heart all that can displease Thee.

I take Thee, O Sacred Heart, for the sole object of my love, the protection of my life, the pledge of my salvation, the remedy of my frailty and inconstancy, the reparation for all the defects of my life, and my secure refuge at the hour of my death. Be Thou, O Most Merciful Heart, my justification before God Thy Father, and screen me from His anger which I have so justly merited. I fear all from my own weakness and malice, but placing my entire confidence in Thee, O Heart of Love, I hope

Fr Richard Heilman

all from Thine infinite Goodness.

Annihilate in me all that can displease or resist Thee. Imprint Thy pure love so deeply in my heart that I may never forget Thee or be separated from Thee.

I beseech Thee, through Thine infinite Goodness, grant that my name be engraved upon Thy Heart, for in this I place all my happiness and all my glory, to live and to die as one of Thy devoted servants.

Amen.

– St. Margaret Mary Alacoque St. Maximilian Kolbe Prayer of Consecration O Immaculata, Queen of heaven and earth, refuge of sinners and our most loving Mother, God has willed to entrust the entire order of mercy to you. I, (name…), a repentant sinner, cast myself at your feet humbly imploring you to take me with all that I am and have, wholly to yourself as your possession and property. Please make of me, of all my powers of soul and body, of my whole life, death and eternity, whatever most pleases you. If it pleases you, use all that I am and have without reserve, wholly to accomplish what was said of you: “She will crush your head,” and, “You alone have destroyed all heresies in the world.” Let me be a fit instrument in your immaculate and merciful hands for introducing and increasing your glory to the maximum in all the many strayed and indifferent souls, and thus help extend as far as possible the blessed kingdom of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus. For wherever you enter you obtain the grace of conversion and growth in holiness, since it is through your hands that all graces come to us from the most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Allow me to praise you, O sacred Virgin.

Give me strength against your enemies.

Act of Consecration to St. Joseph O Glorious Patriarch and Patron of the Church! O Virgin Spouse of the Virgin Mother of God! O Guardian and Virginal Father of the Word Incarnate! In the presence of Jesus and Mary, I choose you this day to be my father, my guardian, and my protector. O great St. Joseph, whom God has made the Head of the Holy Family, accept me, I beseech you, though utterly unworthy, to be a member of your “Holy House.”

Present me to your Immaculate Spouse; ask her also to adopt me as her child. With her, pray that I may constantly think of Jesus, and serve him faithfully to the end of my life.

O Terror of Demons, increase in me virtue, protect me from the evil one, and help me not to offend God in any way. O my Spiritual Father, I hereby consecrate myself to you. In faithful imitation of Jesus and Mary, I place myself and all my concerns under your care and protection.

To you, after Jesus and Mary, I consecrate my body and soul, with all their faculties, my spiritual growth, my home, and all my affairs and undertakings. Forsake me not, but adopt me as a servant and child of the Holy Family. Watch over me at all times, but especially at the hour of my death. Console and strengthen me with the presence of Jesus and Mary so that, with you, I may praise and adore the Holy Trinity for all eternity. Amen.

- Fr. Donald Calloway

15th January 2021 Catholic Voice

THREE SACRED HEARTS 9

Catholic Voice Update Dear Readers, As we head into 2021 with yet again the unnecessary closure of churches for public Holy Mass it is with pleasure that I have positive news for you.

Anthony and I have been overwhelmed with the support you have given us following my accident last September. Your greetings cards and Mass cards are much appreciated- as are your continued prayers.

I am pleased to let you know that following discharge from hospital in November I am recovering from the serious damage done to my back when I fell. It is hoped that I shall get the use of my leg back over the next 9 months and your continued prayers for that intention are requested.

Your generous financial support continues to aid the ongoing publication of Catholic Voice for which we are very grateful.

If you wish to make a donation - or a further donation - you are assured that it will support our not for profit organization during challenging times and the ongoing pandemic. To do so please telephone us on 059 8627268 / 00353 598627268 and leave a voice message for us to return your call; you can donate via www.catholicvoice.ie under Donate; or return the form below with your donation.

Kim Murphy

Our very best regards for a peaceful and healthy 2021.

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10 SIN IS THE OBSTACLE

Catholic Voice

15th January 2021

Sin: An Obstacle To Our Union With God Canon Francis Altiere I.C.K.S.P.

Here we are not talking about the original sin committed by our first parents Adam and Eve at the dawn of human history, but about actual sin: the sins which we ourselves commit.

Sin, as we know, is an offence against God by thought, word, or deed, or by neglecting the duties imposed upon us by God’s holy law. “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Sin, at its most basic level, is precisely a failure to love.

Sin is choosing ourselves over God. In sinning, we turn away from our Creator in favour of a lowly creature.

We are all sinners and so we all need the sacrament of penance. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins” (I John 1:8-9).

Actual sin is divided into two types: mortal sin and venial sin. To see what the distinction is, let us first consider the nature of our relationship with God. As we have already explained, God created us to know, love and serve him in this life and then to be everlastingly happy with him in heaven. But precisely because we are creatures – limited, imperfect beings – we cannot attain to the perfect union with God for which he has created us by our own powers.

For this we need God’s help, and this is grace: a divine help which God gives us to “supernaturalise” us and give us the capacity to attain heaven. Sin is the polar opposite of grace. Mortal sin is precisely mortal because, to use a metaphor, it kills the soul: in other words, it expels from us the indwelling of divine grace. The sinner falls into a state in which he has turned away from God and is powerless to merit heaven.

Turning towards some apparent good contrary to God’s law and turning away from God are two sides of the same coin. Mortal sin does not mean that we are intending to offend God; it simply means we are willing to offend God by doing something even though we know it displeases him. Certain actions are intrinsically wrong, even

if the person performing them claims to have a “good reason.” Simply put, by mortal sin we love something else instead of God. For example, the person who chooses not to attend Mass on Sunday morning does not hate God; but he does love extra sleep more than he loves God. The person who is unfaithful to his spouse does not hate God; but he loves his mistress more than he loves the wedding promises he made at God’s altar, and so on. Such sinful “loves” are in fact objectively incompatible with the love of God, regardless of a person’s reasons.

From the serious effect of mortal sin – enmity with God and the loss of heaven – it is easy to see that such sin must also have a serious cause.

There are three conditions committing a mortal sin:

for

1. It must be a serious or objectively grave sin; 2. We must know that the sin in question is serious; 3. We must deliberately commit the sin in question.

When we think of grave sins we think naturally of crimes such as murder or bank robbery, sins which probably we are unlikely to commit. But in fact, grave sin includes any serious violation

of God’s law, including in areas which our lax secular culture is inclined to look at with indulgence: things like missing Sunday Mass, entertaining a deliberate desire for revenge, wilful impure thoughts or actions, blasphemy, denying an article of faith, setting out to ruin another person’s reputation by calumny, and so on.

However, where there is ignorance of the seriousness of a sin (unless the person is ignorant of the truth through his own fault) or where the person’s free will is constrained by force or extreme fear, then there is no mortal sin, even though the matter involved might be objectively grave. For example, a person who ate meat on a Friday of Lent without knowing that it was forbidden would not be guilty of mortal sin, whereas a person who knew better would be guilty of a mortal sin of disobedience.

A venial sin, on the other hand, does not lead to the loss of the state of grace, though it does chill the love of God in our soul. Venial sin is sin in a less serious matter, or a sin which is made without sufficient knowledge or deliberation. Although no number of venial sins “adds up” to a mortal sin, nonetheless venial sin is still an offence against the infinite majesty of God: venial sin dulls the love of God

15th January 2021

LETTERS 11

Catholic Voice

in our souls and wears down our resistance to mortal sin. If we think of our spiritual life as a sort of journey to heaven (God’s law is the road map), then mortal sin would be like the person who chooses to go down the wrong road; venial sin would be like the person whose automobile gets a flat tyre that needs to be repaired before he can continue. In the one case, the person will never reach his destination unless he first gets back on the right road, no matter how fast his car is travelling; in the second case, the person is delayed on his voyage through an inconvenience along the way but he still stays on the correct road.

Although venial sin, unlike mortal sin, does not make us merit eternal damnation, nonetheless venial sin still creates an imbalance in our soul and makes us deserving of purification after death in purgatory or temporal punishments in this life in order to expiate our sins. Venial sin, like every sin, involves a turning towards some created good (or perceived good) rather than towards God; our soul needs to be purified of such attachments in order to be admitted one day into the all-holy presence of God. Having now considered the unfortunate reality of sin, let us turn to the remedy for sin: the sacrament of confession. to be cont’d....

Letters RTE’s NYE Countdown Clip

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

Demand Apology From RTE

Dear Editor,

Dear Editor,

I was abhorred at the utterly offensive and blasphemous content of the RTÉ’s NYE countdowns show on Thursday night. It was incredibly insulting and hurtful to people of the Christian faith.

I write to ask your readers to complain in the strongest possible terms to RTE about a sketch on their New Year’s Eve programme, where an actor portrayed God being arrested for rape. The sketch is currently still on the RTE Player.

Insulting Almighty God and His Blessed Mother with content like such as that has absolutely no place on public television, and indeed has no place anywhere on a public or private forum - period.

Shame on anyone that insults our God in such a fashion. It is neither funny nor humorous. RTÉ need to remove this clip immediately from their player. It is sacrilegious and unfit for any public platform day or night. God shall not be mocked.

As a Catholic I was deeply offended, but not surprised by the sketch, given RTE’s absolute hatred of the Catholic faith which is now so prevalent in much of its output.

Although I live in the North and don’t pay the RTE licence fee, I can nevertheless boycott it and ask your readers to do likewise. Demand that RTE management issues an apology, removes the offending sketch from the RTE Player, commits to never again use the group of actors and writers responsible, and reprimands the newsreader who performed in the sketch with a public acknowledgement that all this has been done. It is now time for all Christians to get our set together and stand up for our faith.

Aisling Bastible, Dublin.

John Austin, Limavady.

It is a mockery of the Christian faith and for practising Catholics, like myself, it is utterly degrading and contrary to our beliefs. And what’s more there isn’t an ounce of Truth in it.

12 WHAT IS TRUTH?

Catholic Voice

What Is Truth?

15th January 2021

John Lacken

What is Truth? This is a fundamental question, perhaps ‘the’ fundamental question. If we get the answer to this question wrong, then we will live our lives according to lies and untruths. When Pontius Pilate asks this question, Truth is standing before him in the person of Jesus Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity.

“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no man comes to the Father, but by me” (John 14:6) In St Matthew’s Gospel we read how Jesus commissioned the first apostles, of whom our bishops are the successors, to go out and spread the Truth.

“And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Go therefore, teach ye all nations; baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.” (Matthew 28:18-20) So once again let us pray for our Irish bishops who, sadly, are failing in the mission entrusted to them

by God. It is interesting to note that baptisms have been suspended during the unnecessary lock-downs despite the fact the God commanded our bishops to baptise in the name of the Holy Trinity.

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.

I have noted in my articles how the persecution that we are currently

going through is very deceptive in that the doctrines of our faith are not being attacked. That changed recently but the attack on our doctrines is still very subtle and will not be noticed by many Catholics because it is so subtle and because it is being promoted with a false declaration of ‘caring for people’.

Indeed the retired Archbishop of Dublin, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, has quoted quite extensively from the very document which indirectly attacks the doctrine of the Real Presence.

On the 7th December, the Irish government, through the offices of the HPSC (Health Protection Surveillance Centre) attacked the doctrine of transubstantiation.

In their document ‘COVID-19 Guidance for Religious Services’ they state: “The elements of Communion can also be placed in individual disposable cups or containers and left separated on a tray or table for collection. Communicants could then approach and pick up an individual container for themselves while making sure not to touch any

other hosts. The disposable cups or containers should be placed in a designated receptacle afterwards.”

To speak of the Holy Eucharist in such a profane way and to promote this profanation of the Most Holy Eucharist is a grave insult to Jesus Christ and a grave insult to Catholics.

That the Irish government now claims the authority to determine how the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass can be celebrated and how Holy Communion is to be distributed, is only possible because of the silence, the lack of resistance, and indeed, the acquiescence of the Irish bishops who have been commissioned by Jesus Christ through His Catholic Church to feed His flock.

Catholics are being denied access to the life giving sacraments instituted

by Christ because our bishops have shown no resistance and very little courage in upholding the teachings of the Catholic Church in the face of the subtle, (yet no less diabolical on account of that subtlety), persecution that the Catholic Church is currently undergoing.

15th January 2021

Catholic Voice

WHAT IS TRUTH? 13

Our bishops do not seem to have learned the lessons of history which teach us that compromise with tyrants never brings about peace but always leads to further encroachment on and the trampling of man’s duty to worship Almighty God. Since when does the Irish government have the authority to dictate how Holy Communion shall be distributed at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? The answer is that the Irish government has no authority over Catholic Worship. So why do our bishops comply and why do they elevate the temporal laws of Ireland above the law of God? These are serious questions and our Irish bishops need to re-visit Pontius Pilate’s initial question and ask themselves ‘What is Truth?’

most vulnerable.

This reality must inform any judgement of conscience.” (Irish Bishops Conference Statement 09/12/20)

When Christ’s Catholic Church teaches that Catholics always have the right to receive Holy Communion on the tongue whilst kneeling, (see Redemptionis Sacramentum 91-92), why do our bishops deny us this right? Which do they believe is true; Catholic Church teaching regarding the reception of Holy Communion; or an Irish government directive on the reception of Holy Communion?

It cannot be both and Christ tells us that we cannot serve two masters and that it is by men’s deeds that we shall know them.

The saying ‘words are cheap’ affirms Christ’s teaching that it is by their deeds that we shall know men. Our bishops are great at making public statements but when it comes to actions and to having boots on the ground they are largely absent.

We are getting a similar compromise when it comes to the Irish bishop’s position on covid-19 vaccines.

Our bishops seem eager to follow government directives and they have issued a public statement in support of the government’s position on vaccines with the implication that those of us who will not accept these vaccines are acting immorally.

“Refusal to accept a vaccine could contribute to significant loss of life in the community and especially among those who are

To understand what I am saying let us take a look at two recent events in Ireland; the abortion referendum and covid-19.

Since 2019, abortion claims the lives of more than 7,000 nascent Irish human beings annually.

Globally, the number of victims of abortion is over 50 million nascent human beings annually. In contrast, and let us not for the moment raise questions as to the accuracy or otherwise of government statistics, covid-19, in 2020 claimed the lives of almost 2,000 people in Ireland and around 2 million people globally.

It is crystal clear that abortion is the greater killer. A human being in Ireland is three times more likely to die from abortion than from covid-19 and globally, a human

being is twenty five times more likely to die from abortion than from covid-19. If we care about the lives and health of human beings then we should focus a far greater effort on protecting human beings from abortion than we do on protecting them from covid-19 because abortion is the greater killer and therefore the greater risk.

But where are the Irish bishops’ plans and what actions are they promoting and conducting to protect human beings from the plague of abortion. The Irish bishops closed CURA, their pregnancy counselling service which sought to help women in crisis pregnancy.

These are the women who are most likely to opt for abortion and yet there is no official support for them from the Irish bishops.

When we look at the lesser threat of covid-19, the Irish bishops have spent significant sums of money and have taken wide and varied actions including denying the faithful access to the sacraments, in the name of combating what amounts to a seasonal flu.

The disproportionality of the Irish bishops’ actions in combating what, on the one hand is a disease with a relatively low death rate, whilst on the other hand we have the grave

14 WHAT IS TRUTH? and manifest evil of abortion which kills far more than covid-19, is quite startling. By their deeds you shall know them.

The Irish laity have effectively been abandoned by their shepherds and are being encouraged by these shepherds to go along with the totalitarian propaganda and the unjust laws being enacted by our totalitarian government.

In the case of the vaccines, our bishops use theologically sound arguments in a questionable context.

When they speak of vaccines which use cell lines derived from aborted human beings, they only speak of remote and incidental material cooperation in abortion, correctly noting that those who avail of these vaccines are not consenting to abortion. But this alone does not justify the use of such vaccines.

Abortion is not the only grave matter that is involved in these vaccines. Abortion is always a grave moral evil, but taking and using the cells of a baby who has been murdered is another grave evil, the desecration of a human corpse, which is a separate matter from the abortion. This matter has not been dealt with by the Irish bishops. The Catholic Church teaches that the bodies of the dead must be treated with respect and charity.

Supposing that you come across a man who has been murdered and you decide to take his wallet, or his watch, or his shoes. This does not make you complicit in the murder of the man, but what you are doing is still wrong.

Are there cases where to take these things from the dead man would not be wrong? St Thomas Aquinas tells us in his Summa Theologia IIII Question 66:7: “In cases of need all things are common property, so that there

Catholic Voice would seem to be no sin in taking another’s property, for need has made it common.”

If the above case were to happen in a time of war and the man who finds the body of the murdered man needs the shoes, the wallet and the watch to satisfy his own grave needs or those of his family or neighbours, then he does not sin in taking from the murdered man.

Similarly in the case of the vaccine, if it can be proved that the vaccine is necessary to avoid a grave evil, then it may not be sinful to take the vaccine. However, it is never licit to use the cells of an aborted baby for medical research purposes because there are alternatives available.

The Catholic Church notes that there are nine ways to co-operate in the sin of another and given that the use of foetal cells from aborted babies is sinful, we should carefully take a note of these nine ways.

By counsel, By command, By consent, By provocation, By praise or flattery, By concealment, By partaking, By silence, By defense of the ill done.

When the Irish bishops state that “Catholics should continue to advocate for the availability of ethically-developed vaccines”, they fail to point out that the single most effective way to advocate for the development of ethical vaccines which do not use cell lines developed from the cells of aborted babies is to refuse to accept any such vaccines. This would destroy the market for what are after all ‘products’ that are offered for sale thereby forcing the producers to come up with other methods of producing their products.

Do not be deceived into thinking that the vaccine manufacturers’ primary concern is for the health and well

15th January 2021 being of the population. These are highly profitable companies, many of whom have dubious records when it comes to health and safety. Take the Pfizer company whose vaccine is the only one available in Ireland at the moment and which the Irish bishops seem to be supporting.

Back in 1996, Pfizer used an experimental drug called Trovan, in tests on poor children from the state of Kano in Nigeria. The tests were unethical and resulted in the deaths of 11 children and left dozens of other children disabled.

Reporting on this case in the British Medical Journal in 2001, Jacqui Wise noted: “The letter granting ethical approval for the Pfizer trial was submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration in 1997 to support a licence application for trovafloxacin. However, Sadiq Wali, the medical director of the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, told the Washington Post that the letter was false and the hospital had no ethics committee at the time of the study. Abdulhamid Isa Dutse, the doctor who oversaw the trial at the hospital, told the newspaper that it was “possible” that the approval letter was drafted up to a year after the trial.”

A December 2010 article published

by The Guardian newspaper after wikileaks released a leaked cable from the US Embassy was titled “Pfizer ‘used dirty tricks to avoid clinical trial payout’” This article states that “The world’s biggest pharmaceutical company hired investigators to unearth evidence of corruption against the Nigerian attorney general in order to persuade him to drop legal action over a controversial drug trial involving children with meningitis” (source The Guardian website www.theguardian.com)

15th January 2021 Also of note regarding Pfizer is a 2009 American Department of Justice notice which states “Justice Department Announces Largest Health Care Fraud Settlement in Its History ­— Pfizer to Pay $2.3 Billion for Fraudulent Marketing” (source: The United States Department of Justice website) This case involved Pfizer fraudulently misbranding its drug Bextra and the Department of Justice noted; “Pfizer promoted the sale of Bextra for several uses and dosages that the FDA specifically declined to approve due to safety concerns.”

WAITING IN JOYFUL HOPE 15

Catholic Voice Perhaps Pfizer has managed to clean up it’s act, however, those who are considering taking the Pfizer vaccine should note that whilst the vaccine has received emergency authorisation for use in the USA, this does not mean that the vaccine is approved. The FDA fact-sheet published in December 2020 for recipients and caregivers in relation to the Pfizer covid-19 mRNA vaccine states:

that we do not have a pandemic in Ireland.

“The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine is an unapproved vaccine that may prevent COVID-19. There is no FDA-approved vaccine to prevent COVID-19.”

On the 3rd of January it was reported that 70 people were in ICU with covid-19. We do not know why any of these people were admitted to the ICU or if they have any symptoms of covid-19, only that they have tested positive for covid-19 and they are in the ICU. Whilst their condition is serious, 70 out of a population of almost 5 million is hardly a pandemic.

In other words, Pfizer ignored safety concerns in order to be able to sell a product which it knew had been declined approval on account of safety issues.

I am not opposed to vaccines but I personally will not be taking the Pfizer vaccine due to concerns over its safety and the fact that these mRNA vaccines are relatively new.

This is the company we are now trusting to protect us from covid-19!

I also believe, and the Irish HPSC and HSE figures confirm this,

The Five First Saturdays

On Friday 1st January 2021, there were 71 people on hospital trolleys in Ireland. On January 1st 2020, the same day last year, there were 351 people on hospital trolleys. In other words there are less people waiting for treatment during an alleged pandemic than before the pandemic.

This does not make sense.

May God bless you

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Jesus said to those who would stone her: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

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16 FR ALPHONSE RATISBONNE

Catholic Voice

15th January 2021

The Conversion Of Fr Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne Extracts from The Conversion of M. Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne, original narrative of Baron Theodore De Bussières; He who made use of a little clay from the way-side to open to the light of heaven the eyes of him that had been born blind, permitted me to be the chief witness of an event of which human reason alone can render no adequate account. The fact I am about to relate is beyond dispute. I am to speak of what I saw with my own eyes — of what a multitude of competent and trustworthy witnesses confirm — a man, in full possession of all his senses and faculties, entered a church an obstinate Jew; and, by one of those swift flashes of grace which laid Saul prostrate at the gates of Damascus, he came forth, ten minutes afterwards, a Catholic in heart and in will...

(Ratisbonne arrives at the home of Theodore De Bussières after not finding Theodore’s brother Gustave, whom he knew, at home) ...At this point of our discussion there came into my head a very extraordinary idea, suggested doubtless from above, for the wise of this world would have called it foolishness; I said: “Since you are so confident in the strength and stability of your understanding, promise me to wear something that I will give you.”

difficult to gain. I wished him to recite Saint Bernard’s pious invocation, the Memorare o piissima Virgo, ... But this was too much for him; he refused very decidedly, and in a tone which seemed to say: Really, this man’s impertinence is beyond all bounds. Still an interior force urged me on, and I combated his reiterated refusals with the energy of desperation. I held out the prayer to him, and begged him to take it away with him, requesting him to be kind enough to write it out for me, as I did not possess another copy of it.

At length he yielded, as if to rid himself of my importunity, and said, in a tone of vexation and contempt, “Well, I will write it out; you shall have my copy and I will keep yours;” and then he withdrew, muttering as he went, “What an unreasonable fellow that is!

I wonder what he would say, if I were to plague him thus to make him recite some of my Jewish prayers!”

After he was gone, my wife and I looked at each other for some time without speaking a word.

Distressed by the blasphemy to which we had been compelled to listen, we united in imploring pardon from God for him, and we charged our two little daughters to say an Ave Maria at night for his conversion...

Thursday, January 20th, 1842.

Ratisbonne has not made the slightest advance towards the truth; his will is inflexible as ever, he turns every thing into ridicule, and seems to mind only earthly things...

“Let me see it first; what sort of thing is it?” “Only this medal,” said I, and It was about one o’clock. I had to make I held up to him a medal of the Blessed some arrangements at the church of Saint Virgin, at sight of which he threw himself Andrea delle Fratte for the ceremony of back in his chair, with a gesture of mingled the morrow. But here is Ratisbonne coming indignation and astonishment.

Father Alphonse-Marie Ratisbonne down the Via Condotti; he will go with me, wait for me a few minutes, and “ But,” said I, quietly, “from your point of view it must be perfectly indifferent to you, whereas it then we will continue our walk. We entered the church.

Ratisbonne noticed the preparations for a funeral, and would give me the very greatest pleasure.” asked for whom they were made. “For a friend I have “ Oh, I will not refuse you,” he exclaimed, with a hearty just lost, and whom I loved exceedingly, Monsieur de laugh; “I shall at least show you that people have no Laferronnays.” He then began to walk about the nave, right to accuse us Jews of obstinate and insurmountable and his cold indifferent look seemed to say, “This is infatuation. Besides, you are furnishing me with a certainly a very ugly church.” I left him on the epistle side charming chapter for my notes and impressions of my of the church, to the right of a small enclosure destined to travels.” And he went on with a succession of jests which receive the coffin, and went into the convent. wrung my heart, for to me they were so many blasphemies.

I had only a few words to say to one of the monks — I However, I threw round his neck a ribbon, to which one wanted a tribune prepared for the family of the deceased; of my daughters had attached the blessed medal while we my absence could not have been more than ten or twelve were talking. And now there remained a point still more minutes.

15th January 2021

Catholic Voice

FR ALPHONSE RATISBONNE

17

Original Narrative Of Baron Theodore De Bussières When I came back into the church I saw nothing of Ratisbonne for a moment; then I caught sight of him on his knees, in front of the chapel of Saint Michael the Archangel. I went up to him, and touched him three or four times before he became aware of my presence. At length he turned towards me, his face bathed in tears; joined his hands, and said, with an expression which no words will render: “Oh, how this gentleman has prayed for me!”

I was quite petrified with astonishment ; I felt what people feel in presence of a miracle. I raised Ratisbonne, I led him, or rather almost carried him, out of the church; I asked him what was the matter, and where he wished to go. “Lead me where you please” cried he; “after what I have seen I obey.” I urged him to explain his meaning, but he could not; his emotion was too mighty and profound. He drew forth from his bosom the miraculous medal, and covered it with kisses and with tears. I brought him back to his apartment; and notwithstanding my repeated questions, I could get from him nothing but exclamations, broken by deep sobs: “Oh, what bliss is mine! How good is the Lord!

What a fullness of grace and of happiness!’ How pitiable the lot of those who know not! Then he burst into tears at the thought of heretics and unbelievers.

At length he asked me if I did not think him mad. “But no,” he exclaimed, “I am in my right senses; my God, my God, I am not beside myself; every one knows that I am not mad!”...

This wild emotion became gradually more calm, and then Ratisbonne threw his arms around me and embraced me. His face was radiant, I might almost say transfigured; he begged me to take him to a confessor; wanted to know when he might receive holy baptism, for now he could not live without it; yearned for the blessedness of the martyrs whose sufferings he had seen depicted on the walls of Saint Stefano Rotondo. He told me that he could give me no explanation of his state until he had received permission from a priest to do so; “for what I have to say,” he added, “is something I can say only on my knees.”

I took him immediately to the Gesu to see Father de Villefort, who begged him to explain himself. Then Ratisbonne drew forth his medal, kissed it, showed it to us, and exclaimed: “I have seen her! I have seen her!”

And his emotion again choked his utterance. But soon he

regained his calmness, and made his statement. I give it in his own words: “I had been but a few moments in the church when I was suddenly seized with an unutterable agitation of mind. I raised my eyes, the building had disappeared from before me; one single chapel had, so to speak, gathered and concentrated all the light; and in the midst of this radiance I saw standing on the altar, lofty, clothed with splendours, full of majesty and of sweetness, the Virgin Mary, just as she is represented on my medal. An irresistible force drew me towards her: the Virgin made me a sign with her hand that I should kneel down; and then she seemed to say, That will do! She spoke not a word, but I understood all.”

Brief as this statement is, Ratisbonne could not utter it without pausing frequently to take breath, and to subdue the emotion with which he was thrilling. We listened to him with a sacred awe, mingled with joy and with gratitude, marvelling at the depth of the counsels of God, and at the ineffable treasures of His mercy. One word struck us especially by its depth of mystery: “She spoke not a word, but I understood all”. Indeed, it was quite enough to listen to Ratisbonne; the Catholic faith exhaled from his heart like a precious perfume from the casket, which contains it indeed, but cannot confine it.

He spoke of the Real Presence like a man who believed it with all the energy of his whole being; but the expression is far too weak, he spoke like one to whom it was a perception...

It is impossible to convey an idea of the transport of Ratisbonne when he found himself in these churches. “ Ah,” said he to me, as he warmly pressed my hands, “now I understand the love with which Catholics regard their churches, and the piety which leads them to embellish and adorn them! . . . How good it is to be here! one would long to go no more out for ever! ... it is earth no longer, it is the vestibule of heaven.”

At the altar of the Blessed Sacrament, the Real object of direct Presence of Jesus so overwhelmed him that he was on the point of fainting; and I was obliged to lead him away, so awful did it seem to him to appear before the living God with the stain of original sin upon him.

He hastened to take refuge in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin. “Here” said he to me, “ I can have no fear; I feel myself under the protection of an illimitable mercy.”

18 THE DARKEST HOUR

Catholic Voice

15th January 2021

The Darkest Hour Is Just Before The Dawn Christopher Monckton of Brenchley Of the three cardinal virtues, the one that has been the most difficult to practice in this annus horribilis is hope. The Chinese curse has killed millions and will kill millions more.

The global economy has collapsed under the double blow of infection and the increasingly insane, calculatedly destructive environmental policies adopted by a scientifically illiterate global classe politique obsessed with “the great reset”. “The great shutdown”, more like.

The leadership of the free world is slipping away from an America mired in outright election fraud imported from South America, as a knave with visibly worsening dementia wrests the White House from a man who – for all his faults – has once again retaught lovers of liberty how to fight, for, in Burke’s words, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance”.

The custard-faced Injustices of the Supreme Court, bizarrely, deny to one-third of the States of the Union the standing to challenge the monstrous electoral irregularities that have ended Uncle Sam’s long love affair with democracy. If they don’t have standing, who does?

This side of the Atlantic, the European Union daily advertises and confesses its malicious uselessness by sullenly, desperately trying to prevent Britain from breaking free of the unelected Kommisars’ slimy-tentacled system of overdone, enterprise-throttling,

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HOPE

prosperity destroying overregulation, lest les rosbifs should visibly succeed in freedom as Europe no less visibly languishes in its selfinflicted chains of complication and constipation.

Ireland, caught in the crossfire between Brussels and London, cannot be sure of her own future.

For her economy is more dependent upon the United Kingdom than she finds it at all politically expedient to admit. The tighter the collar the EU succeeds in tying around Britain’s neck, the harder it will be for the Island of Saints and Scholars to breathe free.

Africa remains a post-colonial basket-case that has lost its generally benevolent imperial rulers and has not found a role. China continues unlawfully and murderously to occupy Tibet, and to imprison millions in brutal concentration camps, committing crime after crime against humanity as the world – trapped in debt to Peking by its wolf-warrior, debt-trap diplomacy, fawningly kowtows to the hideous Xi Jin-Ping. India stews in its own filth and squalor and almost enjoys its reputation as the dirtiest nation on Earth. If cleanliness is next to

godliness, the Jewel in the Crown festers in the ninth circle of Dante’s Inferno.

In print, on TV and online, the Marxstream news media openly censor public debate on a growing number of topics and viciously silence the gentle voices of love, of liberty and of Christianity. Freedom of speech has been stamped out, only to be replaced by a new, unholy mélimélo of Communism and Fascism that pretends it is not Communist, nominally opposes Fascism and calls itself “woke” in its sleep.

You may call someone with a hereditary suntan “black” (for now), but you will lose your job if you call a person of colour “coloured” or use the Latin word for “black”. You may not say homosexuality is medically dangerous, however gently you express that scientifically-established truth, or the police will lecture you about hate-crime. You may not say baby-butchering is torture that breaches international law, or the unspeakable BBC will brand you an extremist. You may not say that same-sex households should not be allowed to adopt children because someone might take artificial offence and burst into crocodile tears.

15th January 2021 Never mind the mere facts, which show that children of Mom-and-Pop families, of which the Holy Family is the shining exemplar, prosper far more mightily and more surely than the unholy pseudo-families that governments in many countries not merely indulge but promote. Who cares about children anyway? We can kill them whenever we want, so why should we take any trouble about the upbringing of those who somehow survive the butchers’ knives?

Abortions are performed in record numbers all over the world.

Homosexuality seems to be on the way to becoming compulsory. The family, the very root of the tree of civilisation, is everywhere under relentless, crazed, bitter attack.

Churches are closed. In the face of these and many other evils, most of the hierarchy cower in craven, culpable silence. Even Catholicism, the one true Faith, seems to have followed most other presentations of Christianity in simply giving up.

Even the walls of the Vatican itself have crumbled in the face of the new, pietistic, hate-filled species of part-collectivist, part-corporatist totalitarianism – the death cult that is today’s fashionable but wicked wokery-pokery. The thunderous voices of Pope John Paul II and of Pope Benedict XVI are heard no more. Instead, the mountains tremble in labour, and they throw up a puny mouse.

Yet more than a third of a millennium ago the English historian and theologian Thomas Fuller, in his religious travelogue A Pisgah-Sight Of Palestine And The Confines Thereof, was perhaps the first to say, “It Is Always Darkest Just Before The Day Dawneth”.

Let us look on the bright side, for notwithstanding the doomsters and gloomsters, the whingers and cringers, there is much to rejoice about, starting with Palestine.

One of the many triumphs of the imagined buffoon in the White House has been the brokering of a series of bilateral peace agreements between

Catholic Voice Israel and her Arab neighbours.

When Mr Trump announced that the United States Embassy would move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, he sent a signal that he was standing by Israel’s right to exist. The Arab world took note of this new self-confidence in Washington after the fumbling and mumbling of the Obama years, and decided that, after all, they would at last get along with Israel.

As for the election fraud in various U.S. states, that will perhaps at last awaken the Republicans to the need – next time they command Congress – to take full advantage of that provision in the Constitution that permits Congress to make laws regulating how elections are conducted in each State, so as to root out the systemic “Democrat” voter fraud that grew to a monstrous scale this year.

As for Britain’s untidy exit from the unelected Brussels tyranny-byclerk with its posturing parliament of eunuchs and its overpaid, underaccountable Kommissars, provided that BoJo regains his mojo and – just for once – refuses to shift any more deadlines, we shall become an independent nation once more on December 31. That will be our Independence Day. And we are determined that both halves of Ireland shall not come to harm as a result of Brussels’ wilful intransigence during the separation negotiations. Will there be dislocation? Yes, and at first it will be formidable. But it will pass. And others – perhaps including Ireland herself – will break free of Brussels and recover the fierce, independent spirit of her founders.

As for freedom of speech, the horrified global reaction when the woke headmaster of Eton sacked a beak for having put up an amiable video about the value of masculinity on his own YouTube channel shows that the worm is turning at last. The world has had enough of the endless, pettifogging restrictions on what one can and cannot say.

Remarkably, even the sub-Marxist academics at Cambridge, my alma mater, finally turned against the

THE DARKEST HOUR 19 university’s fatuous vice-chancellor and, by a crushing majority, voted down a proposal crafted by him that would have silenced freedom of speech, of thought and of research in that once-great university.

Even in benighted Africa, there are signs of hope. Slowly – far more slowly than would have been the case had it not been for the cruelly insane global-warming policies of the global elite – the Dark Continent is becoming electrified, bringing it at last into the 21st century. Oh, and our paper exposing the central scientific error behind the climate nonsense is inching through peer review. Don’t hold your breath, but next year could mark the end of the climate-change insanity.

Even in Communist China, with its corporatist Huawei’s deferring to the Communist Party and its ghastly gulag, prosperity is on the increase.

Though China gains much advantage internationally by continuing to class itself as a “developing country”, and though poverty is still rife inside and outside the cities, the Communist Party’s decision to allow small businesses to make a profit – its silent capitulation to capitalism – has led to more prosperity than had been seen since Imperial times.

As for baby-butchering, the constitutional court in Poland – just last week – handed down its decision that the right to life means just what it says, so that in very nearly all circumstances a mother may not kill her baby in the womb. Naturally, the unspeakable BBC and other truth-hating news outlets roundly condemned Poland as out of date and extremist. But eventually the Justices’ ratio decidendi will be circulated and thought about – we shall do our bit here as soon as we have a translation – and the world will have taken one small step towards the light.

As the ancient Advent chant has it, consolamini, consolamini, popule meus, dicit Deus vester. “Cheer up, cheer up, my people”, says your God. The truth may be deferred, but not indefinitely denied. All will be well.

Christmas has come.

20 LITURGICAL MUSIC

Catholic Voice

15th January 2021

Understanding Why Some Instruments Are Permitted In The Liturgy And Some Not Niall Carroll

Some Catholic Voice readers may be aware of the great French organist and composer, CharlesMarie Widor (1844-1937), or at least they might have heard some of his music at some stage, in particular the famous Toccata from his Fifth Organ Symphony.

Widor was organist of the great Parisian church of St. Sulpice for almost sixty-four years, retiring in 1933 at the age of eightynine. In this role, Widor would undoubtedly have experienced all the fullness and splendour of the sacred liturgy, and at the organ – the king of instruments – he would have raised hearts and minds to God through delicate meditations and thunderous improvisations.

Interestingly, however, in the preface to his series of eight organ symphonies, he speaks of the organ as being a particularly philosophical instrument.

Why or in what way can the organ be described as “philosophical”?

Widor compared the organ to other instruments, whose voices only dominate at the moment the note is struck. Consider a guitar or a piano: as soon as the string is plucked or the key played, the sound immediately begins to diminish. With the organ, on the other hand, a constant supply of air can flow through the pipes, causing an unceasing and undiminishing sound for as long as the player keeps a key pressed.

Widor says that “…the organ, confined in its original majesty, speaks philosophically: alone among them all, it can produce indefinitely the same volume of sound and thus, from the idea of infinity, give rise to religious ideas”.

Although, in all likelihood, few people ever meditate on the philosophical dimension of the organ as Widor did, he was articulating one of the reasons why the Roman Catholic Church has for centuries taught that the pipe organ

The Organist & Composer Charles-Marie Widor

is, after the human voice, the most suitable instrument for her liturgy.

All of the major documents on sacred music issued by the Holy See since the beginning of the twentieth century have confirmed this teaching. In December 1903, Pope Pius X, only four months after he had been elected pope, issued a document on sacred music, Tra le Sollecitudini, in which he stated that, while vocal music is the music proper to the Church, the organ is also permitted. It is noteworthy that all other instruments were only permitted with the express permission of the local bishop.

Other instruments, such as the piano, drums and cymbals were forbidden – although Pius X’s rules have been relaxed in some respects, his ruling on these instruments has never been altered by subsequent documents.

In ruling that, liturgically speaking, the organ ranks next to the human voice, Pope Pius X is making a link which is very useful in understanding why some instruments are permitted in the liturgy and some not. In short, the pipe organ resembles the human voice in several respects. Firstly,

the organ relies on air to produce a sound, just as the voice relies on air from the lungs to produce a sound.

Secondly, for an organ pipe to produce a sound, the air which flows through it must be pressurised, in a way similar to the diaphragm and other muscles expelling air from the lungs and through the vocal cords. As Widor noted, with the organ the sound does not diminish the moment a key is pressed; similarly, the human voice can be sustained for as long as the breath is controlled. Of course, the organ and the human voice are clearly not the same: the organ mimics the most superior instrument of them all, the human voice.

Despite the novelties and innovations of the Second Vatican Council, the Church’s position on sacred instrumental music was not altered dramatically. The document, Musicam Sacram, issued by the Sacred Congregation of Rites in 1967, reiterated that the pipe organ “is to be held in high esteem in the Latin Church”. While permitting other instruments, it made clear that such instruments were to be suitable for sacred use, that they were to be “in keeping with the dignity of

15th January 2021

Catholic Voice

the temple”, and that they would “truly contribute to the edification of the people”. On the other hand, the same document prohibited the use of instruments which are, “by common opinion and use, suitable for secular music only”. Despite the apparent clarity of this document, it is clear that many abuses occur in the realm of church music.

While the guidance of Pope Pius X caused a true renewal of sacred music, particularly with regard to Gregorian chant, the decrees of this Second Vatican Council that Gregorian chant should be given pride of place and that the pipe organ should be held in high esteem have largely fallen on deaf ears.

In fact, along with the use of the Latin language, they are the most prominent examples of the opposite being done to what was actually mandated.

Let me be clear: neither I nor the Church are saying that instruments other than the organ are not good.

That the Church says that only water may be used for baptism is not a judgement against tea or wine: they can all be good in their proper place. Similarly, the Church herself has judged that the organ is the most fitting instrument for the liturgy of the Roman Rite, and she has expressly forbidden some instruments. It is not unusual in many churches to hear guitars and pianos being played. Again, these instruments may well be good, but they are not suited to sacred music in the liturgy. We recall the noble dignity of the pipe organ as described by Widor: it speaks philosophically because it produces sound indefinitely and can thus give rise to religious ideas, ideas of eternity. Neither guitars nor pianos possess this quality: from the moment a note is struck, the sound begins to dissipate. In addition to this, such instruments are more immediately associated with the secular world – concert halls, popular music, radio, and (in the case of the guitar in particular) counterculture.

The fact that the pipe organ (or modern electronic equivalents)

LITURGICAL MUSIC 21

has been replaced by secular instruments in so many of our churches has undoubtedly caused several problems. Among other things, as I have already mentioned, there appears to be a blatant disregard for the guidance the Church has given for her own liturgy. However, the problems certainly go deeper. For one thing, the disregard for liturgical norms gives the impression that the sacred liturgy is ours to do with as we wish. Secondly, secular instruments very often appeal only to the emotions on a superficial level or, worse, they can be seen as entertainment. Thirdly, the sacred liturgy, being the Church’s supreme act of worship, is supposed to raise our minds and hearts to God. While the organ and Gregorian chant have been judged especially suited to this purpose by the Church, secular instruments will be more apt to leave us on the “horizontal” plane rather than elevating us on the “vertical”. In short, we attend Mass to be present at the Eucharistic Sacrifice, which is supposed to be an image of the heavenly banquet; secular instruments and secular music, while they may appeal on a superficial level, will bring our thirsting souls back down to earth with a bang.

challenging, especially when a parish has not been exposed to “right” liturgy for perhaps decades.

However, it is important to note that the Church is firmly behind those who desire truly fitting sacred music at Mass, and we may be thankful that the Church has been far from ambiguous on the question of what music she prefers. We are at more of an advantage than ever before in terms of the resources which are available online concerning music in the liturgy.

Even if a parish cannot afford a pipe organ, there are many options for electronic instruments which are affordable. Even the problem of recruiting competent organists can be overcome – we are fortunate in Ireland to have several world-class organists who are willing to pass on their skills; perhaps parishes could consider setting up some sort of scholarship scheme, where the parish would pay for some parishioners to take lessons, who would in turn be of great benefit to the liturgical life of the parish. The development of truly fitting sacred music will undoubtedly bring many blessings to any parish, for through it God is glorified and His people are accompanied on the path to holiness.

In one sense it is very easy to enumerate the problems; enacting the solutions is usually more

Niall Carroll is Organist and Director of Music in Athenry Parish, Co. Galway.

22 MALE AND FEMALE

Catholic Voice

15th January 2021

Hungary Defines Marriage As Between Man And Woman, Excludes Same-Sex Adoption Michael Haynes

The Hungarian Parliament has amended the country’s constitution to define marriage as being between a man and woman, and also passed a law effectively banning adoption by same-sex couples.

Under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his ruling Fidesz party, the amendment was passed in the National Assembly with 134 MPs voting in favour, 45 voting against, and 5 abstaining. The text is an amendment to the Hungarian Fundamental Law, and greatly strengthens the protections afforded to families.

The newly amended text reads: “Hungary protects the institution of marriage as the association between a man and a woman and the family as the basis for the survival of the nation. The foundation of the family is marriage and the parentchild relationship. The mother is a woman, the father is a man.”

Reports note that with the amendment, Hungary becomes the “first country in the European Union to define the concept of family at the constitutional level and to ensure the undisturbed development of children.”

Another passage included in the change is one which is to be inserted in the section on children, and stipulates the importance of Christianity in the child’s upbringing. The text reads: “Every child has the right to such protection and care as is necessary for his or her physical, mental and moral development. Hungary protects the right of children to

self-identity according to their sex at birth and provides an upbringing in accordance with the values based on Hungary’s constitutional identity and Christian culture.”

Explaining the reason behind the changes, the government mentioned that “new ideological processes in the West” necessitated the changes in order to “protect the child from possible ideological or biological interference.”

Regarding the new text, the legislator stated in the Justification of the bill, that: The Fundamental Law of Hungary is a living framework that expresses the will of the nation, the form in which we want to live. However, the ‘modern’ set of ideas that make all traditional values, including the two sexes, relative, is a growing concern. The constant threat to the natural laws of the forms and content of human communities, to the concepts arising from the order of Creation that harmonise with

them and ensure the survival of communities, and, in some cases, the attempt to formulate them with a content contrary to the original, raises doubts as to whether the interests, rights and well-being of future generations can be protected along the lines of the values of the Fundamental Law. The legislator must therefore clearly set out the basic guarantees for the protection of children and the rights of future generations…

Adoption of children by same-sex couples ruled out In addition to these constitutional changes, the Assembly also passed a bill which effectively excludes same-sex couples from adopting children. Except in rare circumstances, the new law limits adoption only to married couples, with particular exceptions being occasionally made for family members or single people. Since same-sex “marriage” is banned under the Hungarian Constitution, married couples can only refer

15th January 2021

Catholic Voice

to couples of the opposite sex, thus ruling out same-sex couples adopting.

Justice Minister Judit Varga highlighted the main meaning of the bill: “the main rule is that only married couples can adopt a child, that is, a man and a woman who are married.”

The new bill comes in addition to a law passed in May of this year, by which birth, marriage and death certificates must give a person’s actual sex, or “birth sex,” instead of “gender identity.”

“Given that the complete change of the biological sex is not possible, it is necessary to state in law that there is no possibility to change it in the registry of births, marriages and deaths, either,” reads an explanation accompanying the provision.

MALE AND FEMALE 23

As part of Hungary’s other pro-family rulings, married couples can apply for a loan of 10 million-forint, worth about $34,000 USD, which would not have to be repaid if they have three children. Prime Minister Orbán’s government is strongly committed to advancing profamily policies, and he has said in the past that “Christianity is Europe’s last hope”.

and the new law on adoption.

LGBT website, Washington Blade, dubbed the changes “the latest in a series of attacks against LGBTQ Hungarians.”

Orbán has not been afraid to stand-up to anti-life globalists such as George Soros, and at a conservative conference in Rome this year, stated that “the universal Catholic approach” is the only one “which appreciates and accepts national sovereignty.”

Masen Davis, Executive Director at Transgender Europe, went further and issued a call to the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen “to address the rights of LGBT parents.”

Left wing and LBGT activists have reacted strongly both to the new constitutional amendment

David Vig, director of Amnesty Hungary, spoke similarly, calling the laws “discriminatory, homophobic and transphobic” and an “attack” on “LGBTQ people.”

Meanwhile Hungarian Journalist, Peter Heltai, welcomed the news, saying “This is how a postmodern rebellion looks like, I guess?”

24 THE HOLY SACRIFICE

Catholic Voice

15th January 2021

Living Out The Holy Sacrifice Of The Mass Fr. Ed Broom OMV

God’s graces indeed are infinite…

One of the most clear, interesting, and exciting explanations of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is presented in the movie: ‘The Greatest Miracle’. Relatively short — only about 70 minutes, filmed in Claymation with attractive scenes, melodious, joyful and uplifting music, and a powerful message — all Catholics should view it!

Even though of the greatest simplicity, this dynamic cinema masterpiece addresses and responds to one of the most important philosophical and theological questions and yearnings: the universal call to happiness. How true, in all times, all places, all circumstances, and all persons, there is a great desire to be happy.

We will never meet someone who will say, point blank: “Well today is Monday, it is my day to be sad, but then Tuesday, I will go back to being happy!” Absurd! In all times and places, all of us want to attain a state of happiness, and especially,

though many do not realise it, eternal happiness in Heaven.

Addressing the topic of happiness and its contrary, the movie ‘The Greatest Miracle’ manifests how three individuals move from a state of sadness and desolation to a state of exuberant joy and consolation.

The transformation is both profound and rapid.

The three major protagonists of the movie, two widows and a busdriver with a son dying of terminal cancer, move on with life without any set goal until they meet up with their Guardian Angel. This inconspicuous friend of God (the Guardian Angel) knows exactly where and how this sadness can be transformed into radiant joy.

Quite simply: Holy Mass, Holy Communion, and living out the Mass as an offering to God. In the middle of the movie, the Guardian Angel makes a very poignant comment as he watches a couple come in late for Holy Mass, distracted and not paying attention.

In essence, the Angel says that this couple — as well as many people — get little out of Mass because they do not pay attention to Holy Mass. They do not really participate in Holy Mass.

Holy Mass has Infinite value; indeed, it is ‘The Greatest Miracle!’

However, Sacramental Theology teaches with penetrating clarity that the graces one receives are in direct proportion to the disposition of one’s soul. This is called the Theology of Dispositive grace. In a word, the better the preparation, and the more active and intense the participation, the more abundant the graces from God, the Author of all graces. The Dogmatic Constitution from the Documents of Vatican II states unequivocally that in Mass the laity should strive to participate fully, actively, and consciously.

Priesthood.

Vatican II also points out the two forms of the priesthood: the Ministerial priesthood — that is to say, the man who has received the Sacrament of Holy Orders; then the

15th January 2021

Catholic Voice

THE HOLY SACRIFICE 25

Common priesthood of the faithful — every baptised Catholic.

Offertory And Holy Mass.

One of the most important manners in which the laity can live out their Common priesthood is in living out Holy Mass by participating to the max in this greatest of all prayers — the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Guardian Angel And The Offertory. In the movie ‘The Greatest Miracle’, the Guardian Angel insists that everybody should participate in Holy Mass by making their own personal offerings. True, the Parish priest may have a specific offering/intention for that Mass.

However, that does not exclude private intentions. You can offer as many intentions as your heart desires.

Therefore, we would like to help all to derive more abundant fruit from every Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The remaining part will be to offer to all, various suggestions to motivate all to make a concerted effort to live out to the maximum the Holy Mass by living out the Offertory. By this we mean, before Mass make sure that you offer your own intention, or better said, your own many intentions! The more intentions you bring to God, the happier God is. As expressed in the Diary of Saint Faustina: “Ask with Bold Confidence!!!” Jesus Himself ordered us: “Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened.”

(Matthew 7:7) Your intentions can be as many and as varied as your imagination can dream of!

Intentions To Bring To The Holy Mass 1. The Souls In Purgatory.

These poor, suffering souls are saved because they died in the state of sanctifying grace, though

Photo: Stephen Tyrell

still needing purification. The Book of Revelation speaks clearly that nothing impure can enter the Kingdom of God. The movie ‘The Greatest Miracle’ has a scene where the elderly widow Dona Cata, a very pure soul, receives Holy Communion, and the Guardian Angel descends into Purgatory and brings a soul detained there to Heaven. The souls yearn for the Precious Blood of Jesus to wash away their sins so that they can take flight to Heaven. We can never go wrong by praying for the souls in Purgatory, especially at Holy Mass!

It is a huge act of charity!

2. Conversion Of Family Members.

All of us are surrounded by family members who are heading in the wrong direction, and some of them at an accelerated and alarming pace. Some might be very close to the precipice, ready to plunge into the eternal flames of hell. This being the sad state of affairs, offer your Mass and Holy Communion for their conversion, for the love of God, and for their eternal salvation.

Many of your family members depend upon your Masses and Holy Communions!

3. Conversion Of Death-Bed Sinners.

Of even greater importance in the offering of your Mass and Holy Communion is to pray for those who are on their deathbed about to leave this world and go before the judgment seat of God. Once again, in the Diary of Saint Faustina, Jesus insists that prayers be offered in a most special way for the dying in order to help them overcome suffering from desolation, and even more important, to renounce mortal sin. In this most critical time of their life, special graces are exceedingly necessary. No more abundant graces flow through the Sacred Heart of Jesus than when He is offered to the Eternal Father in Holy Mass!

4. Vocations To The Priesthood And Religious Life.

On one occasion Jesus, looking out at people who were like sheep without a Shepherd, expressed with a heavy heart: “The harvest is rich, but the labourers are few.

Beg the Lord of the harvest to send more labourers.” (Matthew 9:3738) Therefore, a very important intention for which you can offer your own Mass participation would be that of praying for vocations,

26 THE HOLY SACRIFICE and most important, holy vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life.

How true: the harvest is rich but the labourers all too few!

Catholic Voice

of Reparation for the many sins that offend God so much. There is no more powerful and efficacious means to offer due reparation to God then the offering of His Son, 5. The Sanctification Of The Jesus, the spotless Victim on the Priesthood And Religious Life. altar, in reparation for the many sins As a sequel or follow up to the fervent of the world, a real deluge of sins. intention offered for future vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life 7. Your Own Personal Sins. should be the offering of Mass and On a personal note, we all have our Holy Communion for priests and own personal moral failures; we call Religious already ordained and/or these personal sins. By far there is consecrated. How important it is to no more efficacious means by which pray for the perseverance of both we can offer due reparation for our priests and Religious. Even more, own sins than by offering our Mass we must pray that priests, Bishops and Holy Communion. Indeed, and Religious strive to become one Mass and Holy Communion is great saints. Many souls depend sufficient to repair for all of the sins upon the holiness of both priests and of the world, and that includes our Religious, your own soul included! own many failures. “Eternal Father, 6. In Reparation For The Vast I offer you the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of your only begotten Deluge Of Sins.

Our Lady of Fatima, through the Son in atonement for my sins and Guardian Angel, invited the three those of the whole world.” What a little Shepherd children, Lucia, great penance this would be from Francisco, and Jacinta to receive the priest to a penitent to repair for Holy Communion, but a Communion their many sins!

15th January 2021 8. A Personal Heart-Transplant.

As a result of Original Sin, as well as personal sin, we all struggle with our own sinfulness, our own bad habits. In all truth, until the Lord calls us from this life to the next, our life is a struggle between the flesh and the spirit, good and bad, darkness and light that are waging fierce battles within our own soul.

If we wage this battle wielding only our own natural resources, then we are definitely doomed to die spiritually. As Jesus reminds us: “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:40) However, if we rely upon the Lord and His sanctity then the victory is ours because it is the Lord’s. “Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth.” (Psalm 124:8) Therefore, when we attend Holy Mass and receive Holy Communion, in all truth, we receive the Total Christ (Saint Augustine) — His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.

Which, of course, includes His

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Catholic Voice

THE HOLY SACRIFICE 27

Sacred Heart. Now all of the virtues in the highest degree are present in Jesus’ Sacred Heart in every Mass and every Holy Communion. So we can beg the Lord to fill us with all the virtues, especially the virtue that we most need.

Patience, obedience, meekness, purity, kindness, fortitude, mortification, faith, trust, burning love, intelligence, prayerfulness and many more are the virtues that are present in Holy Communion well received, because we truly receive in Holy Communion the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This Sacred Heart of Jesus in Holy Communion is a burning furnace of charity that desires so much to consume all that is ignoble and sinful within us. Our goal in life should be that expressed

by Saint Paul: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

(Gal. 2:20) 9.

Prayers, Supplications, Petitions, Intercessions In General What the world needs now more than ever is prayer and Eucharistic prayer-warriors. As we prepare for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we can place on the altar the many prayer intentions that are related to international affairs, national affairs, Church affairs, local Church affairs, family matters and problems, the many friends or relatives who have asked for our prayers, the pandemic, the sick, the suffering, the poor, the lonely and abandoned, and once again the dying.

All should be prayed for with the perspective of God’s holy will — the salvation of souls and the reality of eternity. In other words, the

intentions that we can deposit on the altar, on the paten and chalice of the priest, have no limits! Indeed, God is very pleased when like little children, we constantly beg for what we, as well as our world, desperately need.

10. The Important Role Of Mary In The Mass And Offertory.

In the fourth Joyful Mystery, we contemplate Mary offering Jesus in the Temple. Simeon takes the Divine Child in His arms and praises and thanks God. He also makes a prophecy of the future suffering of both Jesus and Mary. Jesus would be a sign of contradiction; Mary, for her part, would have her Heart pierced by a sharp sword.

Our Mass offerings and intentions will become all the more efficacious if it is done through the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Often the saintly Mother Teresa of Calcutta would prepare for Holy Communion by asking Mary

to lend her Mary’s Immaculate Heart, so that she could love Jesus with Mary’s Immaculate Heart.

Saint Louis de Montfort and many other saints agree that Mary is the shortest, the quickest, and the most efficacious path to Jesus.

Therefore, place of all your many Mass intentions in the hands of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The results will be extraordinary.

In conclusion, my friends in Jesus and Mary, let us humbly beg for the grace to live out the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with the best disposition possible. Before Mass let us always make our own special intentions.

Let us not be timid or fearful in our offerings. Quite the contrary, let us offer as many intentions as possible and ask with bold confidence. How pleasing this is to God! And never forget go to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Holy Communion through the most pure and holy Immaculate Heart of Mary.

“To forestall this [the second world war], I shall come to ask for the Consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays.

“If they heed My requests, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace. If not, she shall spread her errors throughout the world, promoting wars and persecutions of the Church; the good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated; in the end, My Immaculate Heart shall triumph.

(Our Lady - Fatima July 13th 1917)

28 THE GIFT OF JAIL

Catholic Voice

15th January 2021

Cardinal Pell: My Time In Jail ‘Was A Gift And A Grace’ Dorothy Cummings McLean

‘My time in jail was a gift and a grace’ ‘I’d have to hasten to add that I still regret that it happened,’ the Australian cardinal continued.

The exonerated Australian cardinal stated in a recent interview that he accepted his time in prison as “a gift and a grace.”

Cardinal George Pell, who was imprisoned on charges of child sexual abuse later struck down by Australia’s highest court, gave an online press conference just before Christmas to answer questions about his new book. Prison Journal: Volume I, with an introduction

by George Weigel, was published by Ignatius Press.

“God writes straight with crooked lines, and given that I was sentenced to jail, I do regard it as a gift and a grace,” Cardinal Pell told reporters.

“I’d have to hasten to add that I still regret that it happened,” he continued.

“I wouldn’t have chosen it, but there I was and, please God, I did my Christian duty while I was in jail.”

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Cardinal George Pell - Photo Kerry Myers

In the hour-long press conference, the cardinal said that “many, many good things” happened to him during his imprisonment. They included “the wonderful support” of his family and friends; the “decency and professionalism” of all the warders, some of whom were quite friendly; the letters he received, including from other prisoners; “intellectually stimulating” journal articles people sent him; and an excellent prison chaplain.

“I was impressed by the goodness of a lot of people,” Pell said.

The cardinal received good wishes even from his nextcell neighbour.

“The fellow who was in the cell next to me — he was a bit off his head, he’s a mass murderer. But on the morning that I was going for my appeal, he shouted out, and wished me well,” the cardinal recalled.

“A very small thing, but it’s something for which I was very, very grateful.”

The press conference was introduced and moderated by the American author George Weigel, who said he had known the cardinal for 53 years. Weigel stated that although Pell’s book should never have been written, the fact that it was written was a “grace” and a “blessing.”

15th January 2021 Catholic Voice ‘Prison Journal’ will allow people who had never met the cardinal to meet the “full” George Pell instead of the “cartoon” Pell “perpetuated” by the Australian media.

“Even old friends will encounter depths of insight here that they might not have met before,” Weigel said.

“The book invites readers to meet the soul of a public man, which is a rare thing indeed, and all the more precious for its rarity,” he continued.

“Even more impressive is when we are allowed to meet a soul as it’s being purified and strengthened by suffering.”

Cardinal Pell revealed that he wrote his journal “partly as a historical record of a strange time.”

More importantly, he thought his reflections might help people going through hard times. He also found it “good therapy”.

“As I said to somebody, I now understand why Solzhenitsyn wrote so much,” the cardinal said.

In Prison Journal, Pell wrote that he was aware of an obligation to forgive those who accused him.

When asked by a reporter how people can “nourish” forgiveness, the cardinal indicated that prayer is key.

“First of all, you have to keep praying. Reading the Scriptures, reading your breviary, even going to Mass,” Pell said.

“The New Testament is always niggling away at us — much more than the Old Testament, reminding us of difficult challenges, like the challenge to forgive.”

The cardinal recalled from a marriage encounter meeting, long ago, that one couple talking about forgiveness between husband and wife said the most important thing was to “make an act of will to forgive and then, in many cases, the feelings follow behind.”

“I think you decide to forgive, and pretty well always the feelings will follow,” Pell declared.

“Every now and again, you may feel a surge of animosity, and I suppose you’ve just got to clamp down on it,” he added.

“But you can’t do that without faith, and I suspect you need to keep praying.”

When asked if there was anything he missed in prison life, Pell said at first that he had never thought about it, but then reminisced about his nightly cup of camomile tea and two rows of Cadbury chocolate. He mentioned having watched a lot of sports on television and at times feeling content and settled.

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THE GIFT OF JAIL 29 “My jail time doesn’t give me nightmares,” he assured reporters.

While he was in prison, Pell prayed for victims of paedophilia every day. Regarding the Church’s pastoral care of victims of clerical sexual abuse, Pell said that there had been “a renewed emphasis” on it since the Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse. The current compensation panel is “scarcely different” from the one the cardinal himself set up in the Melbourne response in the mid-1990s.

“There have got to be counselling services available and, of course, financial reparations,” Pell stated.

“It’s a solemn obligation. We’ve got to do our best. I think by and large we’re moving along in the right direction in Australia.”

He noted, however, that it was not sufficiently acknowledged in Australia that the Church had “broken the back” of the problem of clerical sexual abuse of children “by stopping the crimes substantially in the middle of the ’90s.” “Hardly any” of the cases examined by the recent Royal Commission were from the 21st century, and “most of them were from times earlier than the 1990s.”

This was Cardinal Pell’s first press conference since he returned to Rome last autumn.

Fatima Prayer

Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He Himself is offended, and through the infinite merits of His most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary I beg of thee the conversion of poor sinners. Amen.

30 BOOKS

Catholic Voice

15th January 2021

STRENG THEN YOUR FAITH DURING THIS CRISIS r for o

yourself BUY CATHOLIC BOOKS! Buy for nd. a frie

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

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

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

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

15th January 2021 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

29 January 2021

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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!

Mass Cards

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It’s now easier than ever to have Mass cards, enrolment books & religious gifts delivered directly to your door.

Web: www.mscmissions.ie Email: info@mscmissions.ie Tel: +353 (0)21 4545704

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Catholic Voice

15th January 2021

‘OUR LADY OF KNOCK, QUEEN OF IRELAND, YOU GAVE HOPE TO YOUR PEOPLE IN A TIME OF DISTRESS AND COMFORTED THEM IN SORROW’

Unique Eucharistic Marian Shrine, Knock, Co Mayo, Ireland Our Lady of Knock, Queen of Ireland, in the name of your Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Who is really, truly and substantially present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar please intervene, with immediate effect, and create an inviolable pathway for the inauguration on the 20th of January 2021 of a Pro Life and Pro Family President. May he then carry out God’s Holy Will as Commander-inChief of the United States of America in prayerful communion with Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

These data show that ivermectin is effectively a “miracle drug” against Covid-19.

Pierre Kory MD: Homeland Security Committee Meeting: Focus on Early Treatment of Covid19. December 8th, 2020

Also, please continuously protect and enlighten him, his family, his administration and his supporters against all enemies both foreign and domestic, spiritual and corporeal. Thank You. E.C. 04/December/2020.

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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