Catholic Voice 29th January 2021 Issue 309

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2 GUEST EDITORIAL

Catholic Voice

29th January 2021

Some Troubles In Dublin Fr. Gerald E. Murray

Archbishop Farrell’s treatment of Church teaching and practice regarding homosexuality, for example, is dismissive: “It’s a technical description.

People misconstrue that then because it is technical theological language.”

He considers amending this technical language, because “I think Pope Francis has discussed that (removal). It came up at the last Synod.”

Fr Gerald Murray The Archbishop-Elect of Dublin, Dermot Farrell, gave an interview to the Irish Times soon after his appointment had been announced by the Holy See. The new archbishop declares himself in favour of women deacons and married priests. He does not find in the Scriptures an argument against the ordination of women to the priesthood. He calls the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on homosexuality merely technical. He also says he has no problem with the private blessing of rings for divorced and remarrying couples and for homosexual couples (though he finds public blessings problematic because people often misconstrue them as actual marriages).

Amid so many other troubles, the Church in Ireland appears to be headed for more rocky days.

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Really? Farrell is referring to this teaching of the Catechism: “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’

They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.” (CCC 2357) In common parlance, calling language in a document “technical” can mean that it is unintelligible or is commonly misunderstood by the uninitiated, and is there to serve some arcane or legalistic purpose.

Its removal is desirable but may be difficult to do if sticklers, purists, or legalists object. Better just to ignore it and treat it as a dead letter, as in “Technically speaking that is true, but. . .”

To describe the clear, unchanging, and unchangeable teaching of the Church on the inherent immorality of homosexual acts as technical language that could, and even should, be dispensed with is plainly a rejection of that teaching.

The rejection of homosexual activity, and the homosexual lifestyle, by faithful Catholics, however, is not a misconstruing of “technical” language found in the Catechism. Those who want the Church to embrace and bless the homosexual lifestyle object to the language of the Catechism not because it is misconstrued by clueless people who think it means that no one should engage in homosexual acts because, being intrinsically disordered, they are immoral. Rather, they object because the language is easily and correctly understood to mean just that. The problem for them is not the allegedly confusing words used, but rather the clear meaning of those words.

Archbishop Farrell, in response to a question about blessing rings for divorced and remarried couples and for same-sex couples, says: The difficulty with blessings is that they are very often misconstrued as marriage. Priests have given these blessings in the past. I remember one colleague of mine. I had said to him – he used to have this ceremony of the blessing of rings – I said to him I don’t have a difficulty with blessing rings if you’re doing that here in the house but if you go out into the public domain, in a church,

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29th January 2021 Catholic Voice and bless rings as you see it. . .they turned up with 200 people and they saw it as a marriage. Sometimes people use that phraseology. . .you’re into confusion there. It can be misconstrued as “yes, the priest married us.” Blessings are always going to be misconstrued and that’s where the difficulty arises because once you start blessing things like that people are going to construe that as a marriage. We can’t have that sort of situation in the Church because it creates all sorts of problems in terms of our own teaching and these teachings of the church have been constant.”

Leaving aside the question of blessing the rings of divorced and remarried couples, what exactly are we to understand is the meaning of blessing the wedding rings of same-sex couples, whether in private or in public? Is it a misconstrual to consider that the priest who does such a blessing approves of the relationship that the homosexual couple has entered into and asks God’s favour and approval upon that relationship as symbolised by the rings?

GUEST EDITORIAL 3

ARTICLE 7 THE SACRAMENT OF MATRIMONY 1601 “The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptised persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.”

The Modern Catholic Dictionary defines a blessing thus: “In liturgical language a blessing is a ritual ceremony by which an authorised cleric in major orders sanctifies persons or things to divine service, or invokes divine favour on what he blesses.” The dictionary’s entry on rings states: “Conferring the ring is an integral part of the marriage ceremony to signify the mutual love of husband and wife, and wearing the ring symbolises their pledge of marital fidelity.”

The main problem with blessing wedding rings of a same-sex couple is not that people will become confused and think that the priest was actually marrying them.

No, the main problem is that a priest who does such an unholy act is giving the impression that God will favour what He has condemned. Same-sex “marriages” are not marriages in any way, shape, or form. No blessing should ever be invoked by a priest upon this unnatural relationship nor upon the pirated symbols of the holy estate of marriage.

Archbishop Farrell says: “I don’t have a difficulty with blessing rings.” If that’s true, what he does have is a more fundamental difficulty: God has warned shepherds who mislead their flocks into paths of sin and error that they will be held accountable. Let us pray that the new Archbishop of Dublin will forswear his comments and reaffirm the Church’s actual teaching and practice.

This article first appeared in the Catholic Thing and is published here with permission.

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4 SOCIETAL BREAKDOWN

Catholic Voice

29th January 2021

A Deeper Look from Scripture at What Afflicts Us Monsignor Charles Pope

In a pandemic, and after a summer of violence, a contentious election and now more violence, a reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah is striking by the fact that the ancient diagnosis of Israel applies to our times as well. By the following I think the text from Isaiah and my remarks seek to go to a deeper and wider level of what ails us and has been growing for decades. Here is what Isaiah says: “And the people shall oppress one another, yes, every man his neighbour. The child shall be bold toward the elder, and the base toward the honourable... Their very look bears witness against them; their sin like Sodom they vaunt, they hide it not. Woe to them! They deal out evil to themselves” (Isaiah 3:5-9).

“When a man seizes his brother in his father’s house, saying, “You have clothes! Be our ruler, and take in hand this ruin!” … But he will say: … “You shall not make me leader of the people.” …because their speech and their deeds are against the Lord … My people — a babe in arms will be their tyrant, and women will rule them! O my people, your leaders mislead, they destroy the paths you should follow” (Isaiah 3:6-12).

Let’s note four fundamental issues that God assigns to that age (and, I would argue, ours as well). Our culture and nation have become: Dominating and Loud And the people shall oppress one another, yes, every man his neighbour.

These are indeed contentious times — so contentious that we cannot seem to have honest debates or disagreements; we just yell at one another. On college campuses, students shout down speakers with differing views and accuse

EWTN Screen Grab them of hate. Demonstrations both on campuses and elsewhere often devolve into a kind of mob violence, which has included vandalism, setting cars afire, breaking windows, looting, and even murder.

Pope Benedict XVI warned of the tyranny of relativism. By this he meant that as relativism and subjectivism have shifted the source of truth from the object to the subject, from reality to opinion, there is no longer any basis for reasonable discussion.

In such a climate, whose views win the day: Those with the most money, power, and political clout or those who shout the loudest or are best able to intimidate others?

Dishonoring and Low The child shall be bold toward the elder, and the base toward the honourable.

What is described in this verse has been going on for a considerable time. Those of us who are older remember a time when disrespect for elders was not tolerated.

Beginning in the 1950s and picking up speed through the 1960s, our culture devolved into one centred on youth. Youthful vigour and youth itself were esteemed over maturity. Young people were “hip” and relevant; “old people” were out of touch and had nothing to offer.

If something was old, it was bad; if something was new it was good.

Rock music emphasised rebellion and the rejection of tradition.

Television sitcoms featured children who were all-wise and parents (especially fathers) who were stupid and buffoonish.

All of this has led to a breakdown of respect for elders and those in authority. And, frankly, elders and authority figures have not helped matters, as many of them have fearfully declined to insist upon proper respect.

When there is no respect, there can be no teaching. When there is no teaching or handing down of what has proven best and most worthwhile, what is base and lowbrow too easily appeals to those who are schooled only in their lower passions.

29th January 2021 Catholic Voice

SOCIETAL BREAKDOWN 5

Rap stars, news media, Hollywood actors, and other pop-culture figures have more influence than Scripture, faith, literature, and tradition. Much of popular culture presents that which is base and most of those who represent it reject the honourable and timetested traditions that have built our culture. Cultural iconoclasts dominate; those who build on what is honourable are fewer, both in number and influence.

Destructive through Lust “Their very look bears witness against them; their sin like Sodom they vaunt, they hide it not. Woe to them! they deal out evil to themselves.”

Today, promiscuity of every sort is celebrated. Again, those of us who are older can remember a time when living together outside of marriage was scorned; it was referred to as “living in sin” or “shacking up.”

Now, not only is it widely tolerated; it is even encouraged.

Movies and popular songs since the 1960s have depicted and spoken of illicit sexual unions of every kind as normal, acceptable, routine, and even beautiful. Homosexual acts are now celebrated, made the matter of pride. Contraception, widely rejected by every Christian denomination prior to 1930, is now called virtuous or responsible by most. Divorce, once considered shocking and discouraged by our very laws, is now common; it is often encouraged as a way to happiness.

God warns through Isaiah in this text: “Woe to them! they deal out evil to themselves.” In other words, if we don’t get marriage and sexuality right as a culture, it will kill our civilisation. Sexual distortion leads to distortions about marriage. Distortions about marriage lead to broken families.

Broken families lead to broken children. Broken children become broken adults. Broken adults have a hard time leading or making good decisions.

The breakdown of culture and civilisation continues. In our sins we deal out evil to ourselves. We sow the wind and we reap the whirlwind (Hosea 8:7). We sow in the field of the flesh and we reap a harvest of corruption (Gal 6:8).

Declining in Leadership When a man seizes his brother in his father’s house, saying, “You have clothes! Be our ruler, and take in hand this ruin!” … But he will say: … “You shall not make me leader of the people.” …because their speech and their deeds are against the Lord … O my people, your leaders mislead, they destroy the paths you should follow.”

This is an especially controversial part of the text. Yet, honestly, there is a crisis of leadership in our culture at nearly every level. In families, many parents do not lead their children, choosing instead to try to be their friends. Many priests and bishops timorously hide, speaking in abstractions and generalities rather than teaching clearly. Too many do not vigorously summon the faithful to a proper moral vision.

In terms of social and political leadership, mob rule is becoming more common, and leaders succumb to many notions simply because a loud and sometimes violent group demands it.

Further, many leaders mislead by looking only to their political survival and “playing to their base.”

There is a kind of hypersensitivity to the feelings of aggrieved individuals or groups of self-described victims.

Many leaders are more preoccupied with not giving offence to certain popular groups than with making difficult decisions that may demand sacrifice and that will not please all, but are still the best answer. What is best can sometimes be hard; the truth is not always pleasing to everyone.

Disclaimer: Without a doubt, some of what Isaiah said was controversial in his day. And without a doubt my application of the text to this day and age will likewise be controversial. But what if ensuing conversations and debates are the result? What if my imperfect post is meant to encourage conversation in a culture that increasingly wants to shut down conversation and forbid “politically unapproved” speech and replace an open mouth with a clenched fist?

Finally, remember that biblical passages have a way of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. We’re all a little of both and we need both.

6 LETTER TO A BISHOP

Catholic Voice

29th January 2021

A Letter To A Bishop

From A Catholic Mother of Four Children Note: we received this letter from a mother of four children who was encouraged to write to her bishop by an article in Catholic Voice in December. Her letter confirms the saying “Out of the mouth of infants and of sucklings thou hast perfected praise?” (Matthew 21:16) Dear Bishop, This letter comes to you at the end of a lock-down fear filled year, as a means to touch base with you and share our concerns as a family and as a faithful member of Christ’s mystical body.

At the beginning of this lock-down, we attended Holy Mass with our four children outside the church doors as they remained locked shut. Our parish priest continued to offer mass on all our behalf, inside the locked church in obedience to his superior. Our eldest aged 5 who was 4 years old back in March, asked “why can we not go inside to Mass?” I struggled to answer and explained there is a virus and our government have closed our churches. Is this the right answer? I did not want to say our Bishops closed the doors. Once Holy Mass was over, the doors could only then be opened and we

were then permitted to enter to light a candle or indeed sit in silent prayer. “Why are we allowed in now?” I struggled to answer this question.

There was no Holy Water early 2020. There is still no Holy Water in our Churches late 2020. “Why is there no Holy Water to bless ourselves with?” our children aged at the time 3 and 4 years old asked us. I do not like answering these questions, the answers are hypocritical and lack trust and faith in God who blesses the water to make it Holy and protect us from all evil and harm.

We could not participate in Easter celebrations, confused, we watched Holy Mass on a television screen, deprived, we offered a prayer to ask Jesus to come to us spiritually. “Why are we watching mass on the tv” from our two eldest children.

Holy Mass resumed but not for long. “Why is everyone wearing a mask?” from our two eldest children. “Why is the priest wearing a mask?”. We prayed to be able to receive on our tongue, we feared refusal of the sacraments. We were thankful to our priest who allowed us to receive privately after mass on the tongue so as not to offend anyone in fear of the virus.

We were then left to mourn the loss of Holy Mass and the sacraments again.

When mass resumed again and it was necessary for our priest to wear a mask we were very sad indeed.

We questioned how this could be and we prayed for

29th January 2021

LETTER TO A BISHOP 7

Catholic Voice

our priests and Bishops more than ever. We questioned how our priest needed to sanitize his consecrated hands before touching the Sacred Body of Our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Is it not a lack of faith to believe it is possible for anything to contaminate the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Saviour Jesus Christ? Is it possible for a virus to be passed onto us from the Body of our Saviour Jesus Christ? I do not believe so. Actions speak louder than words.

The Blessed Eucharist was distributed on hands only. I watched and my heart cried to witness the Eucharist fall to the ground as a lady struggled with her mask while holding Our Lord on her hands. Is this an acceptable way to greet and receive Our Saviour? We should be concerned about how we can prepare to receive Him and yet we are all caught up on how we can save ourselves. It is clear with well ventilated churches, well spaced out pews, and no contact with others before or after mass we are protecting ourselves sufficiently.

The rest of the precautions are none other than a lack of faith and sacrilege to our God.

started to talk more over the last few months continues to say randomly “Go to Mass?”. His tone of voice says it in a manner like a question, I take it that he is asking to go to mass. We can learn so much from children who speak so plainly.

I will ask you Bishop, on behalf of my 2 year old son, Can we go to mass please? Can we give praise to Our Lord Jesus Christ through song at Christmas and always? Can you please not close our churches in the New Year? And on behalf of all our priests, can I ask you to lift the requirement for our priests to sanitise their consecrated hands when handling the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Saviour Jesus Christ?

I will not wear a mask when presenting myself in front of our God, my conscience will not allow me. Can you please allow those who out of fear of being refused entry to attend mass, to go to mass without a mask and show their face to God who created them in His own image and likeness?

These are confusing times , I understand the weight on your shoulders. I want to reassure you, we are here for you and are praying for you.

Your friend in Christ, A mother of four.

The

Dominicans Truth ExIsts!

(only Lies are Invented)

We stood inside our gates to show respect for neighbours that had died during this lock-down year, unable to share in Holy Mass and pray for their souls as a community.

We were fearful of the virus in early days when listening to all the news coming in at us at full force, it instilled fear. We turned to our Blessed Mother through our family rosary prayers to help us, we were no longer fearful. We were fearful of the loss of Holy Mass, again we turned to our Blessed Mother. We have friends and family engulfed with fear, we pray for them.

I turned to my five year old daughter, and asked her while writing this letter “Do you remember when we could not go to mass, how did that make you feel?” She answered “I felt bad”, she said nothing else. I asked her, “Why did you feel bad?”

I wanted to go and see God”. My two year old son, who has recently

"The greatest charity one can render any man consists in leading him from error into Truth."

- St. Thomas Aquinas

www.irishdominicanvocations.com

8 RIGHTFUL AUTHORITY

Catholic Voice

29th January 2021

The Beauty of Authority Daniel Mark

We live in a world where the word authority has become a taboo word.

There is great mistrust of authority and as a society, we have become cynical to some extent about the word. Conspiracy theories abound and have only been exacerbated during the pandemic. Leadership is questioned everywhere I go and sometimes it is saddening.

It brought me to think about the authority we have in the Church which I quite enjoy. One time, someone asked me why I went to Mass regularly. The comment, “Why go and listen to someone who only tells you that what you do is wrong?” It left me bewildered. I knew I did not go to Mass for that reason, but I wondered what would make someone think in this way.

I stopped by the Catholic bookstore and found the videos for my pastor.

It was a great idea, but watching the movies, we saw how the popes were connected as they moved up the ranks of the Church Hierarchy.

The world outside the Church can be cynical about the authority in the Church but I look at it as a beauty.

Being Struck I went to Mass on the feast of St. Leo the Great (Pope Leo I). Before Mass, I try to read about the saint of the day, and something struck me about him. He sat in Peter’s Chair for 21 years and was declared a doctor of the Church. How great it must be to trust this authority. In my parish, during Lent one year, we showed a movie each week of the last six popes from Pius XII to Benedict at the time.

Reading Helps Lately, I have been reading a lot despite not being a reader as much in my youth. It grew on me after high school. There is more to authority than being bossed around.

It corresponds to your heart when you are searching for more in life.

I have visited many monasteries and convents in my travels. They are such beautiful places but there is always a central authority. There is not someone who is in command but someone to look at or to follow.

In this way, there is more freedom.

I always enjoy reading about the history of the Papacy. It makes for fascinating reading. The early popes who were mostly martyred, the popes who struggled with monarchs and governments, and those whose papacy was so brief, it makes you wonder how they would have made an impact on the Church at all.

Every Tuesday we would meet and watch these movies, some dubbed in English from Italian, but they were so beautiful. I have had the opportunity to see only two popes in person – John Paul II and Pope Francis at his Sunday Angelus. An intriguing part of the papacy is its longevity. It symbolises unity in a Church by being a lighthouse in a broken world. I really do look at each at of them as a Father.

I recall reading about so many of the popes, but a couple jump to my mind

for the purpose of this article. Pope Leo I, whom I mentioned before stayed with the people even after the city was sacked by the Vandals, despite thwarting Attila the Hun just before this. This truly remarkable man helped us understand the true nature of Christ. “Peter has spoken thus through Leo.” This was the cry at the Council of Chalcedon which clarified the nature of Christ.

His interventions helped confirm the primacy of Peter. Even in the early Church and through the ages, the importance of the primacy of Papacy continued.

Saint Peter Chrysologus, Father and Doctor of the Church (Letters 25:2 [A.D. 449]: We exhort you in every respect, honourable brother, to heed obediently what has been written by the most blessed pope of the city of Rome, for blessed Peter, who lives and presides in his own see, provides the truth of faith to those who seek it. For we, by reason of our pursuit of peace and faith, cannot try cases on the faith without the consent of the bishop of Rome.

Another Example Another Leo, Pope Leo XIII, is considered the pope of the workers.

As the world industrialised and exploitation became rampant, Pope Leo XIII had the forethought to instruct the faithful. A long-serving pope, he laid the groundwork for social teaching.

Nothing is more useful than to look upon the world as it really is, and at the same time to seek elsewhere… for the solace to its troubles (Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum: On the Condition of the Working Classes).

It is easy for someone to reduce

RIGHTFUL AUTHORITY 9

29th January 2021 Catholic Voice authority and leadership to something cynical. I had to grow to understand this. It took time because I can be a rebel. I remember those moments watching the Pope speak on television, giving a speech, or watching Midnight Mass from the Vatican once I returned home from my Mass. I remember one time I was telling a group of friends that the Pope was going to visit Toronto for World Youth Day. I was so excited, and the comment was, “Are you going to see your pope?” was the snarky attitude. I joyfully said of course, why wouldn’t I? It was a great adventure, and I was so happy afterward. I still remember the words spoken by John Paul II after he arrived via helicopter during the rain and the sun came out once he arrived.

“The greatest deception, and the deepest source of unhappiness, is the illusion of finding life by excluding God, of finding freedom by excluding moral truths and

personal responsibility” (Pope John Paul II during his homily at Mass Toronto 2002.

Some Thoughts I read the book, Radiance in your Eyes by Julian Carron who quotes the Servant of God, Father Luigi Giussani: So then, let’s ask ourselves now, with Giussani, “What is the most important factor in the reality of people to which we are called, in the reality of the companionship in which we participate?” In answer, he said, “The most important factor in the reality of a people is called authority.”

“Authority is the place where it becomes evident that Christ is victor, where Christ persuasively shows that He corresponds to the needs of the heart.

“Authority is a person who, when you see him or her, you see that what Christ says corresponds to

your heart. By this a people is guided.”

We must look beyond what is told to us from the mass media and social media. There is still much joy in the world. This last century and a half have been challenging for the world, but we have been blessed with great Popes to help us. The Carmelite nuns remind me of this often. For my part, I want to follow a group of friends who can lead me to the greater joy that awaits us all. This is no small task when there are so many obstacles that surround us. However, faith in Christ and looking at an authority – not the one that wants to control – but the one that wants to love is my road. I want to faithfully follow.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God With thy whole heart, And with thy whole soul, And with thy whole mind.

This is the greatest And the first commandment.

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10 LETTERS

Catholic Voice

Letters

29th January 2021 Send your letters to: Letters Page, Catholic Voice, St Michael’s House, Castlemitchell South, Athy, Co Kildare or email to letters@catholicvoice.ie

Prevention And Treatment Of Coronavirus Dear Editor, The sudden emergence of a number of vaccines now developed and on the market, seems to be welcomed, albeit with caution because of potential side-effects. Especially the Moderna vaccine, funded by Bill Gates, which is supposed to be a multi-purpose ID/ surveillance jab.

It is interesting to note that Professor Dieder Raoult of the Marsielle special university hospital unit, a world-famous specialist of infectious diseases, has said in an interview, that since it is al-ready difficult to vaccinate against the flu, the chance of a proper vaccine without side-effects, for this present virus, is close to zero. He has been ridiculed for his advocacy of HCQ, i.e. hydroxychloroquine, an inexpensive, demonstrably effective drug to treat coronavirus.

It was very effective against SARS and was recommended for use for decades until recently by the WHO. Los Angeles emergency room specialist, Dr. Anthony Cardillo, has stated: “What we are finding clinically with our patients is that hydroxychloroquine works in conjunction with zinc. It opens a zinc channel, zinc goes in to the cell, it then blocks the replication of the cellular mechanism .....

Every patient I’ve prescribed it to has been very ill, within 8 to 12 hours they were basically symptom free”. In actual fact, 20,000 doctors worldwide have stated that HCQ

with zinc is very effective against the Chinese virus.

Professor Dolores Cahill, who is highly qualified to critique the efficacy of Covid policies.

She has a degree in molecular genetics, a PhD in immunology, vast experience in Germany, including patented breakthrough research in the specificity of antibodies used in research and in diagnostic assays. In particular, she has been working on protocols for prevention, also on treatment, such as hydroxychloroquine, For which she has also been ridiculed.

Professor Cahill has pointed out that it is well known in immunology that we can take preventative measures to boost our immune system. “ What we should have done is quarantine people who have underlying conditions and those over 75, telling them to build up their immune systems, by taking vitamin C, vitamin D3 (Cholecalciferol) and Zinc, with the other 80 – 90 percent

doing likewise, the immune system clears the virus and people develop immunity and no-one would have died at all”.

Also those who had symptoms because they didn’t have their immune systems boosted, could have been treated with HCQ! Why has the HSE not been using our radio and TV stations through information slots, made society, especially the elderly, aware of the necessity of boosting their immune systems, and a great many lives could have been saved.

Dr. Dan Erickson and Dr. Artin Massihi co-owners of a hospital chain in Bakersville, in California, at a press conference earlier this year, stated; “There’s normal bacteria and normal flora that we have to be exposed to. Natural bacteria and viruses that are not virulent are our friends. We’re always transmitting these things to each other. They protect us against bad bacteria and bad viruses.

29th January 2021

LETTERS 11

Catholic Voice

Letters

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

Nature has this thing called herd immunity. When we are isolating for too long, we lose that flora, our immunity is weak, after lock-down, there is a huge surge in cases”. Doctors have also pointed out that the consumption of processed food, which is harmful to the good bacteria in our gut, weakens our immune system.

Why has HCQ, which has been very effective against SARS and the most efficient treatment for the corona virus been so restricted? A paper seeking to discredit HCQ treatment has been discredited and withdrawn.

The paper based on two studies regarding HCQ appeared in late May 2019 in the Lancet, warning of cardiac side-effects. Questions arose about the data and an earlier study by Dr. Mandeep Mehra, medical director of Brigham and Women’s Hospital Heart and Vascular Center, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Her paper had seen the use of HCQ severely restricted, even halted worldwide, while investigators began safety reviews.

In a statement to The New York Times on June 4th, Mehra said: “It is now clear to me, that in my hope to contribute to this research in a time of great need, I did not do enough to ensure that the data source was appropriate for this use. For that and for all the disruptions both directly and indirectly, I am truly sorry” Was there an apology issued to those who lost their dear ones, even an apology issued to all those who were denounced, disparaged, smeared and ignored, because they advocated the use of HCQ?.

James B.O’ Brien, Donegal.

The Sometime Silent Shepherds Dear Editor, In the 2018 Referendum to remove the protection of babies in the womb from the Constitution, the Bishops of Ireland were silent. Many forbade their priests from speaking of the danger of removing this protection, knowing that the removal of such protection, would legalise the killing of babies. They have been silent on the butchery of thousands of babies since.

They are now telling us that we should accept the COVID–19 vaccines, as not doing so might cause the deaths of vulnerable people. Not only is this hypocrisy, but it is also irresponsible, as they have no competence in such matters, especially as these vaccines have been rushed through without proper procedure.

The Bishops of Ireland were given the authority by Christ to teach their flock, and to lead them to Heaven, and the Grace to do so. They have exchanged what they got from Christ for a megaphone for a Godless State.

Let us pray to Our Lady, to ask Her Son, to send us at least one Bishop who is not afraid to speak the Truth, and to lead the people of Ireland on the road to Heaven.

David Kelly Dublin.

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12 THE NEW RELIGION

Catholic Voice

29th January 2021

Catholicism In Ireland Has Been Replaced With A New Religion Our New Masters May Not Be As Kind As Our Old Ones John Lacken

Let us continue to pray earnestly for our Irish bishops as the evidence continues to grow of a renewed persecution of the Catholic Church in Ireland, the like of which has not been since the Penal times. Although not yet violent, the signs are beginning to emerge that dissent from the new secular religion will not be tolerated for much longer and that ‘the old religion’ must give way to the new.

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.

One of the difficulties we have in Catholic Voice is, that because we are a small fortnightly publication whose articles are submitted one week before printing, we can sometimes be a little behind with the ‘news’.

Of course the only news that is really worth bothering about is the good news of Jesus Christ and His Catholic Church. But sometimes I am conscious that what I am writing today will not be read for at least two weeks and that things may have changed significantly in that time.

However, as we read in the book of Ecclesiastes: “One generation passes away, and another generation comes: but the earth stands for ever.

The sun rises, and goes down, and returns to his place: and there rising again, makes his round by the south, and turns again to the north: the spirit goes forward surveying all places round about, and returns to his circuits.

All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea does not overflow: unto the place from whence the rivers come, they return, to flow again.

All things are hard: man cannot explain them by word. The eye is not filled with seeing, neither is the ear filled with hearing.

What is it that has been? The same thing that shall be. What is it that has been done? The same that shall be done.

Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: for it has already gone before in the ages that were before us.”

(Ecclesiastes 1:4-10) I mention this in connection with the publication of the “Mother And Baby Homes Commission Of Investigation Final Report” which was presented by our Taoiseach on the 12th of January this year. I do not intend here to go into the disturbing details of the report but I want to look at something Hilaire Belloc said in his essay “The Historical Counter Attack” Belloc notes: “But the worst of all false methods, by which more than by any other is anti-Catholic history propagated today, the one which appeals most of all to the ignorant general reader and the one which it is most difficult to eliminate wholly even from the mind of the best instructed, is the method of reading modern times into the past.”

Belloc then speaks of certain atrocities in England’s past such as the burning of heretics under Queen Mary and mentions the fact that prisoners were regularly flogged in his own day and says, prophetically, referring to the floggings: “These proceedings also may rouse such indignation in some future age (which will doubtless have much worse things of its own) as to stamp our age with atrocious cruelty, moral and physical.”

We live in an era where reason, sound judgement and leadership have all but disappeared. Anyone who seeks to take a critical look at government mandated narratives, be it on homosexual practices, abortion, covid-19, or mother and baby homes, risks being publicly excoriated and accused of all sorts of vile intentions.

The public purveyors of tolerance and inclusion have no problem calling for those who disagree with their narrative to be punished and excluded from public debate and even from society.

Hilaire Belloc also tells us that “without a true philosophy – that is a true religion – true history cannot be written” The Catholic understanding of human nature is the only true understanding.

Man, created in the image and likeness of God, fell through original sin and is now tainted with an inclination towards evil. All of the problems in our world are caused by the sins of men.

In the area of human sexuality we find that intense physical pleasure is connected to the use of our sexual faculties. Fallen men desire to partake in this pleasure without restraint. But natural sexual activity has a direct consequence, the conception of a new human being.

Since the beginning of time, men and women have sought ways to engage in pleasurable sexual activity whilst avoiding pregnancy. The solitary sin of what was called onanism; samesex relations which cannot lead to pregnancy; ‘coitus interruptus’ and contraception. But men have failed, and will always fail, by all of these methods to prevent a certain percentage of unwanted pregnancies occurring. Such is our fallen nature.

In Ireland’s past, when a girl or woman became pregnant out of wedlock, this created a problem. The child needed to be looked after but there were limited means available in poorer times. A family might be struggling to put enough food on the table when their young daughter came home and announced that there was going to be another mouth to feed.

Often times the father of the child did not have means either and so was not

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prepared to take responsibility for his child, abandoning the mother to her own devices. The mother might also be abandoned by her family out of poverty, or because of the social and religious stigma attached to such pregnancies. But the fact remained that there was a child on the way.

Thus the Mother and Baby Homes.

We can all decry the cruelty of the age and the inhumane conditions faced by these women, some of whom became pregnant through rape or incest.

Our Taoiseach Micheál Martin, at the launch of the report said the following: “While this report will obviously have the most direct impact on survivors and their families, it presents all of Irish society with profound questions. The regime described in the report wasn’t imposed on us by any foreign power. We did this to ourselves as a society. We treated women exceptionally badly. We treated children exceptionally badly.

We had a completely warped attitude to sexuality and intimacy and young mothers and their sons and daughters were forced to pay a terrible price for that dysfunction.

As a society we embraced judgmentalism, moral certainty, a perverse religious morality and control which was so damaging.

What was very striking is the absence of basic kindness. One hard truth in all this is that all of society was complicit in it.”

Micheál Martin is reading the past through modern eyes in order to attack the Catholic faith.

Regardless of the cruelty of times past, the problems of unwanted pregnancy, rape and incest have not gone away and these problems will be with us until the end of time.

There is nothing new under the sun and every society chooses how it will deal with this particular problem.

The executive summary of the report says that “about 9,000 children died in the institutions under investigation”

School Children in Dublin circa 1924

This was from 1922 to 1998, a period of 76 years, therefore an average of 119 child deaths per year.

So what has Micheál Martin done to deal with this ongoing problem of unwanted and unintended pregnancies?

He says that women were treated exceptionally badly in the past, yet his treatment of women today is to offer doctors money to help women to kill their unborn children and he, like those he judges so harshly, does not hold the fathers of these children to account either.

Micheál Martin’s solution to this problem is also to keep it hidden by legally permitting the killing of children so conceived before they are born, preferably within twelve weeks of their being conceived. Almost 7,000 unborn children were killed in Ireland in 2019 alone. In less than two years, Micheál Martin will have presided over the killing of more children than died in the homes in the 76 years covered by this report. There is no suggestion in the report that any of the children in the Mother and Baby Homes were deliberately killed, although some women in these times did kill their children. Micheál Martin however, has no problem with dehumanising and killing unborn children.

Micheál Martin tells us that, “as a society we embraced judgementalism”, and yet he sits in judgement and condemnation of those who in the past provided inadequate care with the limited resources they had for children, whilst at the same time he promotes the deliberate killing of the children conceived in similar circumstances today.

Let me state that again. Micheál Martin’s solution to the problem of unwanted and unintended pregnancies is to permit the killing of many thousands of the children so conceived before they are born.

Now, under Micheál Martin, any child which survives the abortion provided

by Micheál and his government, will be left to die in an Irish hospital’s operating theatre without basic medical care. Is this not a modernday example of exceptionally bad treatment of children?

This is the man who says that in the past we treated children exceptionally badly. How is he any better then the men of the past whom he dares to judge so harshly?

He and his fellow government members are no better than those they condemn. It is my opinion that their solution is far worse than what went on before. At least in times past, many, if not most, of the children born into difficult circumstances had a chance to make good. Murdered children can do nothing to improve their situation.

The blind hypocrisy of t h e s e self-congratulating, self-righteous politicians is galling in the extreme.

14 THE NEW RELIGION The following details, available from the HSE webiste on abortion, show how this government, which speaks of the inappropriate burial of children who died in Mother and Baby Homes, treats these women and children in Ireland today.

“You can decide how to dispose of the pregnancy remains. They can be flushed down the toilet, or wrapped in tissue and disposed of as you wish.”

(HSE website) Mark my words, they are using and will continue to use this report to attack the Catholic Church having already called it a ‘perverse religious morality’.

The signs are there for anyone who has eyes to see. In the Waterford University Hospital recently, the Catholic Church was taken over and converted into a covid-19 vaccine ward. I contacted Bishop Cullinan and he was not consulted about this arrangement and the Church in question, although a Catholic Church, is not owned by the diocese of Waterford. He assured me that the Blessed Sacrament was removed from the tabernacle before the vaccinations began.

Someone sent me a link to the article on WLR FM. I use a big computer screen when working with graphics and it was startling to see a Catholic Church, with altar and crucifix, being used as a hospital ward with total disregard for the sacredness of the building.

The symbolism was unmistakable.

Jesus Christ in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, truly present in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, was escorted from the hospital’s Catholic Church in order to usher in the ‘sacrament’ of the new secular religion - the covid-19 vaccine. A picture paints a thousand words.

Another example of the growing suppression of the Catholic Church in Ireland came in the form of the Sunday newsletter for the Cathedral parish of the diocese of Elphin in Sligo. Sunday the 10th of January was the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord in the Novus Order Mass.

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29th January 2021

The newsletter had an image of John the Baptist baptising Jesus on the front cover. Inside, the newsletter informed us:

there. It can be misconstrued as ‘yes, the priest married us’.” (Archbishop Dermot Farrell to Patsy McGarry Irish Times)

“Today - The Baptism of Our Lord Christ is baptised. He is affirmed

by God the Father and is anointed by the Holy Spirit. Christ shows the necessity of baptism. The Catechism tells us that baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life and through it, we become free from sin. Children of God and members of Christ (ccc1213)”

We also see in relation to the covid vaccination issue that our bishops are using the term ‘common good’, with the implication being, that for the common good we must take the covid-19 vaccines which have not been properly tested.

Then, after telling us that Christ shows us the necessity of baptism and that the Catechism tells us that baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the back page of the newsletter had this to say.

“Baptisms have been cancelled in accordance to Government Level 5 Restrictions.”

The irony of this is just not funny. It is hard to make stuff like this up. But once again, it clearly shows, that, as I noted in my last article, the laws of man are being elevated above the laws and commands of God and parishioners are informed that even though Christ says that baptism is necessary, the Sligo cathedral parish has cancelled that which is necessary for the salvation of the soul!

Then there was an interview with the new archbishop of Dublin, Dermot Farrell, conducted by Patsy McGarry of The Irish Times, in which the new bishop implied that he has no problem with the blessing of the rings of homosexual men and women or divorcees who intend to ‘marry’, provided it is done in private.

“The difficulty with blessings is that they are very often misconstrued as marriage. Priests have given these blessings in the past. I remember one colleague of mine. I had said to him – he used to have this ceremony of the blessing of rings – I said to him I don’t have a difficulty with blessing rings if you’re doing that here in the house but if you go out into the public domain, in a church, and bless rings as you see it …they turned up with 200 people and they saw it as a marriage. Sometimes people use that phraseology …you’re into confusion

The greatest common good for mankind concerns the salvation of souls. There is no greater good for us then at the end of our lives, we attain heaven. Nothing else is of any real or lasting importance. Whether you die of covid-19, a tragic accident, a heart attack, or simply of old age, the only thing that matters is that you are in a state of grace. This is the constant teaching of the Catholic Church.

The common good also concerns the good of the body but this cannot be at the expense of the salvation of the soul.

Christ instituted the sacraments of the Catholic Church for the salvation of souls. That we are now being denied access to the (eternal) life giving sacraments in the name of protecting our bodies is not in accord with Catholic Church teaching.

I also believe that, in another case, our bishops were sent a decoy by the state. Whether intentional or not I cannot say for certain. However, the blasphemous skit on RTE which aired on New Year’s eve, while it is nothing new, was pounced on by some of our bishops and an apology was wrought from RTE and the blasphemous clip was eventually taken down off their player.

Those objecting to the blasphemy are the same bishops, by the way, who stated that our blasphemy laws were obsolete at the time of the referendum in 2018 and did not object to the removal of blasphemy as an offence from our constitution.

A few days after the bishops’ ‘victory’ over RTE, Taoiseach Micheál Martin, in presenting the Mother and Baby Homes report, spoke of “a perverse religious morality and control which was so damaging.”

29th January 2021 Our bishops gave a classic example of what will be regarded as ‘perverse religious control’ in their dealings with RTE, forcing RTE to obey them.

This will no doubt be construed as the Irish bishops controlling our national broadcaster by deciding what can and what cannot be broadcast.

Meanwhile the secular state continues to blaspheme Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Eucharist and to trample on the rights of Catholics to avail of the sacraments instituted by Jesus Christ, and our bishops do not complain, instead, they co-operate with the State.

I was also sent a video of Catholics who went to RTE headquarters in Donnybrook to pray the Rosary in reparation for the blasphemy. The video clearly showed members of an Garda Síochána - The Guardians of the Peace - harassing women whilst they prayed. I saw a Garda deliberately obstruct a woman and another woman who attended the Rosary rally told me that she was pushed by a Garda. In another video, where a man was refused entry to a shop because he was not wearing a face mask, the female Garda clearly

THE NEW RELIGION 15

Catholic Voice did not know the law she was supposed to be enforcing in relation to exemptions from having to wear a face mask and eventually the man was arrested but not for a face mask offence, rather on a fabricated public order charge. These videos show us that law and order is slowly but surely breaking down in this country and some members of the Garda clearly believe that they are the law and not the servants of the law.

We are living in increasingly darkening times but these are the times in which we are called to let the light of our Catholic Faith shine brighter then ever.

“Jesus showed St Gertrude in an especial manner how much the Divine Heart desires the conversion of sinners. One day, as the Saint was praying for some miscreants who had caused great harm to her monastery, Our Lord appeared to her. His arm was painfully bent and distorted, and the sinews appeared quite broken.

He said to her: “those who pray for the conversion of these unfortunate men pour a soothing balm upon My

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suffering arm, and with a delicate hand bring back little by little the muscles to their proper place”.

Surprised at such an excess of goodness, St Gertrude said to Jesus: “Most sweet Lord, how can you call such men your arm, unworthy as they are of such an honour?”

“I call them so in truth, because they are members of the body of that Church of which I glory to be the Head.

Therefore the state of their souls causes Me unspeakable anxiety. My Heart has an intense desire for their conversion.”

(Love Peace & Joy page 17) Our Lady came to the three children in Fatima and gave The Five First Saturdays Devotion, specifically for the conversion of poor sinners. She constantly asks us to pray and to sacrifice ourselves for the conversion of sinners because it is sin that is the root cause of all of our problems.

Let us not become disheartened by the darkness around us but let us heed the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Our Blessed Mother and pray for the conversion of poor sinners

There’s A Place For Us There’s a Place for Us Homosexuality in the Divine Plan of Redemption Jesus said to those who would stone her: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

Jesus said to the woman: “Woman, where are they that accused thee? Hath no man condemned thee?

Who said: No man, Lord. And Jesus said: Neither will I condemn thee.”

“Go, And Now Sin No More.”

By John Cassidy

There’s A Place For Us: This testimony does not shirk away from difficult Catholic teachings but shows with piercing clarity why the Church teaches as she does in the area of human sexuality. In our lives we are called to a lot more than sexual satisfaction. Rather, we are granted the privilege of living life on the highest possible plane in responding to the call of greatness of being the Sons and Daughters of God.

John Cassidy - Bio Ex-homosexual and New Man John Cassidy has been serving the Catholic Church as a full-time Lay-Man since his conversion in 2014. John has founded the Association of Believing Catholics which is a lay initiative to promote and defend the fullness of Catholic truth.

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16 THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

Catholic Voice

29th January 2021

I Am The Immaculate Conception Extract from ‘Bernadette of Lourdes’ by Father Ralph SVD - 1948 At The Rock Of Massabielle The next day full of eagerness and anticipation, Bernadette went to the Rock of Massabielle — and she was not disappointed. The Beautiful Lady appeared and seemingly to make up for the trials of the day before, showered on Bernadette heavenly smiles and said to her: “Here I am... I have a secret to tell you for yourself alone and concerning yourself...

Do you promise me never to repeat it to anyone in the world?”

Bernadette promised, and the secret, together with two others of a like kind, despite all cunning and repeated attempts to make her tell them, went inviolate with her to the grave.

The Vision continued: “And now, my child, go and tell the priests that I want them to erect a chapel here in my memory.” She went at once to the parish priest and delivered the message of the Lady. He did not yet believe in the celestial visitant, and warned Bernadette, but she said: “I do not know if she is the Holy Virgin, but I have seen her as I see you, and she speaks to me as you speak to me. And I come on her behalf to say to you that she wishes a chapel erected at the Rock of Massabielle, where she appeared to me.”

The Skeptic Estrade The following day Estrade, one of the officials of Lourdes, an irreligious sceptic, went to the Grotto, and thus he relates the experience which began his conversion: “At the customary hour, toward sunrise, Bernadette arrived, I was near her. I remarked in her infantine features that character of sweetness, innocence and profound tranquillity which had struck me several days before... She went down on her knees, naturally, without ostentation or embarrassment, without confusion, or being put out by the crowd which surrounded her, absolutely as if she had been alone in church or in a lonely wood, far from the sight of men.

She took out her rosary and began to pray. Soon her face appeared to receive and reflect an unknown light; her face was full of admiration, radiant with happiness, looking at the opening in the rock. ... I saw nothing but the branches of the sweetbrier, stripped of its leaves...

Yes, I attest it, a Divine Being was there. Suddenly and completely transfigured, Bernadette was no longer Bernadette. She was an angel of heaven plunged into unspeakable raptures... Her attitude, her slightest gestures, the manner, for instance, in which she made the Sign of the Cross, had a nobility, a dignity, a greatness more than human... She smiled at the invisible Being, and all this gave a striking idea of her ecstasy and bliss.

I was not less moved than other spectators. Like them, I held my breath to try to hear the discourse that was taking place between the Vision and the child. She listened with an expression of most profound awe, or rather, of most profound adoration mingled with love. Sometimes, however, a tincture of sadness passed over her countenance, but its habitual expression was that of exceeding joy.”

It was during this Apparition that, as Bernadette said: “She told me to pray for sinners... and she cried out three times: ‘Penance! penance! penance!’ which I repeated’ Estrade, together with many others who were near Bernadette at this time, heard her cry “Penance! penance! penance!”

The Miraculous Spring On February 25th, Bernadette again saw the Lady of the Grotto, who ordered her to: “Go, drink, and wash herself in the fountain, and eat of the grass which comes forth at the side.” Bernadette turned toward the river Gave, the only water visible, but the Vision again motioned her toward the corner of the Grotto, where she scratched in the earth.

Soon a little muddy water appeared, and after three vain attempts to overcome her natural repugnance, the child

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THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

17

St Bernadette Of Lourdes swallowed the water, and ate some of the grass growing beside it. Slowly this tiny pool filled and overflowed; within a day or two it was a small stream, crystal clear and icy cold. Gradually it increased in size, and has continued all these years to flow abundantly at the rate of over a thousand gallons an hour.

It is in this water that so many miracles have taken place, though the shrewdest scientists have been unable to find any healing mineral or therapeutic value in the water itself.

The First Miraculous Cure The very first day this miraculous stream appeared, Louis Bouriette, blind for twenty years from a mine explosion (Dr. Douzous of Lourdes testified he had an incurable organic lesion), bathed his eyes with the water, still dirty and sandy and his sight was restored. This was the first of the miraculous cures at Lourdes, which have ever since been taking place there, and at a distance, through the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes, thus testifying the power of the Mother of God.

who she was, “the Apparition joined her hands with fervour, and her face shone with the splendour of infinite beatitude. It was Humility in its Glory!..

She then unfolded her arms, as if to show the earth her virginal hands full of benedictions. Then raising them toward heaven, rejoined her hands and looking up to heaven with an expression of unspeakable gratitude pronounced these words “Que soy era Immaculado Counceptiou” — “I am the Immaculate Conception” Throughout all the conversations with Bernadette, our Lady had used the patois, Bearnais, of the district, for Bernadette could not understand French.

Bernadette did not grasp the meaning of the words ‘ Immaculate Conception” and kept repeating them to herself all the way to the Pastor of Lourdes, Abbe Peyramale, lest she forget them.

He at one recognized the significance of this revelation.

The Vision was indeed the Mother of God! (The dogma of March 4th, the last of this whose Immaculate Conception remarkable fortnight, there were had been defined as an article of over 20,000 people of all sorts faith just four years before by Pope and conditions, from near and far, Pius IX). She had now given new gathered near the Grotto. They waited proof of her love for mankind under in prayerful anxiety, hoping they, too, the title of the greatest of her attributes, could see the Beautiful Lady. They by appearing to the young could all see that Bernadette was shepherdess in the miraculous Saint Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes in an ecstasy, but still the Vision Grotto of Lourdes, whence would not give her name. Nearly all were convinced it flowered her stream of living water, a symbol of the was our Heavenly Queen. stream of God’s blessings flowing through her hands to earth’s troubled ones.

The Revelation Bernadette continued to go to the Grotto to pray, the July 16th, 1858, was the last of the Apparitions. The spring continued to increase its flow, and miracles work was completed. The Blessed Virgin’s little continued to be wrought, until, on the Feast of the handmaid had served her purpose, the glory of Lourdes Annunciation, the Vision again appeared to Bernadette. was to shine forth through the years, growing in This time, having waited purposely till this most majesty and power, a channel of grace to all mankind, appropriate feast, in response to the thrice repeated while the humble / instrument, having accomplished request of Bernadette to grant her the favour of saying her Queen’s bidding, retired into obscurity.

18 ELECTION FRAUD

Catholic Voice

29th January 2021

The God-Haters’ Coup And The Storming Of The Capitol Christopher Monckton of Brenchley The far Left, now in near-total control of schools, universities, civil service departments, the news media, electronic social media and much else, hate Christianity. Very nearly all the legislative measures taken worldwide in opposition to the moral teachings of the Church, have been taken by the totalitarian Left.

The savagely murderous abortion law that has recently been enacted in Argentina is just the latest example. Unfortunately, even the Holy See is now under the influence of their faction. It was there that I met – of all people – the SecretaryGeneral of the United Nations – another entity long and completely captured by the Left. He was there at the invitation of the Argentinian Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo who heads the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

And there, at the same meeting, were a large gathering of Godhaters from all over the world, many of them having campaigned long and vigorously against the Church’s moral teachings.

Therefore, the news that a socialist will soon be vice-president and de facto president of the United States

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is very bad news for the Church, though many of the hierarchy – and probably a majority in most Western countries – are totalitarians themselves, and are prone to put their faith in the Party Line well ahead of their faith in the Good News of salvation.

The U.S. “Democratic” party is now “Democratic” only in the sense that the Communist regime that tyrannised East Germany used in calling their half of the country the “German Democratic Republic”.

The “Democratic” Party was always the party of the slaveowners. Today, the Party – standing fast by its tradition – has replaced the individual ownership of slaves with the collectivist enslavement of the people by the State.

And it may well have stolen the election, just as Mr Trump and his supporters have alleged. It has been as strange to watch very nearly every centre-right news medium worldwide joining the totalitariancontrolled majority in stating –

every time the disputed election result is mentioned – that Mr Trump’s allegations of voter fraud were “baseless” or “unfounded”.

One has only to read the pleadings in the numerous cases that the judiciary have simply refused to hear to appreciate that the allegations of fraud were astonishingly well evidenced. The most that one could say against them is that unless and until the courts have heard and tested them they remain – like all allegations of criminality – unproven.

In a tiny minority of the cases, the judges dismissed the evidence on the ground that they considered it insufficient to be worthy of hearing. In the great majority of cases, however, they simply refused to consider the evidence at all. Where they cited their reasons, those reasons were seldom based on defects in the evidence itself.

They were procedural pretexts, such as ‘laches’, the legal word for unwarrantable delay on the part of the plaintiffs.

29th January 2021 In one respect, that allegation of failure to act against the longstanding and large-scale system of nationwide electoral fraud operated under the “Democratic” National Committee has some force. When the experienced Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, investigated Mr Obama’s fake “birth certificate”, his lead investigator came across evidence of that system of fraud, of which the bogus certificate was merely one instance, and tried to warn the Republican Party, it paid no heed. Now it is paying the price for its ‘laches’ – to some extent deservedly. The Republicans’ abject failure to do anything about the obviously forged “birth certificate”, and the system of vote-stealing of which it was a part, emboldened the “Democrats” and encouraged them to extend the voter fraud.

As a result, the scale and international scope of the fraud, involving cyber-participation by several nations profoundly inimical to America and, therefore, anxious to ensure that the “Democratic” Party should steal the election, are so large that the danger to all our democracies is that the coup by the “Democrats” in the United States will become a worldwide totalitarian coup, setting democracy itself at naught.

The storming of the Capitol, apparently by a mob of Trump supporters, led to at least five deaths and much destruction not only of property but of America’s worldwide reputation. But notice how asymmetric the coverage has been. When the Communist front organisation Black Lives Matter, led by self-confessed “trained Marxists”, organised months of rioting, destruction of property and murder in many U.S. cities, the media could barely bring themselves to report that the rioting was taking place. The unspeakable

Catholic Voice BBC often reported the riots as “peaceful demonstrations”.

But when Republicans appeared to riot, catching the Capitol police by surprise, for riots are nearly always perpetrated by totalitarians in the U.S. as elsewhere, all the media rushed to condemn them. That condemnation was appropriate.

To the extent that the rioters were Republicans, they have served the cause of freedom ill.

But that condemnation, a fortiori, should also have been directed at the Marxists of Black Lives Matter.

But it was nearly always absent.

There were good reasons why Mr Trump called the news media “fake”.

However, a growing body of disturbing evidence shows that the storming of the Capitol may not have been all that it seems. A Black Lives Matter Marxist agitator was among those who broke in. And photographs of the protesters show that one of them had the hammer and sickle of Communism tattooed on his hand.

It only takes a tiny, organised minority to whip up a crowd and lead to violence. Trained Marxists know this well, for it is a key part of their training. And the crowd were justified in their concern that the election had been stolen from them.

However, they were not justified in taking part in the rioting. In allowing themselves to be led into violence, they played into the hands of the Marxists. Whatever small chance there might have been of the Senate ordering reruns in some of the disputed states vanished as soon as the Capitol was stormed.

ELECTION FRAUD 19 Several correspondents from the United States have written to me in despair, asking what they can do to save the Republic. One, an eminent climate scientist, wrote to ask me what he should do given that the “Democrats” have openly threatened to imprison anyone who dares to question the Party Line on global warming.

Well, there is one weapon that we shall always have in our locker, and that is love. Totalitarianism in all its poisonous forms – Communism, Fascism, Socialism, call it what you will – is at root and first and foremost the politics of hate.

Democracy – true democracy, not the stolen version of it in today’s America – is the politics of love. For what better demonstration is there of love for one’s neighbour than to trust him to share the government of your nation with you by coming with you to the polling station and casting his vote?

Yes, these are dark times for America and for the world. We may – indeed, we must – deplore what the totalitarians do, from stealing elections by open, outright fraud to torturing and killing babies in their mother’s womb. But we must love them all the same.

Love is the unstoppable force that will, in the end, defeat the politics of hate. The totalitarians may now appear to be in the ascendant, but the Biden-Harris regime will prove so appalling that, paradoxically, this corrupt election may yet prove to be the turning-point in the long war between totalitarianism and democracy, between evil and good, between hate and love.

“Offer up everything within your power as a sacrifice to the Lord in an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended; and of supplication for the conversion of sinners. Thus invoke peace upon your country. I am her Guardian Angel; the Angel of Portugal. Above all, accept and bear with submission the sufferings that the Lord may send you.”

(The Angel of Portugal to Fatima children 1915)

20 CANDLEMAS DAY

Catholic Voice

29th January 2021

CANDLEMAS DAY: A LIGHT TO ENLIGHTEN THE GENTILES Mary Kearns

It is possible that this was the last day of Mary’s innocent happiness.

Jesus is forty days old and it is time to bring him to the temple and present him to his father in heaven.

In common with other Jewish parents, Mary and the baby’s fosterfather Joseph carried the child to the temple to do what the law had prescribed, namely that the firstborn son was to be given to God and in a sense “bought back” by the giving of two turtle doves.

This is also the day of the mother’s purification in accordance with the Old Testament law, the feast day’s original title.

The joy of the birth of Jesus still lingered on Mary. Was she remembering the shepherds who told of the glory in the sky? Was she thinking of the adoration of the kings who with their entourage and camels had startled the quiet lanes of Bethlehem? For her this was the fulfilment of the promises made by the angel Gabriel when he told her that her child would be great and that he would be called the Son of the Most High. “The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” (Luke 1:32) We know from the gospel of St. Luke that Mary pondered these happenings in her heart and it is from Luke that we hear about the day of the Presentation, the day of the first sword piercing the heart of the Blessed Virgin.

When Christ was presented in the temple, “there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting

The Presentation in the Temple - Giotto di Bondone (1267 - 1337)

for the consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25) When Mary and Joseph brought Christ to the temple, Simeon embraced the child and prayed what became known as the Canticle of Simeon: “Now thou dost dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word in peace; because my eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples: a light to the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.” (Luke 2:29-32).

Many years previously, the prophet Malachi had proclaimed this event: “Now I am sending my messenger he will prepare the way before me; And the Lord whom you seek will come suddenly to his temple; The messenger of the covenant whom you desire - see, he is coming! says the Lord of Hosts.” It was also the prophecy of Zachariah when his son John who became the Baptist, was born.

There is another person present - the elderly Anna who like Simeon had spent her life in prayerful waiting for the Messiah. Now the sacred moment has arrived. Nonetheless for Mary and Joseph what started as a joyful encounter soon reveals a dark shadow. Mary is warned that her little baby boy will be a sign that is contradicted - he will be rejected by many. When Simeon proclaimed salvation in the tiny infant, he prophesied that the soul of his mother would be pierced with sorrow.

Saint Pope John Paul II in ‘Redemptoris Mater’ claims that for the Blessed Virgin these words were almost like a second Annunciation: “For they tell her of the actual historical situation in which the Son is to accomplish his mission, namely, in misunderstanding and sorrow. While this announcement on the one hand confirms her faith in the accomplishment of the divine

29th January 2021

Catholic Voice

promises of salvation, on the other hand it also reveals to her that she will have to live her obedience of faith in suffering, at the side of the suffering Saviour, and that her motherhood will be mysterious and sorrowful.”

Why is this passage from scripture of such significance that it is part of the Divine Office said every night by all priests and those in religious orders as well as many lay-people?

Surely it must be because of the prominence of light. The light of Christ came into the world with his birth. The great ecclesiastical prophet Isaiah had spoken of the people who walked in darkness and who would see a great light.

But now there is something new happening. This light is not alone for the chosen people but for all people.

This would happen following the death and resurrection of Jesus as a consequence of the redemption of all mankind. In his lifetime Jesus had come for the lost tribes of Israel but significantly at his Ascension he commanded his disciples to “go teach all nations...”

This brings us to the custom of the blessing of candles which has its origin in the words of Simeon and which developed as early as the 11th century. At that time it was customary for the people to from a procession through a darkened church while holding the blessed candles and singing the glorious Nunc Dimittis of Simeon. “At last all powerful master you give leave to your servant to go in peace....”

While Simeon’s life is coming to an end in peace, the journey of Jesus and Mary that will end with the cross, is only beginning. Mary would have the joy of the presence of Jesus for many years yet but from this day onwards the young mother will know of the shadow of the cross, like a single unblinking star set in the sky that never goes away.

Throughout the liturgical year we are brought face to face with the reality of God’s covenant with his people. This happens when there are significant feast days as is the Presentation of Jesus in the temple which remind us of the promises of the Old Testament. The feast soon became known as “Candlemas Day” but the original name is the name we now are familiar with.

Pope Saint Paul VI in his Apostolic Exhortation, Marialis Cultus, explains: The feast of February 2nd which has been given back its ancient name, the Presentation of the Lord, should also be considered as a joint commemoration of the Son and of the Mother, if we are fully to appreciate its rich content. It is the celebration of a mystery of salvation accomplished by Christ, a mystery with which the Blessed Virgin was

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CANDLEMAS DAY 21 intimately associated as the Mother of the Suffering Servant of Yahweh, as the one who performs a mission belonging to ancient Israel, and as the model for the new People of God, which is ever being tested in its faith and hope by suffering and persecution (cf. Lk. 2:21-35).

The Presentation of the Lord is a pivotal point in our celebration of the Liturgical Year. This feast points back to Christmas, as it is the last of the Infancy Narratives. It ends the unofficial “40 days period” since Christmas. But this feast also brings us closer to the celebration of the Paschal Mystery. We think of the Light revealing himself to all nations, bringing us through Lent, Good Friday and Easter when Jesus returns as Christ Our Light!

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

22 COURAGE

Catholic Voice

29th January 2021

Courage is the Virtue We Need Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Goodness, patriotism, honesty and loyalty are losing their battles not by conflict, but by default.

Those who are called to be defenders of what is right are not wounded in the battle, they flee.

Courage has always been in the past the attribute of those who have faith; now the moral leaders become defenders only of the feeble. They are afraid to speak on vital truth to their troops, fearful that they may incite a revolt or be unloved. The result is “every man does what is right in his own eyes.” Actually, the troops are yearning for strong leaders who will challenge them and sound trumpets with clear notes. But seeing the shepherds uncertain and afraid of wolves, the sheep scatter.

Why are leaders in a nation, in education, in religion afraid to speak out with courage? Partly because they are not themselves practicing what they ask others to do; partly because they are afraid of being unloved or because running counter to the moods of the time and partly because they do not rely on Divine strength to aid them in their defence of what is right and just.

When Peter and John were arrested and brought before judges for preaching Christianity, the judges were struck by first their “boldness” and secondly by the fact that they were unlearned. Their strong convictions came not from academic degrees, but from their being filled with the Spirit of God. When David’s commander Joab “saw the battle was against him in front and rear” he and his brother Abishai pledged mutual support, shored up their moral courage, and left the final decision in the hands of God. “If the Aramaeans are too strong for me, then you shall help me, Joab said, but if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will come and help you. Be of good courage and let us fight bravely

for our people, and for the cities of our God; and may the Lord do what seems good to Him.” In the area of religion, the secret of courage is: “I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.”

Responsibilities are no longer burdensome if one realises that the Divine works in us. Want of courage is want of Faith. If a bishop, for example, is afraid to tell a minister in the sanctuary not to appear in patched overalls and leather jacket, it is because he is less in awesome concern for the glory of God than he is in dread of the cutting rejoinder of the hippie.

All the fears of life are expelled by a great love, and love is the only thing that can successfully cope with them. On the contrary, the fear of evil is essentially an unbelieving thing. All weakening anxieties have their roots in practical unbelief.

The tragedy in the loss of courage and boldness on the part of leaders is the latent courage in the young and their readiness to follow those who have a high ideal. The so-called generation gap does not exist; it is a spirit-gap — The distance between

the leaders who are not on fire with the ideals and the followers who are unlighted torches waiting for the flame. The young are as quick to pick out phonies as they are anxious to be inspired by those who are unafraid of being unpopular once truth is at stake.

Our Democratic process sometimes makes for weakness than strength.

A candidate for office keeps his finger on the pulse of the electorate; he finds out by survey what they want and then promises to give it to them, generally at the expense of the public treasury. His campaign is directed to the desires of the people, but never to their needs.

The result is, the electorate is rarely offered a chance to vote for a real leader. It is worth recalling that the majority vote about the Israelites going into the promised Land was 10 to 2. Only Caleb and Joshua favoured it. The masses would have killed the two of them if Moses had not interceded.

In religion and politics alike, leadership will return when a man will not be afraid to make enemies because he loves God above all things.

29th January 2021

FORTITUDE 23

Catholic Voice

St Thomas Aquinas on Fortitude It belongs to the virtue of fortitude to remove any obstacle that withdraws the will from following the reason. Now to be withdrawn from something difficult belongs to the notion of fear, which denotes withdrawal from an evil that entails difficulty... Hence fortitude is chiefly about fear of difficult things, which can withdraw the will from following the reason.

And it behooves one not only firmly to bear the assault of these difficulties by restraining fear, but also moderately to withstand them, when, to wit, it is necessary to dispel them altogether in order to free oneself therefrom for the future, which seems to come under the notion of daring. Therefore fortitude is about fear and daring, as curbing fear and moderating daring.

It belongs to the virtue of fortitude to guard the will against being

withdrawn from the good of reason through fear of bodily evil. Now it +behooves one to hold firmly the good of reason against every evil whatsoever, since no bodily good is equivalent to the good of the reason. Hence fortitude of soul must be that which binds the will firmly to the good of reason in face of the greatest evils: because he that stands firm against great things, will in consequence stand firm against less things, but not conversely. Moreover it belongs to the notion of virtue that it should regard something extreme: and the most fearful of all bodily evils is death, since it does away all bodily goods. Wherefore Augustine says that “the soul is shaken by its fellow body, with fear of toil and pain, lest the body be stricken and harassed with fear of death lest it be done away and destroyed.”

Therefore the virtue of fortitude is about the fear of dangers of death.

Fortitude above all lays claim to praise for steadfastness. Because he that stands firm is so much the more praised, as he is more strongly impelled to fall or recede.

Now man is impelled to recede from that which is in accordance with reason, both by the pleasing good and the displeasing evil.

But bodily pain impels him more strongly than pleasure. For Augustine says (QQ. 83, qu. 36): “There is none that does not shun pain more than he desires pleasure.

For we perceive that even the most untamed beasts are deterred from the greatest pleasures by the fear of pain.” And among the pains of the mind and dangers those are mostly feared which lead to death, and it is against them that the brave man stands firm. Therefore fortitude is a cardinal virtue.

24 SUFFERING

Catholic Voice

29th January 2021

Saint Quotes On Redemptive Suffering For Comfort During Tough Times Scott Smith

Tough times got you down? I thought I would put together some Saint Quotes on redemptive suffering for these tough days of pandemic, political acrimony and strife.

As Pope St. John Paul II said, “don’t waste your suffering!” Read the full story on this quote below….

I hate wasting anything. My family well knows that all food scraps are saved for the chickens, and the chickens turn our scraps into eggs.

So please, don’t let your sufferings go to waste! They are the building blocks that will restore the Church and, from her, the entire world.

Hopefully, these Saint Quotes will help turn our eyes towards heaven.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux on Redemptive Suffering St. Thérèse of Lisieux wrote the following about her own redemptive suffering from her deathbed: “O Mother, it’s very easy to write beautiful things about suffering,

but writing is nothing, nothing!

One must suffer in order to know!

I really feel now that what I’ve said and written is true about everything ... It’s true that I wanted to suffer much for God’s sake, and it’s true that I still desire this ... All I wrote about my desires for suffering. Oh! it’s true just the same! And I am not sorry for delivering myself up to Love. Oh! no, I’m not sorry; on the contrary!”

St. Thérèse of the Little Flower!

Here she speaks of suffering as thorns among her flowers. Only the Little Flower could speak so sweetly of suffering: “I want to suffer and even rejoice for love, for this is my way of scattering flowers. Never a flower shall I find but its petals shall be scattered for you; and all the while I will sing; yes, always sing, even when gathering roses in the midst of thorns; and the longer and sharper the thorns may be, the sweeter shall be my song!”

We’re just getting started ...

(Mother) St. Térèsa of Calcutta on Redemptive Suffering Mother Teresa described redemptive suffering in such sweet, simple terms. Redemptive suffering is the kiss of Christ: “Pain and suffering have come into your life, but remember pain, sorrow, suffering are but the kiss of Jesus — a sign that you have come so close to Him that He can kiss you.”

Here is also St. Teresa’s description of redemptive suffering as the “paradox of love”: “I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.”

Saint Pio (Padre Pio) of Pietrelcina on Redemptive Suffering St. Pio knew suffering in life better than most anyone, save Christ Himself, for Pio bore the wounds of Christ.

Here St. Pio describes redemptive suffering in terms of sacrifice:

29th January 2021

Catholic Voice

SUFFERING 25

“Love Jesus, love Him very much, but to do this, be ready to love sacrifice more.”

And another great quote from St. Pio. Here Padre Pio speaks about the sign of redemptive suffering, the Cross: “The Christian’s motto is the Cross.

You will recognise God’s love by this sign, by the sufferings He sends you.”

There’s still so many great quotes: St. Maria Faustina Kowalska on Redemptive Suffering Saint Faustina described redemptive suffering in her diary. Union with Christ in suffering is a great start, but there is a sweeter fragrance still: “And the Lord said to me, “My child, you please Me most by suffering. In your physical as well as your mental sufferings, My daughter, do not seek sympathy from creatures. I want the fragrance of your suffering to be pure and unadulterated. I want you to detach yourself, not only from creatures, but also from yourself … The more you will come to love suffering, My daughter, the purer your love for Me will be.”

This is an interesting note. Suffering purifies our love for Christ. Also, our suffering may also be purified.

Seeking sympathy and consolation muddies our suffering, for Christ was denied these balms.

St. Josemaria Escriva on Redemptive Suffering Here St. Escriva describes redemptive suffering as the “apostolate of suffering”:

“Those who pray and suffer, leaving action for others, will not shine here on earth; but what a radiant crown they will wear in the kingdom of life! Blessed be the “apostolate of suffering”!

Saint Josemaria Escriva is a saint of so many good quotes! I often wonder what it would have been like to be around this man who seemed to drip with great quotes.

Pope St. John Paul II on Redemptive Suffering Saint John Paul II was actually the first one I quoted: “Don’t waste your suffering!” It doesn’t get much better and succinct than that.

Here’s the full story from Carpe Verbum: Whenever I think of suffering, I’m reminded of a story I heard from a priest years ago. He traveled with a group of priests on a pilgrimage to Rome where they had a chance to meet Pope John Paul II. They knew they’d only have a short meeting

with him and wondered at the words of wisdom he would tell them. One of the priests hurt his leg and had to do most of the pilgrimage limping, with a cast on his foot and crutches.

After their journey and finally at the moment when they’d meet the Pope they approached him one at a time. When the injured priest had his turn, JP2 saw his leg, pulled him in close and whispered in his ear, “Don’t waste your suffering!”

And with that, the visit was done.

Here Pope St. John Paul II describes redemptive suffering as a “share in glory”: “To the prospect of the Kingdom of God is linked hope in that glory which has its beginning in the Cross of Christ. The Resurrection revealed this glory — eschatological glory. … Those who share in the sufferings of Christ are also called, through their own sufferings, to share in glory.”

“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)

26 THE COMMUNIST THREAT

Catholic Voice

29th January 2021

Did Communism Ever Die? Our Current Crisis In Light Of Our Lady Of Fatima Maike Hickson

It seems now to me, looking back, how, while we went to sleep thinking that Communism was effectively dead, other themes and strategies were developed that still aimed at establishing modified Communist systems in the world.

In light of our current election crisis, involving a Joe Biden/Kamala Harris team and with their cooperation with the socialist project of the Great Resent looming over us, much has been said about an impending Communist threat.

Suddenly, we realise how China has been influencing the affairs of the West by way of party members working in Western companies, but also the news that China might have been involved in the current election fraud shook many of us. We suddenly woke up to the reality of a strong and strategic Communist presence in the West.

Bill Clinton proposed a policy of “constructive engagement” with China, and in 2000, the same president granted China permanent normal trade relations with the United States and paving the way for China to join the World Trade Organisation in 2001. How could this have happened, we now ask, that the U.S. would allow itself to be so intertwined with a country – having most of its goods even produced by it – whose political system is so contrary to our Western democracies. Were we sleeping?

That country was still Communist!

Yet, did we not largely think that Communism had essentially died with the fall of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1990s? But let us now look back and reflect upon the question: Did Communism ever die? I am writing these reflections as someone born and raised in Germany and having studied in Germany and lived in Switzerland for some time, and having moved to the U.S. some 13 years ago – that is to say, from a As China expert Steven Mosher recently summed it up so well: European-American perspective.

Looking back, it baffles me how certain key steps were taken right at the formal end of the Soviet Union.

Remember how not long after that political change, the U.S. started trading more intensely with China, something that many conservatives have still called “trading with the enemy.” Already in 1993, President

The #CCP studied 1991 collapse of the USSR They instituted mandatory Patriotic Education, clamped down on dissent. They created a facade of capitalism to deceive us, while infiltrating and undermining American institutions.

They intend to do to us what we did to USSR. Soon.

At the same time, let us consider another aspect of this history: I still remember attending around that time a talk by Josef Joffe, the editorin-chief of the German intellectual newspaper Die Zeit. Speaking to an audience of the University of Zurich in Switzerland, he was promoting the idea of globalism. We are now in the era of globalism. National borders are falling, all nations are getting interconnected.

Where did this sudden change come from? Who came up with the idea, shortly after the perceived fall of Communism, that we need to break national borders apart? At the time, I revolted against the words of Joffe.

They seemed so artificial to me, as if there was a sort of law that forced the world to go down the globalist path. Why did politicians suddenly decide to change the laws in order to make this globalisation possible?

Little did I realise at the time that Joffe was at the time participating at conferences of the Bilderberg Group and the World Economic Forum in Davos.

29th January 2021

THE COMMUNIST THREAT 27

Catholic Voice

Looking back, it now sounds like a change of the propaganda, a change of the code words. Someone decided that things will change in the West.

education of future generations.

We wanted academic freedom and independence, not an academic life that was depending upon financial aspects.

Another example: not long after the “fall” of Communism at the beginning of the 1990s, we in Germany had suddenly the surge of the economisation of education, of partnerships between schools and companies. There was this push for making education pay. For making research pay. As if the work of the mind can be and should be connected with financial outcomes and matters. Where did this new slogan come from?

Finally, there was another strange phenomenon: the United Nations came up with the Agenda 21.

I remember at the time, being a student at the University of Hanover, how a group of students opposed this idea and published articles on it. We were against the economisation of education which would level down the

I remember how one day, at a feast with people from the former Communist part of Germany, I discussed with them this new agenda that had been agreed upon by the United Nations at the Brazil Earth Summit in 1992. Having read about this agenda, I told these acquaintances that this agenda contains such ideas as that one has to share one’s car with one’s neighbour since the environment was to be protected.

The Agenda 21 document, for example, expounded: “Raise public awareness of the environmental

LIBERALISM IS A SIN Don Félix Sardà y Salvany: – was

impacts of transport and travel behaviour through mass media campaigns and support for nongovernmental and community initiatives promoting the use of non-motorised transport, shared driving and improved traffic safety measures.”

Furthermore, they proposed to assist “individuals and households to make environmentally sound purchasing decisions,” which includes “deposit/refund systems,” that is to say, shared ownership of goods.

It sounded so Communist to me at the time, and I remember how my interlocutors shook their heads, too.

They could not believe it, having just been freed from a Communist dictatorship.

By now, this Agenda 21 has been further developed, not only into the

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Holiness Pope Pius X, issued the Encyclical ‘Pascendi Dominici Gregis’ which translates as “Feeding the Lord’s Flock”. Pope Pius X was aware that the Catholic Church had been infiltrated by modernists who were seeking to undermine her doctrines from within.

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28 THE COMMUNIST THREAT

Catholic Voice

29th January 2021

Sustainable Development Goals which are anti-life and pro-birth control. The Davos Economic Forum group just published a video which makes one’s hair stand up. “You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy,” they predict for the year 2030, proposing that in a few years, we will merely “rent” whatever we “want” for a certain period of time, thus repeating the idea that I discussed at the beginning of the 1990s with my acquaintances from formerly Communist Eastern Germany. Private property is to be abolished for the sake of a purported environmental crisis. Remember how the former president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, was first among that new Green Movement at that time?

That he founded, in 1993, a year after the 1992 Earth Summit that agreed upon the Agenda 21 and because of it, the Green Cross Movement? Is this a coincidence?

It seems now to me, looking back, how, while we went to sleep thinking that Communism was effectively dead, other themes and strategies were developed that still aimed at establishing modified Communist systems in the world. National borders were to be weakened, national economies globalised, education levelled down while the largest Communist country in the world, China, was somehow welcomed as a normal partner on the international level.

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On top of all of this, there suddenly also emerged the LGBT agenda. Where did it come from? When did it emerge? Also here, I remember the homosexual lobby (which was the first of that multi-faceted movement) started to get stronger in light of the HIV discussion.

Information booklets about the disease were being used by this lobby to present homosexual relations as something normal. Yes, that was also in the 1990s.

Strange coincidence!

It seems now, in retrospect, as if Communism merely shifted its approaches and agendas, but not its goal. It infiltrated the West more indirectly, by means of soft power, rather than with the help of Soviet tanks.

We need to understand also who stands behind Communism. We might have thought in too limited ways that it was just the Communist party of the Soviet Union that dominated the East. But who prepared and implemented the Communist Revolution?

Here, we can refer to a letter written on November 8, 1918 to the papal nuncio Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli

by Cardinal Felix von Hartmann, a German prelate, in which he warns the Pope of an impending Communist revolution in Germany that aimed at destroying the German monarchy, but also aimed at the Catholic Church.

29th January 2021 Catholic Voice THE COMMUNIST THREAT 29 Von Hartmann wrote on behalf of the German Emperor Willhelm II: “that, according to news that came to him yesterday, the Grand Orient [a Freemasonic lodge] has just decided first to depose all Sovereigns – first of all him, the Emperor – then to destroy the Catholic Church, to imprison the pope, etc and, finally, to establish on the ruins of the former bourgeois society a world republic under the leadership of American Big Capital.

France and America, however, are said to be under the full influence of the Grand Orient. Bolshevism is said to be the external tool to establish the desired conditions.

In the face of such a great danger which threatens in addition to the Monarchy, also the Catholic Church; it is thus important that the German episcopacy be informed and that also the pope be warned.”

As von Hartmann explained, this Communist threat was organised

by Freemasonry. And he said they planned to use people from the U.S. high finance to further this project. That is to say, there are well-connected international financial and Freemasonic elites which funded and organised the Communist Revolution. That very same elite seems now to be analogously organising the Great Reset, and they have been preparing

for it essentially since the fall of the Soviet Union, the moment when most of us had gone to sleep.

Now we are awake. Very much awake. Because we realise our entire way of living is at stake, our liberties, our properties, our children, our churches. As the new Davos Forum video states: “Western values will have been tested to the breaking point.” It is our formative Christian civilisation and way of life that are increasingly at stake. We woke up and face this election fraud, and we do not even know who will win this battle – perhaps those forces that wish us to have no more personal property.

But here we also remember that Our Lady of Fatima said that “the errors of Russia will spread throughout the world,” should Russia not be consecrated by the Pope to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. According to Sister Lucia, in 1946, the United States would also become Communist.

We are approaching it. We stare right into the eyes of this Communist apparatus funded and conceptualised by a global financial-Freemasonic elite. But what now?

Let us call to Our Mother. She was so loving and kind to warn us

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100 years ago; she will surely not abandon us now! She can work the miracle – and she will! – turning men’s hearts back to God. Perhaps even the men of the Great Reset.

Pray God. May we show our fidelity to Christ and fight for every single aspect of truth on the way.

May we refuse to live the lie, which would accustom our minds and souls to adjust to untruth. God is truth!

So while we fight and resist, we pray to Our Lady, to Our Mother, asking her to hold us tight in her hands, leading us to her Son, trusting that she will not let us perish. May we be granted the wisdom and courage that are now needed, may we receive all the Graces we need next.

And let us gaze upon the little baby in the manger, the child of all children, the baby of all babies, that was only acceptable to God the Father as the freely offered ultimate sacrifice. He alone was to be sacrificed so that all may live.

He alone was to die so that the lives of the eternal souls may be with the Father in heaven, for eternity.

But to benefit from this Eternal Sacrifice, we need to follow Him, do right, pray, and resist the subtle violations of the first and the fifth Commandments.

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

29th January 2021

STRENGTHEN YOUR FAITH DURING THIS CRISIS BUY CATHOLIC BOOKS! 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

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EGO EIMI - IT IS I

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

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

SCIENCE SAYS NO

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

SIN AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

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

Reflections on the Abortion Issue in Ireland.

Oxf, Chairman of The Latin Mass Society.

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

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

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

€/£19 inc p&p Ireland €/£22 inc p&p outside Ireland

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CLASSIFIEDS 31

29th 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

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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

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Catholic Voice

29th January 2021

ARISE, O LORD, AND LET THY ENEMIES BE SCATTERED AND LET THEM THAT HATE THEE FLEE BEFORE THY HOLY FACE 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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