Catholic Voice 12th March 2021 Issue 312

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12 March - 26 March 2020

Issue 312

Hail, Glorious Saint Patrick Dear Saint Of Our Isle

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2 CONFESSION

Catholic Voice

12th March 2021

The Parts Of The Sacrament Of Confession Satisfaction Canon Wulfran Lebocq I.C.K.S.P.

This is the last of the three acts of the penitent. Every sin, be it large and grotesque or relatively minor and commonplace, creates a disorder in our soul and in the world God has created. In sin we turn away from God and towards a creature.

Confession turns us back towards God, but there are still “traces” of sin: we need to be purified of our remaining disordered attachment to creatures, whether on earth or in purgatory. We have already seen that, for sins that directly attack another person, we must do our best to repair the damage we have done by our lies, our injustices, our cruelty. From the earliest days of Christianity, the Church has also imposed what is called the “satisfaction” or the “sacramental penance”: a prayer, or pious deed, or act of mortification designed at least partially to redress the disorder caused by sin.

Nowadays these penances are generally very light, since the Church does not wish to scare any sinner away through fear of an excessive penance. To make a good confession it is necessary to be willing to perform the penance which the priest assigns. If, through no fault of our own, it becomes impossible to perform the penance, the confession is still valid, because

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at the time of going to confession we had the intention to satisfying the penance imposed.

Going to confession From the considerations we have just outlined, it should be more or less clear about what one needs to do in order to go to confession: to make a good examination of conscience and then to state our sins calmly and distinctly to the priest.

Generally the priest will then give us some helpful advice or, if something has been unclear, will ask a clarifying question.

He will then, in the name of God whose representative he is, give absolution or pardon for our sins.

Even the most desperate of sinners, after a good confession, goes away restored to a state of friendship with God. A few minutes well spent in the confessional can literally change the balance of our eternity!

Then having performed our penance we are ready to embark again on our quest for an ever closer union with our Saviour. If we have confessed mortal sins, we may be sure that we are once again in the state of grace; if we had committed only venial sins, we leave confession with a more fervent charity.

Like any medicine, confession has a double effect: to cure us of our disease and to strengthen us against future maladies. Those who may be hesitant or who have been away from confession for months or even years should remember that shame ought never to keep us away from this sacrament. It has often been said, the devil takes away our shame when we sin and then restores it to us when it is time for confession. Christ instituted

the sacrament of confession not to condemn sinners but to save us.

There is greater rejoicing in heaven on the conversion of one sinner than in the perseverance of ninetynine just men.

Likewise, the priest himself is there not to condemn but to help. Indeed, the priest himself, like any other man, must humble himself and go to confession. Those who fear that they have made a sacrilegious confession in the past or who have been away for the sacraments for a time or who simply are afraid about confessing this or that sin have only to ask the priest for his help, and he will be very happy to guide the penitent patiently back on the path to God. Surely it is not even necessary for us to point out that the secrecy of the confessional is so absolute that no earthly power could compel a priest into revealing what he has heard for any cause whatsoever.

Above all, let us not be discouraged by our sins, but make use of them to grow in humility. In the words of Saint Francis de Sales, “our sins are shameful when we commit them, but when they are turned to confession and penitence they are a source of spiritual benefit and welfare” (Introduction to the Devout Life, I, 19).

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CONFESSION 3

12th March 2021 Catholic Voice

Miraculous Stories of Mary’s Intercession Extracts from The Glories of Mary

by St Alphonsus Ligouri A certain man in Germany had committed a great sin, and was ashamed to confess it, yet on the other hand he could not endure the remorse which he felt, and went to cast himself into the river; but just as he was on the point of doing so, he stopped, and bursting into tears, prayed God to pardon him without confession.

One night in his sleep he felt someone waking him, and heard a voice saying: Go and make your confession.

He went to the church, but yet did not make his confession. He heard the same voice a second night; again he went to the church, but after he had entered it, said that he would rather die than confess that sin.

He was about to return home, when he thought he would go and recommend himself to the most holy Mary, before her image which was in the church.

He had hardly knelt before it, when he felt himself entirely changed. He immediately arose, called for a confessor, and weeping bitterly, through grace received from the Virgin, made a sincere confession; and he afterwards said that he felt greater satisfaction than if he had gained all the gold in the world.

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----In one of our missions, after the sermon on Mary which it is our custom to preach, a very old man came to one of the Fathers of our congregation, to make his confession. He was full of consolation, and said : “Our Lady has done me a favour.”

“And what favour has she done you?” asked the confessor.

“For thirty-five years, Father, I have made sacrilegious confessions, because I was ashamed of one sin, and yet I have passed through many dangers, and have been several times at the point of death, and if I had died then I certainly would have been lost; and now our Lady has done me the favour to touch my heart;” and when he said this he wept so bitterly, that he seemed to be all tenderness.

After the Father had heard his confession, he asked him what devotion he had practiced, and he answered that he had never failed on Saturday to keep a strict fast in honour of Mary, and therefore the Virgin had taken pity on him, and he gave the Father permission to publish the fact in his sermons.

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4 ADVERT

Catholic Voice

Fear Not..!!

12th March 2021 Isaiah 41:10

From the desk of Patrick McCrystal…..

Year of St Joseph 2020-21 Dear Catholic Voice reader, Let’s not be afraid of covid or anything else! Be strong, and of good courage!

YOU are called by Christ not to be afraid – of covid, viruses, vaccines, hospitalisation, isolation, loss of Eucharist, loss of sacraments, death, potential state coercion, fear-mongering, loss of job, economy collapse, ‘globalist’ control, non conformity or loss of loved ones.

Victory in Christ: Christ has overcome the world, satan, powers of death, oppression and fear. You and I are called to Victory in Christ. We are configured for Victory – especially if you are in a state of grace. We are called to hope, peace, joy.

When you have the rosary, scripture and St. Joseph, you are in a GREAT situation – even if we find ourselves without the Eucharist! Our Irish ancestors endured suppression of the Mass by clinging to the Rosary.

Primary Duty: Our primary duty is to remain close to God, remain in a state of grace, trust in him and allow Him to guide you step by step, day, by day. We call on Our Lady, St. Joseph (Terror of Demons) and ‘pray’ the scriptures into our lives.

Be of Good Courage: Whether you are someone who is terrified of the virus, terrified you or your loved ones might be smitten, or if St Joseph - Terror of Demons you are someone less concerned with the virus and more concerned by our loss of freedoms, coercion and forced vaccines; either way – you are called to fear not, be strong and of good courage!

The Rosary, Scripture and St. Joseph are great key steps, even should the Eucharist become unavailable.

All in His Hands: There are clearly forces at work beyond our control – forces with power, influence and money. We must turn to the Lord in prayer. We must deal with these circumstances with expectant faith.

Christ has allowed these forces to manifest. How do we make sense of oppression, isolation, masks, distancing and loved ones’ deterioration of health?

The Church, her ministry and all of society is being oppressed in the name of covid. It’s not hard to see the fear all around us and fear is not from God. God has a battle plan – a way forward.

It is a very exciting time to be a Catholic, exercise our faith and watch His power unfold.

Hallmarks of Communism: It more clearly appears that this covid situation is now being used by global forces to implement what even Time magazine terms the so-called “Great Reset” scheduled to begin in 2021. The personalities and organisations involved are seeking to create a “new” world which has all the hallmarks of communism – creating a “utopia” without God, and all will be dependent on the “state.”

However, communism has failed before and it will fail again.

We Already Have The Tools: Our Lord gave us Holy Face devotion as heaven’s remedy to atheistic communism. The Catholic Church adopted St. Joseph as her patron in the fight against communism. The rosary was given at Fatima to bring peace to the world. Our Lady told us Heaven’s Remedy to in Fatima to pray that Russia be converted. The Five First Saturdays are heavens template to atheistic communism The Holy Face of Jesus. appease God and make reparation for the offenses of men.

12th March 2021 Catholic Voice

ADVERT 5

Here’s what YOU can DO!.

1) Order your “FEAR NOT” 2021 Rosary Calendar. Never was the rosary so sorely needed!

From the day it arrives, start praying and recording your rosaries daily! Your rosary calendar contains quotes on St. Joseph, inspirational scriptures for victory and freedom in your life!

Remember what Pope Leo XIII said about the rosary: “Those who gather to recite the rosary are ... “the battalions who fight the battle of Christ, armed with His Sacred Mysteries, and under the banner and guidance of the Heavenly Queen.”

2) Scriptures for Victory: On our website find our sheet scriptures for victory in the Catholic life www.humanlife.ie I pray them myself virtually every day. These scriptures I have found dispel fear, dissolve problems, give peace, strengthen faith, foster confidence and give a good nights sleep! If you awaken in the night, recite one of them till you fall back to sleep! Learn them one by one off by heart! They won’t disappoint you.

See our youtube video “Send Fear Packing” on our website www.humanlife.ie where my colleague Lisa and I discuss six of these scriptures and explain how to use them!!

3) Weekly Hli Rosary Prayer Hour: Join our HLI rosary prayer hour weekly every Wednesday Join us on Zoom evening at 7:30pm. (Tune in at 7:15pm to ensure your equipment is working.) We are conducting this prayer hour in support of you and all your needs and intentions at this time of strain in our Each Wednesday Night 7:30pm. nation. Let’s build up the Catholic prayer community! You are not on your own!

To join, I need your email or your whatsapp mobile number! Write this on enclosed reply form and mail back asap.

4) Get consecrated to St. Joseph. Its dynamite! Order the Consecration to St Joseph book from our HLI office! It’s a 33 day consecration. The book is packed with quotes of the Saints! It will change your life!

St Joseph has ALL the merits of all the other saints. He is the highest saint in heaven. He is “Terror of Demons!” He is Patron of the Universal Church. I am sending this book to you at no profit COST price to us – that’s €20 total , which includes €9 postage.

Be NOT AFRAID!

Sincerely,

Patrick McCrystal, Executive Director, Human Life International (Ireland)

Yes Patrick:

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Return to: HLI Ireland, Main Street, Knock, Co. Mayo. Tel 09493 75993 email mail@humanlife.ie www.humanlife.ie Please make all cheques payable to HLI Ireland. Thank you.

6 ATTACKING THE VULNERABLE

Catholic Voice

12th March 2021

Western Nations Claim To Protect The Vulnerable, But Attack Them More Than Ever Jonathon Van Maren

It is an ugly irony that while Western nations lock down entire populations in their attempt to “protect the weak and vulnerable” from COVID-19, our growing eugenic mindset has been starkly highlighted in nearweekly news stories.

Most prominently, there is the revelation that — as many conservatives both suspected and reported — New York Governor Andrew Cuomo hid the true numbers of nursing home deaths in his state. Cuomo had ordered nursing homes to admit or readmit COVID patients, and the virus felled thousands as a result. As Cuomo scrabbles angrily to control the damage to his career, New York Democrats have been stunned to realise that the death count is at least 50% higher than Cuomo’s government reported, with nearly 13,000 dead.

Cuomo’s irritated response to persistent questions about the parents and grandparents who died on his watch and because of his policies: “Who cares [where they died]? They died!”

More chilling still is news from the United Kingdom that, despite protests by disability groups, people with learning disabilities have been given do-not-resuscitate orders — DNRs — during the COVID-19 pandemic in a callous analysis of their worth. According to the Care Quality Commission, this has likely caused avoidable deaths. The disabled and those with learning disabilities have been particularly hard hit, with the Office for National Statistics reporting that this constituency makes up 60% of the COVID death toll.

According to The Guardian, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care stated: “It is completely unacceptable for ‘do not attempt CPR’ decisions to be applied in a blanket fashion to any group of people. This has never been policy and we have taken action to prevent this from happening.”

These DNRs should prompt difficult questions about how we value those with disabilities and how this decision came about in the first place.

Across the Atlantic, Canada’s Senate has passed Bill C-7, a massive expansion of euthanasia and assisted suicide. The legislation (which will return to the House of Commons for a debate and vote on Senate amendments) would permit, for the first time, euthanasia for people with mental illness and incompetent people who use an advanced directive to request death.

Euthanasia for those with mental illness was not originally included, but Liberal Justice Minister David Lametti had already stated last fall that he intended to work on providing this lethal service to the mentally ill.

Even Canada’s homogenously progressive media has been sounding the alarm at this legislation. It has made no difference.

But perhaps the most horrifying example comes from India, where a judge has ordered a 15-year-old girl to get an abortion despite the fact that she had initially stated she did not want one. Due to her refusal, the girl’s aunt had asked a court to allow the abortion to proceed, and the court had ruled against her.

On appeal, Justice GR Swaminathan of the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court overturned that decision, ruling that the forced abortion could proceed because “[i]f a choice is given to the foetus now in the womb of the minor, it would definitely proclaim that it would not wish to be born.”

12th March 2021

ATTACKING THE VULNERABLE 7

Catholic Voice

As repellant as the judge’s statement is, his words are a perfect encapsulation of a view we see taking root everywhere: That some lives are worth less than others because some lives are less worth living.

Canadian politicians look at the disabled, and seek to provide them a way to kill themselves; medical professionals look at the disabled, and add DNRs to their files; a judge looks at a young, pregnant girl and speaks for her child, imaging that death would be preferable to a life he cannot imagine living.

DO NOT RESUSCITATE

All of this says so much more about us than it does about those we refuse to value — and it makes a mockery of our claims to care about the weak and vulnerable.

The Cord Of Saint Joseph

The devotion to the Cord of St. Joseph took its rise in Belgium, in 1637, in consequence of a miraculous cure effected by the wearing of this precious girdle. During this year of Saint Joseph you may wish to wear the cord to avail of the GRACES ATTACHED TO THE WEARING OF THE CORD. Graces precious to the piety of St. Joseph’s servants are attached to the wearing of this cord. They are: 1. St. Joseph’s special protection 2. Purity of soul; 3. The grace of chastity; 4. Final perseverance; 5. Particular assistance at the hour of death.

The pack containing a St. Joseph’s Cord, a prayer card, St. Joseph’s medal and an information leaflet is available now for €/£10 (inc. p&p).

To order your cord/s please complete the form below or visit www.catholicvoice.ie/shop.

Please send me ___ (insert number required) St Joseph’s cord/s

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8 THE LENTEN BATTLE

Catholic Voice

12th March 2021

On The Battle Theme of Lent Monsignor Charles Pope

A brief observation of the first two days in Lent reveals militaristic, even violent imagery in the battle against sin and the unruly passions of the flesh. The Collect (opening prayer) of Ash Wednesday provides an image of troops mustering for battle: “Grant, O Lord, that we may begin with holy fasting this campaign of Christian service, so that, as we take up battle against spiritual evils, we may be armed with weapons of self-restraint.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.”

“Battle,” “weapons,” and “armed” all clearly have military connotations, but so does the phrase “campaign of Christian service” if we look at the Latin text: praesidia miltiae Christianae. The service or action (praesidia) is one of Christian battle or militancy (militiae). This refers to the Church Militant—the Church here on earth—waging war against sin and the kingdom of darkness.

Thus the opening prayer on Ash Wednesday announced and summoned us to a battle that is engaged by the Church with special intensity during Lent.

The Gospel for Thursday after Ash Wednesday also has a battle theme.

Jesus says, If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it (Luke 9:2325).

The battle theme is particularly apparent if one looks at the Greek text. The word translated as “lose” in English does not capture the vigour of the Greek word ἀπόλλυμι (apollumi). Apollumi comes from the root apó, meaning away from, with the intensifier ollymi, “to destroy.” Thus apollumi means to fully destroy, cutting off entirely.

It implies permanent or absolute destruction.

So when Jesus says we must “lose” our life, it is really far stronger than the English translation captures.

Losing our life involves a kind of violent overthrow of our worldly notions and the deep drives of sin.

We must lose. That is, we must see utterly destroyed and cut off all things worldly, fleshly, and of the devil. This is war and it is going to involve more than a mumbled, halfhearted prayer on our part. Scripture says, In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the

point of shedding your blood (Heb 12:4).

So behold the militaristic imagery in Lent. To arms!

The idea of such a battle might overwhelm us if we thought it must all be done in one day. Jesus says that we should take up our cross daily. Our daily cross is vital to our success. It’s not our weekly cross, or our monthly cross, or our yearly cross. We ought to do each day what we should do. If we put off or postpone the daily cross, the problems pile up. A monthly cross can seem overwhelming, and a yearly cross might seem impossible.

Everyday discipline is crucial.

Soon enough, the daily discipline becomes virtue; it becomes a good habit that one accomplishes fairly easily. To take up our cross daily is to endure short-term pain for longterm gain.

The battle is engaged! Fight it daily.

Fight it with the Lord. Understand that it is battle, but in Jesus (and only in Jesus) the victory is won.

Stay on the winning side and fight daily to the end.

12th March 2021 Catholic Voice

ST PATRICK 9

St Patrick’s Breastplate Anthony Hofler

A well-known modern hymn is said to be based on “Saint Patrick’s Breastplate,” but the Breastplate (according to its presentation on a card available from the Guadalupe Centre, Main Street, Knock, Co. Mayo) was more extensive than the hymn.

As well as the familiar hopes for Christ to be, for example, above me, below me, at my right hand, at my left hand, in eyes that see me, and in ears that hear me, the Saint listed things which (by the prayer) “I bind to myself this day,” and by which he wished to be protected. The things which he bound to himself comprised specified attributes of God, and the power of specified aspects of Christ’s Earthly mission and its completion. True Christians throughout the ages have wished to bind to themselves with all of those things, and each of those

things is safely-uncontroversial and untroubling to the Church’s many modem enemies.

The distinctive feature of the “Breastplate” is that it goes beyond ecclesiastical confinement to what St. Oscar Romero called “very nice, pious considerations that don’t bother anyone, [which] avoid every thorny matter so as ... not to have conflicts and difficulties” (“The Catholic Times,” 25th July 2010, p.13). St. Patrick’s declared purpose in binding to himself the specified things was to protect himself against other things, including “the snares of demons,” “the temptations of vices,” “the lusts of nature,” “the enchantments of false prophets,” “the black laws of heathenism,” and “the false laws of heresy.”

Do you hear such expressions

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10 ST PATRICK

Catholic Voice

from today’s holders of religious office? A verse of “Hail, Glorious Saint Patrick” mentions (unless they have been expunged from re-printed hymn books) “the war against sin” and “the fight for the faith,” and exhortations to “resist unto death.” How common is it to hear those themes? Contrary to St. Patrick’s desire for protection, there is unlimited praise for the snares, temptations, lusts, enchantments, and laws which he abhorred, and equivocation among people who should be foremost in opposing them. Someone who thinks that protection against physical illness is basic common sense can be completely relaxed about religious illness, portraying it even as a sign of health. As Dawn Eden wrote, “The moment you allow chinks in your spiritual armour, the spirit of darkness will seep in like a lethal gas” (“The Thrill of the Chaste - Finding Fulfilment While Keeping Your Clothes On,” Catholic edition, Ave Maria Press; 2015, p.157).

Plainly that has happened. Things from which St. Patrick wanted to be protected are entrenched throughout society. Would he have recommended looking the other way and living as if all is well? Surely he would have urged not only prayer and penance but also remedial effort by concrete, practical, organised action. Despite the now-daunting scale of the task, people who care enough must get involved.

On paper, Church teaching mandates that involvement, but there seems a very widespread lack of support for it. Much more evident are a focus on purely-prayerful, devotional ‘activities’ and attention to ‘social service’ forms of solicitude for the clichéd ‘most vulnerable members of society’ such as the lonely, the homeless, the impoverished, the distressed, and so on. Piety and corporal works of mercy are not inferior; not at all.

They have impeccable Scriptural ‘credentials’. They are, however, not the limit of required Catholic action, just as “the war against sin” and “the fight for the faith” would be inadequate if pursued to the neglect or exclusion of prayer and of help for the disadvantaged.

The Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Basil Hume, OSB, once mentioned that the Church is not like an army marching in formation, but like a group of

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12th March 2021

travellers in a desert. Probably he intended thereby not merely to make a statement of fact but also to indicate his preference. People who prefer that innocuous type of travelling to marching in formation tend to give an impression of indifference to “the banners of darkness” being “boldly unfurled.”

Pope Francis seems to give enigmatically-contradictory and confusing signals of his own position. He has criticised “the globalisation of indifference,” and the ‘What does it matter to me?’ mentality, but seems to be as indifferent as most people are to the inculturation of certain grave sins which he categorised as secondary aspects of the Church’s message.

He has noted that many people, including consecrated ones, equate spiritual life with a few religious exercises which can offer a certain comfort instead of engagement with other people. Many, he said, although they pray, develop a sort of inferiority complex which leads them to relativise or conceal their Christian identity and convictions, and develop a kind of obsession about being like everyone else.

Yet he seems ‘cool, on the idea that Catholics should be different from everyone else in the sense of resisting legal and cultural adoption of intrinsically-sinful practices; instead of urging us to pull down such “banners of darkness,” he wants the Church to be a field hospital after battle.

The Church does, indeed, have a legitimate function of healing the wounded, but to refrain from trying to defeat the enemy is a dereliction of duty. Pastors, from the Pope down to the priests, should (firmly, not limply) exhort the ‘faithful’ to do that. Our Lord s kingship applies socially as well as individually: “no human activity, even of the temporal order, can be withdrawn from God’s dominion” (“Catechism of the Catholic Church,” paragraph 912).

Therefore, “by uniting their forces” the laity should “remedy the institutions and conditions of the world when the latter are an inducement to sin,” so that the practice of virtue is favoured rather than hindered (ibid., paragraph 909).

The ‘troops’ need, of course, to understand what is at stake. So they need a correct understanding of what is virtue and what is sin. They do not always receive such correct understanding from their ‘officers,’ some of whom are in sympathy with the other side. Committed ‘troops’ need, therefore, to educate themselves and unite and organise their forces as best they can.

12th March 2021

Catholic Voice

ST PATRICK 11

St Patrick’s Breastplate I Bind to Myself this day, The Strong Virtue of the Invocation of the Most Holy Trinity, The Faith of the Most Holy Trinity in Unity, The Creator of the Elements.

I have Invoked all these Virtues, Against Every Hostile, Savage Power Warring upon my Body and my Soul, Against the Enchantments Of False Prophets,

I bind to Myself this day, The Power of the Incarnation of Christ And His Baptism, The Power of His Crucifixion With His Burial, The Power of His Ressurection With His Ascension The Power of His Coming To the sentence of the Judgement.

Against Black Laws of heathenism, Against the False Laws of Heresy, Against the Deceits of Idolatry, Against the Spells of Women, Magicians, and Druids, Against All Knowledge which Binds The Soul of Man.

I Bind to Myself this day, The Power in the Love of Seraphim, In the Obedience of Angels, In the Hope of Resurrection unto Reward, In the Prayers of the Patriarchs, In the Predictions of Prophets, In the Preaching of Apostles, In the Faith of Confessors, In the Purity of Virgins, In the Deeds of Holy Men. I Bind to Myself this day, The Power of God to Guide me, The Might of God to Uphold me, The Wisdom of God to Teach me, The Eye of God to Watch over me, The Ear of God to Hear me, The Word of God to Give me Speech, The Hand of God to Protect me, The Way of God to lie Before me, The Shield of God to Shelter me, The Host of God to Defend me Against the Snares of Demons, Against the Temptations of Vices, Against the Lusts of Nature, Against Every Man that Meditates Injury to me Whether Far or Near, Whether Alone or with Many.

Christ Protect me this day, Against Poison, against Burning, Against Drowning, against Wounding, That I may receive abundant Reward.

Christ be With me, Christ Before me, Christ be After me, Christ Within me, Christ Below me, Christ Above me, Christ at my Right hand, Christ at my Left, Christ in the Heart of Every Man Who Thinks of me Christ in the Mouth of Every Man Who Speaks of me, Christ in Every Eye that Sees me, Christ in Every Ear that Hears me.

I Bind to myself this day, The Strong Faith of the Invocation of the Most Holy Trinity The Faith of the Most Holy Trinity in Unity, The Creator of the Elements Salvation is the Lord’s Salvation is from Christ, Thy Salvation, O Lord, be with us for Ever.

Amen.

12 THE ONE THING NECESSARY

Catholic Voice

12th March 2021

And Because Iniquity Hath Abounded, The Charity Of Many Shall Grow Cold But He That Shall Persevere To The End, He Shall Be Saved (Matthew 24:12-13) John Lacken Let us begin with a prayer for our bishops imploring God that they will allow us to return to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for Easter.

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

I have recently had to move house as my landlord and his wife needed to move back into the house we were living in because they have sold their other house. Moving house is quite a stressful business and we were under a little pressure because the people who had bought our landlord’s house wanted to move in as soon as possible.

We got the news about the house just before Christmas and I decided not to do anything until the New Year. I was conscious of the need to move and I found two houses that would somewhat suit, but neither were not quite what we needed.

One had no external storage space, the other would have left us tight for space. I decided to take the one that would have left us tight for space even though I had misgivings. My wife could see that I was not happy but I felt under pressure to take this house.

Certain circumstances arose which mitigated against this choice and once again I felt under pressure to then take the other house because we had to move. Thank God, I realised that I was putting my faith in my own ability to sort out this problem and, whilst I had asked God’s blessing on my decision, I

was giving Him a secondary role in the whole process.

I knelt before my picture of the Sacred Heart and I apologised to Him for my lack of faith and trust.

I turned down both of the houses I had been looking at and put my trust totally in St Joseph, Our Lady and the Sacred Heart. I also sent out a prayer request to a group of which I am a member.

One of the members of the group sent me a listing for a house which I had seen online but had not considered before because the town where I believed the house was situated did not suit. I looked at the house online again and calculated the distances from other nearby towns. I then realised that it was much closer than I had previously thought and that there was a town of the same name near Ballyhaunis which I had confused it with.

I am growing weary of the fact that Covid19 so dominates our lives at present and that nearly all conversations eventually come around to this topic of intense debate. We had a week in our home recently where we tried not to mention the ‘C’ word. However, Covid19 showed its hand again as the estate agent told me that they were not allowed to show people houses under Level5 restrictions.

This led to an interesting conversation which included talk of vaccines and the Catholic Voice, and eventually I managed to get a viewing of the house without meeting any representative of the Estate Agency.

When we walked in the door of the house, the very first thing I noticed

was a traditional Sacred Heart lamp flickering in the kitchen, just waiting for our family’s signed Sacred Heart picture to be placed above it. The owner told us that he had only renewed the lamp on the day that we viewed the house as the previous tenants did not seem interested in it. In a conversation with him, where I told him that we have great devotion to the Sacred Heart and that we pray the family rosary daily, I found out that he was from a family of nine children and that he remembered all eleven of them kneeling for family prayers in the evenings in the room where the Sacred Heart image was placed.

I signed the rental contracts for the house and subsequently, God blessed us abundantly, more than I could have ever imagined or asked for. He provided for all of our house moving needs through good friends who helped out in various ways.

I would like to thank God for His great goodness to us and to thank those friends who helped in various material, physical and prayerful ways with our house moving. I have included our new address at the bottom of the next page for those who want to correspond with ‘The Lumen Fidei Institute’. I have redirected mail from the old house so if you have written recently, please be assured that we will get your correspondence.

I share this story because it really gave me hope at a time when I was struggling. I still struggle, as we all must, and I am aware that the devil does not like it when God clearly shows His Hand. The devil increases his efforts to overcome us and we may get new battle scars from this.

12th March 2021

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THE ONE THING NECESSARY 13

Once again, the message of abandonment to Divine Providence was revealed to me. God is our loving Father and He desires to shower us with blessings if only we humble ourselves and trust in Him and allow Him to direct our lives and to provide for us.

“A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit: a contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”

(Psalm 50:19) This is not to say that we do nothing. We should go about our daily business and do the things that we need to do, but all of these efforts should be relying on God for the answers.

One of the other lessons I learned from this move was the need for detachment. In the last fourteen years, our family has accumulated an awful lot of stuff. Our new house is quite a bit smaller than those we have lived in previously, and so we have had to be quite ruthless in getting rid of stuff. I had to detach myself from my beloved book collection, which comprised over six hundred books, and thank God I have found good homes for them.

The words of Our Lord to St Martha are applicable here.

“And the Lord answering, said to her: Martha, Martha, thou art careful, and art troubled about many things: But one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41-42) Speaking of the “one thing necessary”, I must turn once again to the fact that the practice of our Catholic Faith is being actively suppressed by our government. We are living through a time of intense diabolical persecution cleverly disguised as being necessary on account of an invisible virus.

One of our bishops recently wrote the following in a Pastoral message to his diocese.

“We need to let our political leaders know that God and our worship of Him are central to us; they are utterly essential.”

This begs a couple of questions. If this bishop really believes that our worship of God is “utterly essential” as he has stated, then why is he denying the faithful access to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass by closing the churches in his diocese?

Does this bishop believe that the virus is more powerful than God? If not, then why are the Catholics entrusted to his care by God not allowed to worship Him at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?

Has this bishop instructed the priests of his diocese to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in private homes or at the old Mass Rocks?

The bishop tells us to contact our political leaders. Is he now saying that Catholic Worship is a privilege allowed to us by the government and not something that is under the authority of the bishops?

Such an attitude flies in the face of Catholic Church history where the Church has always resisted the secular authority’s encroachment on Catholic Worship, even to the point of martyrdom. Many of the words of Pope Pius X, in his encyclical letter ‘Vehementer Nos’, which was written against the French government’s laws of separation, can easily be applied to the situation we now find ourselves in here in Ireland. For example: “You have seen the sanctity and the inviolability of Christian marriage outraged by legislative acts in formal contradiction with them; the schools and hospitals laicized...;” Is this not what we have witnessed happening in Ireland over the last

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14 THE ONE THING NECESSARY forty to fifty years? Catholic marriage has been attacked by the government and has been legally reduced to the same status as two homosexual men sharing a bed together in the same house.

It is incumbent on Catholics not to cooperate in those areas where the state suppresses our Catholic Worship, and I implore our readers to do all in your power to resist these unjust laws which deny us access to Our Saviour Jesus Christ in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

As a father of eight children, when I realised that neither the State nor the Catholic schools in this country were providing properly for the Catholic education of my children, I, with my wife, took it upon ourselves to do our best to make sure our children were properly educated in the Catholic Faith. We protected them as best we could from secular education and educated them at home.

I do not claim to be a great father, far from it, I am very aware of my sinful tendencies and of my many failures, but I did not co-operate with the state or with those Catholic authorities who failed to protect our Catholic schools, in allowing the faith of my children to be destroyed.

The bishops are supposed to act as fathers in protecting and providing for the flocks entrusted to their care

by Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Christ commanded them, through the apostle Peter, to feed His sheep.

As a father, I call on our bishops to do their duty before God, and to re-open our Catholic Churches for Catholic Worship so that the flock entrusted to their care by Jesus Christ may be truly fed. If the state decides to arrest all of the bishops, then so be it, at least it will bring the persecution out into the open.

Listen to the apostle to the gentiles describing what he suffered for the faith in his second letter to

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the Corinthians, and then let us prayerfully reflect and ask ourselves, are we doing enough for those entrusted to our care?

“They are the ministers of Christ (I speak as one less wise): I am more; in many more labours, in prisons more frequently, in stripes above measure, in deaths often.

“Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren.

In labour and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

Besides those things which are without: my daily instance, the solicitude for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is scandalized, and I am not on fire?

If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things that concern my infirmity.

The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever, knoweth that I lie not.

At Damascus, the governor of the nation under Aretas the king, guarded the city of the Damascenes, to apprehend me. And through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and so escaped his hands.”

(2 Corinthians 11:23-33) When we read these words of St Paul it is obvious that the last few generations of Catholics in Ireland have had a comfortable existence.

We are not properly prepared for the persecution that is upon us and I fear that many will fall away.

We can tend to be like St Peter, impetuous in our declarations

12th March 2021 of fidelity to God, but with little resistance when temptations and persecution come along.

“Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of me this night; for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”

Peter declared to him, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.”

Jesus said to him, “Truly, I say to you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.”

Peter said to him, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.”

(Matthew 26:31-35) Then St Peter is presented with the test.

“Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a maid came up to him, and said, “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.”

But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you mean.”

And when he went out to the porch, another maid saw him, and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.”

And again he denied it with an oath, “I do not know the man.”

After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Certainly you are also one of them, for your accent betrays you.”

Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.”

And immediately the cock crowed.

And Peter remembered the saying of

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THE ONE THING NECESSARY 15

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Jesus, “Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.” (Matthew 26:69-75)

St Peter Penitent - Guido Reni (1575-1642)

There is a beautiful painting of the penitent St Peter, by the Italian artist Guido Reni. There is a tear running down St Peter’s cheek. I had it for sale in a shop I used to run in Knock.

One day, a lady was looking at the picture when she suddenly collapsed into a chair, shaking uncontrollably.

I immediately went to her assistance and asked her what was the matter, thinking I might have to call a doctor.

She looked at me and said, “poor St Peter”, “I was looking at the picture and I just thought how sorrowful he must have felt for denying Our Lord and I was overcome with tears.”

There is a lesson here for all of us.

This Lent let us ask for the grace of tears for our many sins and the grace never to offend God again.

The Five First Saturdays

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

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

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 CHRIST’S HEALING

Catholic Voice

12th March 2021

The Healing of Memories Steve Greco

Jesus tells us repeatedly that we are to live a life of grace, a life of healing, and a life of abundance.

Jesus wants to heal us emotionally and heal our deepest wounds and memories.

One of the most important areas of healing, and also one of the biggest obstacles, is the healing of our memories. Our woundedness in this area prevents us from receiving the grace that God wants to give us.

It often leads to an attitude of not wanting to forgive because of our deep wounds and pain.

God Must Grant It Think about a memory that is particularly difficult to forget and has caused pain and challenges for you emotionally. Don’t know what it is? Ask God to reveal it to you. For me it was my inability to express myself as a small child and having my father and a room full of adults laughing at me.

When you recall your painful memory, put Jesus at the centre of it. Picture His face smiling at you.

Look at the entire room and what is happening around you. When the pain gets too severe, continue to focus on Jesus. Receive the comfort of His love. Walk over to Him and have Him hug you and reassure you of His love for you.

Then ask God to heal that negative memory in you.

In order to be healed, we need help to get beyond the pain. Often that can mean getting professional help.

It is critical that we understand that God’s miracles sometimes flow through trained healing professionals such as psychologists and psychiatrists. Burying our memories is never the right

solution. We can’t continue to do the same thing and expect to get a different result.

My family and I spent a lot of time in therapy. I am not ashamed of it.

In fact, I highly recommend therapy for many if not most people. If you find yourself engaging in addictive behaviours and feel stuck, seek professional help. Look at it this way: if you had a medical issue, wouldn’t you go to a medical doctor? If you have an issue of dealing with painful memories, you also need professional help.

No Quick-Fix Solutions The healing of memories is a process. It is not going to happen without prayer. Ask the Lord in contemplative prayer to show you what memories are causing negative behaviours in your life.

For most of us, these memories are lodged deep within our unconscious mind. They are too painful to deal with emotionally, so we bury them.

The problem? They eventually come out in our behaviour without us realising it. They cause anger and we don’t know why. They may cause addictive behaviours we can’t seem to control.

Once we have identified the painful memory and the emotions connected to it, it is critical that we go to Mass on a regular basis to get the grace needed to get past the memory and heal the wound.

The Eucharist is the single best solution for healing of any kind, especially healing of memories.

Why do we not realise that? Most of us wouldn’t want to miss eating and drinking, but we don’t think we need to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus on a regular basis. Wrong!

Without the grace of the Eucharist we are too weak to overcome emotional trauma in our lives.

Mass is not the only critical sacrament. Frequent reconciliation is necessary for God’s miracles to flow through us and heal our memories and addictions.

We need to look with spiritual eyes on the importance of reconciliation.

To make a good reconciliation, it takes a lot of upfront prayer asking God to reveal to you what is blocking you from achieving the healing required. We prepare for reconciliation by opening ourselves up, by reflecting on sin and darkness in our lives, and by asking for the light of Christ.

What Do We Need?

One simple question to ask is this: what does God want to give me in respect to forgiveness and healing?

Often our answer is “I don’t have a clue.” That only means we haven’t spent enough time in prayer. Some priests recommend an extensive reconciliation that encompasses our entire life (sometimes called a general confession). While this might not be the right solution for you, it is helpful for looking at patterns in our lives that are blocking memories that need to be healed by Jesus.

Many of us have deep trauma in our lives from childhood. Often this leads to shame and not feeling good about ourselves. Many people feel that if there is anything which makes us feel bad about ourselves it should be avoided at all costs.

Our prayer to God should be to overcome our shame and even guilt for our part in whatever happened and ask for it to come to the surface.

It is common that we have deep guilt

12th March 2021 for what we have done but have not forgiven ourselves. Perhaps we have been unfaithful to a spouse or in a relationship, lied in order to achieve personal gain, or cheated in some endeavour. Whatever we did, we feel bad about ourselves and just want to forget it. Now is the time to get past the guilt and pain. Yes, only God can cause that to happen.

Trust Is The Key In being healed of our painful memories, we must trust in His love. God’s love is unconditional and eternal. We are precious in His eyes because He made us in His image and has given us every spiritual blessing. His desire is for us to be holy, in order for us to achieve the purpose of our lives.

God wants to break our bondage to our painful memories. He desires us to have complete freedom. He

Catholic Voice knows what truly needs to be healed in our lives. Just let God in and watch the miracles flow!

In today’s world, many of the painful memories involve sexual issues.

Pornography use is a rampant sin and a crisis today. Many people don’t want to deal with the reasons why they let pornography, sexual immorality, or masturbation into their lives. It is a huge problem that has invaded our Church and other denominations as well.

A Call To Honesty Do you live a double life? Do you, on the surface, look like a strong Catholic, but in reality, are you leading a secret life? This secret behaviour has led to sinful habitual behaviour that you can’t control. You tell yourself that this

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17

is the last time, but it is not. You fall back into the sinful behaviour time and time again. What must change? You must let God heal you of the root cause of the sinful behaviour. Usually it is something that happened to us, often from our childhood. This has to be healed.

In order to be healed we need to understand how much God wants to forgive us and heal us. The moment that we feel sorrow for our part in our own sinful behaviour and desire forgiveness and healing, we begin the process of reconciliation with God. We begin to experience the tremendous compassion, love, forgiveness, and mercy of God. We are in the process of being transformed into the son or daughter of God who is fully healed of emotional wounds.

Jesus Heals The Ten Lepers - James Tisot (1836 - 1902)

18 BOYCOTT CADBURYS

Catholic Voice

12th March 2021

Every Catholic Should Permanently Boycott Cadbury’s Chocolate Christopher Monckton of Brenchley During Lent, many Catholics give up chocolate. Then, at Easter, they celebrate with Easter eggs.

However, no Catholic should ever again eat Cadbury’s chocolate or hold Cadbury’s shares or have anything to do with that corporation.

For Cadbury’s advertisement to “celebrate” the 50th year of its dangerously sugary “Crème Egg” features a pair of homosexual men kissing. Bear in mind that the chief audience for Cadbury’s confections is children. Cadbury’s seems to consider it appropriate that – at the Christian feast of Easter, and in an advertisement for a confection traditionally sold at Easter-time and to celebrate the Church’s greatest feast – not only adults but innocent children should be exposed to intimate and explicit sexual misconduct between a reallife pair of homosexuals.

Already, 32,000 people – most of them Catholics – have signed a petition opposing this dangerous and calculatedly distasteful advertisement.

It may be that Cadbury’s and their spin-doctors had imagined that by provoking a storm about the advertisement they would greatly increase the sales of their diabetesinducing product. However, this strategy – if that is what it was – has backfired. Even homosexuals have expressed their displeasure and disappointment at this dismal attempt to exploit them for commercial gain.

The petition to remove the advertisement says: “By choosing to feature a same-sex couple, Cadbury’s are clearly hoping to cause controversy and escape criticism, by claiming that any objections must be rooted in

ADULT CONTENT WARNING NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN NOT SUITABLE FOR CATHOLICS!

‘homophobia’, but members of the Lesbian, homosexual, bisexual and transgender community have also expressed their dislike of this campaign.

“Cadbury’s should not be seeking to hide under cover of Lesbian, homosexual, bisexual and transgender rights to conduct a campaign which sexually objectifies individuals. If the couple in question were heterosexual, the advertisement would likely be prohibited, given the sexually explicit and graphic nature of the kiss.”

I have watched this repellent and disgusting video. It shows two ill-shaven adult homosexuals snogging, using their lips and tongues to exchange the gelatinous contents of a Creme Egg in a fashion that is intended to be sexually suggestive.

Cadbury’s is beginning to feel the heat as outraged former customers abandon it forever. It has said: “Cadbury has always been a progressive brand that spreads a

message of inclusion, whether it is through its products or brand campaigns. We are proud of our Golden Goobilee advert which celebrates the many ways that everyone can enjoy a Cadbury Creme Egg. To illustrate this and showcase the joy our products bring, a clip of a real life couple sharing a Cadbury Creme Egg was included in the advert.”

What on Earth is a “progressive brand”? Does Cadbury’s seriously imagine that showing content calculated to be offensive to the substantial Judaeo-Christian section of what it no doubt calls its “customer base” is “progressive”?

On the contrary, it is – or certainly ought to be – illegal, on several grounds.

I tried ringing Cadbury’s press office, but unsurprisingly it was impossible to get through. So I sent them the following email: “I am writing an article for a Catholic newspaper about an advertisement for Cadbury’s Creme Eggs, traditionally sold at the

12th March 2021 Christian feast of Easter, and featuring two homosexual men kissing with lips and tongues in a sexually explicit fashion which, in my judgment, was not suitable to be seen by children regardless of the sexual proclivities of the couple.

“I should be grateful for the following information by lunchtime today: 1. In which countries was the advertisement broadcast?

2. In each country, how often was it broadcast?

3. At what times was it broadcast?

4. Were there any times at which Cadbury’s

or

its

servants

or agents requested that the advertisement should not be broadcast?”

Catholic Voice As I have explained before, homosexuality is at least as dangerous (and, according to some scientific authorities, twice as dangerous) as smoking. Indeed, many homosexuals know this, though they do their best to conceal it from the general public. For their own internal journals mention it.

One can imagine the fuss from the far Left, who are the chief drivers of the campaign to promote every form of sexual deviancy as yet another way of undermining the traditional family and thus the hated West, if smoking were openly promoted in any advertisement on television, still less an advertisement substantially directed at children.

Sadly, a number of anti-Christian initiatives such as that in which Cadbury’s has misguidedly

BOYCOTT CADBURYS 19 indulged are being hastily promoted under cover of the pandemic lockdown. Cadbury’s and its gruesome public relations machine know full well that if the churches were functioning normally there would be angry sermons and mass campaigns to boycott Cadbury’s health-destroying products.

Please make your own concerns known very plainly. Telephone Cadbury’s and let them know what you think.

Meanwhile, imagine what it would cost Cadbury’s if the Holy See were to speak out against the sexual exploitation of children by corporate giants. We have the numbers to stop this nonsense. I pray that we also have the determination. Over to you.

At the time of writing I have had no reply. If I get one, I shall update you. For if the advertisement was shown in Ireland everyone reading this article should complain to the Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland.

I need not tell readers of this column that we love everyone dearly, including those whose sexual inclinations and practices are not our own. However, we are entitled to express our polite but very firm concern that children should not be exposed to explicit sexual content in advertisements for products that they are known to consume in large numbers.

It is also appropriate to express a religious objection. Jews and Christians – and, for that matter, Muslims – oppose homosexuality, particularly male-on-male homosexuality, on the ground that it is medically dangerous, as St Paul makes explicit.

“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 SPIRITUAL RECIPES

Catholic Voice

12th March 2021

Pancakes, Cookies And Hot Cross Buns Mary Kearns

The questions children ask can provide a means of evangelising but sadly we often let them pass us by. Take for example when a child asks why we have pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. It isn’t enough to just reply that it is traditional. What is the purpose of hot cross buns on Ash Wednesday and during Good Friday?

It should not be difficult to make an interesting story from the facts of long ago when Catholics had to fast and abstain from many foods for the season of Lent, at least on weekdays. The obligation regarding abstinence, included children from as young as seven years, the elderly and the sick were of course exempt.

In earlier times, eggs and dairy products, as well as all meat, were forbidden, which is how the tradition developed of making pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent began. In the modern era, however, eggs and dairy were reintroduced in the West, though they continued to be forbidden in the East.

How can the Church tell you what to eat and when to eat it? Young people are amazed to the point of disbelief when they discover that not so long ago, the Church expected ordinary Catholic men, women and children to fast from midnight if they desired to receive Holy Communion in the morning. As for the Lenten fast, it was shocking to think that you would commit a serious sin if you disobeyed the regulations which allowed only one full meal and two small meals, the small meal sometimes known as a “collation.”

That is still the rule for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, but in previous times it applied to all the weekdays of Lent. Sunday always

honoured the Lord’s Resurrection and so all food was permitted on Sundays of Lent.

The question sometimes arose as to what a “collation” consisted of but it was commonly held that this meal was to be approximately half the size of the “full meal.” You could have a collation on two occasions throughout the day, although meat was not permitted. Those with a mathematical mind could work out that it was a question of ratio. The larger your full meal, the larger could be the size of your collation.

However this idea failed to pass with Bishop Cornelius Lucey of Cork and Ross. He ruled that “collation” should be understood as no more than one cup of tea, coffee or bovril with only two biscuits. It is a testimony to the ingenuity of the Irish that an enterprising baker in Cork city started to bake extra large biscuits. In fact it is claimed that these biscuits were over 3.5

inches in diameter and soon became known as “Cornelius Cookies.”

A certain light-heartedness can often be observed in Irish Catholicism. The poet Patrick Kavanagh understood this very well as is evident from his poetry and other writings. Writing about this in the 1930s and 40s, the poet noted that religion was knit into the very fabric of life and the voice intoning the Hail Mary at the family rosary was the same voice that shooed the cat away from the cream and the chickens out the door. Nonetheless the cheerfulness did not obscure the deep reverence for all things holy.

Men would stop work in the fields and bow their heads at the sound of the Angelus bell and they would no more neglect to observe the fast or attend the Lenten devotions than forget to feed their livestock.

Irish Catholics were often seen as a particularly devout and penitent people when compared to their

12th March 2021

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European counterparts. From the dawn of Christianity in Ireland, Irish fasting rituals seem to have been among the strictest in the world.

Everything changed with regard to fasting in the years following the Second Vatican Council. It was not however a Council directive that revised the regulations but the Apostolic Constitution Paenitemini of Pope Paul VI. Penance during the season of Lent was still required but this was now to be self-imposed.

The goal was an inner spiritual conversion when voluntary selfdenial as well as an increase in prayer and devotional exercises would help dispose the soul to God’s grace.

At the same time, Paenitemini also set new minimum requirements for fasting and abstinence. Catholics were reminded that throughout the Church’s history, regulations had been adjusted to fit the spirit of the times. In 1966, Pope Paul VI reduced the obligatory fasting days to Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, abstinence days to Fridays and Ash Wednesday, and allowed episcopal conferences to replace abstinence and fasting with other forms of penitence such as charity and piety, as declared and established in Paenitemini. This was done so that those in countries where the standard of living was lower, could replace fasting with prayer, but “...where economic wellbeing is greater, so much more will the witness of asceticism have to be given...”

The Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference decided to allow other forms of Friday penance to replace that of abstinence from meat, whether in Lent or outside Lent.

Alternatives such as abstaining from other foods and from alcohol or smoking were proposed. Pastoral initiatives such as visiting the sick

and housebound and the support of charitable works were encouraged as was family prayer and other devotions.

The most important aspect of Lent is repentance and the degree to which fasting and various penances help towards repentance is an indication of their effectiveness. It would entirely defeat the purpose if we were to become proud of what we achieve in the area of asceticism and mortification. The Miserere should always be in our minds and hearts.

In this liturgical season we should avail of the grace of the sacrament of Penance. As Saint Pope John XXIII instructs, we should think of this as a process of purification: “Therefore we say: ‘Wash me yet more ……. And cleanse me from my sin...’

This mysterious process of our purification is perfectly accomplished in holy confession, through the intervention of the Blood of Christ which washes and cleanses us. The power of the divine Blood, applied to the soul, acts progressively, from one confession to another. ‘Yet more’ and ever

SPIRITUAL RECIPES 21 more. Hence the importance of confession in itself, with the words of absolution, and of the custom of frequent confession for persons of a spiritual profession, such as priests and Bishops.” (Journal of a Soul) The importance of symbols and traditions lies in pointing to what they signify. While we can certainly see that the making of pancakes has a practical purpose in that ingredients forbidden during Lent must be used up, what use do hot cross buns have?

A little investigation shows a more spiritual meaning. As we can see, each bun is decorated with a cross made from flour paste. This represents the cross on which Christ died and the spices represent the spices which were used to embalm Christ after his death. It has been customary in Ireland and many other countries to bake and eat hot cross buns during the holy season of Lent. In common with other Christian practices these can help direct us to the real meaning of our preparation for the great feast of Easter, when we have accompanied Jesus through his passion and death.

For catechesis and liturgical formation: marykeenankearns@gmail.com

22 O DEATH, WHERE IS THY STING?

Catholic Voice

12th March 2021

A Different Way To Think About Death Grazie Pozo Christie

My father’s very recent diagnosis of ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, has me and the rest of my family and I in a strange place. We are living in the space between the utterly normal and to-beexpected fact that an 83-yearold man should be facing the imminent end of his life, and the sickly sadness that the news has filled us with. We bounce from feeling that all is normal to feeling tragic several times a day.

It occurs to me that that dizzying shift of perspective when confronting death is something we experience all the time, although generally—and thankfully—in a muted way.

Death is the very thing that has happened to every human being ever conceived, whether early and just trembling on the threshold of life, or after many decades, and trembling with the weight of years.

All of us live with the knowledge of this brute fact from the time we are very young, and yet the horror of death coming for someone we love, or for ourselves, inevitably throws us to our knees.

There is the fear of pain and physical incapacity — abilities diminished until there is nothing but tubes, machines, and indignities on the horizon. The anxiety of hoping for a gentle death, a last breath breathed out in peaceful slumber, all the time knowing that for most death will be a violent wrench, perhaps prolonged. And of course, there is the great sadness of impending separation, of happy days together dwindling in number and finally ending.

All this has been amplified in the past year of pandemic, one

that has forced everyone to look our natural fear of death square in the face.

Is it different for us Christians?

Completely different.

At the very centre of our faith is the grand miracle of the resurrection, when our Master conquered death on our behalf.

It was, in a sense, the principal reason for His coming, wasn’t it? His whole life on earth was an unflagging progress to that shocking scene on Calvary, when the innocent one meekly endured the most savage death a cruel empire could devise.

He could have “gone gently into that good night,” but instead was wracked and pierced on the cross, enduring the sort of death that we men fear most. And then, after lowering himself into the abyss that awaits each of his creatures, he rose and lived again.

C.S. Lewis put it so well when he said that God “has dived down

into the bottom of creation, and has come up bringing the whole redeemed nature on His shoulder.” He has gone ahead and is calling us to join him on the green and sunny fields of the home he has made for us.

This act of God’s makes death different for us Christians.

Thanks to His ultimate act of love for us, death has been made infinitely good, no longer a dark and dreadful end of all things, but a necessary passage to the divine encounter. “Sister Death,” St. Francis of Assisi called her, and sang her praises.

I can see my father already participating in that goodness, through all his pain and ours.

The certainty of God’s embrace of His own suffering is giving my father strength for the hard road ahead of him, infusing his faltering heart with courage, converting his fear of suffering into tender solicitude for the sadness in our eyes. The firm hope that as Christ has risen, we shall also rise, carries him gently forward. My father nobly trusts.

12th March 2021

Catholic Voice

That doesn’t mean that Christianity simply dismisses the awfulness of death. Our religion gives us a Saviour who grieved, weeping, over the death of his friend Lazarus. The Creator, unbound by time, knew that he would raise Lazarus, and yet his heart was moved by the leaden weight of death, by the bereavement of Mary and Martha.

It gives me immeasurable comfort to know that the very human grief we feel when we see our once-indomitable father wait meekly to be moved or fed finds an echo in the heart of God himself. Death is good, yes, because the Master made it so.

But we have not been left alone to brave those moments when its horror makes us sick.

I have never been so glad and grateful for my faith in all my life.

O DEATH, WHERE IS THY STING? 23

24 JACQUES FESCH

Catholic Voice

12th March 2021

The Incredible Story Of Servant Of God Jacques Fesch And What We Can Learn From Such A Life Story Paddy Early

“Great sinners make great Saints.

God has big plans for you”- Servant of God Fr. John Hardon SJ. I really love every story of conversion because each one is unique just like all of our human stories. But what each one has in common is the glorious power of God to touch our lives in an instant and transform them sometimes instantly.

In a meditation of the day in the Magnificat I came across a piece about Jacques Fesch who is now a Servant of God on a path possibly to Sainthood. Jacques was born in 1930 in France to a father who was an avowed atheist while the mother was at least nominally Catholic.

He seemed to be a troublemaker from an early age, neglected his homework, disrupted classes and made mischief until he was eventually expelled. As he grew older, he did not improve, failed to practice any semblance of faith, soon living a life of crime and hedonism.

Although his father got him a job in a bank, Jacques wasted the opportunity by his laziness and bad attitude eventually being fired. His

father found him other jobs but all ended the same way. His life spiralled into deeper immorality. He fell into a shambles of unsavoury results as his main objective in life was to enjoy the pleasures of this world not caring what the consequences were. He rarely took responsibility for his actions.

Before he was 24, he had fathered a child out of wedlock by his girlfriend, Pierrette (she seems to be an amazing lady), whom he married before his daughter was born. This marriage quickly ended in divorce and Jacques felt no compunction to care for either his wife or his daughter.

Once again, after this relationship ended Jacques continued his womanising and fathered an illegitimate boy, a son who never knew his father until years after he was executed. Jacques avoidance of God and his total abandonment to worldly pleasures cast him into deep depression. He decided to sail to the South Pacific dreaming of buying a yacht and living an idyllic life of constant pleasure on a tropical island. But he had no money and couldn’t get any from family. So he decided to steal the money! In an inept robbery in February 1954 he beat an old man in a currency shop with his pistol. He was cornered by a policeman and ended up shooting him dead. But he was wrestled to the ground and arrested. At his trial the jury had no difficulty finding him guilty and he was sentenced to death by the guillotine.

As he sat in solitary confinement for three years he had time to reflect on his life which led to his conversion and repentance. Three people helped him towards this miracle. His lawyer was a devout Catholic, the prison Chaplin and a monk friend of his wife Pierette who didn’t abandon him. His conversion took time but after reading a book about Our Lady the sheer horror of what he had done

struck him. He wrote in a journal that he started to keep “The Spirit of the Lord seized me by the throat.

Within the space of a few hours I came into possession of faith, with absolute certainty. I believed Grace came over me. A great joy flooded my soul, and above all a deep peace.” Immediately he asked for the prison Chaplin so that he could make his Confession after so many years. He began a deep prayer life as his journals indicate even becoming a mystic. Jacques also sought to repay the many and deep hurts he had caused his family. He reconciled with his wife and daughter. He also wrote many letters to his family, including his brother and stepmother.

During his last two years he wrote much in his journal about his conversion, his love of God and the Blessed Virgin Mary and his repentance. At the end he serenely accepted his death and his letters reveal a man who had turned away from seeking pleasure to instead comforting others and seeking to convert them. With his new found faith he had a deep hunger for the Eucharist, only infrequently relieved. His day began by studying the words of the mass from his Missal in the early morning longing for those words to become a reality.

Given a Bible he was to study it like a cloistered contemplative! In fact in his letters he joked that his prison life had become little different from that of a Carthusian monk! It was in such letters that the fruit of the huge conversion revealed itself.

Conscious that time was running out, he spoke of the joy in finding Christ — echoing St. Paul in decrying as worthless all the world had to offer. Above all he was concerned for the conversion of his loved ones particularly his wife and daughter. At their civil marriage ceremony, Pierette’s faith had been as weak as his. But he now persisted in prayer urging her to turn to God. He hoped for a religious marriage

12th March 2021 Catholic Voice

JACQUES FESCH 25

ceremony in prison and there are two conflicting reports on whether it happened. He had a deep desire for his daughter to be brought up in the faith and to have character formation unlike his youth.

His mother died while he was in prison but his father continued to visit him but was unchanged from the hard atheism that Jacques could see was destroying his life. Jacques stated that he would change nothing in his life because he recognised the Hand of God in all that had happened to him. Through the tragedies of his life in which he was the main player he had come to witness the Grace of God enter his life, shattering the illusions that had captivated him wrecking his life and so many others.

He was executed on 1st October the feast of St. Therese of Lisieux.

He woke at 3am and asked the guard for a light as he said he must prepare. He studied his missal and prayed awaiting the arrival of the Priest at 5.30. Jacques then made his last confession and received Holy Communion. He told the Priest that he offered up his life for the conversion of his father, for those he loved and for the man he had killed. His last journal entry before he dies was “in 5 hours, I will see Jesus.” In his last words Jacques asked the Blessed Virgin to have mercy on him. After his death his wife Pierette obtained his spiritual journal and read it from cover to cover the same day.

Pierette worked with Sr. Veronica, a Carmelite nun and Fr. AugustinMichel Lemonnier to publish the writings of Jacques Fesch. Since 1970 his writings have brought comfort and encouragement to many souls. Many plays have been written about him. In 1993 Cardinal Lustiger, Archbishop of Paris, opened the preliminary inquiry for the beatification of Jacques Fesch

The Return of the Prodigal Son Rembrandt (1606-1609) saying he hoped one day that “he would be venerated as a model of sanctity.

Some of his writings indicate the complete transformation that took place in him; • I am saved in spite of myself; I am being taken out of this

world because I was lost in it.

The punishment that awaits me is not a debt that I have to repay, but a gift that the Lord is giving me.

• My death is redeeming, even if it appears unfair. We must not struggle against what has been decided by God… and which is owing to His great mercy.

“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 JACQUES FESCH • To his daughter Veronica… ”What I have, I give you for the day when, after you are an adult, you will, through these words, be able to follow the life of the man who was your papa and who never stopped loving you for one second”. The journal ends with these words…”If by the end of these pages I have succeeded in making you understand what life can be, real life, that begins in this world in order to bloom where everything is light, if you have been able to sense the worth of the soul, and of what little importance worldly success is, these lines will not have been written in vain and maybe one day, faced with God knows what ordeal, you yourself will draw from this example so close to you the strength and the courage to distinguish which direction the light comes from” • A letter to the Chaplin…”Dear Father, here I am at the close of my life, my soul at peace and my heart steady. In a few hours a new and eternal dawn will break for me, if our Lord judges me worthy to be counted among his children. In these last moments I can hardly help reviewing all the scenes of my past life in the radiance of the new light that is mine as I stand at the threshold of life. They are not sad, because they have led up to the love of Jesus, thus taking on a meaning I never suspected. Some are even happy, and here I am thinking of those hours I spent at the foot of an improvised altar in a prison cell, or the time passed in reading the spiritual books your goodness knew how to choose for me — always the best! I owe you my heartfelt thanks, Father, for your kindness and the care you have always taken for my soul’s welfare, nourishing it faithfully with its one need: Our Lord Jesus Christ. I am trying to thank you at least in part here below, but although I may seem presumptuous in saying this, I cannot hide from you the fact that it is from heaven, whence all blessings flow, that I should like to be able to thank you. I shall carry your name to heaven with me, written in my heart,

Catholic Voice

and when the Lord allows me to cast a glance down to earth, I shall gaze into a dark little cell where a priest is celebrating the greatest of all possible sacrifices, uniting himself each day to crucified love, and then I shall ask our Lord to cast a gracious glance on his faithful minister and fill him with blessings. Peace be with you, my Father, and may the eternal light soon shine upon you also.

Until we meet in God, your humble and grateful sheep, Jacques.”

What can we learn from this life story?

What we see plainly in this story is the parable of Jesus about the Prodigal Son. In God’s awesome and unlimited love for us He is always seeking to redeem us from our stupidity, our rebellion, our grievous sin. Jacques had a horrible childhood because he was deprived of Truth and therefore deprived of love. Truth and Love are completely wrapped up in God. But God was never absent! Jacques refused to acknowledge Him and in his life of reckless irresponsibility he ruined so many lives even killing an innocent policeman who was a young father.

In a sense Jacques is a poster boy for the sexual revolution which really came into full bloom in the

12th March 2021

late 1960’s. But he is also a poster boy for the Glory of God! The horrendous decline into grievous immorality has accelerated since the 1960’s and the key driver of that was the chemical contraceptive pill which has literally destroyed the moral compass of huge swathes of people globally, sadly including Catholics. The rebellion of Catholics both lay and clergy since 1968 when Humane Vitae was issued by Pope Paul VI has directly led to our acceptance of abortion which has slaughtered billions of beautiful babies created in the image and likeness of God. The story of Jacques can be seen all around us now in the huge decline of faith practice and the demanding of “rights”! When society buys into crazy ideologies of rights, equality, freedom, etc. what they are doing is rejecting Truth and asking God to change the rules for human existence! And that simply cannot happen. We must conform our lives to God, obey the ten Commandments and live with a sense of True purpose which is to focus on our Eternal reward which is to be in Heaven with God for all eternity.

Once society becomes immersed in sin and its focus is on the pleasures of this world we destroy ourselves, our families, our communities and our Church. Because the faithful family of a mother and father rearing

12th March 2021

JACQUES FESCH 27

Catholic Voice

in selfless love the children that God blesses them with is the foundation stone of the Church in action. G.K. Chesterton, an amazing Catholic convert and prolific writer said, “there is nothing so wonderful as the ordinary man and his ordinary wife and their children whom they love and nourish”. And that is why the real aim of communism is the destruction of the family unit as the bedrock of our society. Sadly they have been hugely successful in their endeavours.

We have given our power away because we failed to appreciate that without God there is no life. Jesus told us very clearly that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life and that without Him we are the living dead.

As it says in the prayer, Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be world without end. Amen. God is the Creator of life, the giver of life and God sustains us in every moment. God breathes in us and pumps the blood around our bodies.

God decides when we are born and when we die – we have no control over this. So to deny God by serious sin is simply the great delusion.

All the things we have seen as solid and certain in our lives have been swept away in a few short months with a supposed pandemic which seems to have killed no more than a seasonal flu. Yet the propaganda around it has filled millions of people globally with irrational fears and the psychological warfare on humanity seems certain to ratchet up with mandatory vaccines, digital chips etc.

Job security has been swept away and people are so fearful of close contact with other human beings.

And in the midst of this fear there is no right reason! Trust is being put in politicians, media and medical people all driving an agenda which is global to keep people in fear so they will allow all of their powers to be stripped away in the name of “what is right”!

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

Right for who? Right for the Globalist elites who want to destroy humanity and enslave all of us like in China! These are the same people who have already destroyed our world with pushing grievous immorality.

Now they are driving the Great Reset which is all pure Communism devoid of God, devoid of Truth.

So the question is simple do you trust in Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world or do you trust the minions of Satan who want to enslave you?

Please stop buying into the vicious and unrelenting propaganda! In our Bibles we are instructed to have no fear — not once but 365 times!

Throw out you TV and be very wary of what you trust on the internet!

Double up on your prayer life and live life full out with NO FEAR. God loves you. But equally, Satan hates you!

CATECHISM

born on May 21, 1844 in Sabadell, Catalonia, Spain. He was a Catholic priest and writer who wrote against Liberalism which he considered a grave sin. He was the editor of the weekly Spanish Catholic magazine ‘La Revista Popular’ for over forty

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.

Father J. B. Lemius, produced this ‘Catechism on Modernism’ in the familiar the age of 71. This book, Liberalism question and answer format is a Sin, is particularly relevant to of the time, in order to make the teachings of the the times we live in today where Liberalism permeates every Encyclical more accessible to ordinary Catholics and aspect of our society and has deeply infiltrated the thinking of by way of explaining in a clear and concise manner the many of the Catholic hierarchy. reasons why the Encyclical was published. years. He died on January 2, 1916 at

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28 SYLLABUS OF ERRORS

Catholic Voice

12th March 2021

A Syllabus We Should All Be Studying Peter Kwasniewski Not many Catholics today know about the Syllabus of Errors — but they should. Mocked (naturally) by the fashionable at the time of its issuance in 1864, Pius IX’s thundering condemnation of modern errors has demonstrated its prescient accuracy as the world around us, embracing these errors to the full, races heedlessly to its own destruction. The history of the compilation and promulgation of the Syllabus of Errors is quite complex but the central motivation behind it is easy to grasp: All this alarming news [of revolution and rebellion] succeeded in convincing Pope Pius IX that liberalism, the synthesis of the 18th-century Encyclopedists’ philosophy, recast in a political form by the French revolutionaries, was truly “the error of the century,” an error he was dutybound to condemn once again by drawing the attention of Catholics to all the forms — sometimes subtle ones — that this tendency could assume in the concrete.

After a lengthy gestation, the Syllabus and the encyclical to which it was appended, ‘Quanta Cura’, were issued on December 8, 1864, accompanied by a letter from the Secretary of State, Cardinal Antonelli. Intended for bishops who had the training required to read it carefully, the Syllabus quickly fell into the hands of simple-minded journalists who, like their counterparts a hundred years later at the time of the Second Vatican Council, revelled in superficial exaggerations, making the document and its promulgator the subject of front-page controversy.

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‘Quanta Cura’ and the Syllabus are presented as a summary of teaching already set forth by the pope in allocutions and other documents going back to his inaugural encyclical ‘Qui Pluribus’ of 1846. ‘Quanta Cura’ denounced views typical of the Enlightenment, honing in on its definitive idea: the “impious and absurd principle of naturalism,” which teaches that the best constitution of public society and [also] civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones. (§3) The banishment of religion from civil society and government cannot but darken and eventually extinguish justice and rights, replacing them with egoism, avarice, and violence (§4). The Pope states that the modern opinions mentioned in the encyclical — and, implicitly, those catalogued in the Syllabus — are to be held “reprobated, proscribed, and condemned by all children of the Catholic Church” (§6).

What, specifically, were these opinions? The Syllabus of the Principal Errors of Our Time, to give the document its full title, consists of eighty propositions, divided into ten categories. The first three (“Pantheism, naturalism, and absolute rationalism”; “Moderate rationalism”; “Indifferentism, latitudinarianism”) are predominantly speculative in content, regarding errors about the existence of God and His providence, the divinity of Christ and the truth of Christian revelation, the relationship of faith and reason, and the necessity of the Church for salvation. The seven remaining categories concern chiefly social errors.

It will suffice here to cite a few representative condemned propositions: •

• • • • • •

The Church is not a true and perfect society divinely endowed with proper and perpetual rights, but rather an organisation under the power of civil law (n. 19), whose immunity of personnel and property derive from civil law (n. 30).

In case of conflict, civil law prevails over canon law (n.

42).

The education of children belongs by right to the State, not to parents or to the Church (n. 45 and others).

Church and State ought to be separated (n. 55).

Rights are nothing other than accomplished facts (n.

59).

“Authority is nothing else but numbers and the sum total of material forces” (n. 60).

The marriage contract is not indissoluble by the law of nature, and divorce may therefore be permitted (n. 67).

The final category, “Errors having reference to contemporary liberalism [liberalismum hodiernum],” gained special notoriety at the time of promulgation. Here, the Pope condemns four propositions: •

• •

“In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship” (n. 77).

It is wise to pass laws allowing non-Catholic immigrants the public exercise of their religion (n. 78).

It is false that liberty of public worship and freedom of speech conduce more easily to corruption of morals and religious indifferentism (n. 79).

12th March 2021 •

“The Roman Pontiff can and should reconcile and harmonize himself with progress, liberalism and modern [recenti] civilization” (n. 80).

The internal structure of the Syllabus dictates its correct interpretation. Each of the eighty propositions is followed by a citation of papal document(s) in which this particular error had already been discussed and censured by the pope. Antonelli’s letter instructed the reader to gauge the tenor and scope of condemned propositions from their source documents.

Take, for example, the last proposition (n. 80), where it may seem that the pope is repudiating modern civilisation ‘tout court’. A glance at the source proves otherwise. In an allocution of March 18, 1861, Pius IX had railed against those who expected him to surrender to “what they call modern civilisation and liberalism,” which amounted to shutting down monasteries, secularising schools, harassing priests, supporting anarchists and communists, etc. He concluded: “If by the word ‘civilization’ must be understood a system invented on purpose to weaken, and perhaps to overthrow, the Church, never can the Holy See and the Roman Pontiff be allied with such a civilisation!” — hardly a surprising conclusion. It is to this allocution that n. 80 of the Syllabus directs us.

At the time of promulgation, welltrained clerics were aware of “the classical rule that when we are faced with a proposition censured by the Church’s teaching authority, in order to know the positive teaching of the Church in the matter, we must take the contradictory of the proposition and not its contrary, as one is naturally tempted to do.” In other words, if the Church were to condemn the proposition that democracy is the only legitimate form of government, one may conclude positively only that democracy is not

the only legitimate form of government — not that democracy is an illegitimate form of government. Or if she rejects the statement that “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true” (n. 15), positively this means the light of reason is not the only guide as regards religious truth — not that one should not be guided by the light of reason as regards religious truth. (The documentary source of n. 15 is again illuminating: the pope is there condemning the rationalist view that human reason is the sole measure of truth and right, and thus the sole means for learning or handing down what is true and right. One may derive the contradictory proposition by adding to each condemned proposition the words: “It is not the case that…”

This negation leaves untouched a considerable realm of possibilities beyond what is specifically rejected.

It is also important to interpret the censured propositions in light of the concrete historical situation. Pius IX’s predecessor, Gregory XVI, a fierce opponent of liberalism, was prepared to accept compromises in practice — such as the new Belgian constitution of 1831 which endorsed separation of Church and State — while maintaining that, in principle, such arrangements were imperfect and could never be held up as ideal; Pius IX was no different; nor was his successor Leo XIII. We might be tempted to view this kind of pragmatism as a hypocritical double-standard, but that would be unjust. The popes never failed to proclaim the fullness of the truth even when they were willing to collaborate with less-than-perfect governments in order to minister to the Catholic faithful throughout the world. No one can fail to see the difference between this approach and the Second Vatican Council’s eternally confusing ‘Dignitatis Humanae’, which led to the abolition of Catholic privileges in most States where they still existed,

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SYLLABUS OF ERRORS 29

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undermined the coherent witness of the preceding Magisterium, and supplied low-cost energy to the factory of fictitious rights.

Unquestionably Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors represents official papal teaching, an act of the Magisterium that requires our assent. As a matter of fact, it enjoys a high status due to its propositional structure, its copious cross-referencing, its precise teaching as established by its sources, and the tenor of its language. Its content is perennial: though summoned by immediate and local threats, such content is no more time-conditioned than any statement of dogmatic or moral truth (e.g., nn. 1–14 on God, nn. 56–64 on ethics, nn. 65–74 on marriage).

The Syllabus with its companion encyclical cannot be set aside as if they had lost their relevance, belonging to a now-superseded “Constantinian” or “integrist” phase. The Syllabus continues to serve the purpose for which it was promulgated in 1864: putting the Catholic world on its guard against the profane, materialistic, libertine axioms of the new world order that was inaugurated with the French Revolution and soon became the political program of anticlericals and anarchists, soft or hard, throughout the world. It requires no special acumen to trace lines of direct causality from the archetypal errors collected in the Syllabus to the widespread errors — if anything, more perverse and destructive — targeted more than a century later in the encyclicals of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Far from being an antique curiosity, Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors is a prophetic document of major importance in the early stages of modern Catholic social teaching, and it is fair to say that it will outlive many of the wordier and woolier documents of recent decades.

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.

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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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12th March 2021 Catholic Voice

CDF MORALITY OF VACCINES 31

CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH Note on the morality of using some anti-Covid-19 vaccines The question of the use of vaccines, in general, is often at the center of controversy in the forum of public opinion. In recent months, this Congregation has received several requests for guidance regarding the use of vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19, which, in the course of research and production, employed cell lines drawn from tissue obtained from two abortions that occurred in the last century. At the same time, diverse and sometimes conflicting pronouncements in the mass media by bishops, Catholic associations, and experts have raised questions about the morality of the use of these vaccines.

There is already an important pronouncement of the Pontifical Academy for Life on this issue, entitled “Moral reflections on vaccines prepared from cells derived from aborted human fetuses” (5 June 2005). Further, this Congregation expressed itself on the matter with the Instruction Dignitas Personae (September 8, 2008, cf. nn. 34 and 35). In 2017, the Pontifical Academy for Life returned to the topic with a Note. These documents already offer some general directive criteria.

Since the first vaccines against Covid-19 are already available for distribution and administration in various countries, this Congregation desires to offer some indications for clarification of this matter. We do not intend to judge the safety and efficacy of these vaccines, although ethically relevant and necessary, as this evaluation is the responsibility of biomedical researchers and drug agencies. Here, our objective is only to consider the moral aspects of the use of the vaccines against Covid-19 that have been developed from cell lines derived from tissues obtained from two fetuses that were not spontaneously aborted.

1. As the Instruction Dignitas Personae states, in cases where cells from aborted fetuses are employed to create cell lines for use in scientific research, “there exist differing degrees of responsibility”[1] of cooperation in evil. For example,“in organizations where cell lines of illicit origin are being utilized, the responsibility of those who make the decision to use them is not the same as that of those who have no voice in such a decision”.[2] 2. In this sense, when ethically irreproachable Covid-19 vaccines are not available (e.g. in countries where vaccines without ethical problems are not made available to physicians and patients, or where their distribution is more difficult due to special storage and transport conditions, or when various types of vaccines are distributed in the same country but health authorities do not allow citizens to choose the vaccine with which to be inoculated) it is morally acceptable to receive Covid-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process.

3. The fundamental reason for considering the use of these vaccines morally licit is that the kind of cooperation in evil (passive material cooperation) in the procured abortion from which these cell lines originate is, on the part of those making use of the resulting vaccines, remote. The moral duty to avoid such passive material cooperation is not obligatory if there is a grave danger, such as the otherwise uncontainable spread of a serious pathological agent[3]--in this case, the pandemic spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19. It must therefore be considered that, in such a case, all vaccinations recognized as clinically safe and effective can be used in good conscience with the certain knowledge that the use of such vaccines does not constitute formal cooperation with the abortion from which the cells used in production of the vaccines derive. It should be emphasized, however, that the morally licit use of these types of vaccines, in the particular conditions that make it so, does not in itself constitute a legitimation, even indirect, of the practice of abortion, and necessarily assumes the opposition to this practice by those who make use of these vaccines.

4. In fact, the licit use of such vaccines does not and should not in any way imply that there is a moral endorsement of the use of cell lines proceeding from aborted fetuses.[4] Both pharmaceutical companies and governmental health agencies are therefore encouraged to produce, approve, distribute and offer ethically acceptable vaccines that do not create problems of conscience for either health care providers or the people to be vaccinated.

5. At the same time, practical reason makes evident that vaccination is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary. In any case, from the ethical point of view, the morality of vaccination depends not only on the duty to protect one’s own health, but also on the duty to pursue the common good. In the absence of other means to stop or even prevent the epidemic, the common good may recommend vaccination, especially to protect the weakest and most exposed.

Those who, however, for reasons of conscience, refuse vaccines produced with cell lines from aborted fetuses, must do their utmost to avoid, by other prophylactic means and appropriate behavior, becoming vehicles for the transmission of the infectious agent. In particular, they must avoid any risk to the health of those who cannot be vaccinated for medical or other reasons, and who are the most vulnerable.

6. Finally, there is also a moral imperative for the pharmaceutical industry, governments and international organizations to ensure that vaccines, which are effective and safe from a medical point of view, as well as ethically acceptable, are also accessible to the poorest countries in a manner that is not costly for them. The lack of access to vaccines, otherwise, would become another sign of discrimination and injustice that condemns poor countries to continue living in health, economic and social poverty.[5] The Sovereign Pontiff Francis, at the Audience granted to the undersigned Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on 17 December 2020, examined the present Note and ordered its publication.

Rome, from the Offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on 21 December 2020, Liturgical Memorial of Saint Peter Canisius.

Luis F. Card. Ladaria, S.I.

+ S.E. Mons. Giacomo Morandi Prefect Titular Archbishop of Cerveteri Secretary _________________________________

[1] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction Dignitas Personae (8 th December 2008), n. 35; AAS (100), 884.

[2] Ibid, 885.

[3] Cfr. Pontifical Academy for Life, “Moral reflections on vaccines prepared from cells derived from aborted human foetuses”, 5th June 2005.

[4] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruct. Dignitas Personae, n. 35: “When the illicit action is endorsed by the laws which regulate healthcare and scientific research, it is necessary to distance oneself from the evil aspects of that system in order not to give the impression of a certain toleration or tacit acceptance of actions which are gravely unjust. Any appearance of acceptance would in fact contribute to the growing indifference to, if not the approval of, such actions in certain medical and political circles”.

[5] Cfr. Francis, Address to the members of the “Banco Farmaceutico” foundation, 19 September 2020.

32 ADVERT

Catholic Voice

12th March 2021

THE HOLY FACE OF JESUS FROM THE IMAGE ON SAINT VERONICA’S VEIL (The veil is kept in Saint Peter’s Basilica, Rome.)

All approved Covid 19 vaccines are “experimental”. (See www.nih.gov ) Notwithstanding the “no-fault compensation programme for the 92 low and middle-income countries and economies eligible for support via the Gavi COVAX Advance Market Committment (AMC) of the Covax Facility”, all approved Covid 19 vaccine manufacturers, investors and promoters enjoy 100% immunity from any future liability against vaccine injury.

(See www.covaxclaims.com and www.childrenshealthdefense.org) Notwithstanding the Council of Europe’s Resolution 2361 (2021) the European Commission fully endorses Global Citizenship status which requires the taking of the experimental Covid 19 vaccines. (See www.coe.int, www.ec.europa.eu and www.globalcitizen.org) Covid 19 mortality rates are dwarfed when compared to the mortality rates for the highly infectious respiratory disease Tuberculosis. (See www.who.int and www.stoptb.org) Covid 19 and not Tuberculosis is part of the global Great Reset as envisioned by Professor Klaus Schwab in his 3 recently published books: Covid 19 The Great Reset, July 2020; The Aftermath of the Covid 19 Pandemic, November 2020; and Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet, January 2021. (See www.weforum.org and www.amazon.com)

In conjunction with funding global vaccine research, manufacturing and distribution Mr Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, are funding research into therapeutics to treat Covid19, including the Nobel Prize winning drug Ivermectin as promoted by the Front Line Covid19 Critical Care Alliance. (See www.flccc.net and www.trialsitenews.com) 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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