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2 EDITORIAL
Catholic Voice
4th June 2021
Coronaviruses, Vaccines & Bioweapons between you and your conscience so let us not make any judgements and continue to have the debate in a charitable and civilised manner.
Anthony Murphy In this issue we return to the debate over the use of the vaccine with an article by John Lacken responding to the article written by Professor Roberto de Mattei. In this article John makes some good arguments which are difficult to refute, he also calls for the debate to be conducted with charity. There are many people who do not want to take the vaccine for a variety of reasons and their freedom to make this decision must be respected. No one should be forced to take a vaccine. Likewise we should not criticise or correct those who for personal and sincere reasons have chosen to take the vaccine. It is a private matter and should remain so. This is a difficult decision for many people and many do not want to get involved in the arguments about the vaccine - this is understandable and in the end this is a private decision
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In the absence of any clear response from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which clarifies the points made by both sides of this debate then all each of us can do is to read the information available, if you have a spiritual director speak to him, trust his judgement and be guided by your conscience. In the meantime the various Pro Life groups should come together to organise a global petition and lobbying of pharmaceutical companies, governments etc. to produce ethically acceptable vaccines. Meanwhile let us not forget where the Chinese virus originated from. China expert, Steve Mosher, reports that the same murderous regime that has brought us forced abortion and sterilisation, forced organ harvesting, and genocide in real time also appears to be developing deadly bioweapons to release upon the world. In an article published on LifeSiteNews, Steve writes that the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has just uncovered a Chinese book that proves that Chinese military scientists have been working towards the development of a “new era of genetic weapons.” These weapons, the Chinese scientists promised, could be “artificially manipulated into an emerging human disease virus, then weaponized and unleashed.” In the 2015 volume, called The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons, the Chinese military scientists begin by suggesting that World War III would be fought with biological weapons.
And not just any bioweapons. Coronaviruses, a number of which cause respiratory illnesses in people, were mentioned as a class of viruses that could be readily weaponised. Indeed, the Chinese scientists were even more explicit, pointing out in their paper that the coronavirus that causes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, was an ideal candidate for a bioweapon. The Chinese Virus – or COVID-19 as the World Health Organisation insists that we call it – is a type of SARS virus. Now you understand why Peter Jennings, the executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), described the new document as the closest thing to a “smoking gun as we’ve got.” News.com.au quoted Jennings as saying that “I think this is significant because it clearly shows that Chinese scientists were thinking about military application for different strains of the coronavirus and thinking about how it could be deployed. It begins to firm up the possibility that what we have here [in the China Virus] is the accidental release of a pathogen for military use.” Jennings also believes that the China Virus’s origins as a bioweapon explain why China has blocked investigations. “If this was a case of transmission from a wet market it would be in China’s interest to co-operate,” Jennings pointed out. “We’ve had the opposite of that.”
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EDITORIAL 3
4th June 2021 Catholic Voice Indeed, we’ve had a full-blown cover up, which continues to the present day. As former Deputy National Security Advisor (DNSA) Mathew Pottinger pointed out in a February interview. U.S. intelligence believed that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had been “doing secret classified animal experiments in that same laboratory [Wuhan Institute of Virology]” as early as 2017. He added that there is “good reason to believe” that an outbreak of a “flu-like illness” had occurred among the scientists in the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in the fall of 2019, just before the first cases of a new type of pneumonia were being reported in Wuhan. While the Wuhan lab poses as a “civilian institution,” Pottinger said, U.S. intelligence has determined that the lab has collaborated on publications and secret bioweapons projects with China’s military. Pottinger also noted one final – and very telling – point: when the outbreak in Wuhan began it was the Chinese military, and not the Chinese CDC, that was called in to handle the situation.
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This is exactly what you would expect to happen if the China Virus was a product of a military bioweapons program. No one currently serving in the Biden administration has been willing to go quite this far. But even they have begun to backtrack from the bat soup story of late. Biden’s Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, recently admitted that one of the two possible explanations for the origin of COVID-19 would involve an “escape” from a Chinese bio lab in Wuhan. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that, where the CCP is concerned, America should “distrust and verify.” China’s official explanation is clearly a fabrication. We may never know for certain whether the novel coronavirus was intended to be used as a bioweapon. But we do know that the major Western print, broadcast, and social media are all doing their best to dismiss the very possibility as a paranoid fantasy. At the end of the day, whether the novel coronavirus had already been tinkered with before it reached the streets of Wuhan is (almost) of secondary importance. For the Communist leaders are clearly engaged in an effort to develop such a weapon as part and parcel of their strategy to become the dominant power on the planet.
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4 HOLY SCRIPTURE
Catholic Voice
4th June 2021
FIRE IN THE SCRIPTURES Canon DE MARTIN I.C.K.S.P.
When we think of fire, do we think of something positive or negative? The fire of Hell or the fire that warms our living room? Because fire can be either very good or very bad. For example, two fires were burning 30 km apart on Easter night in 433. High King Laoghaire lit a fire to honour the pagan gods (and therefore demons) for the Beltane. At the same time, St Patrick lit the Paschal fire for the Resurrection of Christ. They seemed identical, yet there is a chasm between the two fires. The Pentecost vestments, which we have just celebrated, are red to recall the fire of the Holy Spirit. God chose flames of fire to show His presence. These ‘tongues of fire’ represented the fiery language and energy with which the preachers of the Gospel would soon preach Our Lord Jesus Christ. Fire was also a sign of God’s presence to Moses in the unconsummated burning bush; and later, when the pillar of fire protected Israel from the Egyptians and guided them through the night. Likewise at Mount Sinai, God came down in fire. (Exodus 19:18) God gave us fire from the beginning because it is useful. It is indispensable for heating and for the cooking of food. It is also necessary to produce light, baking bricks, and melting and refining metals In addition it is used to purify objects, and in cases of illness, disease-ridden materials are destroyed by fire, especially clothing. But its most noble use is undoubtedly for liturgical worship. In the Temple of Jerusalem fire was to burn perpetually. This permanence of fire was to signify the unceasing activity that had to be deployed in the service
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of the Lord, who was always present in the Temple. Just as in our churches the lamp burns continuously before the Blessed Sacrament. Just as the smoke that rose to Heaven came from our sacrifices. Charcoal, perfumes, incense and sacrificial animals were offered to God; just as today at Mass, the smoke from the incense in the thurible raises our poor prayers to God. The prayers we use for the incense during the Holy Sacrifice say: « Be blessed + by Him in whose honour thou art burnt. », and «(...) bless + this incense and receive it in the odour of sweetness. » But fire does not always have a positive connotation. Who hasn’t had their breath taken away by the image of Notre Dame de Paris consumed by fire? Fire is destructive. In hot climates, a small fire that gets out of control is a huge devastation a few seconds later. Destruction of fields, woods, houses. Moreover, after we leave, at the end of the world, everything will be destroyed by fire (2 Peter 3:10). Even before, we
4th June 2021
Catholic Voice
remember Sodom and Gomorrah, which was destroyed by fire and brimstone because of grievous sins that attract the wrath of God. Fire in large quantities is associated with bad things. Moreover, the figure of the devil and fire are linked. For it destroys. Satan claims power with the help of fire. Also he uses it as a symbol of suffering. This is one of the reasons why in pagan cults, fire is used with great abundance. The “sacred” fires are innumerable among them. On the other hand, the torment of the fire that does not go out is a constant in the Scriptures and tradition. Fire in great quantities, which cannot be extinguished, having for its purpose
only suffering, can only be linked to the Evil One. The good Lord can use it, and sometimes there can be suffering, but it is never linked to destruction but to purification. The most obvious case is purgatory. We will be purified through fire (1 Corinthians 3:1215). But this is only temporary, and the goal is to come out perfect afterwards. What does fire ultimately mean? It depends on who it is associated with. Associated with God, as at Pentecost, it represents His glory and majesty, bright as fire. The Sacred Heart often appears surrounded by fire, the ardor of love. Our Lord comes to cast this fire on the earth and all his
CHURCH AND STATE 5 desire is that it should blaze. (Luke 12:49) The angels are presented with flames of fire to represent the eagerness and irresistible force of the heavenly spirits when they carry out God’s orders. In man, to have fire is to have life. But it can also be a sign of disease, discord, war, fiery passions… We can say, in conclusion, that a controlled fire, in general terms, is a divine sign. Whilst a fire that is out of control, an inferno, as a rule, is not a good thing. For our part, let us cultivate well the fire of charity, of zeal for God, and let us fight the fire of passions and of the Evil One.
Church & State - Vehementer Nos Pope St Pius X - 1907
That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honour Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man’s eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man’s supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no
obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions
touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. “Between them,” he says, “there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul. He proceeds: “Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them…. As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error.