| Welcome, Guest |
You have to register before you can post on our site.
|
| Online Users |
There are currently 475 online users.
» 0 Member(s) | 473 Guest(s)
Bing, Google
|
| Latest Threads |
Fr. Hewko's Sermons: St....
Forum: November 2024
Last Post: Deus Vult
9 hours ago
» Replies: 0
» Views: 49
|
The Editor of The Recusan...
Forum: Introduction to the Resistance
Last Post: Sacrificium
Yesterday, 01:34 PM
» Replies: 1
» Views: 123
|
Feast of the Miraculous M...
Forum: Our Lady
Last Post: Stone
Yesterday, 07:24 AM
» Replies: 1
» Views: 1,452
|
Pope Francis says Synod’s...
Forum: Pope Francis
Last Post: Stone
11-26-2024, 05:59 AM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 87
|
If We Want to Promote the...
Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
Last Post: Stone
11-26-2024, 05:54 AM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 84
|
Fr. Ruiz: Renewal of the ...
Forum: Rev. Father Hugo Ruiz Vallejo
Last Post: Stone
11-26-2024, 05:44 AM
» Replies: 16
» Views: 1,542
|
Fr. Ruiz's Sermons: Last ...
Forum: Fr. Ruiz's Sermons November 2024
Last Post: Stone
11-25-2024, 06:38 PM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 73
|
The Simulacrum: The False...
Forum: Sedevacantism
Last Post: Stone
11-25-2024, 06:36 PM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 102
|
Interview with the Editor...
Forum: The Recusant
Last Post: Stone
11-24-2024, 07:15 PM
» Replies: 0
» Views: 194
|
Purgatory Explained by th...
Forum: Resources Online
Last Post: Stone
11-24-2024, 09:03 AM
» Replies: 37
» Views: 4,224
|
|
|
| USCCB office appears to endorse dissident Catholic group promoting ‘priestless parishes’ |
|
Posted by: Stone - 07-08-2022, 07:28 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
- No Replies
|
 |
From highly doubtful Vatican II Novus Ordo Sacraments to no Sacraments at all, the slide into a new Religion continues...
Recall Archbishop Lefebvre aptly recognizing back in 1976 what was unfolding in the name of the Second Vatican Council:
Quote:That Conciliar Church is a schismatic church because it breaks with the Catholic Church that has always been. It has its new dogmas, its new priesthood, its new institutions, its new worship… The Church that affirms such errors is at once schismatic and heretical. This Conciliar Church is, therefore, not Catholic. To whatever extent Pope, Bishops, priests, or the faithful adhere to this new church, they separate themselves from the Catholic Church.” (Archbishop Lefebvre, Reflections on his suspension a divinis, July 29, 1976)
✠ ✠ ✠
USCCB office appears to endorse dissident Catholic group promoting ‘priestless parishes’
The ardently pro-homosexual Association of U.S. Catholic Priests has proposed 'priest-less parishes' as an answer to the priest shortage, and it proposes that laypersons could step into the role of a pastor, leading parishes in “Eucharistic Services” – not as a Mass, but as a pseudo-replacement for Mass.
![[Image: shutterstock_1460613926-810x500.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/shutterstock_1460613926-810x500.jpg)
Jul 7, 2022 -
(Lepanto Institute) – The Association of United States Catholic Priests (AUSCP) held its annual assembly in Baltimore from June 20–23. The theme of the Assembly was “Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future.”
During the assembly, we published a report detailing the pro-homosexual ideologies of the majority of the speakers at the conference, such as Bishop John Stowe, Father Danial Horan, and Sister Mary Novak, the new executive Director of NETWORK. We also profiled the radical homosexual activism engaged in by two of their “John XXIII Award” recipients.
And since 2015, the Lepanto Institute has investigated and revealed the consistent attitudes of the AUSCP that violate Catholic moral and theological teachings, such as:
Over the years, the AUSCP has received support and benefited from the participation of cardinals, archbishops, and bishops who have attended, spoken at, and celebrated Mass for the AUSCP. Such include Cardinal Wilton Gregory, Cardinal Blaise Cupich, Archbishop John Hartmeyer, Archbishop Robert Carlson, Archbishop John Wester, Bishop Richard Pates, Bishop John Stowe, and others.
Archbishop Wester actually serves as the official “episcopal moderator to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).”
For the first time in the 11-year history of the AUSCP, an office of the USCCB paid for a vendor’s table at the AUSCP’s annual assembly, meaning that money collected by the Catholic Bishops of the United States formally supported this morally and theologically degenerate organization.
On page 40 of the AUSCP’s 2020 Assembly Program Book, listed just above the pro-same-sex “marriage” organization New Ways Ministry, is the USCCB Office of Certification for Ecclesial Ministry.
![[Image: LI1.jpeg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/LI1.jpeg)
C/O:Lepanto Institute
The Lepanto Institute was able to obtain a photo of the USCCB’s booth at the assembly, as well as one of the business cards sitting on the table belonging to Marc J. DelMonico, assistant director for the Certification of Ecclesial Ministry.
![[Image: LI2.jpeg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/LI2.jpeg)
![[Image: LI3.jpeg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/LI3.jpeg)
C/O: Lepanto Institute
According to the USCCB’s website for the Office of Certification for Ecclesial Ministry:
- “We resource bishops, regional and state conferences of bishops, diocesan programs, and professional ministry associations and organizations across the country. We support their efforts to train those who minister in the name of the Church.
- We review and approve certification standards, competencies, and procedures, primarily for specialized ministry leadership roles in the Church for lay ecclesial ministers, but also for some priests and deacons.
- We promote these standards and other ministry formation resources, so that bishops, diocesan programs, and organizations we work with are aware of them, use them, and also promote them.
- We consult on best practice resources and the promotion of lay ecclesial ministry formation and certification, especially with diocesan and academic programs which provide comprehensive ministry formation.”
Dr. DelMonico didn’t just happen to show up to the AUSCP’s assembly. It turns out, he’s an actual member of the AUSCP. In 2020, DelMonico wrote the following on his own website, under the headline “Association of U.S. Catholic Priests (AUSCP) Virtual National Conference 2020”:
Quote:“I am participating in this virtual gathering of the largest association of U.S. Catholic priests as an associate (non-clergy) member of the AUSCP. Their annual event is focused on the theme of ‘Our Catholic Faith in the Political World.’ Opportunities for an online retreat and keynotes on Church teaching in the context of legislative advocacy, preaching to the political needs of today’s society, practical action during the 2020 election year, and more. Very modest and daily or all-inclusive rates are available and anyone can register for the event. The AUSCP is an organization which is deeply committed to collaborative ministry with lay ecclesial ministry leaders and other lay ministers in today’s Church. Read more and register here.”
In January of 2021, the AUSCP hosted DelMonico as a speaker for a webinar with the title, “God’s Own Vintage: Developments in Lay Ecclesial Ministry 15 Years after Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord.”
![[Image: LI4.jpeg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/LI4.jpeg)
C/O: Lepanto Institute
It remains to be seen why DelMonico is involved with the AUSCP or why this particular office of the USCCB would purchase table space at the assembly, but his presence is deeply concerning. One possibility has to do with the AUSCP’s promotion of “priest-less parishes,” where pastoral duties would be handed off to lay ministers. The idea is that because of the priest shortage, “lay ministers” could be used to run individual parishes while priests are given the responsibility of multiple parishes, to which they travel from week to week.
The AUSCP’s 2018 document, “Pastoral Care in and Through Priestless Parishes,” says at the top of page 2 that Pastoral Leaders will:
Quote:“[T]ake responsibility for the day to day coordination of parish activities, and take initiative as needed to motivate, to correct, and to affirm persons who work in the parish ministries; and where needed, provide conflict resolution and reconciliation. To be a true pastoral leader he/she must lead worship where appropriate, and likewise break open the Word. In short, he/she would be in the role of pastor, excepting sacramental ministry, and under the supervision of the canonical pastor.”
The key take-away from this is that the person the AUSCP proposes would be a pastor in all manners except for the provision of the Sacraments. But further down the page, the AUSCP suggests that this model could shape the future of the priesthood, and it specifically includes women in that assessment:
Quote:“These Lay Pastoral Leaders will provide a very important proving ground for the USA Church because we would learn what men and women, married and unmarried, can accomplish as pastoral leaders, and what kind of persons we need. We will gain a great deal of wisdom about what works and what doesn’t work. In a larger framework, it would show how the priesthood of the future might discern proven individuals.”
The last line in that quoted section, “it would show how the priesthood of the future might discern proven individuals,” is the key to understanding the true goal: if lay women are allowed to lead parishes as “Pastoral Leaders,” and if women can be ordained as “deacons,” then a path to discerning the “priesthood of the future” could include them as “proven individuals.”
The references section at the end of the paper lists the USCCB’s document, published by DelMonico’s subcommittee, “Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord.”
![[Image: LI5.jpeg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/LI5.jpeg)
C/O: Lepanto Institute
Bear in mind that the title of DelMonico’s workshop for the USCCB last January included this: “Developments in Lay Ecclesial Ministry 15 Years after Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord.” This connection between the USCCB’s paper “Co-Workers in the Vinyard of the Lord,” the AUSCP paper on “priest-less parishes” heavy citing of the USCCB document, and DelMonico’s presentation on it to the AUSCP, cannot be a mere coincidence. In the USCCB’s 70-page document, the phrase “lay ecclesial minister” appears 155 times and is defined this way on page 12:
Quote:“The term ‘lay ecclesial minister’ is generic. It is meant to encompass and describe several possible roles. In parish life – to cite only one sphere of involvement – the pastoral associate, parish catechetical leader, youth ministry leader, school principal, and director of liturgy or pastoral music are examples of such roles. Participation in the exercise of the pastoral care of a parish, as described in the Code of Canon Law, canon 517 §2,12 is another example of lay ecclesial ministry, although it differs in kind from the other roles because it exists simply because of the shortage of priests.”
The AUSCP’s notion of priest-less parishes is entirely predicated on the notion of a priest shortage, and it proposes that laypersons could step into the role of a pastor, leading parishes in “Eucharistic Services” – not as a Mass, but as a pseudo-replacement for Mass – while a traveling priest would consecrate a large number of hosts that would sustain the parish until he comes back. And the thing is, if this proposal of the AUSCP’s is accepted, it is the USCCB’s office of Certification for Ecclesial Ministry that would provide the certifications for such ministers. Of course, for the AUSCP, when this is combined with the potential to “ordain” women to the diaconate, this is one step closer for what the AUSCP said “would show how the priesthood of the future might discern proven individuals.”
One of the documents circulated at this year’s AUSCP Assembly is titled, “AUSCP Background Document to a Request to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Urging Full Restoration and Implementation of the Rite of Penance.” The document was originally published on January 15, 2015 “by decision of the leadership group/board of directors,” and calls for “full implementation of the Rite of Penance, including Rite 3, the fully communal celebration with communal confession and absolution.”
Briefly, there are two rites for the Sacrament of Penance, and an emergency use sometimes referred to as the “third rite,” and more appropriately called “General Absolution.” The first is simply one-on-one, where a single penitent meets with the priest to confess his or her sins and receive absolution from the priest. The second is a community reflection with communal prayer, spiritual reading, and sometimes song, ending in individual confession as with the first rite. The third rite pertains to a grave emergency, where there is no time for individual confessions, such as being in the midst of a war zone or on a doomed transport vessel like an airplane or ship.
The AUSCP’s paper requesting the use of “rite 3” of the Sacrament of Penance complains that with Rite 1 “there would not be enough confessors if people were coming to celebrate Rite 1 in the numbers that came for private confession in the 1950s.” It also complains that “[w]hen Rite 2 is celebrated it is generally impossible to gather enough confessors to hear individual confessions properly within an appropriate period of time, not with the personal dialogue the Rite of Penance envisions, and the time limits people expect.”
So, because these priests do not wish to spend long times in the confessional, they pad their argument in favor of “Rite 3” by arguing that it “enables penitents to experience reconciliation in and with the community as indication of their reconciliation with the Church and God.” In short, they want confessions to be a community event, where congregants gather and assist each other in examining their consciences, and then publicly proclaim their confessions, while the priest then grants a general absolution to all present.
While not indicated in this paper, the application of this particular form of “confession” would be advantageous to their proposal for “priest-less parishes.” If a priest is not regularly at one parish, and since he would not have the time to hear the confessions of all congregants in one weekend sitting, the community aspect of hearing one loud confession while granting one general absolution to all present would save time. At least, so the thinking appears to be.
Whatever the case, the development of a relationship between a USCCB office and the AUSCP is deeply distressing. The fact that a USCCB office paid for a vending table at the AUSCP’s annual assembly is bad enough – Catholic funds were sent to this association of dissident priests. Worse is that the associate director of that USCCB office is an actual member of the AUSCP. And still worse is that if the AUSCP’s plan for priest-less parishes is to be realized, it is this office that would be granting certification for “Pastoral Leaders” at those priest-less parishes.
In subsequent articles, we’ll be taking a close look at other vendors at the AUSCP’s assembly, and we’ll be examining the presentations delivered by their speakers. Please contact your bishop and respectfully ask that he publicly condemn the AUSCP and forbid his priests from membership.
Click here for a sample letter you can send.
Click here to find the contact information for your bishop.
|
|
|
| Pope Francis says two women will serve on Vatican committee tasked with appointing bishops |
|
Posted by: Stone - 07-07-2022, 07:04 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
- No Replies
|
|
Pope Francis says two women will serve on Vatican committee tasked with appointing bishops
Liturgy scholar Dr. Peter Kwasniewski described the news as a ‘purely political move’ which won’t help the crisis in the Church.
![[Image: Pope_Francis_Oct_8_2020-810x500.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Pope_Francis_Oct_8_2020-810x500.jpg)
Pope Francis in an Oct. 8, 2020 video where he prays for there to be more women in leadership roles in the Church. Vatican News / Youtube screen grab
Jul 6, 2022
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews [adapted] ) – Pope Francis has revealed that he will allow women to have a say in electing the world’s bishops for the first time, saying “things are opening up a bit.”
The Pontiff made the comments to Reuters on July 2, in an interview which is being released in segments. LifeSiteNews has already reported on the papal comments regarding the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Francis ruling out a possible papal resignation, and his defense of the controversial Vatican-China deal.
Now in the latest part of the interview released July 6, Francis outlined his view for expanding female leadership in the Vatican and in the worldwide Church.
“I am open to giving (women) an opportunity,” he told Reuters. “Two women will be appointed for the first time in the committee to elect bishops in the Congregation for Bishops.”
Vatican News provided a more full quotation from the Pope:
Quote:“I am open for an opportunity to arise. Right now, the Governorate has a deputy governor… Now, two women will be going to the Congregation of Bishops, on the commission to elect bishops. In this way, things open up a little bit.”
Francis did not inform Reuters when the appointments would be made, nor whom he would be appointing.
The Congregation for Bishops is led by Cardinal Marc Ouellet, and members meet twice a month to discuss episcopal candidates. The committee votes on which clergy should be put forward as bishops before the Prefect presents the names to the Pope.
Francis’ comments come in light of his apostolic constitution Praedicate evangelium reforming the Roman Curia, which was released March 19 and was nine years in the making. The constitution opened up positions of governance in the various Curial departments to the laity, either men or women, and removing the traditional hierarchy of the various departments, now all known as Dicasteries.
This is contrary to Pope John Paul II’s Pastor bonus, which ordered that cardinals and bishops, assisted by a secretary, were to lead the various Congregations and Dicasteries, with no mention of permission for the laity to assume leadership roles.
Prominent roles in Vatican currently held by women
Pope Francis has already appointed a number of women to important roles in the Roman Curia. Last year he appointed Sister Raffaella Petrini as secretary-general of the Vatican City state, the second most senior position, and the first women to hold the role.
Another woman also holding a high-ranking role in the Vatican is Sister Nathalie Becquart, appointed by Pope Francis last February to the position of under-secretary of the Synod of Bishops, an office previously only ever held by ordained men. The role gives her the right to vote at upcoming synods, the first time a woman has had the power to do so.
In April, Sister Alessandra Smerilli F.M.A. was confirmed as Secretary of the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development, having previously been the “ad interim” secretary.
The three nuns are joined in the Vatican’s corridors of power by Dr. Raffaella Vincenti as office head, but not prefect, of the Vatican Apostolic Library and Prof. Antonella Sciarrone Alibrandi as a member of the Financial Information Authority board.
Women selecting bishops a ‘purely political move’ which won’t help crisis in the Church
LifeSiteNews spoke to Thomistic theologian and liturgy scholar Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, who highlighted the “problem” with Pope Francis’ decision. Kwasniewski noted first that “there is no reason a woman could not have an opinion worth listening to when it comes to candidates for bishops,” and that “the opinion of a wise and spiritual woman, like a St. Catherine of Siena, would count for much more than a given man’s, no matter how high-ranking.”
“After all, let’s not forget that in the Middle Ages, there were abbesses who ruled over huge domains and sometimes over male monasteries too,” he said.
However, “the problem” with Francis’ decision is that it “is not really about giving women what they deserve to have, since no one has a ‘right’ to sit on any Vatican committee,” said Kwasniewski.
Quote:It is rather a purely political move, motivated by feminism, and likely to exacerbate the trouble by simply adding more of the Pope’s favorite sorts of liberals to the process. I see this as one more example of the Pope trying to play ‘catch up’ with the modern democratic world (or trying to impress the world with his “fairness” and “open-mindedness”), as if the values and assumptions of modernity are obviously true and applicable to the conduct of ecclesiastical affairs.
Referencing the current “selection of bishops” as “a huge problem in the Church, because our episcopacy in general (with a few shining exceptions) seems to be composed of a lot of spineless conformists to the zeitgeist, if not adamant proponents of it, not to mention the scourge of the lavender mafia,” Kwasniewski called for change.
“Adding women is not the solution,” he noted, “rather, having ordained men of orthodox faith selecting the bishops is what is needed.”
Lay head of Dicasteries incoming
Francis also told Reuters that, under the terms of his new constitution, he had identified two departments which could be led by members of the laity in the near future. One was the Apostolic Library, currently led by Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça.
The other was the Dicastery for Catholic Education and Culture, which was born out of Praedicate Evangelium by merging the Congregation for Catholic Education and the Pontifical Council for Culture.
A new head of this Dicastery could be announced imminently with its Head of Office Monsignor Philippe Curbelié moved today to be Undersecretary of the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith. Both the Cardinal Prefects of the former Congregation for Catholic Education and the Pontifical Council for Culture are approaching retirement age.
The Pope’s comments indicate another move on his part to open up roles to women which were formerly reserved only to ordained men. Already through his January 2021 motu proprio “Spiritus Domini,” Canon Law was changed to allow the liturgical institution of female lectors and acolytes, both of which are minor orders.
This was followed by the May 2021 apostolic letter “Antiquum ministerium,” which further drew on texts from Vatican II to establish the lay ministry of catechist for both men and women. In January 2022, Pope Francis appointed women to the liturgical ministries of catechist and lector for the first time.
[...]
|
|
|
|
| Abp. Viganò: Declaration regarding the apostolic letter Desiderio Desideravi |
|
Posted by: Stone - 07-07-2022, 06:54 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
- No Replies
|
|
Abp. Viganò: Declaration regarding the apostolic letter Desiderio Desideravi
Deep church and deep state move in parallel and in sync, because what moves them both is hatred for Jesus Christ.
![[Image: Abp-Vigano-810x500.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Abp-Vigano-810x500.jpg)
YouTube screenshot
Wed Jul 6, 2022
(LifeSiteNews) – In an editorial titled “Cancel Culture: The Eternal Gnostic Dream of Starting Over from Zero,” that appeared on June 30, 2022, in the Bulletin of Social Doctrine of the Church of the Cardinal Van Thuân International Observatory (here), Archbishop Giampaolo Crepaldi stigmatized, with great clarity of analysis, the “attitude that favors the new over the old, which makes virtue coincide with adhesion to historical novelties and sin coincide with the preservation of the past,” and which consists in a systematic and ruthless damnatio memoriae of all that is opposed to modernity. The Archbishop of Trieste writes: “Progress wants everything to change except for progress itself, which must remain. Progress must preserve progress as something incontestable and never able to be criticized, never surmountable, never erasable. The same may be said of the revolution: revolutions change everything except for the immutable reality of the revolution, which remains absolute. Likewise, ‘cancellation’ must cancel everything, but cancellation must remain an absolute principle.”
This denunciation highlights the return of anti-Christian gnosis, which not coincidentally is an ally “of the Enlightenment and anti-religious propaganda of the English-speaking Protestant bourgeoisie,” the fruit of “centuries of planned disinformation.” From the Lutheran pseudo-reform onward, the unity of Catholic Europe was broken apart by the heresy of the German monk and the Anglican schism, unequivocally demonstrating how civil revolutions (which we could define as political heresies) find their ideological basis in previous doctrinal and moral errors.
Archbishop Crepaldi’s courageous examination limits itself, at least apparently, to Cancel culture in civil society, while overlooking the no less serious one that has been pursued with tetragonal obstinacy in the very heart of the Catholic Church, beginning with Second Vatican Council. This confirms that the apostasy of the Christian nations, which has systematically eliminated any trace of Christianity from the social body, necessarily had to be preceded by a similar removal of the past from the ecclesial body, to which it was necessary to accompany the imposition of the new as ontologically better and morally superior, regardless of its basis, that is, regardless of the intentions of those who imposed it and above all regardless of any evaluation of its consequences. Saint Pius X defined Modernism as the heresy that derives from this philosophical error. Whatever is new is considered an absolute good simply because it is new. And this despite the evidence of the disastrous effects that the cancellation of the past in the Church would cause – on the doctrinal, moral, liturgical, and disciplinary levels, but also on the cultural, artistic, and popular level as well – as predictably happened.
The Council erected novelty and so-called progress as a norm, but it did not limit itself to this: its architects had to cancel the past, because a simple comparison between novus and vetus repudiates any idea that the new is good and the old is to be condemned, due to the results of each. The liturgical reform itself was “planned disinformation”: first of all because it was imposed on the basis of a specious lie, that is, that the faithful did not understand the celebration of the rites in Latin; and secondly because of the fact that the lex orandi became the expression of a lex credendi that was deliberately unmoored from Catholic orthodoxy, and indeed actively negated it. The principal instrument of the progressivist propaganda and of Cancel culture that was applied in the ecclesial sphere was the reformed liturgy, just as was done by the Lutheran pseudo-reform, which progressively eliminated from the Christian people the inheritance of Faith, traditions, and daily gestures which centuries of lived Catholicism had impregnated into the life of the faithful and of nations.
Cancel culture is inevitable wherever what is new must be accepted uncritically, and where what is ancient – dismissed as being “old” – must be forgotten so that it does not hang over the present as a severe warning. And it is not a coincidence if George Orwell’s novel 1984 foretold the censorship of information ex post, after the fact, making corrections to past news according to its changing utility in the present. On the other hand, the simple presence of a term of comparison, in itself, reveals a difference that stimulates thoughtful judgment, questions the dogma of progress, and reveals treasures of the past that today no one would be capable of replicating, precisely because they were the result of a world that the present rejects a priori.
But if in recent decades the followers of “Catholic progressivism” – an expression that in itself is already an oxymoron – have worked to undermine Tradition and replace it with its antithesis, in these ten years of the Bergoglian “pontificate” cancel culture has taken on the connotations of an ideological fury, ranging from the situation ethics of Amoris Laetitia to the neo-Malthusian ecologism of Laudato Si’ to the masonic ecumenism of Fratelli Tutti, but also manifesting itself in the brazen removal of exterior signs, from liturgical vestments to papal insignia and titles, and even with Traditionis Custodes and Desiderio Desideravi reaching the point of the substantial cancellation of the Apostolic Liturgy, which the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum had given a parenthesis of relative liberty after forty years of ostracism.
And it is Cancel culture in all respects, in terms of the method of realization, the purposes it intends, the ideology that underlies it, and the common denominator that unites those who promote it. A subversive operation, certainly, because it uses the authority of the Church for the purpose of destroying the Church, subverting her proper end, just as the authority of the State is usurped against the interests of the Nation and the common good of its citizens.
“Sometimes bringing some of grandma’s lace is ok, but only sometimes. It’s in order to pay homage to grandma, no?” Bergoglio said [while speaking to a group of priests in June]. And he did so with the same irreverent superficiality that someone who is ignorant would show before a great work of art or a literary masterpiece. Or rather, just like someone who knows its value well, but having only trash and junk to offer as an alternative, can only resort to discrediting and derision. Liquidating the inestimable treasures of doctrine and spirituality of the Apostolic Liturgy with simplifications from social media – “grandmother’s lace” – betrays his awareness that he has no arguments and explains the reason for so much intolerance toward something that a person with good faith would be driven to preserve, guard, and understand.
Those who still persist in individually refuting Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s “acts of magisterium and governance” are refusing to take note of a terrible and painful reality, which significantly finds its counterpart in the Western world. A world which, as has always been the case, takes its example from the Church – in the past drawing inspiration from its goodness and today following it in evil. And thus, it is useless to refute this or that document or declaration, being scandalized by what it may represent with respect to Catholic tradition: Cancel culture – as an expression of Gnostic and revolutionary thought – is ontologically the enemy of reason, even before it is an enemy of Faith. And those who denounce the incalculable damages of this criminal operation of removal and condemnation of the past, even by simply demonstrating the disastrous state into which parishes and religious communities have fallen, do not seem to realize that it is precisely these damages that were knowingly pursued. They fall into the same deception as those who, at the time of the psychopandemic, are surprised that in the presence of serious side effects and “sudden illnesses” obviously caused by the experimental serum, health authorities are not forbidding the distribution of the so-called vaccine, when it is obvious that it was intended to reduce the world’s population by 10-15%, as Mr. Gates has explained to us.
In reality, not wanting to consider the relationship between cause and effect is a consequence of the rejection of the entire Western system of logic and philosophy that is essentially Aristotelian and Thomistic. Because a deviant thought can only be accepted in blind irrationality and servile obedience. Even if, in hindsight, the architects of the revolution have a very lucid and logical plan, which however they cannot declare openly since it is subversive and criminal.
Deep church and deep state move in parallel and in sync, because what moves them both is hatred for Jesus Christ. The antichristic matrix resides in deception, which is the mark of the Liar: a deception that began with making Adam and Eve believe that their disobedience would make them similar to God, when in reality they had been created “in the image and likeness of God” precisely in freely conforming to the divine cosmos impressed by the Creator in creatures and in creation. We find the same deception in making us believe that man can deny God and rebel against his Holy Law without consequences, when Satan first of all, sinning through pride, has damned himself for eternity. The myth of liberty, of which license and libertinism are counterfeits, is a lie. The secular state, which denies the Lordship of Christ the King in society, is a lie. Ecumenism, which places the Truth of God on the same level as error in the name of a peace and fraternity that cannot exist outside the one Church of Christ, the Holy Catholic Church, is a lie. It is a lie to have erected progress as an absolute good, because what it considers a good is in reality an evil that affects individuals and society, both secular society and spiritual society. It is a lie to pass off as a victory of popular demand something that an elite of conspirators has decided to impose on the masses, with the sole intent of dominating them and leading them to perdition.
This is why, in the face of all the Bergoglian nonsense, which celebrates as beyond dispute the successes of Vatican II and the conquests of the post-conciliar church despite the presence of a huge crisis, any comment is superfluous. What is sold to us as the latest discovery of modernity – from gender ideology to neo-Malthusian health ideology – is old ideological rubbish whose only purpose is to distance souls from God, so that the adage “misery loves company” becomes an apt summary of the evil action of the devil, who is envious that creatures endowed with a soul and body have been granted by Providence the Redemption that the angels, as pure spirits, were not granted. A Redemption accomplished by means of the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, perpetuated in its fruits by the Mystical Body of Christ, the Holy Church.
Bergoglio accuses people of Gnosticism and Pelagianism if they cannot accept the idea of a Gnostic and Pelagian pope, for whom the good does not consist in conforming oneself to the model of perfection intended for us by God the Creator and Redeemer, but rather in doing whatever each one of us believes is good. But this is, after all, nothing other than the sin of Lucifer, setting up his Non Serviam as a moral rule.
Archbishop Crepaldi did well to point out the antichristic matrix of the Cancel culture. But this analysis, which is valid and true regarding what is happening in the civil world, must also be courageously extended to the Catholic world, in which the same antichristic matrix has existed uncontested ever since the Second Vatican Council made an idol out of the new and transient, denying two thousand years of Tradition founded on the Word of God and on the teaching of the Apostles and the Roman Pontiffs. The ideological fury of Bergoglio is simply the logical consequence of these premises, and the fact that a massage therapist can design the gay-friendly logo for the 2025 Jubilee (here) is merely the latest dismal confirmation of an ongoing metastasis.
I urge my brothers in the episcopate, the priests and all the faithful to understand this fundamental aspect of the present apostasy, because we will not be able to do any good to convert civil society and restore the royal Crown to Christ as long as that Crown has been usurped by His enemies within the very womb of the Church.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
July 2, 2022
|
|
|
|
| The US Is Funding A Massive Virus Hunt That Might Cause Another Pandemic. Great Idea! |
|
Posted by: Stone - 07-06-2022, 08:22 AM - Forum: Health
- No Replies
|
|
The US Is Funding A Massive Virus Hunt That Might Cause Another Pandemic. Great Idea!
![[Image: 960x0.jpg?format=jpg&width=960]](https://imageio.forbes.com/specials-images/imageserve/62c347df57e1b2663be0d85c/Catching-Bats/960x0.jpg?format=jpg&width=960)
Field technicians, using a box and long sticks to catch bats beneath a railroad bridge, for an for an arbovirus study, 1974. Image courtesy Centers for Disease Control. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images) GETTY IMAGES
Steven Salzberg Contributor Forbes | July 5, 2022
I just learned that the US Agency for International Development, USAID, is pouring $125 million into an effort to seek out novel viruses in remote areas of the world. This is pretty much exactly what many scientists, including me, have been warning against for years.
How did I miss this? It was announced last October, along with articles about how excited Washington State University was to lead the project, and how pleased the University of Washington was to go out and hunt down animals that were carrying dangerous new viruses.
In any case, I know about it now, and I’m joining the voices (here and here, for example) that are warning that this is a truly terrible idea.
The USAID’s announcement seems utterly oblivious to the enormous dangers posed by this program. Their own headline says they want to find viruses that could cause pandemics! The program, called DEEP VZN (”deep vision,” get it?) is funding scientists in the US and in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to venture (”deep”) into unpopulated areas of the jungle, and to find animals carrying viruses that might infect humans. They’re particularly interested in viruses that could cause the next pandemic.
What could go wrong? Oh nothing, says USAID and the scientists who are happily taking the $125 million in funding. They’ll be super careful! So we should all be pleased with how the government is preparing for the next pandemic.
Related: White House Mandates Pfizer Vaccines for Millions of Citizens ...Before the FDA Clinical or Safety Reviews Have Been Made Public
Uh, no. As I wrote last year:
Quote:It’s also time to ask, very critically, whether anyone should be venturing out into remote areas to collect animals that are infected with possible pandemic-causing microbes, and bringing those animals [or just the viruses] back to densely populated areas. Rather than preventing pandemics, these activities are more likely to cause them.
The only tiny nod to risk in the USAID announcement is that they will “safely discover and understand new viruses from animals at high risk locations” (emphasis mine). They make no mention of how they will guarantee this is safe–because they simply can’t guarantee any such thing.
Oh wait, isn’t this how some people think the Covid-19 pandemic started? Because humans were collecting bats from remote caves? Oh, but perhaps that was different, because some of those bats were being collected for food, and the people collecting them weren’t careful enough.
Never mind that the debate about whether Covid-19 was caused by a lab leak has never been fully resolved. And never mind that the debate itself has made it clear that lab leaks happen all too often, and that it’s clearly possible that a lab leak could cause a pandemic.
(For more on the risks of lab leaks, see my previous articles, from March 2022, June 2021, October 2021, or January 2015 (when the threat was from influenza), or this New Yorker story from 2021.)
The details of DEEP VZN are even more alarming: they plan to collect over 800,000 samples from animals in the wild, and they hope (!) to discover 8,000 to 12,000 new viruses, any one of which might have the potential to start a worldwide pandemic. They’ll focus especially on coronaviruses (the family that includes the Covid-19 virus), Ebola-like viruses, and a group called paramyxoviruses.
Great, so maybe they’ll cause a novel Ebola outbreak too. I’m feeling very comforted now!
I have to note here that USAID, the funder for DEEP VZN, also funded EcoHealth Alliance to collect coronaviruses from bats in China, and EcoHealth partnered with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in that project. As I and many others have written over the past two years, the Wuhan Institute of Virology is a possible source, through a hypothesized lab leak, of the Covid-19 pandemic. We may never know if WIV was involved, because China shut down all access to the lab early in the pandemic.
But it seems USAID didn’t learn any lessons at all from the many publicly expressed concerns about whether it was wise to go into caves in remote areas of China and collect coronaviruses from bats. On the contrary: with DEEP VZN, they are doubling down.
Why do USAID and the scientists at Washington State and UW think this is a good idea? Well, here the story is very familiar. They are making the same pie-in-the-sky claims we’ve been hearing for years: “The hope is that this improved understanding will lead to prevention of future pandemics,” said a UW scientist in their press release. Or “to make sure the world is better prepared for these infectious disease events, we need to be ready” according to a Washington State scientist.
I and others have pointed out the flaws in these claim before, but it’s worth re-stating a few of them:
First, there’s not a shred of evidence that collecting these viruses will help prevent a pandemic, and we now have evidence providing the opposite. Scientists have been collecting coronaviruses since the first SARS outbreak, in 2003, and that work didn’t prevent the Covid-19 pandemic, even though both outbreaks were caused by coronaviruses.
Second, the act of going into remote areas and looking for viruses is highly likely to bring deadly new viruses back into human cities, creating opportunities for a lab leak that could easily cause a new pandemic. And despite some protests to the contrary, lab leaks can and do happen, even from the most secure facilities.
Third, having viruses in labs, even if they’re secure, will do little to help anyone design vaccines against future pandemic viruses. As expert virologists have pointed out, we simply can’t predict what viruses will cause the next pandemic: there are far too many of them, among other reasons.
There’s one more threat I have to mention. DEEP VZN proudly proclaims that it’s going to make all of its data public, including the genome sequences of the viruses that it collects. This strategy blithely ignores the fact that it’s now possible for hostile actors to use these sequences to create deadly new bioweapons. An MIT engineer estimates that some 30,000 people around the world already have this capability. Even if that is a bit alarmist (and I tend to think it is), it’s not so far-fetched to believe that generating all of these sequences greatly increases the risk that someone will create a rogue virus.
If USAID wants to help prevent the next pandemic, there are far, far better ways to spend $125 million of taxpayer money. Here are a few ideas:
1. Use the money to reduce the consumption of “bushmeat” in countries where this is still practiced. This could be done in many ways, such as training people in better farming methods, or even just providing food directly.
2. Put a halt to the use of wild animals for ineffective “traditional” medicines, which don’t cure anything and which are one of the main incentives for hunting exotic animals. This would have the additional benefit of saving a number of animal species from extinction.
3. Use the money to develop faster ways to produce and deliver vaccines, so we don’t have to wait months or years from the time a pathogen starts spreading until we have a vaccine.
Look, I know that some scientists are very excited about going out and finding new viruses, and some of them truly believe this will help prevent future pandemics. But they’ve been saying this for years, and the evidence is now overwhelming that this is a pipe dream. Sending humans out into the wild to gather viruses that would otherwise never make their way into population centers is just a terribly dangerous plan.
Or let’s put this another way: if you discovered that a research facility in your home town were working with hundreds of deadly viruses, would you have any concerns? Any at all? I know I would.
|
|
|
|
| 'Canadians will be required to get a Covid shot every nine months for the foreseeable future' |
|
Posted by: Stone - 07-05-2022, 05:39 PM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
- No Replies
|
|
Canada's Health Minister: "You Will Never Be Fully-Vaxxed"
![[Image: 2022-07-05_05-22-49.jpg?itok=f3JrQBQZ]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/2022-07-05_05-22-49.jpg?itok=f3JrQBQZ)
ZH | JUL 05, 2022
Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,
This is the new ‘right way’ to think about vaccinations...
Despite increasingly compelling data and peer reviewed studies coming out detailing the harms and side-effects of vaccinations, Canada’s Liberal-Socialist coalition government is doubling down on vaccinations, and appear ready move the goalposts on what constitutes vaccine compliance.
As reported via Blacklocks Reporter (@mindingottawa on Twitter),
Quote:Canadians will be required to get a Covid shot every nine months for the foreseeable future, says Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos. Previous definitions of “fully vaccinated” made no sense, he told reporters.
“Nine months is very clear and will help people understand why ‘up to date’ is the right way to think about vaccination now,” said Duclos.
“‘Fully vaccinated’ makes no sense now. It’s about ‘up to date.’ So am I up to date in my vaccination? Have I received a vaccination in the last nine months?”
Duclos previously called for the provinces to make vaccinations mandatory and when asked by reporters if mandates would return this fall, he replied “We must continue to fight against Covid.”
Canada seems to be one of the few countries outside Communist China who is frantically clinging to the COVID narrative, relentlessly pushing largely ineffective (and arguably dangerous) vaccines on an increasingly fed up population.
The Trudeau regime is increasingly unpopular, a recent Angus Reid poll finding those who “strongly support” the government falling into single digits. The largest single category was “strongly disapprove” at 41%,
Reeling with numerous scandals, corruption and gaffes, Justin Trudeau holds power solely through the merger of his party with the Canada’s Socialist NDP, headed by millionaire Jagmeet Singh.
The deal ostensibly keeps him in office until 2025. Singh is also on the ropes, frequently being jeered in public even among his base constituency in Brampton, Ontario. His brother lost his seat in the recent Ontario election, and Sing himself was run out of a campaign stop by enraged Sikhs who called him “a sell out”.
[...]
|
|
|
|
| ‘Going well’: Pope Francis hopes for renewal of Vatican-China deal in October |
|
Posted by: Stone - 07-05-2022, 03:17 PM - Forum: Pope Francis
- No Replies
|
|
‘Going well’: Pope Francis hopes for renewal of Vatican-China deal in October
AsiaNews wrote in 2018 that ‘underground Catholics bitterly suspect that the Vatican has abandoned them’ since the deal was signed.
![[Image: Pope-Francis-reuters-810x500.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Pope-Francis-reuters-810x500.jpg)
Pope Francis speaking with Reuters July 2, 2022
Tue Jul 5, 2022
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Francis has praised the controversial Vatican deal with China, saying that it “is going well” and that he hopes it will be renewed in October.
Speaking to Reuters on July 2, Pope Francis doubled down on the secretive deal the Vatican has made with China, which is due for its second renewal in October of this year.
“The agreement is moving well, and I hope that in October it can be renewed,” Pope Francis told the news service. Earlier in the interview, Francis had touched on the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade in the U.S. and stamped on circling rumors about his possible resignation.
His latest comments, released on July 5, dealt with the Sino-Vatican deal which has been the subject of much criticism from China experts as well as Catholic clergy in Asia, notably Cardinal Joseph Zen.
First signed in 2018 and later renewed in 2020, the deal’s specific details remain undisclosed with a peculiar air of mystery surrounding them. China expert Stephen Mosher described the deal as an action which was “perhaps the most controversial of a papacy dogged by controversy.”
When speaking to Reuters, Francis defended the deal as being a necessary part of diplomacy and something which echoed the actions of Popes John XXII and Paul VI in their dealings with Communist nations.
“Diplomacy is like that. When you face a blocked situation, you have to find the possible way, not the ideal way, out of it,” he said.
“Diplomacy is the art of the possible and of doing things to make the possible become a reality,” he added.
READ: Pope Francis’ deal with Communist China has led to greater persecution of Catholics
Reportedly, the Vatican-China deal recognizes the state-approved version of the Catholic Church and allows the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to appoint bishops. The Pope apparently maintains a veto power although in practice it is the CCP who has control. It also allegedly allows for the removal and replacement of legitimate bishops by CCP-approved bishops.
In an earlier defense of the deal, Francis described it as forming a “new chapter of the Catholic Church in China.” However, the reality on the ground is marked by a heightened increase in religious persecution since the deal was signed, which the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China described as a direct consequence of the deal. In its 2020 report, the Commission wrote that the persecution witnessed was “of an intensity not seen since the Cultural Revolution.”
A growing number of bishops, priests and lay people have been arrested and held in isolation following the deal, with the Vatican’s official media outlet ignoring these instances and instead praising the appointment of bishops which have taken place since the deal was signed.
READ: China’s communist-run church declares ‘independence’ immediately after deal with Vatican
“It’s a “betrayal of the real Church,” Hong Kong emeritus Cardinal Joseph Zen said of the deal in July 2020 before revealing a startling detail: “It’s not an isolated episode. It’s already a long-standing policy of the Vatican not to offend the Chinese government.”
Yet announcing the deal’s renewal in 2020, Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin declared that “we are content. There are still many other problems, but we never expected the accord to resolve all the problems.”
Cardinal Zen, recently arrested by the authorities, has been an outspoken critic of the deal since its inception. His arrest is seen as a key moment testing the Vatican’s commitment either to Chinese Catholics or to Beijing. Cardinal Parolin, however, stated that his arrest “should not be read as ‘a disavowal’ of the agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China on the appointments of bishops.”
A total of six Chinese bishops are now reported to have been consecrated under the terms of the deal, with around 40 bishops still needing to be appointed.
Speaking to Catholic News Agency last year, Father Bernardo Cervellera, the former editor-in-chief of AsiaNews, said that all the bishops so far appointed under the deal had been “president or secretary of the Patriotic Association [the state-approved church]. So this means that they are very near to the government.”
Cervellera added that priests “above all, they have to praise the glory of the Communist Party.” Clerics are also required by law to sign documents promising to support the CCP.
Pope Francis appeared not to take note of such concerns when speaking with Reuters, commenting that “they (the Chinese) also have their own problems because it is not the same situation in every region of the country. It (the treatment of Catholics) also depends on local leaders.”
The Argentine pontiff described the deal’s slow progress as “‘the Chinese way,’ because the Chinese have that sense of time that nobody can rush them.”
Among the notable critics of the deal is the former senior Vatican official in Hong Kong, Monsignor Javier Herrera-Corona. Over a number of months last year, Mgr. Herrera-Corona told missionaries in Hong Kong to prepare for further religious persecution as restrictions were only going to increase.
He was removed as head of the Holy See Study Mission in Hong Kong in February this year, and appointed as Nuncio in the Republic of the Congo and in Gabon. His sudden reassignment, along with that of the senior Vatican official in Taiwan, prompted speculation that Beijing was exercising influence on the Vatican to remove clerics the authorities took issue with.
With the Vatican now looking to renew the deal, it appears that Chinese Catholics will be subject to continued persecution, as AsiaNews wrote – only hours after the deal was signed in 2018 – saying that “[u]nderground Catholics bitterly suspect that the Vatican has abandoned them.”
|
|
|
|
| Manufacturing Plants Aren’t Just Mysteriously Getting Burned Down In The United States ... |
|
Posted by: Stone - 07-05-2022, 07:30 AM - Forum: Global News
- No Replies
|
|
Manufacturing Plants Aren’t Just Mysteriously Getting Burned Down In The United States,
It’s Happening Around The World…
![[Image: plant-fire.jpg]](https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/plant-fire.jpg)
GP [adapted] | July 4, 2022
As Americans tackle accelerating inflation, skyrocketing gas prices and food and baby formula shortages following the manufactured COVID pandemic, manufacturing plants are mysteriously being burned down on a regular basis.
In 2021, Resilinc, a leading global supply chain monitoring and risk management firm that has been tracking disruptions at manufacturing plants for over a decade, was prompted to create a WarRoom to track the sudden uptick of supply chain disruptions.
The company issued 11,642 to alerts notifying its, which include today’s largest multinational organizations, about supply chain disruptions; an 88 percent increase in supply chain disruptions in a single year.
North America experienced the 5,417 supply chain disruptions, more than any other developed nation, followed by Europe which saw 2,838 and Asia, 2,128.
Manufacturing plants aren’t accidentally getting destroyed in the United States. Destructive fires like those raging across in food factories across the United States have suspiciously become commonplace around the world.
More factory fires occurred in 2021 than any year in recorded history.
Nearly a quarter of the supply chain disruptions globally were attributed to manufacturing plants being set aflame, according to exclusive data compiled from Resilinc’s EventWatch monitoring database.
“Resilinc issued 1,946 Factory Fire alerts in 2021, an increase of 129 percent year-over year,” Resilinc communications director Melissa Gieringer said in a statement issued to the Gateway Pundit.
The company attributes the sudden cause of fires to labor shortages caused by the pandemic.
“The uptick is due mostly to gaps in regulatory and process execution as well as shortage of skilled labor in warehouses. Factory fires are contributing to record breaking supply shortages. If a warehouse goes down for a month due to a factory fire the trickle-down effect is huge,” Gieringer said. ” If no one is checking that the fire sprinklers work, or if there are flammable materials – like cardboard – left on the floor because there is not enough staff available to clean up, it can turn into a bad scenario.”
“Take this example: In October 2020 a fire broke out at a semiconductor manufacturing plant in Japan; it took three days to put the fire out and when the dust settled, production lines were estimated to be down a minimum of six months,” she continued. “As a result, procurement teams – from the hi-tech to automotive sectors – were scrambling. The price of some chips went from $5 to $110 in a matter of days and ultimately cost sourcing organizations tens of millions of dollars. A risk assessment survey later revealed that the site did not have anyone checking the automatic sprinkler or fire suppression system. This fire also contributed to the current chip shortage that is significantly impacting carmakers.”
While Reslinc correlates the uptick in fires at manufacturing plants to a global workforce shortage, more factories have been mysteriously set aflame in the United States than any other country.
Workers around the world were forced to leave work when the pandemic hit amid COVID lockdowns and vaccine mandates and have yet to return to factories. But there have been more than twice as many fires at manufacturing plants in the U.S. than any other country.
“Among the countries that saw the highest number of factory fire alerts [in 2021] were the United States (425), India (159), Germany (122), South Korea (117), Mexico (97), the United Kingdom (78) and Japan (72),” Resilinc reports.
Resilinc has yet to release data showcasing the number of fires at manufacturing plants throughout 2022, but the Gateway Pundit has compiled a list documenting the number of major fires that have erupted at food industry facilities to date in 2022:
1/2/22 Firefighters battled a fire that burned down 75 percent of Van Drunen Farms Tu Thill plant in Momence, Illinois
1/7/22 Damage to a poultry processing plant on Hamilton’s Mountain following an overnight fire in Oregon
1/8/22 Two warehouses and a cold storage were destroyed in a fire at Raw Far Creamery in Fresno, California
1/13/22 Firefighters worked for 12 hours to put a fire out at the Cargill-Nutrena plant in Lecompte, LA
1/20/22 A fire broke out at Washington Potato Food Processing Plant in Warden, Washington
1/31/22 Wiston Weaver Company, a fertilizer plant with 600 tons of ammonium nitrate inside caught on fire in Winston-Salem, North Carolina
2/3/22 A massive fire swept through Wisconsin River Meats in Mauston, Wisconsin
2/3/22 At least 130 cows were killed in a fire at Percy Farm in Stowe
2/4/22 Diamond Walnut Growers, a food processing plant was set aflame and permanently shut down following the fire in Live Oak, California
2/15/22 Bonanza Meat Company goes up in flames in El Paso, Texas
2/15/22 Nearly a week after the fire destroyed most of the Shearer’s Foods plant in Hermiston
2/16/22 A fire had broken at Louis Dreyfus Company, the US largest soybean processing and biodiesel plant in Claypool, Indiana
2/18/22 An early morning fire tore through the milk parlor at Bess View Farm
2/19/22 Three people were injured, and one was hospitalized, after an ammonia leak at Lincoln Premium Poultry in Fremont, Nebraska
2/22/22 The Shearer’s Foods plant caught fire after a propane boiler exploded in Hermiston, Oregon
2/28/22 A smoldering pile of sulfur quickly became a raging chemical fire at Nutrien Ag Solutions
2/28/22 A man was hurt after a fire broke out at the Shadow Brook Farm and Dutch Girl Creamery
3/4/22 294,800 chickens destroyed at farm in Stoddard, Missouri
3/4/22 644,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, Maryland
3/8/22 243,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in New Castle, Delaware
3/10/22 663,400 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, MD
3/10/22 915,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Taylor, IA
3/14/22 The blaze at 244 Meadow Drive was discovered shortly after 5 p.m. by farm owner Wayne Hoover
3/14/22 2,750,700 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Jefferson, Wisconsin
3/16/22 A fire at a Walmart warehouse distribution center has cast a large plume of smoke visible throughout Indianapolis.
3/16/22 Nestle Food Plant extensively damaged in fire and new production destroyed Jonesboro, Arkansas
3/17/22 5,347,500 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Buena Vista, Iowa
3/17/22 147,600 chickens destroyed at farm in Kent, Delaware
3/18/22 315,400 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, Maryland
3/22/22 172,000 Turkeys destroyed on farms in South Dakota
3/22/22 570,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Butler, Nebraska
3/23/22 A massive fire erupted at a Pepsi Food Processing Plant in Piscataway, New Jersey
3/24/22 Fire fighters from numerous towns are battling a major fire at the McCrum potato processing facility in Belfast.
3/24/22 418,500 chickens destroyed at farm in Butler, Nebraska
3/25/22 250,300 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Franklin, Iowa
3/26/22 311,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
3/27/22 126,300 Turkeys destroyed in South Dakota
3/28/22 1,460,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Guthrie, Iowa
3/29/22 A massive fire burned 40,000 pounds of food at Maricopa Food Pantry in Maricopa, Arizona
3/31/22 A structure fire caused significant damage to a large portion of key fresh onion packing facilities in south Texas
3/31/22 76,400 Turkeys destroyed in Osceola, Iowa
3/31/22 5,011,700 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Osceola, Iowa
4/6/22 281,600 chickens destroyed at farm in Wayne, North Carolina
4/9/22 76,400 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/9/22 208,900 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/12/22 89,700 chickens destroyed at farm in Wayne, North Carolina
4/12/22 1,746,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Dixon, Nebraska
4/12/22 259,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Minnesota
4/13/22 Fire destroys East Conway Beef & Pork Meat Market in Conway, New Hampshire
4/13/22 Plane crashes into Gem State Processing, Idaho potato and food processing plant
4/13/22 77,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/14/22 Taylor Farms Food Processing plant burns down Salinas, California.
4/14/22 99,600 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/15/22 1,380,500 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Lancaster, Minnesota
4/19/22 Azure Standard, the nation’s premier independent distributor of organic and healthy food, was destroyed by fire in Dufur, Oregon
4/19/22 A fire broke out at Nutiren AG Solutions prompting evacuations in Leoti, Kansas
4/19/22 339,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/19/22 58,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Montrose, Color
4/20/22 2,000,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Minnesota
4/21/22 A small plane crashed in the lot of a General Mills plant in Covington, Georgia
4/22/22 197,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/23/22 200,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
4/24 Fire broke out around 3:45 am at General Mills manufacturing site in Cedar Rapids, Iowa
4/25/22 Officials launched an investigation into the cause of a fire that broke out at Hormel Foods Facility in Suffolk, Virginia
4/25/22 1,501,200 chickens destroyed at egg farm Cache, Utah
4/26/22 307,400 chickens destroyed at farm Lancaster Pennsylvania
4/27/22 2,118,000 chickens destroyed at farm Knox, Nebraska
4/28/22 the basement of Agriway Partners was set ablaze in Kalona, Washington
4/28/22 Egg-laying facility in Iowa kills 5.3 million chickens resulting in plant firing over 200 workers
4/28/22 Allen Harim Foods processing plant killed nearly 2 million chickens in Delaware
4/28/22 110,700 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
4/29/22 1,366,200 chickens destroyed at farm Weld Colorado
4/30 A soybean processing tank caught fire at the Perdue Farms plant in Chesapeake, West Virginia
4/30/22 13,800 chickens destroyed at farm Sequoia Oklahoma
5/1/22 A fire broke out at Saladinao’s food processing plant in Fresno, California
5/3/22 58,000 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
5/3/22 118,900 Turkeys destroyed Beadle S Dakota
5/3/22 114,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
5/3/22 118,900 Turkeys destroyed Lyon Minnesota
5/7/22 20,100 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
5/7/22 A fire erupted at JBS meat packing plant in Green Bay, Wisconsin
5/10/22 72,300 chickens destroyed at farm Lancaster Pennsylvania
5/10/22 61,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
5/10/22 35,100 Turkeys destroyed Muskegon, Michigan
5/13/22 10,500 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
5/14/22 83,400 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
5/17/22 79,00 chickens destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
5/18/22 7,200 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
5/19/22 Train carrying limestone derailed in Jensen Beach FL
5/21/22 57,000 Turkeys were destroyed on a farm in Dakota Minnesota
5/23/22 4,000 ducks were destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
5/29/22 A Saturday night fire destroyed a poultry building at Forsman Farms in Howard Lake, Minneapolis
5/31/22 3,000,000 chickens were destroyed by fire at Forsman facility in Stockholm Township, Minnesota
6/2/22 30,000 ducks were destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
6/7/22 A fire occurred Tuesday evening at the JBS meat packing plant in Green Bay.
6/8/22 Firefighters from Tangipahoa Fire District 1 respond to a fire at the Purina Feed Mill in Arcola
6/9/22 Irrigation water was canceled in California (the #1 producer of food in the US) and storage water flushed directly out to the delta.
6/9/22 Freeport LNG, one of the largest US export plants that produces liquefied natural gas was shut down following an explosion at its Texas Gulf Coast facility.
6/12/22 Largest Pork Company in the US Shuts Down California Plant Due to High Costs
6/13/22 Fire Breaks Out at Festive Foods in Belmont, Wisconsin
6/14/22 Over 10,000 head of cattle have reportedly died in the recent Kansas heat wave
6/23/22 George’s Inc.: Poultry and Prepared Foods announced it will close one of its food processing plants in Campbell County, Tennessee
Fact-checkers, including Reuters and Snopes, insist claims that fires at processing plants are intentionally orchestrated to create supply chain shortages is conspiracy theory.
But the string of fires that continue to damage manufacturing plants across the United States appears to be a deliberate effort to sabotage food processing operations.
According to the FBI’s Cyber Division, cyber-attack threats on agricultural cooperatives are an imminent threat.
“Ransomware actors may be more likely to attack agricultural cooperatives during critical planting and harvest seasons, disrupting operations, causing financial loss, and negatively impacting the food supply chain,” the bureau warned in an April memo.
“A significant disruption of grain production could impact the entire food chain, since grain is not only consumed by humans but also used for animal feed … In addition, a significant disruption of grain and corn production could impact commodities trading and stocks.”
The string of fires at food plants comes as the World Economic Forum and global elites call for a “global reset.” after the Rockefeller Foundation outlined plans to exploit the COVID crisis to transform America’s food system.
The “Reset The Table: Meeting the Moment to Transform The U.S. Food System,” a document published by the Rockefeller Foundation on July 28, 2020, months after COVID was declared a national emergency, warns the U.S. food system must be seized and transformed in the name of “social justice” and “environmental protection.”
Rockefeller Foundation’s managing director of Food Initiative Sara Farley detailed plans about “How to reimagine our food system for a post-COVID world” in an article published in June on WEF’s website.
It makes you wonder [...]
|
|
|
|
| Abp. Viganò: ‘Pride’ movement is satanic, must be conquered by ‘reparation,’ charity |
|
Posted by: Stone - 07-05-2022, 07:09 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
- No Replies
|
|
Abp. Viganò: ‘Pride’ movement is satanic, must be conquered by ‘reparation,’ charity
The 'pride' movement will lead only to 'pain, illness, and death – eternal death,' said the archbishop.
Archbishop Viganò delivering his address to the reparation event. YouTube screenshot
Jul 4, 2022
Editor’s note: The following is a message delivered by Archbishop Viganò to the march of reparation held by the Blessed Giovanna Scopelli Association of Reggio Emilia on July 2, 2022.
(LifeSiteNews) – Dear Faithful, Laudetur Iesus Christus – Praised be Jesus Christ!
For those who are participating in this evening’s procession of reparation, and especially for the participants who are less young, it seems almost incredible that in the course of a few decades Italy could have been transformed in such a radical way, canceling the legacy of Catholicism that made her great and prosperous among nations.
We are witnessing a process – apparently irreversible – of apostasy of the Faith; a process which is the opposite of what St. Leo the Great described in celebrating the solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, in which he praised the providential role of the Alma Urbe, the beloved City of Rome: having been a teacher of error, Rome became a disciple of the Truth, wrote the great Pontiff. Today we could say, with the dismay of children betrayed by their father, that the Rome of the Martyrs and Saints having been a teacher of Truth, has become a disciple of error. Because the present apostasy, which involves civil and religious authority in a rebellion against God the Creator and Redeemer, did not start from below, but from the top.
Those who govern public affairs as well as the Pastors of the Church show that they are obedient to the anti-gospel of the world, and while refusing to pay due respect to Christ the King and obedience to His holy Will, they bend their knees before the new idols of political correctness and burn incense before the simulacrum of humanity brutalized by vice and sin. Those who today lead the people in temporal and spiritual things have as their purpose not the common good of citizens and the salvation of the souls of the faithful, but their corruption, their damnation. And the masses, having abandoned the way of honesty, righteousness and holiness, abandon themselves to deception, corruption and infernal revolt against God.
It is not surprising to see the obscene manifestations of “Pride” along the streets of the cities: the public space that the aberrant have conquered in recent decades had been abandoned well before by Catholics, whose clergy considered professions in honor of the Blessed Sacrament, the Blessed Virgin, and Patron Saints as ostentations of “post-Tridentine triumphalism.”
It is not surprising to see the legalization of divorce, abortion, euthanasia, sodomitic unions and all the worst that a deviant and insane humanity is capable: if this has happened, it is because Catholics were told that they could not impose their own vision of the world and of society, and that they would have to coexist, in the name of democracy and freedom, with the enemies of Christ. And it was a deception, because the tolerance that they demanded of the Christian majority of the country is no longer allowed, and everyone must submit to the dictatorship of aligned thought, gender ideology, and LGBTQ doctrine. Don’t you remember? Marriage was not questioned, but we were asked to accept civil unions. And once the interest groups had been given legitimacy, the door was opened to same-sex marriage, adoptions for same-sex couples, surrogate motherhood, postnatal abortion, and euthanasia imposed in some nations even on young people and the poor.
Scelesta turba clamitat: Regnare Christum nolumus, we sing in the hymn Te Saeculorum Principem for the feast of Christ the King. The delirious rabble shouts: We do not want Christ to reign. That infernal cry, inspired by Satan, is perhaps the only honest thing they can say. And it is true: in the social Kingdom of Christ there is no place for vice; there can be no legitimacy for sin nor tolerance for the corruption of young people. Our adversaries know well that the Civitas Dei and the civitas diaboli are enemies, and that any coexistence is not only impossible but unthinkable and absurd, since Christian society is antithetical and irreconcilable with “secular” society.
You have gathered to give public witness to the Faith, with the intention of making reparation for the sacrileges and blasphemies of the scelesta turba against Jesus Christ and His Most Holy Mother. Because in the face of the cruel and obscene hatred of these rebellious souls we must follow the example of the Lord, outraged by His executioners at the same moment that He sacrificed Himself on the Cross for their salvation. It is in fact Christ himself, with His Incarnation, Passion and Death, who first made reparation for the infinite sins of men towards the eternal Father. For only a God could atone for disobedience to God, and only a Man could offer this reparation in the name of mankind. And we too, who are living members of the Mystical Body of Christ which is the Holy Church, can and must make reparation for the offenses and sins of our fellow human beings with the same spirit, the same obedience, and the same trusting abandonment to the Father.
And while we look with sorrow at the multitude of sins erected as a model to be imitated by a society that is against man precisely because it is against God, the duty of Charity requires us to pray for those who have allowed themselves to be seduced by the deception of the Serpent, so that they may convert and repent. The inclusive world they promised you; the supposed freedom to be and do what you want regardless of the Law of the Lord; the license and vice that is celebrated and the virtue that is mocked and discredited – these are all lies, just as the promise, “You will be like gods,” that Satan made to our first parents in the earthly paradise was also a lie.
I address myself to those who are taking part in these manifestations of so-called “gay pride.” No: you will not be like gods; you will be like beasts. You will not have happiness; you will have pain, illness, and death – eternal death. You will not have peace; you will have discord and quarrels and wars. You will not have prosperity; you will have poverty. You will not be free; you will be slaves. And this will happen indefectibly, because the Liar is a murderer from the beginning, and he wants your death, erasing in your eyes the image of God, stealing from you that blessed eternity that he first lost with his own rebellion. Because the first to sin by pride was Lucifer, with his Non serviam – I will not bend; I will not bow to God; I will not recognize Him as my Lord and Creator. How can you hope that he who hates the Author of life can love you who are His creatures? How can you believe that the one who has been condemned to eternal damnation could be capable of promising you that eternal bliss of which he was the first to be forever deprived?
This procession must not be an occasion for confrontation, but rather an opportunity to show the many people deceived by the Evil One that there exists a people who are animated by sentiments of Faith and Charity, a people which with generosity and with a supernatural gaze offers its prayers, fasts, and sacrifices to implore forgiveness for the sins of their brothers. Charity, founded on the immutable Truth of God, is a tremendous weapon against Satan and an infallible instrument to convert the world and bring many souls back to the Lord. Bring them back to the One who shed his blood even for them, out of love – an infinite, irrevocable love, a love that conquers the world, a love that moves mountains, a love that gives meaning to our life and does not frustrate our existence.
When we see the image of the Savior nailed to the Cross and think of the torments He suffered to ransom and redeem us, we cannot remain insensitive, just as the pagans, idolaters, and sinners of past centuries have not remained insensitive. Societies corrupt in intellect and will, given over to the worst vices, and ensnared by false religions have been conquered by that love – indeed: by that charity – which led the martyrs, even children, women and the elderly not to react against their executioners, so as not to fail in God’s love. How many have been converted by seeing Christians die with dignity as they are persecuted for their faith! How many have been baptized after witnessing the example of Christians and the simple Truth of the Gospel!
And so let us carry out this reparation. Let us do it with a supernatural spirit, convinced that precisely in the humble following of Christ on the way to Calvary we will be able to lead many souls to Him who today are so far away. And the more we see the unleashing of the powers of evil, let us persevere all the more in the good and in the certainty of the victory of Christ, the true and only Light of the world, over the darkness of sin and death.
Let us ask the Holy Spirit with filial trust to infuse His holy Grace into sinners, to touch their hearts, enlighten their minds, and encourage their will. So that those who have hitherto been teachers of error and examples of sin may, through the help and mercy of God and through the intercession of His Most Holy Mother and our Mother, be disciples of truth and an example of virtue. And so may it be.
+ Carlo Maria Vigano, Archbishop
|
|
|
|
| Pope Francis speaks on resignation plans, Roe v. Wade, and pro-abortion politicians |
|
Posted by: Stone - 07-04-2022, 07:38 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
- Replies (1)
|
|
Pope Francis denies he is planning to resign soon
![[Image: A2FOUCW5NRICRPDQWYQCVYM2FU.jpg]](https://www.reuters.com/resizer/yW-47qo2PYy_2NPZhAaLXidqkiI=/960x0/filters:quality(80)/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/A2FOUCW5NRICRPDQWYQCVYM2FU.jpg)
Pope Francis speaks during an exclusive interview with Reuters, at the Vatican, July 2, 2022. REUTERS/Remo Casilli
Reuters | July 4, 2022
Summary- Unsubstantiated rumours fuelled reports of imminent resignation
- Pope laughs off rumours of cancer: "Doctors didn't tell me"
- Trips to Moscow, Kyiv appear more likely; possibly in September
- On U.S. court decision, pope says abortion is 'hiring a hit man'
VATICAN CITY, July 4 (Reuters) - Pope Francis has dismissed reports that he plans to resign in the near future, saying he is on track to visit Canada this month and hopes to be able to go to Moscow and Kyiv as soon as possible after that.
In an exclusive interview in his Vatican residence, Francis also denied rumours that he had cancer, joking that his doctors "didn't tell me anything about it", and for the first time gave details of the knee condition that has prevented him carrying out some duties.
In a 90-minute conversation on Saturday afternoon, conducted in Italian, with no aides present, the 85-year-old pontiff also repeated his condemnation of abortion following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month.
Rumours have swirled in the media that a conjunction of events in late August, including meetings with the world's cardinals to discuss a new Vatican constitution, a ceremony to induct new cardinals, and a visit to the Italian city of L'Aquila, could foreshadow a resignation announcement.
L'Aquila is associated with Pope Celestine V, who resigned the papacy in 1294. Pope Benedict XVI visited the city four years before he resigned in 2013, the first pope to do so in about 600 years.
But Francis, alert and at ease throughout the interview as he discussed a wide range of international and Church issues, laughed the idea off.
"All of these coincidences made some think that the same 'liturgy' would happen," he said. "But it never entered my mind. For the moment no, for the moment, no. Really!"
Francis did, however, repeat his often stated position that he might resign someday if failing health made it impossible for him to run the Church - something that had been almost unthinkable before Benedict XVI.
Asked when he thought that might be, he said: "We don't know. God will say."
KNEE INJURY
The interview took place on the day he was to have left for Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, a trip he had to cancel because doctors said he might also have to miss a trip to Canada from July 24-30 unless he agreed to have 20 more days of therapy and rest for his right knee. read more
He said the decision to cancel the Africa trip had caused him "much suffering", particularly because he wanted to promote peace in both countries. read more
Francis used a cane as he walked into a reception room on the ground floor of the Santa Marta guest house where he has lived since his election in 2013, eschewing the papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace used by his predecessors.
The room has a copy of one of Francis' favourite paintings: "Mary, Untier of Knots", created around 1700 by the German Joachim Schmidtner.
Asked how he was, the pope joked: "I'm still alive!"
He gave details of his ailment for the first time in public, saying he had suffered "a small fracture" in the knee when he took a misstep while a ligament was inflamed.
"I am well, I am slowly getting better," he said, adding that the fracture was knitting, helped by laser and magnet therapy.
Francis also dismissed rumours that a cancer had been found a year ago when he underwent a six-hour operation to remove part of his colon because of diverticulitis, a condition common in the elderly.
"It (the operation) was a great success," he said, adding with a laugh that "they didn't tell me anything" about the supposed cancer, which he dismissed as "court gossip".
But he said he did not want an operation on his knee because the general anaesthetic in last year's surgery had had negative side-effects.
PAPAL TRIP TO MOSCOW?
Speaking of the situation in Ukraine, Francis noted that there have been contacts between Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about a possible trip to Moscow.
The initial signs were not good. No pope has ever visited Moscow, and Francis has repeatedly condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine; last Thursday he implicitly accused it of waging a "cruel and senseless war of aggression". read more
When the Vatican first asked about a trip several months ago, Francis said Moscow replied that it was not the right time.
But he hinted that something may now have changed.
"I would like to go (to Ukraine), and I wanted to go to Moscow first. We exchanged messages about this because I thought that if the Russian president gave me a small window to serve the cause of peace ...
"And now it is possible, after I come back from Canada, it is possible that I manage to go to Ukraine," he said. "The first thing is to go to Russia to try to help in some way, but I would like to go to both capitals."
ABORTION RULING
Asked about the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling establishing a woman's right to have an abortion, Francis said he respected the decision but did not have enough information to speak about it from a juridical point of view. read more
But he strongly condemned abortion, comparing it to "hiring a hit man". The Catholic Church teaches that life begins at the moment of conception.
"I ask: Is it legitimate, is it right, to eliminate a human life to resolve a problem?"
Francis was asked about a debate in the United States over whether a Catholic politician who is personally opposed to abortion but supports others' right to choose should be allowed to receive the sacrament of communion.
House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi, for example, has been barred by the conservative archbishop of her home diocese of San Francisco from receiving it there, but is regularly given communion at a parish in Washington, D.C. Last week, she received the sacrament at a papal Mass in the Vatican. read more
"When the Church loses its pastoral nature, when a bishop loses his pastoral nature, it causes a political problem," the pope said. "That's all I can say."
|
|
|
|
| Why Does China Own So Much of Ukraine? |
|
Posted by: Stone - 07-04-2022, 07:18 AM - Forum: Global News
- No Replies
|
|
Opinion piece:
Why Does China Own So Much of Ukraine?
Other countries should be careful about allowing sales of farmland to hostile powers.
![[Image: 2dbc76a7972a523f333228de314f7d60c53cbcb3.jpg]](https://archive.ph/NnKAB/2dbc76a7972a523f333228de314f7d60c53cbcb3.jpg)
An employee stands near a production line that processes pork in Zhengzhou, China, April 13, 2017.
PHOTO: QILAI SHEN/BLOOMBERG NEWS
WSJ | June 29, 2022
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is causing global hunger and galloping food prices, and future supply-chain disruptions will bring more such misery. Many countries are realizing that they should grow more food, but they’ve sold much of their best land to China, which uses it to feed its own population. A few years ago, China bought nearly one-tenth of Ukraine’s arable farmland. Countries should start screening those seeking to buy their farmland, as they already do with prospective purchasers of sensitive technology.
“There can be no effective solution to the global food crisis without reintegrating Ukraine’s food production, as well as the food and fertilizer produced by Russia, into world markets,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on June 24, warning that the world faces multiple famines this year and worse in 2023. But Ukrainian grains and other foods won’t be able to enter the world market any time soon because the sea route remains blocked by Russia. Ukraine is sending some grain to world markets via rail to Poland and Romania, but doing so is laborious and expensive. Before the war, around 90% of Ukraine’s grain was exported via its sea ports.
Over the past few years, Chinese buyers have bought farmland in countries ranging from the U.S. and France to Vietnam. In 2013 Hong Kong-based food giant WH Group bought Smithfield, America’s largest pork producer, and more than 146,000 acres of Missouri farmland. In the same year, Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps bought 9% of Ukraine’s famously fertile farmland, equal to 5% of the country’s total territory, with a 50-year lease. (In 2020, the U.S. imposed sanctions on the Chinese company over human-rights abuses.) Between 2011 and 2020, China bought nearly seven million hectares of farmland around the world. Firms from the U.K. bought nearly two million hectares, while U.S. and Japanese firms bought less than a million hectares.
“What matters most is what the Chinese do with the land,” said J. Peter Pham, a longtime Africa analyst who served as the Trump administration’s envoy to Africa’s Great Lakes region. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, “they got approval from the previous regime to take 100,000 hectares to produce for palm oil,” the cultivation of which causes damaging deforestation. “And in Zimbabwe, they’re producing beef for export back to China, which is neither a sustainable nor wise use of farmland in a country where people go hungry for want of basic staples.”
Loss of arable land is becoming calamitous for countries better-positioned than Zimbabwe. By April, mostly as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, wholesale food prices had risen 18% from a year earlier. That’s the largest 12-month increase in nearly five decades, Bloomberg reports. In France, wheat prices have doubled since 2020. And China is likely to want to buy more foreign land. It has 21% of the world’s population but only 7% of productive farmland.
Ukraine’s fate highlights the peril of having another country in charge of a chunk of one’s territory. While Kyiv might be wary of an ally of Russia controlling its land, it also has to worry that China could divest its holdings abruptly, thereby exacerbating Ukraine’s economic woes.
A bill sponsored by Rep. Dan Newhouse (R., Wash.), currently before the House Appropriations Committee, proposes to ban Chinese, Russian, Iranian and North Korean companies from buying American farmland. It follows a bill introduced in 2020 by Republican Sens. Jim Inhofe and Thom Tillis, which would require screening of farmland acquisitions by foreign entities.
Such scrutiny should be accompanied by efforts to buy land back from China and any other strategic rivals. Allowing hostile powers to own farmland has become too risky. Demand for arable land will grow as the climate changes. At the same time, geopolitical confrontation will cause more disrupted food-supply chains. Every hectare counts.
|
|
|
|
| From the Golden Legend: The Death of Simon Magus |
|
Posted by: Stone - 07-03-2022, 07:57 AM - Forum: Resources Online
- No Replies
|
|
The Death of Simon Magus
Adapted from The Golden Legend by Jacobus Voragine (1275), trans. by William Caston, 1483
![[Image: H233_Dea.jpg]](https://traditioninaction.org/religious/images_F-J/H233_Dea.jpg)
Death of Simon Magus from the Nuremburg Chronicle
After St. Peter had made many disputes with Simon Magus, or Simon the Magician, who was each time shamed and proved powerless, Simon returned to Rome and was received again into the friendship of the Emperor Nero.
And then, to prove to the Emperor that his gods were the greater and would not endure such humiliation, this Simon Magus assembled the people and told them that he would leave the city which he was wont to defend and protect, and set a day in which he would ascend into heaven. For he said, he could no longer endure dwelling on this earth.
Then, on the day that he had established, he went up to a high tower which was on the Capitol, and there was crowned with laurel. Afterward he called on his gods the demons and began to fly in the air.
Then said St. Paul to St. Peter, "It falls to me to pray, and to thee to command."
Then said Nero: "This man is very God, and ye be two traitors."
Then said St. Peter to St. Paul: "Paul, my brother, lift up thy head and see how Simon flys."
Then St. Paul said to St. Peter when he saw Simon Magus rising high in the air: "Peter, why dost thou tarry for God now calls us to act?"
Then said Peter: "I charge and conjure you angels of Satan, which bear Simon Magus in the air, by the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, that you bear or sustain him no longer, but let him fall to the earth."
And anon they let him fall to the ground. With great speed he descended and broke his neck and head, and he died there forthwith.
And when Nero heard that Simon was dead and that he had lost such a man, he was sorrowful, and said to the Apostles: "You have done this in despisal of me, and therefore I shall destroy you." And then the enraged Nero arrested Peter and Paul and threw them into the Mamertine prison before their execution.
![[Image: H233_Fal.jpg]](https://traditioninaction.org/religious/images_F-J/H233_Fal.jpg)
Simon Magus falls from the sky at the command of St. Peter & St. Paul, painting by Avanzino Nucci, 1620 |
|
|
|
|
![[Image: 2022-07-05_05-24-39.jpg?itok=MN1qVTC2]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/2022-07-05_05-24-39.jpg?itok=MN1qVTC2)
