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Wuhan Scientists Planned To Release 'Chimeric Covid Spike Proteins' |
Posted by: Stone - 09-22-2021, 08:10 AM - Forum: Health
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Wuhan Scientists Planned To Release 'Chimeric Covid Spike Proteins' Into Bat Populations Using 'Skin-Penetrating Nanoparticles'
![[Image: horseshoe%20bat%20flying%201_4.PNG?itok=XA7BUicl]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/horseshoe%20bat%20flying%201_4.PNG?itok=XA7BUicl)
ZH | SEP 22, 2021
18 months before the pandemic, scientists in Wuhan, China submitted a proposal to release enhanced airborne coronaviruses into the wild in an effort to inoculate them against diseases that could have otherwise jumped to humans, according to The Telegraph, citing leaked grant proposals from 2018.
New documents show that just 18 months before the first Covid-19 cases appeared, researchers had submitted plans to release skin-penetrating nanoparticles containing “novel chimeric spike proteins” of bat coronaviruses into cave bats in Yunnan, China.
They also planned to create chimeric viruses, genetically enhanced to infect humans more easily, and requested $14million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) to fund the work.
The bid was submitted by zoologist Peter Daszak of US-based EcoHealth Alliance, who was hoping to use genetic engineering to cobble "human-specific cleavage sites" onto bat Covid 'which would make it easier for the virus to enter human cells' - a method which would coincidentally answer a longstanding question among the scientific community as to how SARS-CoV-2 evolved to become so infectious to humans.
Daszak's proposal also included plans to commingle high-risk natural coronaviruses strains with more infectious, yet less deadly versions. His 'bat team' of researchers included Dr. Shi Zhengli from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, as well as US researchers from the University of North Carolina and the US Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center.
Darpa refused the contract - saying "It is clear that the proposed project led by Peter Daszak could have put local communities at risk," while warning that Daszak hadn't fully considered the dangers involved in enhancing the virus via gain-of-function research, or by releasing a vaccine into the air.
Quote:Grant documents show that the team also had some concerns about the vaccine programme and said they would “conduct educational outreach … so that there is a public understanding of what we are doing and why we are doing it, particularly because of the practice of bat-consumption in the region”.
Angus Dalgleish, Professor of Oncology at St Georges, University of London, who struggled to get work published showing that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) had been carrying out “gain of function” work for years before the pandemic, said the research may have gone ahead even without the funding.
“This is clearly a gain of function, engineering the cleavage site and polishing the new viruses to enhance human cell infectibility in more than one cell line,” he said. -Telegraph
See PDF here.
As the Telegraph aptly notes (and you'll never hear from Maddow, Lemon or Hayes), Daszak is the same guy behind a letter published in The Lancet last year which ruled out the lab leak hypothesis, and temporarily stifled debate on the origins of Covid-19.
"For more than a year I tried repeatedly to ask questions of Peter Daszak with no response," said Viscount Ridley, who has co-authored an upcoming book on the origin of Covid-19, and has repeatedly implored the House of Lords to dig deeper into the origins of the pandemic. "Now it turns out he had authored this vital piece of information about virus work in Wuhan but refused to share it with the world. I am furious. So should the world be," he added.
"Peter Daszak and the EcoHealth Alliance (EHA) proposed injecting deadly chimeric bat coronaviruses collected by the Wuhan Institute of Virology into humanised and ‘batified’ mice, and much, much more."
The documents, released by an international consortium of scientists known as 'Drastic Research,' were authenticated by a former Trump administration official. According to the group, "The actual DEFUSE Proposal Documents will be published in due course."
See PDF here for reasons for DARPA rejection.
"Given that we find in this proposal a discussion of the planned introduction of human-specific cleavage sites, a review by the wider scientific community of the plausibility of artificial insertion is warranted," Drastic said in a statement.
Enhanced MERS?
One anonymous World Health Organization (WHO) scientist told The Telegraph that Daszak's grant proposal shockingly proposed plans to enhance the more deadly MERS (Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome).
"The scary part is they were making infectious chimeric Mers viruses," said the source, adding "These viruses have a fatality rate over 30 per cent, which is at least an order of magnitude more deadly than Sars-CoV-2."
"If one of their receptor replacements made Mers spread similarly, while maintaining its lethality, this pandemic would be nearly apocalyptic."
Just remember, the initial cover story started with 'bat soup.'
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September 22nd – St. Thomas of Villanova, Bishop & Confessor & Comm. of St Maurice & Companion |
Posted by: Stone - 09-22-2021, 06:43 AM - Forum: September
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September 22 – St. Thomas of Villanova, Bishop & Confessor & Commemoration of St Maurice & Companions
In 1517 a cruel blow fell upon the great Augustinian family; Luther, one of its members, raised the cry of revolt which was to be echoed for centuries by every passion. But the illustrious Order, which had unwittingly nurtured this child of evil, was none the less acceptable to God; and He deigned, before long, to demonstrate this, for the consolation of institutes whose very excellence exposes unworthy subjects to more dangerous falls. It was at the First Vespers of All Saints that Luther broached, at Wittenburg, his famous theses against indulgences and the authority of the Roman Pontiff; within a month, on November 25 of the same year, Thomas of Villanova pronounced his vows at Salamanca, and filled up the place left vacant by the heresiarch. Amid the storms of social disorder, and the noise of the world’s disturbances, the glory rendered by one saint to the ever-tranquil Trinity, outweighs all the insults and blasphemies of hell.
Let us bear all this in mind as we read the following lessons.
Quote:Thomas was born at Fuenllana, a town in the diocese of Toledo in Spain, in the year of our Lord one thousand four hundred and eighty eight. From his earliest youth, his excellent parents instilled into him piety and extraordinary charity to the poor. Of this virtue he gave, while still a child, many proofs, among the most remarkable of which was his more than once taking off his own garments to clothe the naked. As a youth, he was sent to Alcala to study humanities in the great college of St. Ildephonsus. He was recalled home by the death of his father; whereupon he devoted his whole fortune to the support of destitute virgins, and then returned to Alcala. Having completed his course of theology, he was promoted for his eminent learning to a chair in the University, and taught philosophy and theology with wonderful success. Meanwhile he besought God, with assiduous prayers, to teach him the science of the saints, and a virtuous rule of life and conduct. He was therefore divinely inspired to embrace the institute of the hermits of St. Augustine.
After his profession, he excelled in all virtues which should adorn a religious man: humility, patience, continency; but he was especially remarkable for ardent charity. In the midst of his many and varied labors, his unconquered spirit was ever intent on prayer and meditation of divine things. On account of his reputation for learning and holiness, he was commanded to undertake the duty of preaching, and, by the assistance of heavenly grace, he led countless souls from the mire of vice to the way of salvation. In the government of the brethren, to which he was next appointed, he so united prudence, equity, and sweetness, to zeal and severity, that in many places he restored or confirmed the ancient discipline of his Order.
When elected to the archbishopric of Granada, he rejected that high dignity with wonderful firmness and humility. But not long after, he was obliged by his superiors to undertake the government of the Church of Valentia, which he ruled for about eleven years as a most holy and vigilant pastor. He changed nothing of his former manner of life; but gave free scope to his insatiable charity, and distributed the rich revenues of his church among the needy, keeping not so much as a bed for himself. for the bed on which he was lying when called to heaven, was lent to him by the person to whom he had shortly before given it in alms. He fell asleep in our Lord on the sixth of the Ides of September, at the age of sixty-eight. God was pleased to bear witness to his servant’s holiness by miracles both during life and after death. A barn which was almost empty, the corn having been distributed to the poor, was by his intercession suddenly filled; and a dead child was restored to life at his tomb. These and many other miracles having rendered his name illustrious, Pope Alexander VII enrolled him among the saints, and commanded his feast to be celebrated on the fourteenth of the Kalends of October.
Thy name, as well as thy justice, shall remain for ever, O Thomas, because thou hast distributed and given to the poor; all the church of the saints shall declare thy alms. Teach us to show mercy to our brethren, so that, by thy prayers, we may obtain for ourselves the mercy of God. Thou hast great power with the Queen of heaven, whose praises thou didst love to celebrate, and whose birthday on earth was thy birthday in heaven. Give us an ever increasing knowledge of her, and an ever growing love.
Thou art the glory of Spain; watch over thy country, over thy church of Valencia, and over the Order adorned with such saints as Nicholas of Tolentino, John of San Facundo, and thyself. Bless the religious women who have inherited thy charity, and who, for well-nigh three centuries, have caused thy name, and that of thy father St. Augustine, to be held in veneration. May the preachers of the divine word throughout the world profit by the writings thou hast fortunately left us, monuments of that eloquence which made thee the oracle of princes, the light of the poor, and the mouth-piece of the Holy Ghost.
![[Image: El_Greco_-_The_Martyrdom_of_St_Maurice_-...1024&ssl=1]](https://i2.wp.com/sensusfidelium.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/El_Greco_-_The_Martyrdom_of_St_Maurice_-_WGA10437.jpg?resize=684%2C1024&ssl=1)
At Sion in Valais, at a place called Agaunum, the birthday of the holy martyrs Maurice, Exuperius, Candidus, Victor, Innocent, and Vitalis, with their companions of the Theban legion, who was massacred under Maximian for the name of Christ, and filled the whole world with the renown of their martyrdom. Let us unite with Rome in paying honor to these valiant soldiers, the glorious patrons of Christian armies as well as of numerous churches. “Emperor,” said they, “we are thy soldiers, but we are also the servants of God. To Him we took our first oaths; if we break them, how canst thou trust us to keep our oaths to thee?” No command, no discipline can overrule our baptismal engagements. Every soldier is bound, in honor and in conscience, to obey the Lord of hosts rather than all human commanders, who are but His subalterns.
Prayer
Annue, quæsumus, omnipotens Deus: ut sanctorum martyrum tuorum Mauritii et sociorum ejus nos laætificet festiva solemnitas; ut quorum suffragiis nitimur, eorum natalitiis gloriemur. Per Dominum.
Grant, we beseech thee, almighty God, that the festive solemnity of thy holy martyrs, Maurice and his companions, may give us joy, that we may glory in their festival on whose help we rely. Through our Lord.
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iPhones may soon detect depression, autism, and cognitive decline: report |
Posted by: Stone - 09-22-2021, 06:37 AM - Forum: Health
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iPhones may soon detect depression, autism, and cognitive decline: report
The features would reportedly use extensive personal data collected by sensors on Apple devices like iPhones and Apple Watches
Fox News [adapted - emphasis mine] | September 21, 2021
Apple is working on features designed to detect depression, anxiety, autism, and the cognitive decline that can develop into Alzheimer’s and other kinds of dementia, according to a Tuesday report in the Wall Street Journal.
The depression and cognitive decline features would reportedly use extensive personal data collected by sensors on Apple devices like iPhones and Apple Watches, including information about users’ sleep patterns, physical activity, typing behavior and more.
Apple is reportedly working on the effort alongside researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, who are studying stress, anxiety and depression. The tech giant is also collaborating with drugmaker Biogen Inc., which is studying cognitive decline, according to the Journal.
A third reported collaboration, with Duke University, uses the iPhone’s camera to observe young children’s physical behavior and help detect autism.
Apple did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the report.
The projects are reportedly still in early research stages, and it’s unclear if they will ever lead to a product that is introduced to the public.
Apple’s reported effort comes as a growing body of research in recent years shows that usage of the company’s own devices could be contributing to mental health issues.
A 2019 study from researchers at the University of Arizona found that smartphone dependency among 18 to 20 year-olds "predicts higher reports of depressive symptoms and loneliness." A 2017 paper from San Diego and Florida State researchers showed that heavy usage of smartphones and social media among teens was associated with higher rates of mental health issues and suicide.
Yet Apple Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams, who heads the company’s health unit, has "enthusiastically" told employees that the company has the potential to help address rising rates of anxiety and depression, sources told the Journal.
Any effort by Apple to detect mental health issues would inevitably raise issues of privacy for some users — and the company has already faced an outcry this year from privacy advocates over a plan to scan users’ images for child pornography, leading Apple to postpone and modify the feature.
To address privacy concerns, Apple’s algorithms would work locally on users’ devices rather than sending data to the company, according to documents reviewed by Journal.
Biogen, the company that is reportedly collaborating with Apple to detect signs of cognitive decline, is behind a controversial $56,000-a-year Alzheimer’s drug that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in June. Outside advisers to the FDA had raised concerns that the drug was ineffective and even criticized the FDA’s own staff for what it called an overly positive review.
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Former FDA Commissioner: Six Foot Social Distancing Rule Was ‘Arbitrary … Nobody Knows Where It Came |
Posted by: Stone - 09-22-2021, 06:31 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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Former FDA Commissioner: Six Foot Social Distancing Rule Was ‘Arbitrary … Nobody Knows Where It Came From’
![[Image: Scott-640x480.jpeg]](https://media.breitbart.com/media/2021/09/Scott-640x480.jpeg)
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, then commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), testifies during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing concerning federal efforts to combat the opioid crisis, October 25, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Breitbart | 20 Sep 20210
Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), admitted during an interview on Face the Nation that the six foot social distancing rule recommended by public health officials for months on end was actually “arbitrary in and of itself,” and he noted that “nobody knows where it came from.”
Speaking with Face the Nation’s Margaret Brennan, Gottlieb discussed the rules and risks early in the pandemic, explaining that the Trump administration shifted its focus to the impact lockdowns and rules would have on the economy and children.
“My view is that they were sold on the idea that you weren’t going to be able to really affect the spread and that anything you did was just going to have so many repercussions in terms of impact on children who might not be in school. Impact on the economy, that the costs were worse than the disease,” he said, explaining that schools were a “perfect example of the lack of effective policymaking.”
“So the single reason why most schools remained shut was because the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) was telling them they had to keep kids six feet apart,” he said. “If- if CDC has said you can only- you have to keep kids three feet apart, then a lot of schools would have been able open.”
“And in fact, when the Biden administration wanted to open schools in the spring, this past spring, they got the CDC to change that guidance from six feet to three feet,” Gottlieb continued, admitting the original guidance was “arbitrary” and had unknown origins.
“The six feet was arbitrary in and of itself, nobody knows where it came from,” he said. “The initial recommendation that the CDC brought to the White House and I talk about this was 10 feet, and a political appointee in the White House said we can’t recommend 10 feet.”
“Nobody can measure 10 feet. It’s inoperable. Society will shut down. So the compromise was around six feet. Now imagine if that detail had leaked out. Everyone would have said this is the White House politically interfering with the CDC’s judgment,” he continued:
Quote:The CDC said 10 feet, it should be 10 feet, but 10 feet was no more right than six feet and ultimately became three feet. But when it became three feet, the basis for the CDC’s decision to ultimately revise it from six to three feet was a study that they had conducted the prior fall. So they changed it in the spring. They had done a study in the fall where they showed that if you have two masked individuals, two people wearing masks, the risk of transmission is reduced 70% with masks if you’re three feet apart. So they said on the basis of that, we can now make a judgment that three feet is an appropriate distance. Which begs the question if they had that study result in the fall? Why didn’t they change the advice in the fall? Why did they wait until the spring?
Those decisions, he added, easily undermine Americans’ confidence in advice from public health officials.
“This is how the whole thing feels arbitrary and not science-based. So we talk about a very careful, science-based process and these anecdotes get exposed, and that’s where Americans start to lose confidence in how the decisions got made,” he added.
Watch:
The CDC guide for coronavirus prevention in schools, last updated August 5, 2021, now says schools should “maintain at least 3 feet of physical distance between students within classrooms to reduce transmission risk.”
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September 21st – St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist |
Posted by: Stone - 09-21-2021, 08:00 AM - Forum: September
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September 21 – St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist
The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the son of Abraham. The Eagle and the Lion have already risen in the heavens of the holy Liturgy; today we salute the Man; and next month the Ox will appear, to complete the number of the four living creatures who draw the chariot of God through the world and surround his throne in heaven. These mysterious beings, with their six seraph-wings, are ever gazing with their innumerable eyes upon the Lamb who stands upon the throne as it were slain; and they rest not day and night, saying: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come. St. John beheld them giving to the elect the signal to praise their Creator and Redeemer; and when all created beings in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, have adoringly proclaimed that the Lamb, who was slain, is worthy of power and divinity and glory and empire forever, it is they that add to the world’s homage the seal of their testimony, saying: Amen, so it is!
Great and singular, then, is the glory of the Evangelists. The name of Matthew signifies one who is given. He gave himself when, at the word of Jesus “follow me,” he rose up and followed him; but far greater was the gift he received from God in return. The Most High, who looks down from heaven upon the low things of earth, loves to choose the humble for the princes of his people. Levi, occupied in a profession that was hated by the Jews and despised by the Gentiles, belonged to the lowest rank of society; but still more humble was he in heart when, laying aside the delicate reserve shown in his regard by the other Evangelists, he openly placed his former ignominious title beside the glorious one of Apostle. By so doing, he published the magnificent mercy of him who had come to heal the sick not the healthy, and to call not the just but sinners. For thus exalting the abundance of God’s grace, he merited its superabundance: Matthew was called to be the first Evangelist. Under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost he wrote, with that inimitable simplicity which speaks straight to the heart, the Gospel of the Messias expected by Israel, and announced by the prophets—of the Messias the teach and Savior of his people, the descendant of its kings, and himself the King of the daughter of Sion—of the Messias who had come not to destroy the Law, but to bring it to its full completion in an everlasting, universal covenant.
In his simple-hearted gratitude, Levi made a feast for his divine Benefactor. It was at this banquet that Jesus, defending his disciple as well as himself, replied to those who pretended to be scandalized: Can the children of the Bridegroom mourn, as long as the Bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, when the Bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then they shall fast. Clement of Alexandria bears witness to the Apostle’s subsequent austerity; assuring us that he lived o nnothing but vegetables and wild fruits. The legend will tell us moreover of his zeal for the Master who had so sweetly touched his heart, and of his fidelity in preserving for him souls inebriated with the wine springing forth virgins. This fidelity, indeed, cost him his life: his martyrdom was in defense and confirmation of the duties and rights of holy virginity. To the end of time the Church in consecrating her virgins will make use of the beautiful blessing pronounced by him over the Ethiopian princess, which the blood of the Apostle and Evangelist has imbued with a peculiar virtue (Pontificale Romanum, De Benedictione et Consecratione Virginum: “Deus, plasmator corporum, afflator animarum.”).
The Church gives us this short account of a life better known to God than to men.
Quote:Matthew, also named Levi, was an Apostle and Evangelist. He was sitting in the custom-house at Capharnaum when called by Christ, whom he immediately followed; and then made a feast for him and his disciples. After the resurrection of Christ, and before setting out for the province which it was his lot to evangelize, Matthew was the first to write the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He wrote it in Hebrew, for the sake of those of the circumcision, who had been converted. Soon after, he went into Ethiopia, where he preached the Gospel, and confirmed his teaching by many miracles.
One of the greatest of these was his raising to life the king’s daughter, whereby he converted the king and his wife, and the whole country. After the king’s death, his daughter Iphigenia was demanded in marriage by his successor Hirtacus, who, finding that through Matthew’s exhortation she had vowed her virginity to God and now persevered in her holy resolution, ordered the Apostle to be put to death, as he was celebrating the holy mysteries at the altar. Thus on the eleventh of the Kalends of October, he crowned his apostolate with the glory of martyrdom. His body was translated to Salerno; and in the time of Pope Gregory VII it was laid in a Church dedicated in his name, where it is piously honored by a great concourse of people.
How pleasing must thy humility have been to our Lord; that humility which has raised thee so high in the kingdom of heaven, and which made thee, on earth, the confidant of Incarnate Wisdom. The Son of God, who hides his secrets from the wise and prudent and reveals them to little ones, renovated thy soul by intimacy with himself and filled it with the new wine of his heavenly doctrine. So fully didst thou understand his love that he chose thee to be the first historian of his life on earth. The Man-God revealed himself through thee to the Church. She has inherited thy glorious teaching as she calls it in her Secret; for the Synagogue refused to understand both the Divine Master and the Prophets his heralds.
There is one teaching, indeed, which not all, even of the elect, can understand and receive; just as in heaven not all follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, nor can all sing the new canticle reserved to those whose love here on earth has been undivided. O Evangelist of holy virginity, and martyr for its sake! watch over the choicest portion of our Lord’s flock. Remember also, O Levi, all those for whom, as thou tellest us, the Emmanuel received his beautiful name of Savior. The whole redeemed world honors thee and implores thy assistance. Thou hast recorded for us the admirable Sermon on the mountain: by the path of virtue there traced out, lead us to that kingdom of heaven, which is the ever-recurring theme of thy inspired writing.
![[Image: ?u=http%3A%2F%2Farthistoryreference.com%...f=1&nofb=1]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Farthistoryreference.com%2Fg%2Fme%2F079.jpg&f=1&nofb=1)
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Trudeau’s Liberals win Canada election, but miss majority |
Posted by: Stone - 09-21-2021, 07:43 AM - Forum: Global News
- Replies (2)
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Trudeau’s Liberals win Canada election, but miss majority
AP News | September 21, 2021
Canadians gave Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party a victory in Monday’s parliamentary elections, but his gamble to win a majority of seats failed and nearly mirrored the result of two years ago.
The Liberals won the most seats of any party. The 49-year-old Trudeau channeled the star power of his father, the Liberal icon and late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, when he first won election in 2015 and has led his party to the top finish in two elections since.
Trudeau’s Liberals were leading or elected in 156 seats — one less than they won 2019, and 14 short of the 170 needed for a majority in the House of Commons.
The Conservatives were leading or elected in 121 seats, the same number they won in 2019. The leftist New Democrats were leading or elected in 27, a gain of three seats, while the Quebec-based Bloc Québécois remained unchanged with 32 seats and the Greens were down to two.
“You are sending us back to work with a clear mandate to get Canada through this pandemic,” Trudeau said.
“I hear you when you say you just want to get back to the things you love and not worry about this pandemic or an election.”
Trudeau entered the election leading a stable minority government that wasn’t under threat of being toppled.
The opposition was relentless in accusing Trudeau of calling an unnecessary early vote — two years before the deadline — for his own personal ambition.
“Trudeau lost his gamble to get a majority so I would say this is a bittersweet victory for him,” said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal.
“Basically we are back to square one, as the new minority parliament will look like the previous one. Trudeau and the Liberals saved their skin and will stay in power, but many Canadians who didn’t want this late summer, pandemic election are probably not amused about the whole situation,” he said.
Trudeau bet Canadians didn’t want a Conservative government during a pandemic. Canada is now among the most fully vaccinated countries in the world and Trudeau’s government spent hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up the economy amid lockdowns. Trudeau argued that the Conservatives’ approach, which has been skeptical of lockdowns and vaccine mandates, would be dangerous and says Canadians need a government that follows science.
Conservative leader Erin O’Toole didn’t require his party’s candidates to be vaccinated and would not say how many were unvaccinated. O’Toole described vaccination as a personal health decision, but a growing number of vaccinated Canadians are increasingly upset with those who refuse to get vaccinated.
“The debate on vaccination and Trudeau taking on the anti-vaccination crowd helped the Liberals to salvage a campaign that didn’t start well for the party,” Beland said.
Trudeau supports making vaccines mandatory for Canadians to travel by air or rail, something the Conservatives oppose. And Trudeau has pointed out that Alberta, run by a Conservative provincial government, is in crisis.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, an ally of O’Toole, said the province might run out of beds and staff for intensive care units within days. Kenney apologized for the dire situation and is now reluctantly introducing a vaccine passport and imposing a mandatory work-from-home order two months after lifting nearly all restrictions.
“Hubris led Trudeau to call the election. He and the Liberals won the election but lost the prize they were seeking. This is only a great night for the Liberals because two weeks ago it appeared they would lose government outright something they could not fathom before they gambled on an election,” said Nelson Wiseman, a political science professor at the University of Toronto.
Wiseman said the Conservatives were hurt by the situation in Alberta. “The explosion of the pandemic in Alberta in the past 10 days undermined O’Toole’s compliments of the Alberta Conservatives on how they had handled the pandemic and reinforced Trudeau’s argument for mandatory vaccinations,” he said.
A Conservative win would have represented a rebuke of Trudeau against a politician with a fraction of his name recognition. O’Toole, 47, is a military veteran, former lawyer and a member of Parliament for nine years.
“Canadians did not give Mr. Trudeau the majority mandate he wanted,” O’Toole said.
O’Toole said he was more determined than ever to continue but his party might dump him after it dumped the previous leader who failed to beat Trudeau in 2019.
O’Toole advertised himself a year ago as a “true-blue Conservative.” He became Conservative Party leader with a pledge to “take back Canada,” but immediately started working to push the party toward the political center.
O’Toole’s strategy, which included disavowing positions held dear by his party’s base on issues such as climate change, guns and balanced budgets, was designed to appeal to a broader cross section of voters in a country that tends to be far more liberal than its southern neighbor.
The son of a long-time politician has faced criticism he will say and do anything to get elected.
Whether moderate Canadians believed O’Toole is the progressive conservative he claims to be and whether he alienated traditional Conservatives became central questions of the campaign.
Regina Adshade, a 28-year-old Vancouver software developer, said she was bothered that an election was called early, during a pandemic and with wildfires burning in British Columbia. But it didn’t stop her from voting Liberal because the party represents her values.
“I don’t love there was an election right now but it wasn’t going to change my vote,” she said.
Trudeau’s legacy includes embracing immigration at a time when the U.S. and other countries closed their doors. He also legalized cannabis nationwide and brought in a carbon tax to fight climate change. And he preserved free trade deal with the U.S. and Mexico amid threats by former U.S. President Donald Trump to scrap the agreement.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama and ex-Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton tweeted support for Trudeau. There wasn’t a Trump endorsement of O’Toole. Conservative campaign co-chair Walied Soliman said there is no alignment whatsoever between O’Toole and Trumpism. Soliman said earlier in the day holding Trudeau to a minority government would be a win for O’Toole.
Liberals governed Canada for 69 years during the 20th century. Pierre Trudeau called for a “just society” and ran the country with a panache not seen before from a Canadian leader. He is responsible for Canada’s version of the bill of rights and is credited with opening the door wide to immigration.
Trudeau’s Liberals dominated in Toronto, Canada’s largest city and one of the most multicultural cities in the world.
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Vatican announces ‘Green Pass’ requirement for visitors as of October |
Posted by: Stone - 09-21-2021, 07:23 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Spiritual]
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Vatican announces ‘Green Pass’ requirement for visitors as of October
This ordinance is only the latest development in a series of measures aimed at consistently enforcing vaccine mandates in the city state.
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Mon Sep 20, 2021
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — The Vatican announced that a “green pass” will be required to access the city state as of October 1. This will apply to visitors as well as to staff, residents, and citizens. The pass will not be required to attend liturgical services.
The ordinance was issued on Saturday by the President of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State, Card. Giuseppe Bertello, and stipulates that from October 1, access to Vatican City will only be granted to persons holding the Vatican or European “green pass” or any foreign certification proving vaccination, recovery or a negative COVID test result. The ordinance states that this measure applies to all visitors as well as citizens, residents and workers “regardless of their title.”
One notable exception applies for people wishing to attend Masses and other liturgical services, as long as their stay doesn’t extend beyond the duration of the service, and that all other COVID guidelines are respected as explained in the document:
Quote:An exception is made for those wishing to participate in liturgical celebrations, only for the time strictly necessary to carry out the service and without prejudice to the current health regulations on social distancing, the use of personal protective equipment, circulation or gathering restrictions, and on the adoption of specific hygiene rules.
In his ordinance, Bertello recalls that during an audience on September 7, Pope Francis stated that “it is necessary to ensure the health and well-being of the working community while respecting the dignity, rights and fundamental freedoms of all its members,” asking the governorate to “issue this ordinance in order to adopt all appropriate measures to prevent, control, and combat the current public health crisis in progress in the Vatican City State …”
The document also states that the Corps of Gendarmerie of Vatican City has been put in charge of controlling access to the Vatican.
This ordinance is only the latest development in a series of measures aimed at consistently enforcing vaccine mandates in the city state under the leadership of Pope Francis, who is a well-known supporter of essentially universal vaccination.
Back in January, in an interview with Italian television station Canale 5, Pope Francis had opined that “everyone” must take the COVID-19 vaccine: “I believe that, ethically, everyone should take the vaccine.” He later mandated vaccination for all Vatican citizens.
Only last month, the Argentine pontiff released a video urging people to get vaccinated without mentioning the connection of the vaccines to abortion or to thousands of deaths and millions of injuries reported after their use to such official channels as Europe’s EnduraVigilance and the U.S.’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting Service (VAERS).
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Project Veritas: Covid Vaccine Exposed - Part One |
Posted by: Stone - 09-21-2021, 07:01 AM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
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Federal Govt Whistleblower Goes Public with Secret Recordings: ‘Government Doesn’t Want to Show the [COVID] Vaccine is Full of Sh*t’;
‘Shove’ Adverse Effect Reporting ‘Under the Mat’
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Project Veritas | September 20, 2021
- Dr. Maria Gonzales, ER Doctor, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: “All this is bullshit. Now, [a patient] probably [has] myocarditis due to the [COVID] vaccine. But now, they [government] are not going to blame the vaccine.”
- Dr. Gonzales: “They [government] are not reporting [adverse COVID vaccine side effects]…They want to shove it under the mat.”
- Deanna Paris, Registered Nurse, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: “It’s a shame they [government] are not treating people [with COVID] like they're supposed to, like they should. I think they want people to die.”
- Jodi O’Malley, Insider and Registered Nurse, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: The COVID vaccine is “not doing what it’s purpose was.”
- O’Malley: “I’ve seen dozens of people come in with adverse reactions.”
- O’Malley: “If we [government] are not gathering [COVID vaccine] data and reporting it, then how are we going to say that this is safe and approved for use?”
- O’Malley: I’m not afraid of blowing the whistle “because my faith lies in God and not man…You know, like what kind of person would I be if I knew all of this -- this is evil at the highest level. You have the FDA, you have the CDC, that are both supposed to be protecting us, but they are under the government, and everything that we’ve done so far is unscientific.”
- O’Malley: “At the end of the day, it’s about your health, and you can never get that back -- and about your freedom, and about living in a peaceful society, and I’m like, ‘no.’ No. This is the hill that I will die on.”
[PHOENIX – Sept. 20, 2021] Project Veritas released the first video of its COVID vaccine investigative series today featuring an interview with U.S. Health and Human Services [HHS] insider, Jodi O’Malley, who works as a Registered Nurse at the local Indian Medical Center.
O’Malley told Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe about what has been going on at her federal government facility. She recorded her HHS colleagues discussing their concerns about the new COVID vaccine to corroborate her assertions:
Quote:Dr. Maria Gonzales, ER Doctor, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: “The problem in here is that they are not doing the studies. People that had [COVID] and the people that have been vaccinated -- they’re not doing any antibody testing.”
Jodi O’Malley, Insider and Registered Nurse, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: “Nope.”
Dr. Gonzales: “Everybody is quiet with that. Why?”
O’Malley: “Now, you got this guy in Room Four who got his second dose of the [COVID] vaccine on Tuesday and has been short of breath. Okay? Now his BNP is elevated. D dimer elevated, ALT, all his liver enzymes are elevated. His PTPTINR is elevated.”
Dr. Gonzales: “He’s probably got myocarditis!”
O’Malley: “Yes!”
Dr. Gonzales: “All this is bulls***. Now probably myocarditis due to the vaccine.”
O’Malley: “Right.”
Dr. Gonzales: “But now, they [government] are not going to blame the vaccine.”
O’Malley: “Well and you know what -- but he has an obligation to report that doesn’t he? It happened right -- what is it -- sixty days after if you see anything?”
Dr. Gonzales: “They have got to.”
O’Malley: “But how many are reporting?”
Dr. Gonzales: “They are not reporting.”
O’Malley: “Right!”
Dr. Gonzales: “Because they want to shove it under the mat.”
O’Malley explained this conversation in detail during her interview with O’Keefe:
Quote:James O’Keefe, Project Veritas founder: “In this instance with Dr. Gonzales, what patient was she referring to? Without saying the name.”
Jodi O’Malley, Insider and Registered Nurse, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: “She was referring to a thirty-something-year-old patient that had congestive heart failure.”
O’Keefe: “Congestive heart failure? In that particular patient’s case, it was not reported?”
O’Malley: “No.”
O’Keefe: “Were there other instances that they didn’t report? Or just this one?”
O’Malley: “Yeah, many.”
O’Keefe: “How many did you see?”
O’Malley: “Oh, I’ve seen dozens of people come in with adverse reactions [to the COVID vaccine].”
…
O’Malley: “So, what the responsibility on everyone is -- is to gather that data and report it. If we’re not gathering [COVID vaccine] data and reporting it, then how are we going to say that this is safe and approved for use?”
The whistleblower also recorded Dr. Gonzales’ disagreement with another HHS doctor pertaining to the research and reporting behind the COVID vaccine:
Quote:Jodi O’Malley, Insider and Registered Nurse, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: “So how come after 18 months, we haven’t had any research? Isn’t that fishy to you?”
Dr. Maria Gonzales, ER Doctor, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: “It does -- it is fishy.”
O’Malley: “It’s super fishy.”
Dr. Dale McGee, ER Doctor, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: “It’s not that it hasn’t been done. It hasn’t been published, that’s why.”
Dr. Gonzales: “It hasn’t probably been done because the government doesn’t want to show that the darn [COVID] vaccine is full of sh*t.”
O’Malley spoke to Deanna Paris, who works as a Registered Nurse at the same federal government facility, to compare what they both have witnessed regarding COVID vaccine adverse effects:
Quote:Deanna Paris, Registered Nurse, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: “It’s a shame they [government] are not treating people [with COVID] like they're supposed to, like they should. I think they want people to die.”
Jodi O’Malley, Insider and Registered Nurse, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: “How many have you seen that have gotten vaccinated here?”
Paris: “That got sick from the side effects? A lot.”
O’Malley: “A lot!”
Paris: “Have you seen it too?”
O’Malley: “Yeah, and I’m like, who’s writing the VAERS reports?”
Paris: “Nobody because it takes over a half hour to write the damn thing.”
The insider told O’Keefe what led her to blow the whistle on the federal government.
“What prompted me to do this was when I was House Supervisor one night, and one of my coworkers had taken the [COVID] vaccine two weeks ago, and she didn’t want to. She went throughout this entire pandemic working in the intensive care unit, which pretty much was a COVID unit,” O’Malley said.
“She didn’t want to take [the COVID vaccine] because of her religious beliefs and she was coerced into taking it. It’s like nobody -- nobody should have to decide between their livelihood, being ‘a part of the team in the hospital,’ or take the [COVID] vaccine.”
O’Malley said it is more important to shine a light on corruption than to fear retaliation from the powers that be:
Quote:James O’Keefe, Project Veritas founder: “What would you say to people who are in a position where they can do something?”
Jodi O’Malley, Insider and Registered Nurse, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: “I say that we have to do something. Right now, what is plaguing this country is the spirit of fear.”
O’Keefe: “Are you afraid?”
O’Malley: “It’s my career, you know? It’s how I help people. But am I afraid? I wouldn’t necessarily say I am afraid because my faith lies in God and not man. So, I have two older kids that are on their own, and I have a twelve-year-old at home that I care for on my own, but you know, what kind of person would I be if I knew all of this -- this is evil. This is evil at the highest level. You have the FDA, you have the CDC, that are both supposed to be protecting us, but they are under the government, and everything that we’ve done so far is unscientific.”
O’Keefe: “Are you afraid they’re going to retaliate against you?”
O’Malley: “Yeah. I’m a federal employee. What other federal employees do you see coming out?”
O’Keefe: “But you put your faith in God.”
O’Malley: “Amen. At the end of the day, it’s about your health, and you can never get that back -- and about your freedom, and about living in a peaceful society, and I’m like, ‘no.’ No. This is the hill that I will die on.”
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Archbishop bars from Mass Catholics who do not take COVID-19 jabs |
Posted by: Stone - 09-20-2021, 06:54 PM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Spiritual]
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Archbishop bars from Mass Catholics who do not take COVID-19 jabs
Archbishop Valery Vienneau of Moncton, New Brunswick has decreed that anyone over 12 who attends a religious gathering in a church in his archdiocese 'must be doubly vaccinated' against COVID-19.
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Mon Sep 20, 2021
MONCTON, New Brunswick (LifeSiteNews) – A Canadian archbishop has barred Catholics who won’t take the COVID-19 jab from coming to Mass.
On Friday, Archbishop Valery Vienneau of Moncton, New Brunswick issued instructions that anyone over 12 who attends a religious gathering in a church in his archdiocese “must be doubly vaccinated” against COVID-19.
In a letter to Catholics in the Moncton Archdiocese, Vienneau wrote: “…beginning Wednesday Sep[tember] 22nd, at any gathering inside our churches, rectories or community centres under our supervision, those present must be doubly vaccinated.”
The archbishop stipulated that such gatherings include “…religious celebrations (Sunday and weekly masses, prayer meetings, baptisms, weddings and funerals, Confirmation, First Reconciliation, First Communion), parish and pastoral meetings, catechesis meetings, management meetings, conferences, workshops, fraternal and social meetings, bingos, card games, etc.”
Vienneau qualified that children under 12 are not required to take the jab to participate because they “cannot currently be vaccinated” against COVID-19.
Many people throughout the world are reluctant to take the COVID-19 jabs because of the thousands of deaths and millions of other injuries that have been recorded following inoculation. Many Catholics and other Christians also object to the medical products because cell-lines derived from one or more aborted babies were used in their protection or testing.
Meanwhile, Catholics normally have an obligation to attend Mass in person every Sunday and, in Canada, at Christmas and on New Year’s Day, unless they are ill, or caring for a sick child, or are physically impeded by travel from getting to Mass. Not fulfilling that obligation is considered a serious sin, and participating at Mass is considered central to the spiritual life of the faithful Catholic. Even Catholics who have incurred excommunication and thus cannot receive the sacraments are encouraged to take part in Sunday worship.
The impetus for banning “unvaccinated” Catholics from Mass came from the provincial government. The archbishop recounted that New Brunswick’s Minister of Health, Dorothy Shephard, had “met with religious leaders in the province following the announcement of new measures regarding the pandemic” and that, although there is no mandate for proof of vaccination at religious gatherings, Shephard “wishes to have gatherings of fully vaccinated people to keep people safe and to act as an incentive for the unvaccinated.”
Vienneau did say that parents who come to their child’s “First Reconciliation” (that is, First Confession) will be required to take the shot but did not stipulate that the faithful must be double-jabbed in order to receive the Sacrament of Penance themselves.
Over the next few weeks, the archbishop has instructed that “several volunteers are expected to be at the doors of each church to ask worshippers for full proof of vaccination and collect their names on a list of fully vaccinated people.” After parishioners have been added to the list, they will not have to provide proof after the fact. However, any new parishioner or visitor will be required to provide proof of vaccination.
Presumably regarding funerals, Vienneau said that “funeral home staff” should be informed that “family members and loved ones who come to church are to be doubly vaccinated.” He also said that he was informed by the Minister of Health that only those with “rare” medical exemptions will be admitted to a church facility without proof of vaccination.
Employees of the archdiocese are allowed to keep their jobs if they are not vaccinated, but they are required to wear a mask and undergo frequent testing for COVID.
New Brunswick announced on September 15 that province will be implementing new vaccine-passport restrictions tomorrow, September 21. According to the official announcement, people will need to show proof of vaccination whenever they access certain services, businesses and events, including:
- indoor festivals, performing arts and sporting events;
- indoor and outdoor dining and drinking at restaurants, pubs and bars;
- movie theatres, nightclubs, amusement centres, pool halls, bowling alleys and casinos;
- gyms, indoor pools and indoor recreation facilities;
- indoor group exercise facilities;
- indoor organized gatherings including weddings, funerals, parties (excluding parties in a private dwelling), conferences and workshops;
- indoor organized group recreational sports, classes and activities; and
- visiting a long-term care facility.
The province’s guidelines do not direct that residents of New Brunswick will have to provide proof of vaccination in order to attend religious services apart from weddings and funerals.
LifeSiteNews has reached out to the Archdiocese for comment but has not yet received a response.
To make your views respectfully and prayerfully known, please contact:
The Most Reverend Valery Vienneau
Archbishop of Moncton
224 St George St.
Moncton, NB
E1C 0V1
Tel: (506) 857-9531
c/o Annette LeBlanc, secretary to His Excellency: annettel.diocese@gmail.com
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Pfizer Says Vaccine Is Safe & Effective For Children As Young As 5 |
Posted by: Stone - 09-20-2021, 09:45 AM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
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Pfizer Says Vaccine Is Safe & Effective For Children As Young As 5
ZH | SEP 20, 2021
Opening the door to FDA approval of vaccinations for children between the ages of 5 and 11, Pfizer and BioNTech announced Monday morning that their COVID jab has been found to be just as safe and effective for grade-school children as it is for adults. The findings come from a large-scale trial offering some of the first insight into how well the jab works for young kids.
With the new school year starting, pressure to vaccinate children has been intensifying, especially now that an FDA advisory panel recommended last week that booster jabs should be limited to the immuno-compromised, as well as those age 65 and older.
Pfizer's CEO celebrated the news via tweet:
In the stage 2/3 trial with 2,268 participants, patients who received the vaccine received two shots of a 10 microgram dose (one-third the adult shot) produced antibody levels comparable to those seen in a trial of 16-to-25-year-olds who got the adult dose, the companies said. Side effects were similar to the trials for the 16-25 age cohort.
Pfizer plans to submit the data to the FDA for emergency use authorization soon, though it's not exactly clear when. Meanwhile, the company will still be collecting "near-term" submission data needed to file for full FDA approval for the age cohort.
Participants' immune responses were measured by looking at neutralizing antibody levels in their blood and comparing those levels to a control group of 16- to 25-year-olds who were given a two-dose regimen with the larger 30-microgram dose. Pfizer said the levels compared well with older people, who received the larger dose, demonstrating a "strong immune response in this cohort of children one month after the second dose."
"Further, the COVID-19 vaccine was well tolerated, with side effects generally comparable to those observed in participants 16 to 25 years of age," the company said.
Notably, a Pfizer spokesperson confirmed that were no instances of myocarditis - a rare type of heart inflammation that has been linked with mRNA vaccines - in any of the younger patients.
Right now in the US, the Pfizer jab is fully approved for people above the age of 16, and emergency authorized for those aged 12 and over. Pfizer now believes it will have data for children as young as six months "as soon as the fourth quarter."
While on doctor commented that Pfizer is once again doing "science by press release", but the data are still "favorable".
Another Twitter user noted that the vaccines "will still need to be approved and if the CDC/FDA disagree w/Pfizer then we have quite the conundrum."
While the data doesn't break down the number of confirmed cases among the placebo or the dosed group, it does show that antibody levels are similar in child with only a fraction of the adult dose.
Read the full release below:
Quote:NEW YORK AND MAINZ, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTech SE (Nasdaq: BNTX) today announced results from a Phase 2/3 trial showing a favorable safety profile and robust neutralizing antibody responses in children 5 to 11 years of age using a two-dose regimen of 10 µg administered 21 days apart, a smaller dose than the 30 µg dose used for people 12 and older. The antibody responses in the participants given 10 µg doses were comparable to those recorded in a previous Pfizer-BioNTech study in people 16 to 25 years of age immunized with 30 µg doses. The 10 µg dose was carefully selected as the preferred dose for safety, tolerability and immunogenicity in children 5 to 11 years of age. These are the first results from a pivotal trial of a COVID-19 vaccine in this age group.
“Over the past nine months, hundreds of millions of people ages 12 and older from around the world have received our COVID-19 vaccine. We are eager to extend the protection afforded by the vaccine to this younger population, subject to regulatory authorization, especially as we track the spread of the Delta variant and the substantial threat it poses to children,” said Albert Bourla, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Pfizer. “Since July, pediatric cases of COVID-19 have risen by about 240 percent in the U.S. – underscoring the public health need for vaccination. These trial results provide a strong foundation for seeking authorization of our vaccine for children 5 to 11 years old, and we plan to submit them to the FDA and other regulators with urgency.”
“We are pleased to be able to submit data to regulatory authorities for this group of school-aged children before the start of the winter season,” said Dr. Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech. “The safety profile and immunogenicity data in children aged 5 to 11 years vaccinated at a lower dose are consistent with those we have observed with our vaccine in other older populations at a higher dose.”
The data summarized from this Phase 2/3 study, which is enrolling children 6 months to 11 years of age, was for 2,268participants who were 5 to 11 years of age and received a 10 µg dose level in a two-dose regimen. In the trial, the SARS-CoV-2–neutralizing antibody geometric mean titer (GMT) was 1,197.6 (95% confidence interval [CI, 1106.1, 1296.6]), demonstrating strong immune response in this cohort of children one month after the second dose. This compares well (was non-inferior) to the GMT of 1146.5 (95% CI: 1045.5, 1257.2) from participants ages 16 to 25 years old, used as the control group for this analysis and who were administered a two-dose regimen of 30 µg. Further, the COVID-19 vaccine was well tolerated, with side effects generally comparable to those observed in participants 16 to 25 years of age.
Pfizer and BioNTech plan to share these data with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), European Medicines Agency (EMA) and other regulators as soon as possible. For the United States, the companies expect to include the data in a near-term submission for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) as they continue to accumulate the safety and efficacy data required to file for full FDA approval in this age group. A request to the EMA to update the EU Conditional Marketing Authorization is also planned. Topline readouts for the other two age cohorts from the trial – children 2-5 years of age and children 6 months to 2 years of age – are expected as soon as the fourth quarter of this year.
Pfizer and BioNTech plan to submit data from the full Phase 3 trial for scientific peer-reviewed publication.
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September 20 – St Eustace and His Companions, Martyrs |
Posted by: Stone - 09-20-2021, 07:37 AM - Forum: September
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September 20 – St Eustace and His Companions, Martyrs
The twentieth of September marks one of the saddest events in history. At the height of her power, in the glorious days of Pepin and Charlemagne, the eldest daughter of the Church had crowned her mother; and the Church, in the person of her Head, reigned in reality, as well as by right until, a thousand years later, Satan took advantage of the fallen state of France, to despoil Peter of the patrimony which ensured his independence. The holy Cross is still shedding its rays upon us!
Today a group of martyrs, and this time a whole family—father, mother, and sons—take up their position around the standard of salvation. While the antiquity of their cultus in both East and West rests on the best authority, the details of their life are extremely vague. Could Placid the tribune, whose exploits are recorded by Josephus in his Wars of the Jews, be the same as the Eustace we are celebrating today? Does the genealogy of our saint connect him with the Octavia family from which Augustus sprang? Again are we to recognize as his direct descendant the noble Tertullus, who confided to St. Benedict his son Placid, the favorite child of the holy Patriarch, and the proto-martyr of the Benedictine Order? Subiaco long possessed the mountain designated by ancient tradition as the site of the apparition of the mysterious stag; Tertullus may have bequeathed it to the monastery as his son’s patrimony. But we have not space enough to do more than record the fact that these questions have been raised.
There could hardly be a more touching Legend than that of our martyrs.
Quote:Eustace, otherwise called Placid, was a Roman, illustrious for his birth, wealth, and military renown, so that under the emperor Trajan he became general of the army. Once while hunting, he was chasing a stag of remarkable size, which suddenly halted, and showed him between its horns a large and bright image of Christ our Lord hanging upon the Cross and inviting him to make everlasting life the object of his pursuit. Thereupon, together with his wife Theopista and his two little sons Agapitus and Theopistus, he entered the ranks of the Christian warfare.
Some time afterwards he returned to the place of the vision, in obedience to the command of our Lord, from whom he there heard how much he was to suffer for God’s glory. He underwent, with wonderful patience, such incredible losses that in a short time he was reduced to the utmost need, and was obliged to retire privately. On the way he had the unhappiness to see first his wife, and then his two sons taken from him. Overwhelmed by all these misfortunes, he lived for a long time unknown, in a distant country, as a farm bailiff; until at length a voice from heaven comforted him; and soon after, a fresh occasion of war arising, Trajan had him sought out and again placed at the head of the army.
During the expedition, he unexpectedly found his wife and children again. He returned to Rome in triumph amidst universal congratulations; but was soon commanded to offer sacrifice to the false gods in thanksgiving for his victory. On his firm refusal, every art was tried to make him renounce the faith of Christ, but in vain. He was then, with his wife and sons, thrown to the lions. But the beasts showed nothing but gentleness; whereupon the emperor, in a rage, commanded the martyrs to be shut up in a brazen bull heated by a fire underneath it. There, singing the praises of God, they consummated their sacrifice, and took their flight to eternal happiness on the twelfth of the kalends of October. Their bodies were found intact, and reverently buried by the faithful, but were afterwards translated with honor to a Church erected to their names.
Our trials are light compared with yours, O blessed martyrs! Obtain for us the grace not to betray the confidence of our Lord when he calls us to suffer for him in this world. It is thus we must win the glory of heaven. How can we triumph with the God of armies unless we have marched under his standard? Now, that standard is the Cross. The Church knows it, and therefore she is not troubled even by the greatest calamities. She knows, too, that her Spouse is watching over her, even when he seems to sleep; and she looks to the protection of such of her sons as are already glorified. And yet, O martyrs, for how many years has the sorrowful shadow of a sacrilegious invasion hung over the day of your triumph! Rome honored you with so much love! Take vengeance on the audacity of hell, and deliver the holy city!
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Pope supports same-sex civil unions in ‘apocalyptically scandalous’ interview |
Posted by: Stone - 09-20-2021, 07:29 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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Pope supports same-sex civil unions in ‘apocalyptically scandalous’ interview
The Pope’s comments have been described as ‘apocalyptically scandalous’ for their opposition to the Catholic Church’s rejection of ‘immoral … contrary to right reason’ same-sex unions.
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Fri Sep 17, 2021
(LifeSiteNews) — In a new airplane interview Wednesday, Pope Francis once again expressed his support for same-sex civil unions, calling for laws to promote civil unions since “we are all equal.” Nevertheless, he ruled out marriage being opened up to same-sex “couples.”
“If they want to support a homosexual couple in life together, states have the possibility of civilly supporting them,” stated the pontiff in remarks translated differently by various news outlets.
The comments prompted concern among Catholics. Br. Martin Navarro Ob. S.A. warned that the Pope’s support for same-sex unions “is tacitly equating a same-sex union with a family.”
Marriage is an unchangeable sacrament, but homosexuals can have civil unions
Responding to a question from Stefano Maria Paci of Sky Tg 24, about the “recognition of homosexual marriages,” the 84-year-old pontiff first referenced marriage.
“Marriage is a sacrament, the Church has no power to change the sacraments as the Lord has instituted them,” he said.
However, while ruling out same-sex “marriage,” Pope Francis pointed to other ways in which same-sex relationships could be recognized. “There are laws that try to help the situations of many people who have a different sexual orientation,” he attested.
The full text of the interview, as provided by the National Catholic Register, is slightly longer than that given by Vatican News, and demonstrates greater papal support for same-sex unions from the Pope.
Noting how it is “important” to “help” people desiring same-sex unions, or “marriages,” while nevertheless refraining from “imposing things that by their nature do not enter in the Church,” Francis defended state support for same-sex unions.
“If they want to support a homosexual couple in life together, states have the possibility of civilly supporting them, of giving security through inheritance, health [insurance],” declared the Pope. “But the French have a law on this not only for homosexuals, but for all people who want to associate with each other [in a legally recognized relationship].”
Continuing his theme, Pope Francis hinted at support for same-sex unions, providing they did not take the form of sacramental marriage. “Marriage as a sacrament is clear, it is clear,” he stated.
“There are civil laws that provide if they want to associate, a law to have the health service, to have […] among them, these things are done,” he added. “Please do not make the Church deny her truth. Many, many people of homosexual orientation approach the Sacrament of Penance, they approach to ask priests for advice, the Church helps them to move forward in their lives. But the sacrament of marriage is something else.”
Noting how his words on the matter often create “confusion,” the Pope added that “we are all equal,” according to Crux. Vatican News reported he said “[t]hey are all equal brothers and sisters.”
EuroNews reported that the Pope had described same-sex civil unions as being “good and helpful to many,” however neither the Vatican’s nor NCR’s transcript of the in-flight interview contains this statement.
Pope Francis contradicting Church teaching
The Church, by way of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), already addressed the question of homosexuality and civil unions in a 1986 document “On the pastoral care of homosexual persons.”
“A person engaging in homosexual behaviour therefore acts immorally,” wrote the CDF, and any such activity is “contrary to the creative wisdom of God.”
“Christians who are homosexual are called, as all of us are, to a chaste life,” continued the CDF’s document, while noting that a “truly pastoral approach will appreciate the need for homosexual persons to avoid the near occasions of sin.”
The CDF’s 2003 document “Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons” repeated the Church’s strong condemnation of homosexual activity and homosexual unions, saying that “homosexual acts go against the natural moral law.”
Presenting numerous reasons to argue against the legal definition of homosexual unions, the CDF characterized any law in favor of same-sex unions as “contrary to right reason.”
Furthermore, “all Catholics are obliged to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions,” taught the CDF.
The Catholic Church teaches, moreover, that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered” and that respect for homosexuals “cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behaviour or to legal recognition of homosexual unions.” [...]
LGBT advocates welcome Pope’s comments
Following the interview, LGBT advocates were very public in their praise of the Pope’s support for civil unions.
Dissident Jesuit and pro-LGBT campaigner Fr. James Martin wrote on Twitter that the Pope was “again supporting civil unions.”
Meanwhile, pro-LGBT “Catholic” group New Ways Ministry praised how Francis had used “incontrovertible terms” in his “support for same-gender civil unions.”
“If there was any debate left over whether @Pontifex supports same-gender civil unions, it is settled. The pope clearly supports LGBTQ couples being legally protected,” tweeted the group.
Pro-LGBT and “sex worker” activist Denis Nzioka welcomed the papal comments, as “Pope Francis latest — and clearest support — for same sex civil unions.”
History of support for civil unions
The Pope’s comments are but the latest in a long history of support, of varying degrees of strength and clarity, for same-sex unions. Only last year, he voiced his support for the unions in the film Francesco, calling for “a civil union law.”
Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan pointed out how such an approach is no act of kindness toward persons with same-sex attraction; rather, it is an act of cruelty.
“[B]ecause these persons will be confirmed in mortal sin, they will be solidified in their interior psychological dichotomy, since their reason tells them that homosexual acts are against reason and against the explicit will of God, the Creator and Redeemer of men,” he explained.
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Democrats block amendment mandating vaccines for immigrants flooding America’s borders |
Posted by: Stone - 09-20-2021, 07:16 AM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
- No Replies
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Democrats block amendment mandating vaccines for immigrants flooding America’s borders
Law Enforcement Today |September 18, 2021
WASHINGTON, DC – House Democrats blocked an amendment put forth by Republicans to mandate vaccines for immigrants trying to remain inside the United States, while tens of millions of Americans must comply with President Biden’s mandate.
During a hearing Tuesday scheduled for the Democrats’ 3.5 trillion budget reconciliation, Rep. Darrel Issa (R-CA) proposed an amendment to the package that would require vaccines for foreign nationals in the U.S. who are seeking to adjust their immigration status to remain in the U.S.
The amendment was voted down by a party-line vote. Every Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee voted against the amendment. Every Republican member voted for the bill.
Rep. Issa said the Democratic “hypocrisy” must end:
“The American people are more than aware that President Biden is mandating vaccines for Americans while exempting those illegally flooding our borders and being released into our communities without notice.
“And they want the hypocrisy to end.”
The refusal to mandate vaccines for immigrants comes at a time when the Biden administration is issuing vaccine mandates on the American people.
Last week, President Biden ordered sweeping new federal vaccine requirements for as many as 100 million Americans, including private sector workers, health care workers, and federal contractors.
The President also criticized Americans who have not yet vaccinated:
“We’ve been patient. But our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us. The unvaccinated minority “can cause a lot of damage, and they are.”
Many Republicans and union leaders have said the President’s vaccine requirements amount to government overreach. Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina said in a statement:
“Biden and the radical Democrats (have) thumbed their noses at the Constitution.”
American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley criticized the unilateral approach the President is taking:
“Changes like this should be negotiated with our bargaining units where appropriate.”
The President ordered that all private employers with more than 100 workers must either vaccinate all employees or require weekly virus tests. The order effectively mandates vaccines for about 80 million Americans.
Additionally, about 17 million Americans who work in the healthcare field must be fully vaccinated if the facility receives federal Medicare or Medicaid funds.
Several million more Americans who are employees of the Executive Branch of the federal government and contractors for the federal government must get vaccinated. These employees are not given the option of weekly testing.
[twitter]https://twitter.com/RedPillLaredo/status/1438693772251049986?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1438693772251049986%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lawenforcementtoday.com%2Famericans-only-dems-block-amendment-mandating-coronvirus-vaccines-for-immigrants%2F[/tiwtter]
Yet the President refuses to require vaccinations for immigrants at a time when there is a surge crisis at the southern border and a massive airlift of Afghans escaping the Taliban evacuated by American forces following the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ® has demanded that the Biden administration supply him with personal information on undocumented migrants being relocated by the federal government in Florida, many of whom have not been completely vetted or tested for COVID-19.
Gov. Santos wants the names, addresses and the number of people who tested positive for Covid-19 or refused the vaccine.
Based on a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey, only about 25 % of “potentially undocumented” immigrants in the United States received their vaccine.
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Solange Hertz: Will Rome Lose the Faith? (La Salette Revisited) |
Posted by: Stone - 09-19-2021, 10:21 AM - Forum: Our Lady
- Replies (3)
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Will Rome Lose the Faith? (La Salette Revisited)
Melanie’s Secret: Secret which the Blessed Virgin gave me on the Mountain of La Salette on September 19, 1846
Mélanie, I will say something to you which you will not say to anybody:
The time of the God's wrath has arrived! If, when you say to the people what I have said to you so far, and what I will still ask you to say, if, after that, they do not convert, (if they do not do penance, and they do not cease working on Sunday, and if they continue to blaspheme the Holy Name of God), in a word, if the face of the earth does not change, God will be avenged against the people ungrateful and slave of the demon. My Son will make his power manifest! Paris, this city soiled by all kinds of crimes, will perish infallibly. Marseilles will be destroyed in a little time. When these things arrive, the disorder will be complete on the earth, the world will be given up to its impious passions.
The pope will be persecuted from all sides, they will shoot at him, they will want to put him to death, but no one will be able to do it, the Vicar of God will triumph again this time. The priests and the Sisters, and the true servants of my Son will be persecuted, and several will die for the faith of Jesus-Christ. A famine will reign at the same time. After all these will have arrived, many will recognize the hand of God on them, they will convert, and do penance for their sins.
A great king will go up on the throne, and will reign a few years. Religion will re-flourish and spread all over the world, and there will be a great abundance, the world, glad not to be lacking nothing, will fall again in its disorders, will give up God, and will be prone to its criminal passions.
[Among] God's ministers, and the Spouses of Jesus-Christ, there will be some who will go astray, and that will be the most terrible. Lastly, hell will reign on earth. It will be then that the Antichrist will be born of a Sister, but woe to her! Many will believe in him, because he will claim to have come from heaven, woe to those who will believe in him! That time is not far away, twice 50 years will not go by.
My child, you will not say what I have just said to you. (You will not say it to anybody, you will not say if you must say it one day, you will not say what that it concerns), finally you will say nothing anymore until I tell you to say it! I pray to Our Holy Father the Pope to give me his holy blessing.
- Mélanie, Shepherdess of La Salette, Grenoble, July 6, 1851
The message of LaSalette was confided by the Mother of God to Mélanie Calvat, the oldest of two young seers to whom she appeared in the French Alps in 1846. Attempts to discredit both the visionary and the heavenly message have never been wanting, for although the apparition was approved by the Holy See, the Secret itself was never promoted by the ecclesiastical establishment, despite papal recommendations and many Imprimaturs. In fact the faithful were led to believe that it had actually been placed on the Index of Forbidden Books then in canonical vigor. Mélanie was accused of being psychologically unbalanced by her Bishop, who eventually was the one to go mad and never recover his sanity. She was persecuted to such a degree in her own country that for long periods she was forced to live incognito in Italy, where she died at the age of seventy-two.
Today the same old accusations which were leveled against her in her lifetime, which she continued to refute to her dying day, are resurging, not only from liberal sectors as before, but even from conservative champions of the traditional Mass. Her critics maintain that the text of the Secret with which we are familiar and which Mélanie first published in its entirety in 1879 under the Imprimatur of Bishop Salvatore-Luigi Zola of Lecce, Italy was her own expanded and embroidered version of our Lady’s real message, which Pius IX had requested her to submit to him in 1851. Emphasizing the difference in length between the two versions of the Secret, the short one set down in 1851 for the Pope and the longer one delivered to the public in 1879, some hold that Mélanie added to the original text information culled from contemporary apocalyptic literature then in circulation. Mélanie’s autobiographical writings, particularly those dealing with her abused childhood and her miraculous companionship with the child Jesus, are rejected as spurious by many.
At this juncture, when so much of what our Lady prophesied in the Secret is beginning to materialize, the enemy of mankind can be expected to utilize every means of discrediting a prophecy intended to lay open his machinations before the eyes of the faithful. Whereas the arguments which proved so effective in casting doubt on the Secret’s authenticity when it was first divulged are being refurbished with a vengeance, the hard facts which demolished them then have only been reinforced by subsequent events. Most of them can be found as good as new in a 40-page brochure in defense of the Secret which was published in French in 1922, bearing the Imprimatur, dated June 6 of that year, of no less an authority than the Dominican Fr. Albert Lepidi, then Master of the Sacred Palace and Permanent Consultor to the Congregation of the Index.
Disseminated by the St. Augustine Society under the title “The Apparition of the Most Blessed Virgin on the Mountain of La Salette,” it bears a facsimile of the Imprimatur with Fr. Lepidi’s signature, plus the following words in his own hand: Ces pages ont été écrites pour la pure vérité, “These pages have been written solely in the interests of truth.” The first half of the brochure contains Mélanie’s own account of the apparition, together with the full text of the Secret, which she set in writing in Castellamare, Italy on the feast of our Lady’s Presentation, November 21, 1878 and which received an Imprimatur the following year from the local Ordinary, Bishop Zola. The second half is devoted to contemporary testimonials in defense of the Secret, the whole closing with an ecclesiastically approved Prayer to the Most Blessed Trinity for the canonization of Mélanie Calvat.
Seven letters from Bishop Zola to various dignitaries figure among the contents. Privileged to authorize the first publication of the Secret in its entirety with his Imprimatur, he never wavered in his convictions concerning La Salette, nor in his veneration for its messenger. Not only have his letters lost nothing of their force with passing time, but hindsight considerably sharpens their focus. A sampling of the longest and most informative one are offered here in translation. The Bishop wrote it May 24, 1880 in reply to questions addressed to him by Fr. Isidore Roubaud, one of the few French priests who dared undertake Mélanie’s defense in the face of the dogged opposition mounted by Masonically influenced bishops like Mgr. Ginoulhiac of Grenoble, successor to the saintly Mgr. Bruillard, in whose diocese the apparition had taken place and had been originally approved.
Bishop Zola writes, “I deeply deplore France’s current opposition to the heavenly Message of La Salette. We are already on the eve of the terrible chastisements with which the Mother of God threatened us because of our prevarications, and yet we prefer to reject the warnings of so tender and merciful a Mother rather than profit from her lessons, the only act on our part which could diminish the intensity of the afflictions divine wrath has in store for us. In this I recognize the work of our ancient enemy, who has the greatest interest in exploiting every means, especially among God’s ministers, ut videntes non videant et intelligentes non intelligant....
“Only on July 3, 1851 did Melanie herself put her Secret in writing for the first time, at the Providence convent in Corenc, by order of Mgr. de Bruillard, Bishop of Grenoble, in the presence of Mr. Dausse, head of the Department of Civil Engineering, and Mr. Taxis, Canon of Grenoble Cathedral. Mélanie filled three large pages at one sitting, without saying anything or asking any questions.” [In the account of the incident given by Bishop William Ullathorne of Birmingham, England in The Holy Mountain of La Salette in 1854, Mélanie asked the meaning of the words infallibly and Antichrist, and how to spell the latter, but there are no other discrepancies.] “She signed without re-reading, folded her Secret and put it in an envelope. She addressed it thus: ‘To His Holiness Pius IX, in Rome.’
“The next day, the fourth of July, the Secret is personally rewritten by Mélanie at the Bishop’s palace in Grenoble, with the purpose of drawing a clear distinction between the dates of two events which are not supposed to happen at the same time. Having put in only one date the first time, Mélanie was afraid that the Pope might not understand correctly on that account, and some equivocation might result. On July 18, Mr. Gérin, Curate of the Cathedral of Grenoble, and Mr. Rousselot, Honorary Vicar General, both saintly priests advanced in years and highly respected in every regard, delivered to His Holiness Pius IX the letters of the Bishop of Grenoble and those of Maximin [the other little seer] and Mélanie, containing their Secrets.
“Melanie did not send His Holiness Pius IX all of the Secret which she recently published, but only what the Blessed Virgin had inspired her to write at the time from that important document, along with many things relevant to Pius IX personally. Nevertheless, on the basis of information which I guarantee you is very accurate I know that the reproaches addressed to the clergy and religious communities were identical to those contained in that part of the Secret given to His Holiness Pius IX. Later the blessed shepherdess of La Salette imparted other parts of the Secret to different people when she felt the proper time had arrived to disclose them. But the Secret in its entirety was made public only in the little work written by Mélanie herself and printed at Lecce in 1879 at the request and expense of a pious person.
“In 1860 one of Mélanie’s directors obtained a manuscript of the Secret at Marseille. It was transmitted to me in 1869, when by order of Mgr. Petagna, Bishop of Castellamare di Stabia, I was Mélanie’s spiritual director. On January 30 Mélanie put this same document into the hands of the Abbé Felician Bliard, with a declaration of its authenticity and her signature, but with certain small blank spaces, indicated by dots and etc...., to replace those parts of the Secret which she felt she should not reveal yet. The part about priests and religious, almost in its entirety, was there in its proper place. The Abbé Bliard sent a certified copy from Nice on February 24, 1870 to Fr. Semennenko, Consultor of the Index at Rome and Superior of the Polish seminary. He did the same for several Church dignitaries. Nevertheless the Secret of the shepherdess of La Salette had already been spread everywhere in manuscript form, especially among religious communities and the clergy.
“In 1873 Fr. Bliard published the document just as he had received it from Mélanie in 1870, with his own scholarly comments, in a brochure called ‘Letters to a Friend about the Secret of the Shepherdess of La Salette’. This brochure appeared in Naples with the approbation given on April 30, 1873 by the curia of His Eminence Cardinal Sixtus Riario Sforza, Archbishop of Naples. I myself can certify the authenticity of this approbation, as well as the authenticity of the letter which I sent to Abbé Bliard dated May 1, 1873, a letter which was printed on the first page of the said brochure after my promotion to the See of Ugento.
“On receiving Mélanie’s Secret from Mr. Bliard, Mr. C.R. Girard, the learned director of La Terre Sainte in Grenoble, published it early in 1872 in his book called The Secrets of La Salette and Their Import. This brochure was only the first of five very important little works which appeared later by the same author and were intended to vindicate and confirm the revelations of La Salette, as well as to defend them against the attacks of their enemies. These works by Mr. Girard were honored by the endorsement and blessing of His Holiness Pius IX and the support of many Catholic theologians and bishops. . . .
“I will also say that during my many years as Abbot of the Canons Regular of the Lateran at Santa Maria di Piedigrotta in Naples, I had occasion in my capacity as Superior of that Order to maintain relations with very respected prelates and princes of the Roman Church. They were rather well informed in regard to Mélanie and her Secret. Almost all had received that document. Well then! Every one of them without exception judged very favorably of that divine revelation and the authenticity of the Secret. I shall confine myself to mentioning among others: Mgr. Petagna, Bishop of Castellamare di Stabia, who had the good shepherdess of La Salette under his guardianship for several years; Mgr. Mariano Ricciardi, Archbishop of Sorrento; His Eminence Cardinal Guidi; His Eminence Cardinal Sixtus Riario Sforza, Archbishop of Naples. . . . These revered and saintly Pastors always spoke to me in such wise as to confirm me strongly in my belief, now become unshakeable, in the divinity of the revelations contained in the Secret of the shepherdess of La Salette. Furthermore I have it from an incontrovertible source, that our Holy Father Leo XIII also received that document in its entirety.
“I am mindful, Reverend Sir, that the Secret contains some very harsh truths where the clergy and religious communities are concerned. Such revelations are approached with sinking hearts and fearful souls. If I dared I would ask our Lady why she didn’t order them buried in eternal silence. But who are we to question her who is called the Seat of Wisdom? Our task is to draw profit from her lessons.”
The good Bishop goes on to point out that there is considerable precedent both in Scripture and hagiography for rebuking the clergy in public, citing the Psalms, the Prophets, the Fathers of the Church and other sacred authors, not to mention revelations made to saints from St. Catherine of Siena on down to Bl. Anna-Maria Taigi. Nonetheless he warns that prophecy makes use of a language all its own, not meant to inspire contempt of those we are bound to respect. Reproofs aimed at the clergy in general must not be taken as addressed to all without exception, for “in the bosom of the Church there are always pastors and ministers outstanding for their learning and holiness,” besides the fact that “the divine Mother’s range of vision takes in the entire universe, and her chaste eye is offended by many things we can neither know nor even suspect. . .
“As for the Secret printed in Lecce, I assure you that it is identical to the one given to me by Mélanie in 1869. In the latter she simply filled in those small omissions and reservations which, when all is said and done, hardly added or subtracted anything from the substance of the document. I had my episcopal commission examine it according to the rules of the Church; and having found no reason to oppose the publication of the Secret, my Vicar General accorded his permission to print in the terms ‘NIHIL OBSTAT, IMPRIMATUR,’ to the person who desired to publish it at his own expense in accordance with his pious intentions. This approval as it appears at the end of the brochure was in fact given on November 15, 1879. The brochure was truly and entirely written by Mélanie Calvat, shepherdess of La Salette, whose surname was Matthieu. It is impossible to cast any doubts on the authenticity of this brochure.
“Here now is what concerns Mélanie personally: This pious girl, this virtuous and privileged soul whom wicked people have tried to vilify by making her the butt of their detestably gross calumnies and proud disdain, I can attest before God is in no way deceitful, crazy, deluded, prideful or motivated by self interest. On the contrary, I had occasion to admire the virtues of her soul, as well as the qualities of her mind throughout the period of time I had her under my spiritual direction, that is to say from 1868 to 1873. After that, being no longer able to undertake her direction as a consequence of my promotion to the see of Ugento as Superior of the Canons Regular, I still continued to keep in contact with her by correspondence. To this day I can affirm that her edifying life, her virtues, her writings have deeply impressed on my heart the sentiments of respect and admiration which in all justice I must entertain in her regard.
“In 1879 our Holy Father Leo XIII deigned to honor Mélanie with a private audience and also charged her with compiling the rules for the new Order recommended and requested by Our Lady of La Salette under the title of the Apostles of the Latter Days. In order to complete a draft of this kind, the ex-shepherdess stayed in Rome for five months at the convent of the Salesian Sisters. During this time she became better known and more highly esteemed, especially by these good nuns, who furnished favorable reports very much to the credit of the blessed shepherdess of La Salette.
“I know from my own sources of information that when Mr. Nicolas, a lawyer from Marseille was in Rome on Holy Saturday 1880, he was commissioned by His Holiness Leo XIII to put out a brochure explaining the Secret in its entirety, so that the public might understand it properly. I feel sure these particulars will suffice to strengthen you in your conviction. I could tell you very much more, but,” concludes the Bishop of Lecce, “that would require a book, not a letter.”
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The same year that Bishop Zola wrote to Fr. Roubaud, Mgr. Cortet, Bishop of Troyes, was making every effort to have the Secret put on the Index on the pretext that it “was causing trouble in France.” When his request continued to meet with refusal on the part of the Holy Office, he threatened its Secretary, Cardinal Caterini, with the withdrawal of Peter’s Pence “if something was not done in his favor.” Under duress the Cardinal ended by writing him a letter dated August 8, 1880, in which he stated that the work in question had been remitted to the Inquisitors, who found it proper to reply that “it was not pleasing to the Holy See that the said work be delivered to the public,” and expressed the desire that “wherever copies have been distributed, they be removed, insofar as possible, from the hands of the faithful. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .” (sic)
When the authentic Latin text of the letter was published seventeen years later in Ami du Clergé, the last sentence terminated in an extended series of dots as above, testifying to a number of missing words. Eventually Fr. Roubaud learned that the dots stood for a phrase laying down the condition--“if as the Bishop affirms, the Secret was causing trouble in France.” This qualification had been expurgated wholesale, along with the rest of the sentence, which instructed the authorities to “leave it in the hands of the clergy, so they may profit by it.”
Bishop Cortet had been so disappointed on receiving this communication that rather than publish it in his diocese, he sent it to his friend Bishop Besson of Nîmes, who put out an adulterated version. Not only were the extenuating words left out of the prohibition but gratuitous additions were made to the effect that the Inquisitors “deem worthy of the highest praise the zeal you have shown in denouncing this work to them,” and “that the Holy See has regarded its publication with the greatest displeasure.” Removing the copies from circulation was furthermore reported to be the “express wish” of the Holy See.
Needless to say, this letter brought the dissemination of the Secret to a standstill in France as far as the establishment was concerned. From Italy Mélanie would write Fr. Roubaud, “Don’t worry about what the devil does by means of men; the good Lord permits it to strengthen the faith of the true believers. One of the persons I addressed in Rome belongs to the Congregation of the Index and the other to that of the Holy Office, or the Inquisition, which is the same thing. Neither one nor the other knew anything about Cardinal Caterini’s letter. That’s why they said it was a party acting independently of the Pope and even of the Congregations of the Index and the Inquisition.”
According to the brochure, “The two people Mélanie refers to are Cardinals, one of whom was Cardinal Ferrieri. Mgr. Pennachi, Consultor to the Index, on being questioned by Mélanie, told her the same thing as the two Cardinals. It is clear from Mélanie’s letter that Cardinal Caterini, by an ordinary private letter, had falsely implicated his colleagues in the Holy Office, and even the Holy See; for which the Cardinal’s secretary, who had drafted it, apologized to Mgr. Zola, adding that his hand had been forced.” Because poor Mélanie was unable to prove beyond a shadow of doubt that the letter had indeed been sent without the Pope’s knowledge, she believed herself bound to comply with its strictures to the end of her life. Privately she admitted that the letter had “poisoned her existence” by making it impossible for her to fulfill the mission confided to her by our Lady, at least in France.
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After Melanie’s death in 1904 the enemies of La Salette hoped to deal the final blow to the Secret. Putting the capstone on the falsehoods and misrepresentations already in circulation, a decree was promulgated on December 21, 1915 which ordered “the faithful of all countries to abstain from treating or discussing this said question under whatsoever pretext or form, either in books, pamphlets or articles signed or anonymous, or in any other way.” Although the action is duly recorded in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis for December 31 of that year, certain irregularities were soon noted in its regard.
To begin with, it carries signatures of no Cardinals or members of the Sacred Congregation, but only that of its notary, Luigi Castellano. There is moreover no mention of the date on which the Holy Office presumably met to vote this piece of legislation, nor any reference to its ever having been submitted to Pope Benedict XV for final approval. Although the decree forbids all discussion of the Secret and specifies penalties to be imposed on transgressors, no censure whatever is attached to the work itself, as would be expected in the circumstances. There is not even a prohibition against possessing, reading or distributing it!
In other words the alleged “decree” which has been brandished like a club over the heads of the faithful for over eighty years to prevent their hearing a message addressed “to all our Lady’s people,” has apparently never enjoyed the force of law. The faithful both lay and clerical are now, and have always been perfectly free, without exception, to avail themselves of the high ecclesiastical authorizations which were originally granted to the Secret by the Archbishop of Naples, Cardinal Sforza and Bishop Zola of Lecce, not to mention those of Cardinal Ferrieri and Cardinal Guidi. So what were they waiting for?
Not only had Pope Leo XIII accepted the account of the apparition and the Secret, delivered to him personally by Mélanie on two separate occasions, but as Bishop Zola pointed out, in 1880 this same Pontiff had charged the attorney Nicolas of Marseille “to draft a brochure explaining the whole Secret so that the general public could understand it properly.” When his brochure, which has provided so much of the substance of these lines, was reprinted under Fr. Lepidi’s Imprimatur in 1922 after years of oblivion, the adversaries of La Salette were bound to react, inasmuch as any clear exposition of the facts relating to the unjust suppression of the Secret could not fail to renew public interest in it.
An unfortunate incident played into their hands when an ill-advised partisan of the Secret, a certain Dr. Grémillon of Montpellier, took it upon himself to distribute a thousand copies of the brochure to all ranks of the clergy. Under cover of the brochure’s Imprimatur and using a pseudonym, he appended to its legitimate contents an injurious twelve-page letter dated February 2, 1923 in which, among other things, he labeled the priesthood as a whole as “sewers,” taxed St. Thomas Aquinas with “obscurantism” and wound up by declaring that the Pope should impose the Secret of La Salette on the faithful as an article of faith. The copies were expedited in wrappers proclaiming, “Big News! A voice from heaven! A message from the Blessed Virgin is declared authentic by the Vatican. A bludgeon blow to the clergy. See a letter at the end from Dr. Henry Mariavé to the Abbé Z., dean of a parish in Montpellier.”
Reaction on the part of the Holy Office was swift. On May 10, 1923 a decree was issued “proscribing and condemning” the entire brochure, designated by the title “The Apparition of the Most Holy Virgin on the Mountain of La Salette on Saturday, September 19, 1845.” That the apparition took place in 1846 and not in 1845 would alone serve to invalidate the decree, besides the fact that for over 43 years Mélanie’s account of the happening had incurred no condemnation whatsoever from any authorized quarter. To make matters worse, the Holy Office took its fateful action in a session held on the previous day, when Fr. Lepidi was ill and unable to make an appearance, either to defend the Imprimatur he had accorded the original publication or to repudiate the unauthorized letter which had been attached to it.
Could the brochure have suffered condemnation without Dr. Grémillon’s outrageous letter? Ultimately the responsibility lay with the reigning Pope, who was then Pius XI. As it was, he was placed in the uncomfortable position of apparently proscribing what three predecessors, Pius IX, Leo XIII and St. Pius X, had actively promoted, and what, in the case of the brochure itself, one of them had actually mandated. As the years rolled on, the wistful conclusion reached at the time by many of the bewildered faithful is being heard with increasing frequency as time goes on: “The Holy Father is a prisoner in the Vatican, at the mercy of his entourage for his information!” Be that as it may, the Secret of La Salette finally broke free of all restrictions when Paul VI abolished the Index of Forbidden Books in 1966. By then, of course, the Church had already entered the “frightful crisis” foretold by the Secret, and there was no turning back the events which began unrolling.
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