Quote:I regret that my [CDC] coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the Journal of Pediatrics.

My primary job duties while working in the immunization safety branch from 2000 to 2006 were to lead or colead three major vaccine safety studies. The MADDSP MMR-Autism Cases
Control Study was being carried out in response to the Wakefield Lancet study that suggested an association between the MMR vaccine and an autism-like health outcome.

There were several major concerns among scientists and consumer advocates outside the CDC in the fall of 2000 regarding the execution of the Verstraeten study.

One of the important goals that was determined upfront in the spring of 2001 before any of these studies started was to have all three protocols vetted outside the CDC prior to the start of the analyses so that consumer advocates could not claim that we were presenting analyses that suited our own goals and biases.
     
We hypothesized that if we found statistically significant effects at either 18- or 36-month thresholds, we would conclude that vaccinating children early with MMR vaccine could lead to autism-like characteristics or features.
     
We all met and finalized the study protocol and analysis plan. The goal was to not deviate from the analysis plan to avoid the debacle that occurred with the Verstraeten Thimerosal study published in Pediatrics in 2003.
     
At the September 5 meeting, we discussed in detail how to code race for both the sample and the birth certificate sample. At the bottom of table 7, it also shows that for the
nonbirth certificate sample, the adjusted race effect statistical significance was huge.
     
All the authors and I met and decided sometime between August and September 2002 not to report any race effects for the paper. Sometime soon after the meeting, where we decided to exclude reporting any race effects, the coauthors scheduled a meeting to destroy documents related to the study.

The remaining four coauthors all met and brought a big garbage can into the meeting room and reviewed and went through all the hard copy documents that we had thought we should discard and put them in a huge garbage can.
     
However, because I assumed it was illegal and would violate both FOIA and DOJ requests, I kept hard copies of all documents in my office, and I retained all associated computer files.
     
I believe we intentionally withheld controversial findings from the final draft of the Pediatrics paper.

--CDC Senior Scientist Dr. William Thompson, 2014

• No known investigative or disciplinary action was ever taken by Inspector Generals, law enforcement authorities, scientific authorities, Pediatrics journal or CDC.
  
• Congress, to which the pharmaceutical industry is a top donor, declined to hold hearings.
  
• Dr. Thompson is still a CDC senior scientist.
  
• CDC refused to allow him to testify in court or do media interviews.
  

Quote:INSTRUCTION. There is no greater consolation under crosses and afflictions, no more powerful support in the adversities of a pious and virtuous life, than the thought that all sufferings are as nothing when compared with the coming glory of heaven, and that by a slight and momentary suffering in this life is obtained a superabundant happiness in the next, (ii Cor. iv. 17.) Thus St. Augustine says: "Were we daily to suffer all torments , even for a short time the pains of hell, in order to see Christ and be numbered among His saints ; would it not be worth all this misery to obtain so great a good, so great a glory?"

ASPIRATION. Ah Lord, when shall we be delivered from the miserable bondage of this life, and participate in that indescribable glory which Thou hast prepared for Thy children, where free from the misery and many temptations of this life, they enjoy eternal bliss. Enable us to see more and more into the misery of this life that we may thus be urged to strive for freedom and glory in Thy kingdom. Amen.

Quote:Silverius was a native of Campania, and succeeded Agapitus in the Papacy. His doctrine and holiness shone forth in his pursuing of heretics; and his strength of soul, in his firmness regarding the upholding of the sentence passed by Agapitus. Agapitus had deposed Anthimus from the Patriarchate of Constantinople for defending the heresy of Eutyches; and Silverius would never allow of his restoration, although the Empress Theodora repeatedly asked him to do so.

The woman was enraged at him, on this account, and ordered Belisarius to send Silverius into exile. He was accordingly banished to the island of Ponza, whence, it is said, he wrote these words to Bishop Amator: “I am fed upon the bread of tribulation, and the water of affliction, but nevertheless, I have not given up, and I will not give up, doing my duty.” Soon, indeed, worn out by grief and suffering, he slept in the Lord, on the twelfth of the Kalends of July: His body being taken to Rome, was laid in the Vatican Basilica and was made illustrious by numerous miracles. He ruled the Church for more than three years, and ordained in the month of December, thirteen priests, five deacons, and nineteen bishops for divers sees.

Quote:“The Brother to the Lady, his Sister, dearer to him than are his eyes and his life. It is my wont to leave thy holiness ignorant of nothing that passeth here in thine absence: know also then, that we have found Martyrs. For of a truth, when I was engaged about the dedicating of the Basilica which thou knowest, many began to call upon me with one voice, saying: Dedicate it after the manner of the Roman Basilica. I replied: I will do so, if I find relics of Martyrs. Thereupon there came upon me, as it were, the glowing heat of a presage. What shall I say? The Lord hath bestowed his grace. Despite the fears of the very clerics themselves, I ordered the earth to be dug up about the spot facing the balustrade of Saints Felix and Nabor. I found the wished-for signs. Men even came forward bringing possessed persons on whom we might impose hands; and it so fell out, that at the very first sight of the holy Martyrs, while we as yet had not broken silence, a [Urna in the Latin text, is taken for una by the best interpreters.] woman from among them was instantly seized and thrown to the ground before the holy tomb. We found therein two men of wondrous stature, as in the times of the ancients; all the bones entire, and a quantity of blood. There was a vast concourse of people during these two days. Wherefore these details? Towards evening we transported the holy bodies (in their entirety and laid out in a fitting manner) to the Basilica of Fausta; there vigil was kept all night, and imposition of hands. On the morrow, the translation to the Basilica that they call the ‘Ambrosian.’ During the transit, a blind man was cured.”

Quote:Gervase and Protase were the sons of Vitalis and Valeria, who both testified even unto death, for the Lord Christ’s sake, by martyrdom,—the father at Ravenna, and the mother at Milan. After the victory of their parents, Gervase and Protase gave all their inheritance to the poor, and set free their slaves. This act of theirs stirred up against them savage hatred, on the part of the heathen priests, and when the Count Astasius was about setting forth to war, they believed they had got a good occasion for the destruction fo the two holy brethren. They persuaded Astasius that their gods had revealed to them that they had no chance of conquering in the war, unless he had first made Gervase and Protase to deny Christ, and to offer sacrifice to the gods. Being commanded so to do, they refused with horror, and Astasius then ordered Gervase to be beaten with rods until he died under the stripes, and Protase to be beaten with clubs, and his head to be struck off. A servant of Christ named Philip took away their dead bodies by stealth and buried them in his own house; and in after times, St. Ambrose, being warned of God, found them, and bestowed them in a hallowed and honorable place. They suffered at Milan, on the thirteenth of the kalends of July.

Quote:Mark and Marcellian were two brothers, Romans, who were arrested by the Prefect, Fabian, for believing in Christ, and were fastened to a beam, to which their feet were nailed. The judge said to them: “Wretched creatures, do think for a moment, and free yourselves from such suffering.” But they answered him: “Never did we enjoy any banquet so much as we do what we are now undergoing for Jesus Christ’s sake, in whose love we now begin to be firmly fixed: would that He might let us suffer this as long as we are clad in this corruptible body!” Still suffering, they for a day and a night sang the praises of God continually, and in the end were thrust through with darts, and so attained the glory of martyrdom. Their bodies are buried in the Via Ardeatina.

Archbishop Lefebvre clearly and plainly saw the traps laid for traditional priests by Conciliar Rome - firstly with the 1984 Indult, and then under the newly formed Ecclesia Dei (e.g. the Fraternity of St. Peter) in 1988: they must accept Vatican II and the New Mass (see here, here, and here, for example).

In 1999, the FSSP experienced an 'internal crisis' where several priests demanded to be able to celebrate the New Mass. At the conclusion of a general assembly in 2000 convoked by the Holy See, the FSSP came to an agreement with Rome. This article from the traditional-SSPX, appropriately entitled The Fiasco of the Fraternity, summarizes what the Fraternity agreed to/gave up: "... not only is the New Mass recognized as legitimate, but it is, for the Fraternity of St. Peter, the official rite of the Church." It is my understanding that the FSSP priests are obligated to celebrate a Novus Ordo Mass once a year on Holy Thursday "on account of its special character, signifying the unity of the Church," according to then Superior of the FSSP, Fr. Bisig.

Thanks be to God that Archbishop Lefebvre navigated his traditional-SSPX through these Conciliar maneuvers and warned repeatedly against this entrapment - at least 10 years before the FFSP's complete capitulation:

Quote:“Availing ourselves of the Indult is tantamount to putting ourselves into a state of contradiction because at the same time that Rome gives the Fraternity of St. Peter, for example, or Le Barroux Abbey and other groups authorization to say the Mass of All Time, they also require young priests to sign a Profession of Faith in which the spirit of the Council must be accepted. It is a contradiction: the Spirit of the Council is embodied in the New Mass. How is it possible to desire to preserve the Mass of all time while accepting the Spirit that destroys this Mass of All Time? It is completely contradictory.” ssspx.org/en/archbishop-lefebvre-indult-mass

Quote:“If like their predecessor, the priests of the Fraternity had accepted to demonstrate their unity with us by joining at least some concelebrations, and if they did not consider their group of faithful as their exclusive domain, we would have welcomed their contribution.”

Quote:The question of concelebration is a delicate one, especially in our institute, because of our internal history and a crisis that we have gone through. As a preamble, let me recall that if the majority of FSSP priests do not concelebrate, this is not due to an unofficial prohibition by their superiors, nor to an impossibility linked to their constitutions (which would be impossible), but to their personal choice, as the Church allows.

Secondly, it is also important to remember that the priests of our institute are in full ecclesial communion because of their membership in the Fraternity of St. Peter, an Apostolic Society of Pontifical Right, whose history and very name originate in fidelity to the See of Peter. There can be no doubt about this.

The Motu Proprio does not speak directly of concelebration, but recalls the dignity of the Paul VI missal, asking priests not to exclude it on principle. In our case, our constitutions, definitively approved by the Holy See in 2003, recognize that celebration in the Extraordinary Form is constitutive of our charism. This means that a priest of the FSSP cannot receive a mission that would include the celebration of the liturgy in the ordinary form.

As for concelebration (in the ordinary form), if it is one of the signs proper to express communion with the bishop, it is not the only one, nor the highest (it has been practiced only since quite recent times), and it is not binding.

Also, the priests of the FSSP, because of the liturgical choice they have made, which is based on objective theological reasons, do not wish to concelebrate Mass in the Ordinary Form as provided for by canon and liturgical law. I can understand that this is difficult for some bishops to accept, but it seems to me unjust to suspect or penalize people who make use of a right, or to put them on trial for their motives in making their choice. The priests of the FSSP have never questioned the validity of the Mass celebrated according to the missal of Paul VI, but they have always underlined its insufficiencies and ambiguities, in a filial spirit. For this reason, since they have permission, they prefer not to concelebrate it.

In this regard, I would like to point out that the question of concelebration was submitted to the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei in 2010 and that it recalled that it is always a possibility, never an obligation.

Quote:This decision might as well be written on the dissolving paper sold in magic shops. The City has been adamant about pressuring CSS to give in, and if the City wants to get around today’s decision, it can simply eliminate the never-used exemption power. If it does that, then, voilà, today’s decision will vanish — and the parties will be back where they started …

Not only is the Court’s decision unlikely to resolve the present dispute, it provides no guidance regarding similar controversies in other jurisdictions. From 2006 to 2011, Catholic Charities in Boston, San Francisco, Washington, D. C., and Illinois ceased providing adoption or foster care services after the city or state government insisted that they serve same-sex couples. Although the precise legal grounds for these actions are not always clear, it appears that they were based on laws or regulations generally prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. And some jurisdictions have adopted anti-discrimination rules that expressly target adoption services.

Today’s decision will be of no help in other cases involving the exclusion of faith-based foster care and adoption agencies unless by some chance the relevant laws contain the same glitch as the Philadelphia contractual provision on which the majority’s decision hangs. The decision will be even less significant in all the other important religious liberty cases that are bubbling up.

Virtual image of the proposed Abrahamic Family House complex

Quote:The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings. This divine wisdom is the source from which the right to freedom of belief and the freedom to be different derives.

Quote:The design is characterized by an iconic geometric architecture of three cubes that evokes the features of traditional architecture and preserves its uniqueness.

The structures will represent the unified commonality and mutual coexistence between the three religions while evoking the traditional architecture and retaining the individualism of each of the three faiths. […]

In addition, the complex will offer a variety of daily programmes and activities and will host international conferences and world summits that promote harmonious coexistence within communities.

Quote:We were led towards these powerful plutonic forms with a clear geometry, three cubes sitting on a plinth – though not aligned, they each have different orientations. The story then starts to become apparent through the power of the silhouette, unified with commonality and the articulation of the three forms. These structures represent a safe space, each volume illustrated with colonnades, screens and vaults to represent the sacred nature.

Our discovery continued with the common ground, the public space in-between, where the difference connects. I saw the garden as a powerful metaphor, this safe space where community, connection and civility combine – this space exists between the three chambers, the three faiths. The podium allows you to interact with each space, there’s no preventative threshold, and this way you dissolve the perceptions of not being included and encourage the celebration of this collective history and collective identity.

Quote:Today, we are religious leaders representing Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Tomorrow, we hope to represent many more –those seeking to bring peace through mutual understanding. We aspire to have an impact at a global scale–and we soon will be sharing that emerging purpose and vision with influential and prominent leaders from different religions, organizations, governments and more.

Quote:Gainesville, FL (June 16, 2021) – A group of parents in Gainesville, FL, concerned about potential harms from masks, submitted six face masks to a lab for analysis. The resulting report found that five masks were contaminated with bacteria, parasites, and fungi, including three with dangerous pathogenic and pneumonia-causing bacteria. No viruses were detected on the masks, although the test is capable of detecting viruses.

The analysis detected the following 11 alarmingly dangerous pathogens on the masks:

• Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumonia)

• Mycobacterium tuberculosis (tuberculosis)

• Neisseria meningitidis (meningitis, sepsis)

• Acanthamoeba polyphaga (keratitis and granulomatous amebic encephalitis)

• Acinetobacter baumanni (pneumonia, blood stream infections, meningitis, UTIs— resistant to antibiotics)

• Escherichia coli (food poisoning)

• Borrelia burgdorferi (causes Lyme disease)

• Corynebacterium diphtheriae (diphtheria)

• Legionella pneumophila (Legionnaires' disease)

• Staphylococcus pyogenes serotype M3 (severe infections—high morbidity rates)

• Staphylococcus aureus (meningitis, sepsis)

Half of the masks were contaminated with one or more strains of pneumonia-causing bacteria. One-third were contaminated with one or more strains of meningitis-causing bacteria. One-third were contaminated with dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens. In addition, less dangerous pathogens were identified, including pathogens that can cause fever, ulcers, acne, yeast infections, strep throat, periodontal disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and more.

The face masks studied were new or freshly-laundered before wearing and had been worn for 5 to 8 hours, most during in-person schooling by children aged 6 through 11. One was worn by an adult. A t-shirt worn by one of the children at school and unworn masks were tested as controls. No pathogens were found on the controls. Proteins found on the t-shirt, for example, are not pathogenic to humans and are commonly found in hair, skin, and soil.

A parent who participated in the study, Ms. Amanda Donoho, commented that this small sample points to a need for more research: “We need to know what we are putting on the faces of our children each day. Masks provide a warm, moist environment for bacteria to grow.”

These local parents contracted with the lab because they were concerned about the potential of contaminants on masks that their children were forced to wear all day at school, taking them on and off, setting them on various surfaces, wearing them in the bathroom, etc. This prompted them to send the masks to the University of Florida’s Mass Spectrometry Research and Education Center for analysis.

Quote:Julitta was born of the royal stock of Iconium. Persecution raging under Domitian, the Governor of Lycaonia, she fled from her native city, together with two handmaids and her son, named Cyr, aged three. Having thus abandoned all her property, which was considerable, she came to Seleucia. But there, she found the Christians suffering even more. Alexander, the President placed there by Diocletian, had just received the Emperor’s edict ordering to subject to every kind of torture, all such as refused to adore the idols. Julitta therefore travelled to Tarsus. Now, just as though he were fain purposely to pursue her, it so fell out, that Alexander, that hard and harsh man, arrived at Tarsus as soon as she. Our noble victrix Julitta the martyr was arrested, bearing in her arms her little son Cyr of tender age. Being brought before the tribunal, Alexander demanded her name, condition, and country. She boldly replied, sheltering herself under the only name of our Lord Jesus Christ: “I am a Christian.” Alexander inflamed with rage, commanded that the child should be taken from his mother and brought to him, while she was being beaten cruelly with the sinews of oxen.

Only by main force could they drag the child from his mother’s bosom, for he kept clinging close unto her; and when at last torn from her, he kept urging towards her with all possible movements of his little limbs, nor would he take his eyes off her, and thus the executioners handed him to the President. He having got him in his grasp, began caressing the child, striving to stay his tears, dancing him on his knee, and trying to force the poor babe to let him kiss him. All to no purpose; the boy would fix his eyes only upon his mother, pushing the President away and turning his little head from him: then making use of his hands he began to scratch the President’s face; at last like to the little nestling of the chaste dove, he would imitate the voice of his mother, and pronounce the very same confession he heard his mother making, crying out thus: “I am a Christian.” Then did he kick with his feet against the sides of the Judge. No longer able to restrain his fury, this savage beast (for man he cannot be termed, who could not be touched by this tender harmless age), seized the babe by the foot, and ruthlessly flung him to the ground. The brains of this noble martyr were thus dashed out against the sharp corners of the steps, in the very act of this his confession, and the ground all about the tribunal was bespattered with his blood. Julitta exulting for joy cried out aloud: “I give Thee thanks, O Lord, that thou hast been pleased that my son should consummate his sacrifice, before myself, and that thou hast therefore given unto him the fadeless crown!”

The judge ashamed of himself and still more infuriated, caused Julitta to be now hoisted on the rack; commanding her sides likewise to be torn, and boiling pitch to be poured upon her feet. During the execution, a crier proclaimed: “Julitta, take pity on thyself and sacrifice to the gods; dread the same unhappy death that hath befallen thy son.” But the valiant martyr unmoved in the midst of torments cried out, in her turn: “I will never sacrifice to demons, but I pay homage to Christ, the Only Son of God, by whom the Father created all things; I am in haste to rejoin my child, and so be united to him forever in the heavenly Kingdom.” Then the cruel Judge, pushing his folly to the last extreme, pronounced his sentence against her whose constancy he despaired of vanquishing in combat: “This woman,” so ran the sentence, “shall have her head cut off by a sword, and the body of her son shall be thrown where criminals’ corpses are cast.” It was on the seventeenth of the Kalends of August that Julitta the noble martyr, and Cyr her glorious son consummated their triumph, through the grace of Jesus Christ. The Church of Nevers claims them as her patrons, as do likewise many other Churches and Monasteries of the kingdom, amongst which the parish of Villejuif, near Paris, glories in possessing a considerable portion of the relics of these two Martyrs, and surrounds them with highest veneration.