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| March 4th - St. Casimir |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 01-24-2021, 03:35 PM - Forum: March
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Saint Casimir
King of Poland
(1458-1483)
Casimir, the second son of Casimir III, King of Poland, was born in 1458. From the custody of a very virtuous mother, Elizabeth of Austria, he passed to the guardianship of a devoted master, the learned and pious John Dugloss. Thus animated from his earliest years by precept and example, his innocence and piety soon ripened into the practice of heroic virtue.
In an atmosphere of luxury and magnificence the young prince fasted, wore a hair shirt, slept upon the bare earth, prayed by night, and watched for the opening of the church doors at dawn. He became so tenderly devoted to the Passion of Our Lord that at Mass he seemed quite rapt out of himself; his charity to the poor and afflicted knew no bounds. His love for our Blessed Lady he expressed in a long and beautiful hymn, familiar to us in English as Daily, Daily, Sing to Mary. At the age of twenty-five, sick with a long illness, he foretold the hour of his death, and chose to die a virgin rather than accept the life and health which the physicians held out to him in the married state.
The miracles wrought by his body after death fill an entire volume. The blind saw, the lame walked, the sick were healed, a dead girl was raised to life. At one time the Saint in glory, seen in the air by his army, led his Catholic countrymen to battle and delivered them by a wondrous victory from the schismatic Russian hosts.
One hundred and twenty-two years after his death Saint Casimir's tomb in the cathedral church of Vilna was opened, that the holy remains might be transferred to the rich marble chapel where it now lies. The place was damp, and the very vault crumbled away in the hands of the workmen; yet the Saint's body, wrapped in robes of silk, still intact, was found whole and incorrupt, and emitting a sweet fragrance which filled the church and refreshed all who were present. Under his head was found his hymn to Our Lady, which he had had buried with him.
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| March 3rd - St. Cunegundes |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 01-24-2021, 03:33 PM - Forum: March
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Saint Cunegundes
Empress
(† 1040)
Saint Cunegundes was the daughter of Sigefried, the first Count of Luxemburg, and Hadeswige, his pious wife. From her cradle her virtuous parents instilled into their daughter the most tender sentiments of piety. When she was of an age to marry, they chose for her spouse Saint Henry, Duke of Bavaria, who at the death of the Emperor Otto III was named King of the Romans and crowned on the 6th of June, 1002. Queen Cunegundes was crowned at Paderborn on Saint Laurence's day.
In the year 1014 she went with her husband to Rome and received the imperial crown with him from the hands of Pope Benedict VIII. With Saint Henry's consent, before their marriage she had made a vow of perpetual virginity. Calumniators afterwards made vile accusations against her, and the holy Empress, to remove the scandal of such a slander, trusting in God to prove her innocence, walked over red-hot ploughshares without being hurt. The Emperor renounced and condemned his own too scrupulous fears and credulity, and from that time on they lived in the strictest union of heart, working together to promote piety and God's honor in every sphere.
Going once to make a retreat in Hesse, Saint Cunegundes fell dangerously ill, and she made a vow to found a monastery at Kaffungen, in the diocese of Paderborn, if she recovered. This she executed in a stately manner, and gave it to nuns of the Order of Saint Benedict. Before it was finished, Saint Henry died in 1024. She earnestly recommended his soul to the prayers of the empire, and especially to her dear nuns, and expressed her longing desire to join the Sisters. She had already exhausted her treasures in founding bishoprics and monasteries and in relieving the poor, and she had therefore little left to give. But intending to embrace perfect evangelical poverty, to renounce all things in order to serve God without obstacle, she assembled a great number of prelates at the dedication of her church of Kaffungen, on the anniversary day of her husband's death, 1025. After the Gospel was sung at Mass she offered on the altar a relic of the true cross, and then, putting off her imperial robes, clothed herself with a poor habit. Her hair was cut off, and the bishop gave her the veil and a ring as a pledge of her fidelity to her heavenly Spouse.
After she was consecrated to God in religion, she seemed to forget entirely that she had been an empress, and served as the last in the house, being persuaded that she was such, before God. She prayed and read a great deal, worked with her hands, and took singular pleasure in visiting and comforting the sick. In this way she passed the last fifteen years of her life.
When her last hour was drawing near, perceiving that they were preparing a cloth fringed with gold to cover her corpse after her death, she ordered it to be taken away; and she could not rest until the promise was given that she would be buried as a poor religious in her habit. She died on the 3rd of March, 1040. Her body was carried to Bamberg and buried near that of her husband. She was solemnly canonized by Innocent III, in 1200.
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| ‘A hill worth dying on’: Expert explains how aborted baby cells taint COVID vaccines |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-24-2021, 08:41 AM - Forum: Abortion
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‘A hill worth dying on’: Expert explains how aborted baby cells taint COVID vaccines
Pamela Acker, a vaccine researcher, shows how the process by which the COVID vaccines are developed is like 'what the Aztecs used to do.'
January 21, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Editor’s note: The following is a rough transcript of LifeSite co-founder John-Henry Westen’s explosive interview with Pamela Acker, a vaccine researcher and expert.
John-Henry Westen: Welcome to this episode of the John-Henry Westen Show, where I am very pleased to bring you Pamela Acker, who is a researcher into vaccines, in fact she's published a new book called Vaccines: A Catholic Perspective. And we are going to get into the most controversial topic going on today, we're going to be talking about what Bishop Athanasius Schneider said, what the actual case is about abortion tainted vaccine, including the COVID vaccines, you're going to want to stay tuned.
Let's begin as we always do at the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Pamela Acker, welcome to the program.
Pamela Acker: Thank you very much, it's my pleasure to be here.
Watch the full interview that was banned from YouTube: https://rumble.com/vcq539-the-unborn-bab...tract.html
JHW: If you can start, just tell us a little bit about yourself, about your background in this area of vaccinations.
PA: I've never liked to be on the cutting edge of anything, so I was excited about vaccines about 20 years ago, before it became a hot COVID topic. But, when I was in high school I was interested in studying biology, and I was particularly interested in studying it because at the time there was some thought that plants could be genetically engineered to deliver vaccines. And there was two things about that that I found very exciting, one was that you could eat something instead of get stuck by something, because nobody likes hypodermic needles. And the other was that this might make it easier to distribute vaccines in third-world countries, because you wouldn't have to worry about special refrigeration or perishable components, you could just grow them on site.
So, I was very excited about that at the time, and I also was interested in the work of Children of God for Life, because that brought to light the issue I think we're going to be talking mostly about today, which is that of the aborted fetal cells that are used in vaccine production. So, I thought that'd be a great ethical alternative if vaccines could be edible. It turns out they can't, the science behind that didn't really work. And, I'm going to refer back to that a little bit today when we talk later about the COVID vaccines, because of their nucleic acid nature, so we've got the mRNA vaccines and the DNA vaccines. And those involve some novel technologies, but there's some parallels that can be drawn to what was trying to be done in the late 90s and early 1000s.
And then, I pursued a master’s degree at Catholic University of America in 2010, 2012, I actually was there for my PhD, but left with a master's because the lab that I got into, which was also involved in vaccine development, was working on a project for HIV vaccines. And the grant funding was under the The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we had gotten the first stage of our grant, we were ready to apply for the second stage and trying to produce enough results to show that our plan was tenable there.
There was a lab meeting that we were all sitting around at, and my primary investigator said, "Look, everybody's got to get onboard with this particular aspect of the project." Which belonged to a colleague of mine. And so, I turned to her and I said, "What are you doing this part of the project in?" And she said, "HEK-293 cells." And this point most people have heard of these because they are connected with the COVID vaccines, but at that time I hadn't. So, I asked her what HEK stands for, and she told me, "Human Embryonic Kidney."
And then I spent a couple of weeks researching what that meant and what that entailed, and I came across the work of Alvin Wong from The National Catholic Bioethics Center, who wrote an article in... I believe it was 2005 or 2006, called The Ethics of HEK-293. And his work helps me a lot to discern whether I could actually be involved in this project or not. And when I expressed my concerns to my primary investigator, it ended up being the end of my career in his lab.
So, I did not get my PhD, I left with my master's. But, the use of aborted fetal cells in vaccines is definitely an issue that's near and dear to my heart, and it's influenced a lot about my life up to this point. But, I also was able to be in the lab for about nine months before that ethical issue was raised, so I have some direct research experience on vaccine development that comes into play. And it has enabled me, I think, to have a unique voice in this argument right now.
JHW: Absolutely. So, eminently qualified to discuss this topic more than most, having worked inside a lab as well on vaccines. Also, someone who has now written a book on this. We're very early into the COVID thing to have already written a book on this, that was quite something, how'd you manage that so quickly?
PA: Again, I don't like to be on the cutting edge of anything, so I started that book two years ago, almost. It was taking the trash out one fateful winter night, and fell and sprained my ankle, and unlike a normal person, I never got better. So, I was laid up on the couch for a very long time, and [inaudible 00:05:25] Kolbe Center had been after me to look into the issue of vaccines for a while. And, when I was on the couch with nothing better to do then read all the things that nobody has time to read, was when I actually started the research for this book.
So, I actually started around April of 2019, so before COVID was ever an issue, hence the reason that the book was so well timed.
JHW: Well, that's really providential. So, we are in an absolutely crazy time because the issue of vaccines, which has been around for many decades now, has taken on an absolutely new urgency with what seems basically like it's going to be forced on everyone. Even though almost everyone's saying, "No, no, we'd never force it." In reality, they're already talking about, "You need to be vaccinated to take a flight, you need to be vaccinated to go into a store." We're already seeing with the mask mandates and the social distancing mandates, the lock downs and everything else, that they are really willing to take draconian measures. So, while you might not be forcibly held down and vaccinated, you're life will become unmanageable if you don't take it.
So, this is our situation. Now, when we're looking at taking vaccines, as a parent we've assessed things like, "Is it necessary? Is it safe? Is it effective?" But also one of the questions is, "Is it moral?" And so, I'd love to address all of those points with you, with regard to the COVID vaccines that are now approved, and what does it mean that they're abortion tainted? So, if we could start right in with the abortion tainted, because I think for most people, one of the qualifying factors to take a vaccine in the first place will be its moral nature. "Is it moral to take this? What are they?" So, why don't we start with the two currently approved vaccines for Coronavirus, for COVID. What are they? And how do they differ?
PA: The two vaccines that are currently approved are the Moderna vaccine and the Pfizer vaccine, and they're both mRNA vaccines, and so at a molecular level they're very similar. Both of the vaccines were made using a biotechnology technique that can synthesize nucleic acids in the laboratory. So, a lot of people are trying to argue that they're moral because the mRNA that's made never touches fetal cells. But that's not the whole of the story when you look at the way that these vaccines were developed.
And so, the original research papers document the use of HEK-293 cells in producing these vaccines. And so, they were used in two different ways. One is that the spike protein that the mRNA codes for... can just do a three minute crash biology course. mRNA is messenger RNA, it's the nucleic acid that's a copy that's made of you DNA, and then it's sent out to the ribosomes in the cells and protein is produced using that messenger copy. So, what the vaccine reports to do is to take messenger RNA that codes for the spike protein of Coronavirus and insert that into your cells so that your human cells will then make the spike protein from the Coronavirus.
And the thought is that this is going to be a very effective way to vaccinate you because we found that if you just take the spike protein and inject it into people, it tends to degrade too rapidly for a good immune response. You tend to have some other complications which I'll touch on a little bit later in the interview. But, the thought is that if your body's making it itself, then you can get a prolonged enough exposure to the spike protein that you'll be able to mount an immune response to it. So, that's the basic way that it's supposed to work.
So, the spike protein by itself is, in the words of one researcher, kind of floppy, it doesn't tend to keep its shape very well. And so, scientists genetically engineered a spike protein that will keep its shape, it's got some mutations that cause it to be stabilized. And so, this original design of this protein... so, when they originally mutated it... they needed to see if it would actually keep its shape correctly, if that would correct the floppiness problem. So, they took that genetic information, and they transformed cells to produce the spike protein so that they could purify it and take a look at it using techniques for visualizing the 3D structure of proteins. And that original experiment was done in HEK-293 cells. So, the spike protein that the vaccines code for, was originally developed, effectively, in aborted fetal cells.
And an additional way that aborted fetal cells were used in the project is, before they were going to inject this mRNA into a human being to see if you could get human cells to make Coronavirus spike protein, you would want to test that in cell culture, you would want to test that in a laboratory. Because, it's a lot less expensive and dangerous than testing it in a human being. And so, if you can't even get the cells in a laboratory to make it then you probably can't get a human body to make it. So, the cells that then this was tested in were also HEK-293 cells. And this has all been published in the literature, and I've read a couple of the papers documenting that both of these vaccines used HEK-293 in their testing.
And, a lot of people want to say, "Well, that was just done to develop the vaccine in the very beginning, so the research part... so, it was a one and done kind of thing, it's no big deal." But just recently, Stacy Trasancos posted an article, which is available on Children of God for Life website, and she pointed out... and as a researcher I can confirm she's absolutely right, that these things also have to go through quality control testing. So, every time I make another batch of the mRNA, which is synthesized using a laboratory technique, then I need to test and make sure it's still viable, that's a fairly common thing, to have quality control like that in the laboratory.
So, the testing with these aborted fetal cells may actually be ongoing in the production of these vaccines. Because generally, when you scale up production of vaccine beyond your research and development, you're going to use the same testing procedures to test the scale up that you use to test your smaller batch, unless it's for some reason not feasible. But, this is a very feasible way to test this for these researchers. It's not a moral way, but it's very feasible because these cells have been optimized for use in a laboratory. And they're almost ubiquitous in tissue culture research, unfortunately there's a lot of laboratories around the world that use these HEK-293 cells. And there's specific products that are basically optimized for them to have ideal growth conditions. So, there's a whole industry based on these aborted fetal cells in basic science research that I think people aren't super familiar with.
JHW: So, just to be clear, both the COVID-19 vaccines, both the Pfizer and the Moderna we both, not only developed in its spike protein with HEK-293, the aborted fetal cell line, but also in their initial testing. And now you're telling us, at least from this article from Stacy Trasancos, in ongoing testing currently for new batches.
PA: Yes. As far as I know there is ongoing testing currently for batches. That is not published in the literature per se, because non of the data post the initial clinical trials has been published, but there's substantial reason to think that this is going on.
JHW: Let's stop there for a second and just do a bit of a rewind for people, because I think people have to understand something about HEK-293 and PER.C6 and a bunch of the other aborted fetal cell lines that are at work here. And that has to do with their initial development anyway, because I think a lot of people are under the impression that... not anymore now, since you've already said what you've said with regard to the use of HEK-293. But, I think a lot of people are under the impression, "Well, that was one baby killed way back in the 1970s and it's so remote from that date right now, and that's an acceptable thing we just have to live with because it's saving so many lives." If you can unpack for us, what is HEK-293 exactly? And was it just one baby that accounts for it, and what about all the other fetal cell lines?
PA: There are a number of fetal cell lines in existence right now, and I'm just going to read off a few of them for you here from Children of God for Life. There's WI-38, MRC-5, HEK-293, PER.C6, there's another one that I'm forgetting the name of that was developed in 2015 that's not currently being used in any vaccines, but has a potential to be used in vaccines and is used in other therapeutic treatments. So, there's a number of these cell lines that are currently being used to develop a variety of therapeutics, everything from vaccines to treatments for Cystic fibrosis.
Most people, as you say, hand wavingly dismiss it and say, "Oh well that was one baby that died, we can't go back and undo it, we might as well get something good out of it now." Which of course, violates the principle of the integral good, and the fact that you simply can't use the ends to justify the means. But I'm not a moral theologian, so I'll stick to the science.
For, HEK-293, that was... one of things that I've seen come up a couple of times in articles I've looked at about the ethical considerations that are involved, is that people say, "Well, there wasn't documentation that that was an elective abortion, so it could have been a spontaneous abortion." And this is a bit disingenuous or ignorant on the part of these authors, because in order to produce a viable cell line, there's a number of things that go into that, and it's a very difficult thing to do.
And so, I was doing some research specifically on HEK-293 to prepare for this interview, and the number system that's involved there... the HEK stands for Human Embryonic Kidney, but 293 stands for this is the 293rd experiment that this particular researcher did to develop a cell lines. And that doesn't mean that there were 293 abortions, but for 293 experiments you need far more than one abortion. And we're talking probably 100s of abortions. And, this was done with the collaboration of some hospitals. And there was a group in Sweden that was involved in developing the WI-38 cell line, so a different cell line, but they routinely were aborting babies for the use in trying to develop fetal cell lines.
So, people at this point usually have the question of, "But why? Why a fetal cell line?" And, when you try to grow cells in culture in the laboratory, they go through a process called immortalization, to develop a cell line. And people kind of confuse that, because it sounds like they live forever, with thinking that you can make these cells live forever in a laboratory. You can't. You can make them live a lot longer than primary cell culture, if you were to just take something out of my arm and put it to grow in a Petri dish, it would survive for a few sub divisions, but not very many. But, if you introduce some mutations into it, it can survive for a lot longer. And so that's what you have when you have an immortalized cell line, you have something that's been mutated usually with viral oncogenes. And these are genes that promote cancer actually, and so put a bookmark there too because this is important to something that hopefully we'll discuss a little later in the interview, about some of the dangers of using... just the biological dangers, let alone moral dangers of using the aborted fetal cell vaccines.
The immortalized cell lines are often given cancer promoting genes that disrupt the function of cancer suppressor genes, or tumor suppressor genes. And so, they can grow, not completely indefinitely, but for a lot more generations in a laboratory. If you start with adult cells, you have basically a shorter shelf life, because adult cells have already undergone a certain number of cell divisions, and so that kind of counts towards the total number that they could actually undergo. And so, if you use adult cells in a laboratory, you will have a shorter lifespan for your cell line, you'll have to develop a new cell line sooner, and it's not as commercially viable. If you start with embryonic or fetal cells, you have the maximum lifespan available for your cell line, and so that I think was probably one of the things that was used to justify the use of these aborted fetal cells to begin with.
And then, another question people have is, "Well, why couldn't HEK-293 have been just a spontaneous abortion? Why couldn't it just been a miscarriage? Because, the hospital lost the documentation about this particular baby that was used to develop the cell line, and so we don't really know whether it was an elective abortion or a spontaneous abortion." Well, we have all the reason in the world to think it was actually an elective abortion that was done on purpose, because the researchers who have been involved in this sort of thing have gone on record saying basically that, "You need to get that tissue within about five minutes of the abortion in order for it to be optimally viable, and if you wait an hour, it's useless."
So, if we're talking about a spontaneous miscarriage, this baby dies long before the fetal tissue is removed from the body of the mother. That spontaneous abortion or that miscarriage would not be viable to start a cell line at all, there'd be no way that you could get a living cell line out of dead tissue. So, this had to have been a baby that was aborted and they knew that that tissue was going to be used for research so they could get there within that five minutes to an hour window, preferably within the first five minutes, in order to get that tissue preserved.
JHW: Wow, so that goes right into the baby part scandal that we're dealing with now, where university researchers ask the mother first, "We're looking for a kidney or an arm or whatever to experiment with, so when you're going to have your abortion anyway, can you do this?" And sometimes ask them to wait longer so it's further developed, so that they'll have a better specimen. Absolutely sickening. So, this went on even with the vaccines, that this was not only a planned abortion, this was a planned abortion and extraction of fetal tissue [inaudible 00:20:31] used within five minutes of the abortion. So, the nonsense about it being a miscarriage is totally shown.
PA: I was going to say it's even worse than that because... and this is where I always issue a warning, if there are any little ears listening to me talk on a recording, because it's a lot more graphic even than what I've just described. Because, in a lot of cases, the babies... because it is done on purpose for research purposes, so they will actually deliver these babies via cesarean section, the babies are in some cases still alive when the researchers start extracting the tissue. To the point where their heart is still beating, and they're generally not given any anesthetic because that would disrupt the cells that the researchers are trying to extract. So, they're removing this tissue while the baby's alive, and in extreme amounts of pain, and so this makes it even more sadistic.
And my Pastor just recently gave a sermon likening this to what the Aztecs used to do, when they would consecrate their temples, they would literally rip out the beating hearts of the victims that they were slaying on top of the temples, and then cast their bodies down the side. This is pretty much exactly the same thing that these researchers are doing.
JHW: Yeah. And you had mentioned, we're getting out the Human Embryonic Kidney, HEK, so it's the kidney that they have to access. So, they're cutting open these live babies, just delivered by cesarean section... yes, and they're too young perhaps to live outside the womb by themselves right away, but they're still alive enough, and we already know that they're feeling pain. And then, they open them up to take... that has to be known. Because, I think a lot of the determination of the morality of these things, even morality as separated by years and so it's remote connections, as they call it, I don't think that they took into consideration what this actually is. That's why the science that you're presenting here is so incredibly important, because the people who made those determinations... and we all know...
And let me just explain, that in 2005, the Vatican first, through the Pontifical Academy for Life, came out with a document saying that, the use of such vaccines, if there is no others available, and if your objection to the procedure of how it was developed is known, and if it's needed, is morally acceptable somehow. But, even at that time... this was 2005 and then it was rubber stamped, I guess, in 2008 with the CDF. However, I don't know that these facts were known at that time. And if they were, it's absolutely unbelievable. So please, continue.
PA: Sure. So, since you referenced the document by the Pontifical Academy for Life, I do address that in the book that I wrote on vaccination, and there's some real problems with the science that was presented to the people who were making those decisions. Because, one of the strongest points that they used to justify the position that they take, in terms of, "These vaccines can be permissible if the situation is sufficiently grave," is the incidents of congenital rubella syndrome.
Now, congenital rubella syndrome is no laughing matter, this is when a baby contracts rubella from its mother in utero in the first trimester, and it can result in blindness, deafness, mental slowness, and even stillbirth in the infants, so it is a serious disease. Now, rubella itself is not a particularly serious disease, particularly if contracted in childhood, most people won't even have symptoms. And I think over half of the cases, nobody even makes a trip to the doctor because there's nothing noticeable or going on. And so, this is a very mild disease in children, and it's really only a problem in pregnant women who contract it during their first trimester.
And, the thought was that, "Well, vaccinating for rubella is going to protect these pregnant women, and so therefore it's morally justifiable." But, in a situation... probably pretty analogous to the situation with COVID, when you look at the actual numbers that's not the case. Because, prior to introducing the rubella vaccine, there was approximately 80% herd immunity in the population for rubella. And 80% herd immunity is the threshold at which the disease doesn't circulate particularly well. Obviously it still circulates, people will still contract rubella, but it doesn't spread through the population like wildfire and put lots of people at risk.
So, after using the rubella vaccine, what we now have is roughly 80 to 85% herd immunity. And so, you might say, "Well that's a little better, so maybe it was worth it." But for the first 10 years after this vaccine was introduced, there wasn't a decrease in the cases of congenital rubella syndrome. And in fact, in the first few years after it was introduced, there was a spike in the cases of congenital rubella syndrome, they went up. And they didn't start dropping until abortion became legal. And, there's a pretty good case to be made that the drop in congenital rubella syndrome babies was due to their mothers being informed, "You have rubella, your child is likely to develop congenital rubella syndrome, why don't you just abort it and try again." The drop that we saw in that disease is probably a lot more due to elective abortions than it is to the introduction of the vaccine.
So, now we've got this vaccine that we have, I believe, worldwide. There's 70% uptake of the MMR vaccine, which is the only way you can get vaccinated for rubella. You used to be able to get the vaccine separately, but Merck lumped them all together in the 1990s after the Wakefield scare, that potentially implied that the MMR was connected with the development of autism. And so, Merck just stopped producing the separate vaccines, you can only get it now as the trivalent vaccine with measles, mumps and rubella. Which means that you can't ethically be vaccinated for any of those things because the vaccine is produced in aborted fetal cells. It's produced in the WI-38 cell line, and that cell line took, I believe it was 32 abortions before they got to that cell line. The number 38, again, is the number of experiments that were actually performed, I believe it was 32 individual babies.
And then the virus that's used in the measles vaccine, the attenuated measles virus, instead of just swabbing the throat of a sick child like they did in Japan, US researchers encouraged women who had been exposed to rubella in their first trimester to electively abort their children. They dissected 27 fetuses before they had the virus that is currently in use in the rubella vaccine, and they continued with 40 more elective abortions, isolating a number of different viral strains that didn't ultimately get used in the vaccine. But, if you put all that together, you end up with approximately 99 abortions just for the rubella vaccine.
And keeping in mind that all of them are probably done under the same horrific conditions that we've just described, and in some cases where babies were delivered... the entire amniotic sac was removed from the mother and these babies were either dissected right then and there. And some cases they were stuck in the refrigerator to preserve them slightly so that they could be dissected in a little bit later, the brutality of that and the horror of that is not something that we should gloss over. Yet, your average Catholic parent who goes into the doctors office and is asked, "Do you want the MMR?" Doesn't even know that this is how this was developed.
And so, when Bishop Schneider was talking in the interview he did with you about the moral complicit-ness that's being asked on this grand scale of people to just accept this... this isn't something that's brand new with the advent of COVID, there's already been significant inroads, I think, made in terms of getting people to appropriate evil to use something that has a truly evil origin for their benefit, even though they're not really cooperating in bringing the evil about per se. And that doesn't even get into the fact that continuing to do this then fuels the market for additional cell lines and additional aborted fetal products, and additional vaccines that are made in aborted fetal cells. Because, if we had been refusing the MMR vaccine, we wouldn't have COVID vaccines that are made with aborted fetal cells. That would not have happened.
JHW: I have so many more questions for you I don't know where to start. Let me go, first of all, to get to what you already said. What specifically did the PAV have wrong when they looked at the science, and what were they lacking?
PA: So, they were lacking an understanding of whether the vaccine was even protective or not. So, vaccines in general do have a modest protective effect against the disease that they're trying to prevent, but implementing a vaccine doesn't necessarily just tremendously impact herd immunity that might already exist in a population. And in fact, the chicken pox example is a great example of how disastrous the introduction of a vaccine can actually be to herd immunity. Because, what we've done by vaccinating everybody for chicken pox now is effectively eliminate the natural boosting cycle.
So, my parents got exposed to chicken pox again when I was a child and I got infected with the virus, and so their immune system was given a natural booster to say, "Hey, remember me? I'm the chicken pox virus. Why don't you beef up your immune response a little bit so that you don't develop shingles in a few years?" Because it's caused by the same virus, and once you have the virus it does hang out in your nerve cells, and so if you've had chicken pox you can develop shingles. But, you don't tend to develop it until a lot later in life because of this natural boosting process. Well, we've eliminated this in the population now, so we've basically pushed the average age of shingles lower, so we're seeing more incidents of shingles, we're seeing it in younger people. And we're even seeing it in very young people who've been vaccinated for chicken pox. Because, the live attenuated virus that's used in the vaccine also hangs out in your nerve cells and it can come back later as shingles itself.
So, one of the things that was missing from the Pontifical Academy of Life, in their determination here, is that you can't just say, "Vaccines save lives, therefore this vaccine is a great idea." You have to look at vaccines on a case-by-case basis and see if they're justifiable. And the ones that are using aborted fetal cells, generally speaking, are not, they're not really life saving vaccines, and so, you don't really have a grave matter. Because, in order to participate in remote evil licitly... and as Bishop Schneider made a great case for, we're sort of muddying the waters by even saying that we're remotely participating in evil because the evil of abortion is so intense. But even if it were, the origin is extremely grave, you have to have extremely grave cause in order to actually make it licit. And so, they did not look at the science enough to see that the cause was just not proportionate.
And I think the same thing is true with the COVID vaccines, the cause is simply not proportionate. We're looking at a death rate from Coronavirus, I think it's .2% and the average age of death of a patient who is coded as having died from COVID... because there's some question about whether patients who have comorbidities should even be counted as COVID deaths. The average age of these patients who are being said to die from COVID is around 79 to 83 years old, and the average life expectancy in the US is around 78.7 years. So technically, the average age of a COVID death is higher than the life expectancy in the US.
So, this disease isn't really killing people right and left that weren't probably going to die within [inaudible 00:33:15] anyway. It's remarkable to me that anybody could consider this grave cause.
JHW: Many people think that when they're taking a vaccine, "There's nothing really of aborted babies in them, nothing really... it was tested on it, and it's so remote, there's really nothing there. If there is something even so remotely connected it's like one billionth of a particle in the whole vaccination shot you get." Speak to that for a second, if you would.
PA: With the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines there isn't any aborted fetal material remaining in the vaccines because they're not actually cultured or produced directly in the aborted fetal cells. But with the AstraZeneca vaccine and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for COVID, as well as the rubella vaccine and the chicken pox vaccine, there are remainders of these aborted fetal cells that end up in the vaccines themselves. So, when you get this vaccine, you are actually injecting pieces of this individual who was murdered into your body. And those pieces tend to be remnants of DNA and some protein debris.
But the DNA is particularly of concern, because Dr. Theresa Deisher of Sound Choice Pharmaceuticals, which I think came into existence in the early 2000s. They were also working on solving this problem with ethical vaccines and the availability of ethical vaccines. she has some tremendous work, a lot of it she's summarized in talk on YouTube, where she has looked at the relationship between the increase in use of aborted fetal cell derived vaccines, that corresponds to an increase in autism rates in the countries that she's looked at. And, this has been in some countries in Europe as well as the United States. And she's seen that there's a dose dependent response, so the more aborted fetal cell vaccines that we use, the increase there is in incidents of autism.
So, she said, "Let's take a look at that, let's see if there's any biologically plausible mechanism for that." And so she made the connection that when you put these aborted fetal DNA contaminants into a living human being, something can occur... and this does occur in vitro, in cell culture in the laboratory, called homologous recombination, where the DNA that's being injected into the individual can kind of line up with the DNA that it corresponds to in those individual cells, and then there's some enzymes that can come along and they can swap those two pieces out. So, you end up losing your actual DNA and having the DNA from the aborted fetal cells incorporated into your cells.
And she was saying how this could potentially explain why in some individuals with autism... although not all because autism is a very multifaceted problem and there's no one strict straight answer for why it develops in some individuals and not in others. But, in some individuals you see hundreds of what are called De Novo Mutations, so these are mutations that came out of nowhere, their parents didn't have them, and you shouldn't see hundreds of mutations in a child just from one generation. This child is very young probably still as well, they can't possibly have accumulated all these mutations. Well they can, if this mutated DNA... because if you recall from back at the beginning of the talk, we talked about how in order for cell lines to be immortalized, we're sticking viral oncogenes in them, these cancer promoting genes, these mutations into them in order to keep them growing in cell culture, somewhat indefinitely. The DNA in these cells has definitely mutated, so this could be the source of the mutations that we're seeing in some of these kids that are developing autism.
So, this is one possible mechanism for why we're seeing that. And it's not outside the realm of possibility biologically, but also it makes sense if you think about it, just from natural law. If you're going to do something as heinous as inject into yourself the remains of somebody who was murdered, there's going to be a natural consequence to that. You can't just do that and not have any negative effects, if that makes sense.
JHW: Well, we're definitely into the safety portion of the discussion. And I'd really like to go right into that, especially with regard to what we're seeing right now from some of the people who have already taken the COVID vaccines, either strain of them. We've seen a nurse come out with saying that one side of her face... she was experiencing Bell's palsy, she seems to be paralyzed in one side of her face. We had one nurse take it early on and pass out. We had another doctor take it and apparently die. Could those be related to the vaccine? And what are some of the other safety concerns with the COVID vaccines, the ones that are approved and the ones that are awaiting approval now?
PA: One of the main safety concerns with any of the COVID vaccines that are in development, is that most of them are what is called Nextgen technologies. These are things that have not been done in vaccines in the past, so we really don't know how the mRNA vaccines, we don't know what kind of longterm health effects they're going to have. We don't really know what effects they're going to have in the body even short term. Because, one of the concerns that I have just from thinking about genetically engineering vaccines, way back in the late 90s when they were trying to have these fruits produce vaccine antigens and produce them in appropriate doses. When you would genetically transfect a plant and try to get it to produce, say smallpox antigens, they had a huge problem standardizing the dosage, and this is why the technology eventually got scrapped. Because, they simply couldn't say that, "If you ate one banana then you'd get this much smallpox antigen." Because all the bananas were different. And, bananas are maybe a bad example because bananas are polyploid and so there's some other genetic problems going on there. But none of the plants that they tested were able to be standardized in terms of dosage.
So, when you insert foreign genetic material... and this is just true with the laboratory too. But when you insert foreign genetic material into a living organism, you can't really control exactly how much protein that organism is going to produce based on how much DNA that you give it. And you can sort of guesstimate a range, but when you're dealing with something like the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein... and we know that one of the ways that the pathology and the people who do get really sick is mediated, is through this overactive immune response. You get the cytokine storm, you get everything so amped up that your immune system is actually what's killing your body. We're going to then take genetic information, stick it into your body, not know how much protein you're actually going to produce that causes this overactive immune response, and just say, "Oh yeah, you'll be fine, don't even bother to call me if you have some soreness in your arm."
To me that's mind boggling, because I don't think they have any idea how wildly different peoples responses to this genetic information might be, and thus how wildly different their responses to the vaccine might be. And so, in addition to this general concern, there's also the AstraZeneca and the Johnson & Johnson adenovirus vector vaccines. So, the idea is that we're taking an attenuated virus that normally infects humans, which is adenovirus, and packaging some genetic information in there. And so, that virus vector is going to take that DNA from the Coronavirus to your cells and then put the DNA into your cells. And then at that point, you have even more possible complications because now not only are you sticking genetic information from Coronavirus into your body, but you also have the problem of... with adenovirus' there's... and I don't remember the technical name for it, but there's basically a mechanism whereby adenovirus' can recombine in your body.
So, if you happen to be infected with an adenovirus, which may not even be symptomatic, because some of these viruses are very benign and they don't really cause a whole lot of problems. But some of them are worse and they can cause common cold type symptoms, they can also cause digestive distress, things like that. But, say you're infected with one of these adenoviruses, you get stuck with an adenovirus vaccine, and those two viruses, the vaccine virus and the wild-type virus, they actually recombine in your body and they make something different that we have no idea what it's going to do, or how it's going to react, or how it's going to infect you.
And you can actually end up creating super viruses. And this is one of the reasons that when Coronavirus vaccines were originally being developed, back when SARS was a thing in 2003, 2004, they looked at doing live attenuated viruses. But then they said, "No, we can't do that because you could have this live attenuated vaccine virus recombine with a naturally occurring Coronavirus." Because there're about four that normally infect human beings and cause common cold type symptoms, that's not counting the SARS virus and the MERS virus, and the current SARS-2 virus. But, these four common ones could recombine with an attenuated live vaccine virus, and that could create something that we wouldn't have any idea of how infective or how pathogenic it was. So, this is a concern I think too with the adenovirus factors that hasn't been addressed properly in the public eye.
And then, one of the other things that I found interesting, I was looking at another video that was promoting these next generation technologies and how exciting they were, "Everybody calm down, we've been working on these for decades now, and they're not just out of the box brand new, somebody just thought of this." And as a researcher, hearing that, "We've been working on these for decades." Doesn't mean they're safe, it means we haven't had success in decades on this stuff. That's the actual real message that's being spun in a positive way, it's like, "Oh, we have experience with this in a laboratory." We have experience with it not working, is what we have.
JHW: So, one of the things that happens is, I think most people know but maybe you can address this very quickly, is that the companies that have produced these are indemnified against being sued. So in other words, if someone gets something from the vaccine, it's the tax payer that's going to deal with it, not the company. Yet the company is going to get profits from their making of it anyway, and got profits from their development of it because they were asked to do it under Warp Speed and with millions and billions of dollars. So, there's that, and that fact that... well, maybe address that first. And then I have another question for you in a minute.
PA: So, that's actually... minus the Warp Speed pre-funding, that's actually the situation for all vaccines that are developed in the US. All vaccine manufacturers are indemnified against liability for their products, and it's the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, the VICP, that will deal with any claims of vaccine injury. And, I did talk about this a little bit in my book as well. And just crunching some numbers based on the actual number of adverse reports that are actually submitted to VAERS, which is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, based on the fact that that is probably much, much lower than what actually occurs. Because most people don't, A, don't think to file something, B, don't file something because they know that it's impossible to have it temporarily connected, or C in some cases, have know idea that there is a connection to the vaccine.
Because a lot of the adverse events that I talk about in the book is being very commonly or possible associated with vaccines, are very difficult to pin down in terms of their actual chronology, their development, their onset. Because a lot of them are allergic or autoimmune responses because you're inciting your immune response in a very bizarre way actually. When you vaccinate yourself you're not exposing yourself to the pathogen through the normal route, you're going through your muscles instead of through your mouth. You're in some cases giving yourself three, or four, or five or ten diseases at the same time. You would never as a child have measles, mumps, rubella, polio, chicken pox, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis all at the same time, but you might get all those vaccines at one doctors visit.
So, there's a lot of problems in terms of determining just how many adverse events there are associated with vaccines in general. But the vaccine manufacturers are not liable, and I think there's going to be... there's been some sort of special protections extended specifically for the COVID vaccines. Because, if you do obviously rush something to production, I think there is some sort of liability that you might still have, even as a vaccine manufacturer in general. But because this is now an emergency situation where you've been licensed to go ahead and do that, and cut your testing down to... I learned today that Moderna, they solicited adverse reactions for seven days. And I also learned today, that because it's not considered ethical to not give somebody a Coronavirus vaccine if we have a 'working' Coronavirus vaccine, Pfizer is already vaccinating their placebo group with actual active vaccine.
So, we're not going to have anymore data about longterm effects from these vaccines, because we're not going to have anymore placebo group, because they're going to go ahead and get the vaccine. Which, is mind blowing to me as a researcher and it's just... how do you commit that level of... it's scientific fraud, really truly, to just say, "We're just eliminating our control group. We're just completely taking them out of existence, so now we have no way to say how safe this vaccine is in longterm studies."
JHW: One of the other things I meant to ask you, which follows right on what you just said, that is, the connection from when you take the vaccine to when you experience the effects isn't immediate. It's not like what we saw with the [inaudible 00:48:15]... what are we talking here? Is it a day, or two day? Or what is it?
PA: Well, it depends on the kind of reaction that you see. If you have anaphylaxis, which is a reaction that occurs with some vaccines, that's the allergic response where your airways start to closeup and you're in danger of dying from a severe allergic reaction. That happens, supposedly, approximately one in a million doses of your average vaccine. It happens 22 times more frequently than that with the COVID vaccines, so it's one in 45,000 I think. Which is again, not a terribly, terribly high rate, but it's 22 times more than your average, normally developed vaccine. And that should be frightening, because if people are experiencing anaphylaxis, which is the most severe possible reaction you could experience from a vaccine, 22 times more than they're experiencing it from your average vaccine, what's that say about other adverse side effects?
And so, you mentioned Bell's palsy as one of the adverse side effects. We're seeing Bell's palsy, with both the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccine, they saw that more frequently in the vaccinated population than in the un-vaccinated population. Of course everybody wants to downplay it and say, "Most cases of Bell's palsy resolve within six months." But not all do. And the loss of facial muscle control isn't always Bell's palsy, it can also be symptomatic of other more problematic neurological disorders. Like Guillain-Barre syndrome, which everybody is quick to say, "We haven't seen any cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome." Well, how long have you tested for adverse reactions, 28 days? I don't know if you're going to see Guillain-Barre syndrome in 28 days, that's one that takes longer to develop. So, autoimmune conditions, as a general rule, take longer to develop.
And there's some evidence that type-1 diabetes is a possible side effect of vaccination. That can take a year to fully develop, once your body starts attacking your pancreatic cells. [inaudible 00:50:14] can take a really long time to develop. Fibromyalgia can take a really long time to develop.
But then other things, the most common severe adverse reactions, at least for the Moderna, seven and a 7.5 or 8% of people experience fatigue that's severe enough to keep them from going about their average everyday activities. And I think about 6% experience headaches that are that severe. And there were a couple of other things that people were experiencing [inaudible 00:50:44] that would happen within a day or two, or even immediately of the vaccine. So, just depends on the adverse reaction.
The stuff that I'm most worried about is that chronic, longterm downstream stuff. And I have a vested interest in this because my family has very interesting case history of all kinds of autoimmune problems, from my grandmothers generation on down to my sisters children. And, whether these are all associated with vaccines or not, I can't say, and I certainly don't think my grandmothers generation was probably the case because they weren't receiving very many doses back then. But I do know, that if vaccines can trigger autoimmune pathology, and I clearly have the genetics for autoimmune problems, I'm not taking an unnecessary vaccine, that's just not intelligent. But that's the part that concerns me the most, because those things aren't going to show up until we've already vaccinated who knows how many people. If it's going to take six months to a year, to several years for this pathology to really develop, and then it's very hard to tie it back to the original vaccine in some cases.
JHW: The UK government has warned pregnant women not to take it. The FDA and other agencies have warned that those with allergic reactions to vaccine ingredients shouldn't take it. There was a warning that men might consider freezing their sperm before taking it because of some kind of fear of possible effect that way. What have you known of those possibilities and things like that? Is this a concern for fertility as well?
PA: I would love to be able to give you a definitive answer on that, and I can't. And part of the reason I can't is because there is a lot of conflicting information that's being circulated. And even with the expertise that I have, I haven't been able to make sufficient heads or tails of it to be able to say one way or the other. I will say that the British Government is issuing that warning in part, because there hasn't been any testing done in pregnant women. So, you don't give a vaccine to a susceptible group that there's no safety testing on, generally speaking, is the thought there. I don't think that's being done out of a motivation of they know something about fertility that they're not saying, they've come out and said, "There's been no testing done, so we shouldn't do this."
But there was some information that was circulated that was saying, "Don't get it if you're planning to be pregnant within the next couple of months." Which seemed very strange to me, because that's not something that's issued with your average vaccine. And if it does cause fertility issues, it certainly wouldn't be the first vaccine to cause fertility issues.
There's been a number of vaccines that the Word Health Organization has had in development that were on purpose supposed to cause infertility. They've been looking for a birth control vaccine since the 1970s. They have tested uninformed, non-consenting women in Kenya, and the Philippines and Mexico, and I believe a couple other third world countries. And I actually have spoken personally with a doctor in Kenya, who was one of the ones who identified that the tetanus vaccines that were being administered to Kenyan women, and we specifically being targeted to women of childbearing age, were laced with hCG. Which, if you inject that in conjunction with tetanus toxoid, you can render women infertile for an indefinite period of time. So, this is something that has been done in the past, covertly, and I think that's part of the reason why a lot of people are really concerned.
And then Gardasil, the HPV vaccine, is associated with a frightening drop in fertility. And there's a study done on women, I believe, aged 25 to 29 who had or had not received the vaccine, so this wasn't a trial that was done, it was just looking at data afterwards. And, women who had received all three doses of he HPV vaccine were one third as likely to have conceived and borne a child as women in the same age cohort, roughly adjusted for other medical issues that could possibly effect fertility. You had three times as much likelihood of being pregnant if you had never had the vaccine, versus if you'd had all three doses. This is alarming stuff, because you're not told this...
JHW: Absolutely.
PA: ... when you go in and your doctor says, "Would you like your daughter to get Gardasil?" You're not told she might develop these horrible autoimmune diseases that have been associated with it, including chronic fatigue syndrome and a syndrome called PoTS. And I can never remember what PoTS stands for, but it's horrific to have it, I know some individuals who do and it's very limiting for them, it's a heart condition. And then, you're also not told, "And P.S. you might also never be able to conceive a child."
JHW: Let's touch a little bit more on whether this vaccine for COVID is necessary, and then after that I'll ask you to give some final thoughts.
PA: Did you have a specific question about that or just in general?
JHW: One of those considerations, when you look at vaccines, is about whether it's needed or not. We talked about the safety, we talked about the morality, we talked about the effectiveness, but is it actually needed? And that looks at what our current situation is with COVID right now.
PA: We talked a little bit about the death rate, the death rate is very, very low. The average age of death is higher than the average expected mortality in the US. We're not in a position where it seems necessary, and the safety concerns seem to even offset the benefits, in terms of I think you're more likely to have an adverse reaction to the vaccine then you are to catch COVID, let alone to die from COVID. But also, nobody has claimed... or they very cleverly just not mentioned it while trumpeting other areas of success, but nobody has claimed that [inaudible 00:56:41] of the vaccine will actually cause the virus to stop spreading. The only claims that have been made by both Pfizer and Moderna is that, "If you get the vaccine, you're less likely to get severe COVID symptoms than if you don't get the vaccine." And again, they're looking at a fraction of the cohort that they vaccinated.
So, Pfizer vaccinated 43,000 people and they looked at approximately 200 people who developed symptoms. And then Moderna, same thing, vaccinated 30,000 people, looked at approximetely 200 people who developed symptoms. And then they both made claims that their vaccines were 90 something percent effective, based on the fact that, "Well, the people who developed symptoms, 90% of people who developed the worse symptoms, were in the un-vaccinated cohort." They didn't test for whether these people were positive for SARS Coronavirus, they didn't look at any other symptoms, they didn't look at, "Longterm does this actually keep you from developing symptoms over a longer period of time?" And they looked over a period of just a couple of weeks, as we've said. They didn't test any of the things that they should have tested, in terms of determining whether this vaccine is actually protective or not.
So, we don't have any reason to believe that this vaccine would do anything to slow the spread of the virus. And very high profile people are saying, "Get the vaccine, get the vaccine, but keep wearing your mask because it's not actually going to effect transmission." Why then why am I getting the vaccine?
JHW: Exactly. And how dare you suggest that in order to travel, in order to make society come back to normal, need a vaccine, because then that makes no sense whatsoever.
PA: The only reason I would get the COVID vaccine is for my own benefit for that modest, protective effect against developing the worst possible symptoms. For me, I'm not in a high risk cohort, I don't have comorbidities, there's no reason for me to get that vaccine, it's not going to help my neighbor. It's not 'the right thing to do' or the moral thing to do, or a necessary thing to do for anybody other than myself. And, if it's not necessary for myself, then it's absolutely unnecessary for me to get this shot.
JHW: Pamela, just before I ask you for your final thoughts before we end off, I wanted to thank you on behalf of all of our LifeSite viewers. I know a lot of people have been asking questions, and I have got from you clearer answers than I've ever seen anywhere before, so thank you for that. Your book called Vaccination: A Catholic Perspective, is available where?
PA: It's available on the Kolbe Center's website, so that's Kolbe like [inaudible 00:59:21], K-O-L-B-E, C-E-N-T-E-R dot org.
JHW: We'll be linking to it in my blog post and in the description of this video as well. But, give us if you would Pamela, your final reflections on this question.
PA: The short thing is don't get it, it's not good for your soul and it's not good for your body. And I think that we really need to, as Catholics, if we don't stand up now... we're losing the opportunities we're ever going to have to stand up and rectify this wrong that's been going on now for decades. And it's been going on for decades and we're going to be accountable for that. We lived in this time, we had an opportunity to stand up, we had an opportunity to do something, and if we don't, we are going to be held accountable for that at the end. You can't just sit on your hands and say, "Oh well, I'm not going to take it. Oh well, it's not that big a deal." This is a big deal, this is a hill worth dying on.
JHW: Amen. And you have very, very providentially been given to do this work, to start it before it was so evident that it was so extremely needed, and it comes out now as if planned. May God bless you for what you've done and the clarity that you've brought.
PA: Thank you very much.
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| ‘A hill worth dying on’: Expert explains how aborted baby cells taint COVID vaccines |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-24-2021, 08:41 AM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
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‘A hill worth dying on’: Expert explains how aborted baby cells taint COVID vaccines
Pamela Acker, a vaccine researcher, shows how the process by which the COVID vaccines are developed is like 'what the Aztecs used to do.'
January 21, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Editor’s note: The following is a rough transcript of LifeSite co-founder John-Henry Westen’s explosive interview with Pamela Acker, a vaccine researcher and expert.
John-Henry Westen: Welcome to this episode of the John-Henry Westen Show, where I am very pleased to bring you Pamela Acker, who is a researcher into vaccines, in fact she's published a new book called Vaccines: A Catholic Perspective. And we are going to get into the most controversial topic going on today, we're going to be talking about what Bishop Athanasius Schneider said, what the actual case is about abortion tainted vaccine, including the COVID vaccines, you're going to want to stay tuned.
Let's begin as we always do at the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Pamela Acker, welcome to the program.
Pamela Acker: Thank you very much, it's my pleasure to be here.
Watch the full interview that was banned from YouTube: https://rumble.com/vcq539-the-unborn-bab...tract.html
JHW: If you can start, just tell us a little bit about yourself, about your background in this area of vaccinations.
PA: I've never liked to be on the cutting edge of anything, so I was excited about vaccines about 20 years ago, before it became a hot COVID topic. But, when I was in high school I was interested in studying biology, and I was particularly interested in studying it because at the time there was some thought that plants could be genetically engineered to deliver vaccines. And there was two things about that that I found very exciting, one was that you could eat something instead of get stuck by something, because nobody likes hypodermic needles. And the other was that this might make it easier to distribute vaccines in third-world countries, because you wouldn't have to worry about special refrigeration or perishable components, you could just grow them on site.
So, I was very excited about that at the time, and I also was interested in the work of Children of God for Life, because that brought to light the issue I think we're going to be talking mostly about today, which is that of the aborted fetal cells that are used in vaccine production. So, I thought that'd be a great ethical alternative if vaccines could be edible. It turns out they can't, the science behind that didn't really work. And, I'm going to refer back to that a little bit today when we talk later about the COVID vaccines, because of their nucleic acid nature, so we've got the mRNA vaccines and the DNA vaccines. And those involve some novel technologies, but there's some parallels that can be drawn to what was trying to be done in the late 90s and early 1000s.
And then, I pursued a master’s degree at Catholic University of America in 2010, 2012, I actually was there for my PhD, but left with a master's because the lab that I got into, which was also involved in vaccine development, was working on a project for HIV vaccines. And the grant funding was under the The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, we had gotten the first stage of our grant, we were ready to apply for the second stage and trying to produce enough results to show that our plan was tenable there.
There was a lab meeting that we were all sitting around at, and my primary investigator said, "Look, everybody's got to get onboard with this particular aspect of the project." Which belonged to a colleague of mine. And so, I turned to her and I said, "What are you doing this part of the project in?" And she said, "HEK-293 cells." And this point most people have heard of these because they are connected with the COVID vaccines, but at that time I hadn't. So, I asked her what HEK stands for, and she told me, "Human Embryonic Kidney."
And then I spent a couple of weeks researching what that meant and what that entailed, and I came across the work of Alvin Wong from The National Catholic Bioethics Center, who wrote an article in... I believe it was 2005 or 2006, called The Ethics of HEK-293. And his work helps me a lot to discern whether I could actually be involved in this project or not. And when I expressed my concerns to my primary investigator, it ended up being the end of my career in his lab.
So, I did not get my PhD, I left with my master's. But, the use of aborted fetal cells in vaccines is definitely an issue that's near and dear to my heart, and it's influenced a lot about my life up to this point. But, I also was able to be in the lab for about nine months before that ethical issue was raised, so I have some direct research experience on vaccine development that comes into play. And it has enabled me, I think, to have a unique voice in this argument right now.
JHW: Absolutely. So, eminently qualified to discuss this topic more than most, having worked inside a lab as well on vaccines. Also, someone who has now written a book on this. We're very early into the COVID thing to have already written a book on this, that was quite something, how'd you manage that so quickly?
PA: Again, I don't like to be on the cutting edge of anything, so I started that book two years ago, almost. It was taking the trash out one fateful winter night, and fell and sprained my ankle, and unlike a normal person, I never got better. So, I was laid up on the couch for a very long time, and [inaudible 00:05:25] Kolbe Center had been after me to look into the issue of vaccines for a while. And, when I was on the couch with nothing better to do then read all the things that nobody has time to read, was when I actually started the research for this book.
So, I actually started around April of 2019, so before COVID was ever an issue, hence the reason that the book was so well timed.
JHW: Well, that's really providential. So, we are in an absolutely crazy time because the issue of vaccines, which has been around for many decades now, has taken on an absolutely new urgency with what seems basically like it's going to be forced on everyone. Even though almost everyone's saying, "No, no, we'd never force it." In reality, they're already talking about, "You need to be vaccinated to take a flight, you need to be vaccinated to go into a store." We're already seeing with the mask mandates and the social distancing mandates, the lock downs and everything else, that they are really willing to take draconian measures. So, while you might not be forcibly held down and vaccinated, you're life will become unmanageable if you don't take it.
So, this is our situation. Now, when we're looking at taking vaccines, as a parent we've assessed things like, "Is it necessary? Is it safe? Is it effective?" But also one of the questions is, "Is it moral?" And so, I'd love to address all of those points with you, with regard to the COVID vaccines that are now approved, and what does it mean that they're abortion tainted? So, if we could start right in with the abortion tainted, because I think for most people, one of the qualifying factors to take a vaccine in the first place will be its moral nature. "Is it moral to take this? What are they?" So, why don't we start with the two currently approved vaccines for Coronavirus, for COVID. What are they? And how do they differ?
PA: The two vaccines that are currently approved are the Moderna vaccine and the Pfizer vaccine, and they're both mRNA vaccines, and so at a molecular level they're very similar. Both of the vaccines were made using a biotechnology technique that can synthesize nucleic acids in the laboratory. So, a lot of people are trying to argue that they're moral because the mRNA that's made never touches fetal cells. But that's not the whole of the story when you look at the way that these vaccines were developed.
And so, the original research papers document the use of HEK-293 cells in producing these vaccines. And so, they were used in two different ways. One is that the spike protein that the mRNA codes for... can just do a three minute crash biology course. mRNA is messenger RNA, it's the nucleic acid that's a copy that's made of you DNA, and then it's sent out to the ribosomes in the cells and protein is produced using that messenger copy. So, what the vaccine reports to do is to take messenger RNA that codes for the spike protein of Coronavirus and insert that into your cells so that your human cells will then make the spike protein from the Coronavirus.
And the thought is that this is going to be a very effective way to vaccinate you because we found that if you just take the spike protein and inject it into people, it tends to degrade too rapidly for a good immune response. You tend to have some other complications which I'll touch on a little bit later in the interview. But, the thought is that if your body's making it itself, then you can get a prolonged enough exposure to the spike protein that you'll be able to mount an immune response to it. So, that's the basic way that it's supposed to work.
So, the spike protein by itself is, in the words of one researcher, kind of floppy, it doesn't tend to keep its shape very well. And so, scientists genetically engineered a spike protein that will keep its shape, it's got some mutations that cause it to be stabilized. And so, this original design of this protein... so, when they originally mutated it... they needed to see if it would actually keep its shape correctly, if that would correct the floppiness problem. So, they took that genetic information, and they transformed cells to produce the spike protein so that they could purify it and take a look at it using techniques for visualizing the 3D structure of proteins. And that original experiment was done in HEK-293 cells. So, the spike protein that the vaccines code for, was originally developed, effectively, in aborted fetal cells.
And an additional way that aborted fetal cells were used in the project is, before they were going to inject this mRNA into a human being to see if you could get human cells to make Coronavirus spike protein, you would want to test that in cell culture, you would want to test that in a laboratory. Because, it's a lot less expensive and dangerous than testing it in a human being. And so, if you can't even get the cells in a laboratory to make it then you probably can't get a human body to make it. So, the cells that then this was tested in were also HEK-293 cells. And this has all been published in the literature, and I've read a couple of the papers documenting that both of these vaccines used HEK-293 in their testing.
And, a lot of people want to say, "Well, that was just done to develop the vaccine in the very beginning, so the research part... so, it was a one and done kind of thing, it's no big deal." But just recently, Stacy Trasancos posted an article, which is available on Children of God for Life website, and she pointed out... and as a researcher I can confirm she's absolutely right, that these things also have to go through quality control testing. So, every time I make another batch of the mRNA, which is synthesized using a laboratory technique, then I need to test and make sure it's still viable, that's a fairly common thing, to have quality control like that in the laboratory.
So, the testing with these aborted fetal cells may actually be ongoing in the production of these vaccines. Because generally, when you scale up production of vaccine beyond your research and development, you're going to use the same testing procedures to test the scale up that you use to test your smaller batch, unless it's for some reason not feasible. But, this is a very feasible way to test this for these researchers. It's not a moral way, but it's very feasible because these cells have been optimized for use in a laboratory. And they're almost ubiquitous in tissue culture research, unfortunately there's a lot of laboratories around the world that use these HEK-293 cells. And there's specific products that are basically optimized for them to have ideal growth conditions. So, there's a whole industry based on these aborted fetal cells in basic science research that I think people aren't super familiar with.
JHW: So, just to be clear, both the COVID-19 vaccines, both the Pfizer and the Moderna we both, not only developed in its spike protein with HEK-293, the aborted fetal cell line, but also in their initial testing. And now you're telling us, at least from this article from Stacy Trasancos, in ongoing testing currently for new batches.
PA: Yes. As far as I know there is ongoing testing currently for batches. That is not published in the literature per se, because non of the data post the initial clinical trials has been published, but there's substantial reason to think that this is going on.
JHW: Let's stop there for a second and just do a bit of a rewind for people, because I think people have to understand something about HEK-293 and PER.C6 and a bunch of the other aborted fetal cell lines that are at work here. And that has to do with their initial development anyway, because I think a lot of people are under the impression that... not anymore now, since you've already said what you've said with regard to the use of HEK-293. But, I think a lot of people are under the impression, "Well, that was one baby killed way back in the 1970s and it's so remote from that date right now, and that's an acceptable thing we just have to live with because it's saving so many lives." If you can unpack for us, what is HEK-293 exactly? And was it just one baby that accounts for it, and what about all the other fetal cell lines?
PA: There are a number of fetal cell lines in existence right now, and I'm just going to read off a few of them for you here from Children of God for Life. There's WI-38, MRC-5, HEK-293, PER.C6, there's another one that I'm forgetting the name of that was developed in 2015 that's not currently being used in any vaccines, but has a potential to be used in vaccines and is used in other therapeutic treatments. So, there's a number of these cell lines that are currently being used to develop a variety of therapeutics, everything from vaccines to treatments for Cystic fibrosis.
Most people, as you say, hand wavingly dismiss it and say, "Oh well that was one baby that died, we can't go back and undo it, we might as well get something good out of it now." Which of course, violates the principle of the integral good, and the fact that you simply can't use the ends to justify the means. But I'm not a moral theologian, so I'll stick to the science.
For, HEK-293, that was... one of things that I've seen come up a couple of times in articles I've looked at about the ethical considerations that are involved, is that people say, "Well, there wasn't documentation that that was an elective abortion, so it could have been a spontaneous abortion." And this is a bit disingenuous or ignorant on the part of these authors, because in order to produce a viable cell line, there's a number of things that go into that, and it's a very difficult thing to do.
And so, I was doing some research specifically on HEK-293 to prepare for this interview, and the number system that's involved there... the HEK stands for Human Embryonic Kidney, but 293 stands for this is the 293rd experiment that this particular researcher did to develop a cell lines. And that doesn't mean that there were 293 abortions, but for 293 experiments you need far more than one abortion. And we're talking probably 100s of abortions. And, this was done with the collaboration of some hospitals. And there was a group in Sweden that was involved in developing the WI-38 cell line, so a different cell line, but they routinely were aborting babies for the use in trying to develop fetal cell lines.
So, people at this point usually have the question of, "But why? Why a fetal cell line?" And, when you try to grow cells in culture in the laboratory, they go through a process called immortalization, to develop a cell line. And people kind of confuse that, because it sounds like they live forever, with thinking that you can make these cells live forever in a laboratory. You can't. You can make them live a lot longer than primary cell culture, if you were to just take something out of my arm and put it to grow in a Petri dish, it would survive for a few sub divisions, but not very many. But, if you introduce some mutations into it, it can survive for a lot longer. And so that's what you have when you have an immortalized cell line, you have something that's been mutated usually with viral oncogenes. And these are genes that promote cancer actually, and so put a bookmark there too because this is important to something that hopefully we'll discuss a little later in the interview, about some of the dangers of using... just the biological dangers, let alone moral dangers of using the aborted fetal cell vaccines.
The immortalized cell lines are often given cancer promoting genes that disrupt the function of cancer suppressor genes, or tumor suppressor genes. And so, they can grow, not completely indefinitely, but for a lot more generations in a laboratory. If you start with adult cells, you have basically a shorter shelf life, because adult cells have already undergone a certain number of cell divisions, and so that kind of counts towards the total number that they could actually undergo. And so, if you use adult cells in a laboratory, you will have a shorter lifespan for your cell line, you'll have to develop a new cell line sooner, and it's not as commercially viable. If you start with embryonic or fetal cells, you have the maximum lifespan available for your cell line, and so that I think was probably one of the things that was used to justify the use of these aborted fetal cells to begin with.
And then, another question people have is, "Well, why couldn't HEK-293 have been just a spontaneous abortion? Why couldn't it just been a miscarriage? Because, the hospital lost the documentation about this particular baby that was used to develop the cell line, and so we don't really know whether it was an elective abortion or a spontaneous abortion." Well, we have all the reason in the world to think it was actually an elective abortion that was done on purpose, because the researchers who have been involved in this sort of thing have gone on record saying basically that, "You need to get that tissue within about five minutes of the abortion in order for it to be optimally viable, and if you wait an hour, it's useless."
So, if we're talking about a spontaneous miscarriage, this baby dies long before the fetal tissue is removed from the body of the mother. That spontaneous abortion or that miscarriage would not be viable to start a cell line at all, there'd be no way that you could get a living cell line out of dead tissue. So, this had to have been a baby that was aborted and they knew that that tissue was going to be used for research so they could get there within that five minutes to an hour window, preferably within the first five minutes, in order to get that tissue preserved.
JHW: Wow, so that goes right into the baby part scandal that we're dealing with now, where university researchers ask the mother first, "We're looking for a kidney or an arm or whatever to experiment with, so when you're going to have your abortion anyway, can you do this?" And sometimes ask them to wait longer so it's further developed, so that they'll have a better specimen. Absolutely sickening. So, this went on even with the vaccines, that this was not only a planned abortion, this was a planned abortion and extraction of fetal tissue [inaudible 00:20:31] used within five minutes of the abortion. So, the nonsense about it being a miscarriage is totally shown.
PA: I was going to say it's even worse than that because... and this is where I always issue a warning, if there are any little ears listening to me talk on a recording, because it's a lot more graphic even than what I've just described. Because, in a lot of cases, the babies... because it is done on purpose for research purposes, so they will actually deliver these babies via cesarean section, the babies are in some cases still alive when the researchers start extracting the tissue. To the point where their heart is still beating, and they're generally not given any anesthetic because that would disrupt the cells that the researchers are trying to extract. So, they're removing this tissue while the baby's alive, and in extreme amounts of pain, and so this makes it even more sadistic.
And my Pastor just recently gave a sermon likening this to what the Aztecs used to do, when they would consecrate their temples, they would literally rip out the beating hearts of the victims that they were slaying on top of the temples, and then cast their bodies down the side. This is pretty much exactly the same thing that these researchers are doing.
JHW: Yeah. And you had mentioned, we're getting out the Human Embryonic Kidney, HEK, so it's the kidney that they have to access. So, they're cutting open these live babies, just delivered by cesarean section... yes, and they're too young perhaps to live outside the womb by themselves right away, but they're still alive enough, and we already know that they're feeling pain. And then, they open them up to take... that has to be known. Because, I think a lot of the determination of the morality of these things, even morality as separated by years and so it's remote connections, as they call it, I don't think that they took into consideration what this actually is. That's why the science that you're presenting here is so incredibly important, because the people who made those determinations... and we all know...
And let me just explain, that in 2005, the Vatican first, through the Pontifical Academy for Life, came out with a document saying that, the use of such vaccines, if there is no others available, and if your objection to the procedure of how it was developed is known, and if it's needed, is morally acceptable somehow. But, even at that time... this was 2005 and then it was rubber stamped, I guess, in 2008 with the CDF. However, I don't know that these facts were known at that time. And if they were, it's absolutely unbelievable. So please, continue.
PA: Sure. So, since you referenced the document by the Pontifical Academy for Life, I do address that in the book that I wrote on vaccination, and there's some real problems with the science that was presented to the people who were making those decisions. Because, one of the strongest points that they used to justify the position that they take, in terms of, "These vaccines can be permissible if the situation is sufficiently grave," is the incidents of congenital rubella syndrome.
Now, congenital rubella syndrome is no laughing matter, this is when a baby contracts rubella from its mother in utero in the first trimester, and it can result in blindness, deafness, mental slowness, and even stillbirth in the infants, so it is a serious disease. Now, rubella itself is not a particularly serious disease, particularly if contracted in childhood, most people won't even have symptoms. And I think over half of the cases, nobody even makes a trip to the doctor because there's nothing noticeable or going on. And so, this is a very mild disease in children, and it's really only a problem in pregnant women who contract it during their first trimester.
And, the thought was that, "Well, vaccinating for rubella is going to protect these pregnant women, and so therefore it's morally justifiable." But, in a situation... probably pretty analogous to the situation with COVID, when you look at the actual numbers that's not the case. Because, prior to introducing the rubella vaccine, there was approximately 80% herd immunity in the population for rubella. And 80% herd immunity is the threshold at which the disease doesn't circulate particularly well. Obviously it still circulates, people will still contract rubella, but it doesn't spread through the population like wildfire and put lots of people at risk.
So, after using the rubella vaccine, what we now have is roughly 80 to 85% herd immunity. And so, you might say, "Well that's a little better, so maybe it was worth it." But for the first 10 years after this vaccine was introduced, there wasn't a decrease in the cases of congenital rubella syndrome. And in fact, in the first few years after it was introduced, there was a spike in the cases of congenital rubella syndrome, they went up. And they didn't start dropping until abortion became legal. And, there's a pretty good case to be made that the drop in congenital rubella syndrome babies was due to their mothers being informed, "You have rubella, your child is likely to develop congenital rubella syndrome, why don't you just abort it and try again." The drop that we saw in that disease is probably a lot more due to elective abortions than it is to the introduction of the vaccine.
So, now we've got this vaccine that we have, I believe, worldwide. There's 70% uptake of the MMR vaccine, which is the only way you can get vaccinated for rubella. You used to be able to get the vaccine separately, but Merck lumped them all together in the 1990s after the Wakefield scare, that potentially implied that the MMR was connected with the development of autism. And so, Merck just stopped producing the separate vaccines, you can only get it now as the trivalent vaccine with measles, mumps and rubella. Which means that you can't ethically be vaccinated for any of those things because the vaccine is produced in aborted fetal cells. It's produced in the WI-38 cell line, and that cell line took, I believe it was 32 abortions before they got to that cell line. The number 38, again, is the number of experiments that were actually performed, I believe it was 32 individual babies.
And then the virus that's used in the measles vaccine, the attenuated measles virus, instead of just swabbing the throat of a sick child like they did in Japan, US researchers encouraged women who had been exposed to rubella in their first trimester to electively abort their children. They dissected 27 fetuses before they had the virus that is currently in use in the rubella vaccine, and they continued with 40 more elective abortions, isolating a number of different viral strains that didn't ultimately get used in the vaccine. But, if you put all that together, you end up with approximately 99 abortions just for the rubella vaccine.
And keeping in mind that all of them are probably done under the same horrific conditions that we've just described, and in some cases where babies were delivered... the entire amniotic sac was removed from the mother and these babies were either dissected right then and there. And some cases they were stuck in the refrigerator to preserve them slightly so that they could be dissected in a little bit later, the brutality of that and the horror of that is not something that we should gloss over. Yet, your average Catholic parent who goes into the doctors office and is asked, "Do you want the MMR?" Doesn't even know that this is how this was developed.
And so, when Bishop Schneider was talking in the interview he did with you about the moral complicit-ness that's being asked on this grand scale of people to just accept this... this isn't something that's brand new with the advent of COVID, there's already been significant inroads, I think, made in terms of getting people to appropriate evil to use something that has a truly evil origin for their benefit, even though they're not really cooperating in bringing the evil about per se. And that doesn't even get into the fact that continuing to do this then fuels the market for additional cell lines and additional aborted fetal products, and additional vaccines that are made in aborted fetal cells. Because, if we had been refusing the MMR vaccine, we wouldn't have COVID vaccines that are made with aborted fetal cells. That would not have happened.
JHW: I have so many more questions for you I don't know where to start. Let me go, first of all, to get to what you already said. What specifically did the PAV have wrong when they looked at the science, and what were they lacking?
PA: So, they were lacking an understanding of whether the vaccine was even protective or not. So, vaccines in general do have a modest protective effect against the disease that they're trying to prevent, but implementing a vaccine doesn't necessarily just tremendously impact herd immunity that might already exist in a population. And in fact, the chicken pox example is a great example of how disastrous the introduction of a vaccine can actually be to herd immunity. Because, what we've done by vaccinating everybody for chicken pox now is effectively eliminate the natural boosting cycle.
So, my parents got exposed to chicken pox again when I was a child and I got infected with the virus, and so their immune system was given a natural booster to say, "Hey, remember me? I'm the chicken pox virus. Why don't you beef up your immune response a little bit so that you don't develop shingles in a few years?" Because it's caused by the same virus, and once you have the virus it does hang out in your nerve cells, and so if you've had chicken pox you can develop shingles. But, you don't tend to develop it until a lot later in life because of this natural boosting process. Well, we've eliminated this in the population now, so we've basically pushed the average age of shingles lower, so we're seeing more incidents of shingles, we're seeing it in younger people. And we're even seeing it in very young people who've been vaccinated for chicken pox. Because, the live attenuated virus that's used in the vaccine also hangs out in your nerve cells and it can come back later as shingles itself.
So, one of the things that was missing from the Pontifical Academy of Life, in their determination here, is that you can't just say, "Vaccines save lives, therefore this vaccine is a great idea." You have to look at vaccines on a case-by-case basis and see if they're justifiable. And the ones that are using aborted fetal cells, generally speaking, are not, they're not really life saving vaccines, and so, you don't really have a grave matter. Because, in order to participate in remote evil licitly... and as Bishop Schneider made a great case for, we're sort of muddying the waters by even saying that we're remotely participating in evil because the evil of abortion is so intense. But even if it were, the origin is extremely grave, you have to have extremely grave cause in order to actually make it licit. And so, they did not look at the science enough to see that the cause was just not proportionate.
And I think the same thing is true with the COVID vaccines, the cause is simply not proportionate. We're looking at a death rate from Coronavirus, I think it's .2% and the average age of death of a patient who is coded as having died from COVID... because there's some question about whether patients who have comorbidities should even be counted as COVID deaths. The average age of these patients who are being said to die from COVID is around 79 to 83 years old, and the average life expectancy in the US is around 78.7 years. So technically, the average age of a COVID death is higher than the life expectancy in the US.
So, this disease isn't really killing people right and left that weren't probably going to die within [inaudible 00:33:15] anyway. It's remarkable to me that anybody could consider this grave cause.
JHW: Many people think that when they're taking a vaccine, "There's nothing really of aborted babies in them, nothing really... it was tested on it, and it's so remote, there's really nothing there. If there is something even so remotely connected it's like one billionth of a particle in the whole vaccination shot you get." Speak to that for a second, if you would.
PA: With the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines there isn't any aborted fetal material remaining in the vaccines because they're not actually cultured or produced directly in the aborted fetal cells. But with the AstraZeneca vaccine and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for COVID, as well as the rubella vaccine and the chicken pox vaccine, there are remainders of these aborted fetal cells that end up in the vaccines themselves. So, when you get this vaccine, you are actually injecting pieces of this individual who was murdered into your body. And those pieces tend to be remnants of DNA and some protein debris.
But the DNA is particularly of concern, because Dr. Theresa Deisher of Sound Choice Pharmaceuticals, which I think came into existence in the early 2000s. They were also working on solving this problem with ethical vaccines and the availability of ethical vaccines. she has some tremendous work, a lot of it she's summarized in talk on YouTube, where she has looked at the relationship between the increase in use of aborted fetal cell derived vaccines, that corresponds to an increase in autism rates in the countries that she's looked at. And, this has been in some countries in Europe as well as the United States. And she's seen that there's a dose dependent response, so the more aborted fetal cell vaccines that we use, the increase there is in incidents of autism.
So, she said, "Let's take a look at that, let's see if there's any biologically plausible mechanism for that." And so she made the connection that when you put these aborted fetal DNA contaminants into a living human being, something can occur... and this does occur in vitro, in cell culture in the laboratory, called homologous recombination, where the DNA that's being injected into the individual can kind of line up with the DNA that it corresponds to in those individual cells, and then there's some enzymes that can come along and they can swap those two pieces out. So, you end up losing your actual DNA and having the DNA from the aborted fetal cells incorporated into your cells.
And she was saying how this could potentially explain why in some individuals with autism... although not all because autism is a very multifaceted problem and there's no one strict straight answer for why it develops in some individuals and not in others. But, in some individuals you see hundreds of what are called De Novo Mutations, so these are mutations that came out of nowhere, their parents didn't have them, and you shouldn't see hundreds of mutations in a child just from one generation. This child is very young probably still as well, they can't possibly have accumulated all these mutations. Well they can, if this mutated DNA... because if you recall from back at the beginning of the talk, we talked about how in order for cell lines to be immortalized, we're sticking viral oncogenes in them, these cancer promoting genes, these mutations into them in order to keep them growing in cell culture, somewhat indefinitely. The DNA in these cells has definitely mutated, so this could be the source of the mutations that we're seeing in some of these kids that are developing autism.
So, this is one possible mechanism for why we're seeing that. And it's not outside the realm of possibility biologically, but also it makes sense if you think about it, just from natural law. If you're going to do something as heinous as inject into yourself the remains of somebody who was murdered, there's going to be a natural consequence to that. You can't just do that and not have any negative effects, if that makes sense.
JHW: Well, we're definitely into the safety portion of the discussion. And I'd really like to go right into that, especially with regard to what we're seeing right now from some of the people who have already taken the COVID vaccines, either strain of them. We've seen a nurse come out with saying that one side of her face... she was experiencing Bell's palsy, she seems to be paralyzed in one side of her face. We had one nurse take it early on and pass out. We had another doctor take it and apparently die. Could those be related to the vaccine? And what are some of the other safety concerns with the COVID vaccines, the ones that are approved and the ones that are awaiting approval now?
PA: One of the main safety concerns with any of the COVID vaccines that are in development, is that most of them are what is called Nextgen technologies. These are things that have not been done in vaccines in the past, so we really don't know how the mRNA vaccines, we don't know what kind of longterm health effects they're going to have. We don't really know what effects they're going to have in the body even short term. Because, one of the concerns that I have just from thinking about genetically engineering vaccines, way back in the late 90s when they were trying to have these fruits produce vaccine antigens and produce them in appropriate doses. When you would genetically transfect a plant and try to get it to produce, say smallpox antigens, they had a huge problem standardizing the dosage, and this is why the technology eventually got scrapped. Because, they simply couldn't say that, "If you ate one banana then you'd get this much smallpox antigen." Because all the bananas were different. And, bananas are maybe a bad example because bananas are polyploid and so there's some other genetic problems going on there. But none of the plants that they tested were able to be standardized in terms of dosage.
So, when you insert foreign genetic material... and this is just true with the laboratory too. But when you insert foreign genetic material into a living organism, you can't really control exactly how much protein that organism is going to produce based on how much DNA that you give it. And you can sort of guesstimate a range, but when you're dealing with something like the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein... and we know that one of the ways that the pathology and the people who do get really sick is mediated, is through this overactive immune response. You get the cytokine storm, you get everything so amped up that your immune system is actually what's killing your body. We're going to then take genetic information, stick it into your body, not know how much protein you're actually going to produce that causes this overactive immune response, and just say, "Oh yeah, you'll be fine, don't even bother to call me if you have some soreness in your arm."
To me that's mind boggling, because I don't think they have any idea how wildly different peoples responses to this genetic information might be, and thus how wildly different their responses to the vaccine might be. And so, in addition to this general concern, there's also the AstraZeneca and the Johnson & Johnson adenovirus vector vaccines. So, the idea is that we're taking an attenuated virus that normally infects humans, which is adenovirus, and packaging some genetic information in there. And so, that virus vector is going to take that DNA from the Coronavirus to your cells and then put the DNA into your cells. And then at that point, you have even more possible complications because now not only are you sticking genetic information from Coronavirus into your body, but you also have the problem of... with adenovirus' there's... and I don't remember the technical name for it, but there's basically a mechanism whereby adenovirus' can recombine in your body.
So, if you happen to be infected with an adenovirus, which may not even be symptomatic, because some of these viruses are very benign and they don't really cause a whole lot of problems. But some of them are worse and they can cause common cold type symptoms, they can also cause digestive distress, things like that. But, say you're infected with one of these adenoviruses, you get stuck with an adenovirus vaccine, and those two viruses, the vaccine virus and the wild-type virus, they actually recombine in your body and they make something different that we have no idea what it's going to do, or how it's going to react, or how it's going to infect you.
And you can actually end up creating super viruses. And this is one of the reasons that when Coronavirus vaccines were originally being developed, back when SARS was a thing in 2003, 2004, they looked at doing live attenuated viruses. But then they said, "No, we can't do that because you could have this live attenuated vaccine virus recombine with a naturally occurring Coronavirus." Because there're about four that normally infect human beings and cause common cold type symptoms, that's not counting the SARS virus and the MERS virus, and the current SARS-2 virus. But, these four common ones could recombine with an attenuated live vaccine virus, and that could create something that we wouldn't have any idea of how infective or how pathogenic it was. So, this is a concern I think too with the adenovirus factors that hasn't been addressed properly in the public eye.
And then, one of the other things that I found interesting, I was looking at another video that was promoting these next generation technologies and how exciting they were, "Everybody calm down, we've been working on these for decades now, and they're not just out of the box brand new, somebody just thought of this." And as a researcher, hearing that, "We've been working on these for decades." Doesn't mean they're safe, it means we haven't had success in decades on this stuff. That's the actual real message that's being spun in a positive way, it's like, "Oh, we have experience with this in a laboratory." We have experience with it not working, is what we have.
JHW: So, one of the things that happens is, I think most people know but maybe you can address this very quickly, is that the companies that have produced these are indemnified against being sued. So in other words, if someone gets something from the vaccine, it's the tax payer that's going to deal with it, not the company. Yet the company is going to get profits from their making of it anyway, and got profits from their development of it because they were asked to do it under Warp Speed and with millions and billions of dollars. So, there's that, and that fact that... well, maybe address that first. And then I have another question for you in a minute.
PA: So, that's actually... minus the Warp Speed pre-funding, that's actually the situation for all vaccines that are developed in the US. All vaccine manufacturers are indemnified against liability for their products, and it's the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, the VICP, that will deal with any claims of vaccine injury. And, I did talk about this a little bit in my book as well. And just crunching some numbers based on the actual number of adverse reports that are actually submitted to VAERS, which is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, based on the fact that that is probably much, much lower than what actually occurs. Because most people don't, A, don't think to file something, B, don't file something because they know that it's impossible to have it temporarily connected, or C in some cases, have know idea that there is a connection to the vaccine.
Because a lot of the adverse events that I talk about in the book is being very commonly or possible associated with vaccines, are very difficult to pin down in terms of their actual chronology, their development, their onset. Because a lot of them are allergic or autoimmune responses because you're inciting your immune response in a very bizarre way actually. When you vaccinate yourself you're not exposing yourself to the pathogen through the normal route, you're going through your muscles instead of through your mouth. You're in some cases giving yourself three, or four, or five or ten diseases at the same time. You would never as a child have measles, mumps, rubella, polio, chicken pox, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis all at the same time, but you might get all those vaccines at one doctors visit.
So, there's a lot of problems in terms of determining just how many adverse events there are associated with vaccines in general. But the vaccine manufacturers are not liable, and I think there's going to be... there's been some sort of special protections extended specifically for the COVID vaccines. Because, if you do obviously rush something to production, I think there is some sort of liability that you might still have, even as a vaccine manufacturer in general. But because this is now an emergency situation where you've been licensed to go ahead and do that, and cut your testing down to... I learned today that Moderna, they solicited adverse reactions for seven days. And I also learned today, that because it's not considered ethical to not give somebody a Coronavirus vaccine if we have a 'working' Coronavirus vaccine, Pfizer is already vaccinating their placebo group with actual active vaccine.
So, we're not going to have anymore data about longterm effects from these vaccines, because we're not going to have anymore placebo group, because they're going to go ahead and get the vaccine. Which, is mind blowing to me as a researcher and it's just... how do you commit that level of... it's scientific fraud, really truly, to just say, "We're just eliminating our control group. We're just completely taking them out of existence, so now we have no way to say how safe this vaccine is in longterm studies."
JHW: One of the other things I meant to ask you, which follows right on what you just said, that is, the connection from when you take the vaccine to when you experience the effects isn't immediate. It's not like what we saw with the [inaudible 00:48:15]... what are we talking here? Is it a day, or two day? Or what is it?
PA: Well, it depends on the kind of reaction that you see. If you have anaphylaxis, which is a reaction that occurs with some vaccines, that's the allergic response where your airways start to closeup and you're in danger of dying from a severe allergic reaction. That happens, supposedly, approximately one in a million doses of your average vaccine. It happens 22 times more frequently than that with the COVID vaccines, so it's one in 45,000 I think. Which is again, not a terribly, terribly high rate, but it's 22 times more than your average, normally developed vaccine. And that should be frightening, because if people are experiencing anaphylaxis, which is the most severe possible reaction you could experience from a vaccine, 22 times more than they're experiencing it from your average vaccine, what's that say about other adverse side effects?
And so, you mentioned Bell's palsy as one of the adverse side effects. We're seeing Bell's palsy, with both the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccine, they saw that more frequently in the vaccinated population than in the un-vaccinated population. Of course everybody wants to downplay it and say, "Most cases of Bell's palsy resolve within six months." But not all do. And the loss of facial muscle control isn't always Bell's palsy, it can also be symptomatic of other more problematic neurological disorders. Like Guillain-Barre syndrome, which everybody is quick to say, "We haven't seen any cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome." Well, how long have you tested for adverse reactions, 28 days? I don't know if you're going to see Guillain-Barre syndrome in 28 days, that's one that takes longer to develop. So, autoimmune conditions, as a general rule, take longer to develop.
And there's some evidence that type-1 diabetes is a possible side effect of vaccination. That can take a year to fully develop, once your body starts attacking your pancreatic cells. [inaudible 00:50:14] can take a really long time to develop. Fibromyalgia can take a really long time to develop.
But then other things, the most common severe adverse reactions, at least for the Moderna, seven and a 7.5 or 8% of people experience fatigue that's severe enough to keep them from going about their average everyday activities. And I think about 6% experience headaches that are that severe. And there were a couple of other things that people were experiencing [inaudible 00:50:44] that would happen within a day or two, or even immediately of the vaccine. So, just depends on the adverse reaction.
The stuff that I'm most worried about is that chronic, longterm downstream stuff. And I have a vested interest in this because my family has very interesting case history of all kinds of autoimmune problems, from my grandmothers generation on down to my sisters children. And, whether these are all associated with vaccines or not, I can't say, and I certainly don't think my grandmothers generation was probably the case because they weren't receiving very many doses back then. But I do know, that if vaccines can trigger autoimmune pathology, and I clearly have the genetics for autoimmune problems, I'm not taking an unnecessary vaccine, that's just not intelligent. But that's the part that concerns me the most, because those things aren't going to show up until we've already vaccinated who knows how many people. If it's going to take six months to a year, to several years for this pathology to really develop, and then it's very hard to tie it back to the original vaccine in some cases.
JHW: The UK government has warned pregnant women not to take it. The FDA and other agencies have warned that those with allergic reactions to vaccine ingredients shouldn't take it. There was a warning that men might consider freezing their sperm before taking it because of some kind of fear of possible effect that way. What have you known of those possibilities and things like that? Is this a concern for fertility as well?
PA: I would love to be able to give you a definitive answer on that, and I can't. And part of the reason I can't is because there is a lot of conflicting information that's being circulated. And even with the expertise that I have, I haven't been able to make sufficient heads or tails of it to be able to say one way or the other. I will say that the British Government is issuing that warning in part, because there hasn't been any testing done in pregnant women. So, you don't give a vaccine to a susceptible group that there's no safety testing on, generally speaking, is the thought there. I don't think that's being done out of a motivation of they know something about fertility that they're not saying, they've come out and said, "There's been no testing done, so we shouldn't do this."
But there was some information that was circulated that was saying, "Don't get it if you're planning to be pregnant within the next couple of months." Which seemed very strange to me, because that's not something that's issued with your average vaccine. And if it does cause fertility issues, it certainly wouldn't be the first vaccine to cause fertility issues.
There's been a number of vaccines that the Word Health Organization has had in development that were on purpose supposed to cause infertility. They've been looking for a birth control vaccine since the 1970s. They have tested uninformed, non-consenting women in Kenya, and the Philippines and Mexico, and I believe a couple other third world countries. And I actually have spoken personally with a doctor in Kenya, who was one of the ones who identified that the tetanus vaccines that were being administered to Kenyan women, and we specifically being targeted to women of childbearing age, were laced with hCG. Which, if you inject that in conjunction with tetanus toxoid, you can render women infertile for an indefinite period of time. So, this is something that has been done in the past, covertly, and I think that's part of the reason why a lot of people are really concerned.
And then Gardasil, the HPV vaccine, is associated with a frightening drop in fertility. And there's a study done on women, I believe, aged 25 to 29 who had or had not received the vaccine, so this wasn't a trial that was done, it was just looking at data afterwards. And, women who had received all three doses of he HPV vaccine were one third as likely to have conceived and borne a child as women in the same age cohort, roughly adjusted for other medical issues that could possibly effect fertility. You had three times as much likelihood of being pregnant if you had never had the vaccine, versus if you'd had all three doses. This is alarming stuff, because you're not told this...
JHW: Absolutely.
PA: ... when you go in and your doctor says, "Would you like your daughter to get Gardasil?" You're not told she might develop these horrible autoimmune diseases that have been associated with it, including chronic fatigue syndrome and a syndrome called PoTS. And I can never remember what PoTS stands for, but it's horrific to have it, I know some individuals who do and it's very limiting for them, it's a heart condition. And then, you're also not told, "And P.S. you might also never be able to conceive a child."
JHW: Let's touch a little bit more on whether this vaccine for COVID is necessary, and then after that I'll ask you to give some final thoughts.
PA: Did you have a specific question about that or just in general?
JHW: One of those considerations, when you look at vaccines, is about whether it's needed or not. We talked about the safety, we talked about the morality, we talked about the effectiveness, but is it actually needed? And that looks at what our current situation is with COVID right now.
PA: We talked a little bit about the death rate, the death rate is very, very low. The average age of death is higher than the average expected mortality in the US. We're not in a position where it seems necessary, and the safety concerns seem to even offset the benefits, in terms of I think you're more likely to have an adverse reaction to the vaccine then you are to catch COVID, let alone to die from COVID. But also, nobody has claimed... or they very cleverly just not mentioned it while trumpeting other areas of success, but nobody has claimed that [inaudible 00:56:41] of the vaccine will actually cause the virus to stop spreading. The only claims that have been made by both Pfizer and Moderna is that, "If you get the vaccine, you're less likely to get severe COVID symptoms than if you don't get the vaccine." And again, they're looking at a fraction of the cohort that they vaccinated.
So, Pfizer vaccinated 43,000 people and they looked at approximately 200 people who developed symptoms. And then Moderna, same thing, vaccinated 30,000 people, looked at approximetely 200 people who developed symptoms. And then they both made claims that their vaccines were 90 something percent effective, based on the fact that, "Well, the people who developed symptoms, 90% of people who developed the worse symptoms, were in the un-vaccinated cohort." They didn't test for whether these people were positive for SARS Coronavirus, they didn't look at any other symptoms, they didn't look at, "Longterm does this actually keep you from developing symptoms over a longer period of time?" And they looked over a period of just a couple of weeks, as we've said. They didn't test any of the things that they should have tested, in terms of determining whether this vaccine is actually protective or not.
So, we don't have any reason to believe that this vaccine would do anything to slow the spread of the virus. And very high profile people are saying, "Get the vaccine, get the vaccine, but keep wearing your mask because it's not actually going to effect transmission." Why then why am I getting the vaccine?
JHW: Exactly. And how dare you suggest that in order to travel, in order to make society come back to normal, need a vaccine, because then that makes no sense whatsoever.
PA: The only reason I would get the COVID vaccine is for my own benefit for that modest, protective effect against developing the worst possible symptoms. For me, I'm not in a high risk cohort, I don't have comorbidities, there's no reason for me to get that vaccine, it's not going to help my neighbor. It's not 'the right thing to do' or the moral thing to do, or a necessary thing to do for anybody other than myself. And, if it's not necessary for myself, then it's absolutely unnecessary for me to get this shot.
JHW: Pamela, just before I ask you for your final thoughts before we end off, I wanted to thank you on behalf of all of our LifeSite viewers. I know a lot of people have been asking questions, and I have got from you clearer answers than I've ever seen anywhere before, so thank you for that. Your book called Vaccination: A Catholic Perspective, is available where?
PA: It's available on the Kolbe Center's website, so that's Kolbe like [inaudible 00:59:21], K-O-L-B-E, C-E-N-T-E-R dot org.
JHW: We'll be linking to it in my blog post and in the description of this video as well. But, give us if you would Pamela, your final reflections on this question.
PA: The short thing is don't get it, it's not good for your soul and it's not good for your body. And I think that we really need to, as Catholics, if we don't stand up now... we're losing the opportunities we're ever going to have to stand up and rectify this wrong that's been going on now for decades. And it's been going on for decades and we're going to be accountable for that. We lived in this time, we had an opportunity to stand up, we had an opportunity to do something, and if we don't, we are going to be held accountable for that at the end. You can't just sit on your hands and say, "Oh well, I'm not going to take it. Oh well, it's not that big a deal." This is a big deal, this is a hill worth dying on.
JHW: Amen. And you have very, very providentially been given to do this work, to start it before it was so evident that it was so extremely needed, and it comes out now as if planned. May God bless you for what you've done and the clarity that you've brought.
PA: Thank you very much.
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| Third Sunday after Epiphany |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-24-2021, 07:10 AM - Forum: Christmas
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INSTRUCTION FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY
Taken from Fr. Leonard Goffine's Explanations of the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays, Holydays throughout the Ecclesiastical Year, 1880
INTROIT Adore God, all ye His angels: Sion heard, and was glad; and the daughters of Juda rejoiced. The Lord hath reigned; let the earth rejoice; let the many islands be glad. (Ps. XCVI. 1.) Glory be to the Father, etc.
COLLECT Almighty everlasting God, mercifully look upon our infirmity, and stretch forth the right hand of Thy majesty for our protection. Through our protection. Through our etc.
EPISTLE (Rom. XII. 16-21.) Brethren, be not wise in your own conceits. To no man rendering evil for evil: providing good things not only in the sight of God, but also in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as is in you, having peace with all men; not revenging yourselves, my dearly beloved but give place unto wrath; for it is written: Revenge is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. But if thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him to drink; for doing this, thou shaft heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good.
Quote:When are we overcome by evil?
When we wish to take revenge. "Revenge is no sign of courage," says St. Ambrose, "but rather of weakness and cowardice. As it is the sign of a very weak stomach to be unable to digest food, so it is the mark of a very weak mind to be unable to bear a harsh word." "Are you impatient," says the same saint, "you are overcome; are you patient, you have overcome."
What should we do if our reputation is injured?
We should leave its revenge, or its defence and protection to God, who has retained that for Himself. "But as a good name," says St. Francis de Sales, "is the main support of human society, and as without it we could not be useful to that society, but even hurtful to it on account of scandal, we should feel bound, for love of our neighbor, to aim after a good reputation, and to preserve it." We should not be too sensitive about this, however, for too great a sensitiveness makes one obstinate, eccentric, and intolerable, and only tends to excite and increase the malice of the detractors. The silence and contempt with which we meet a slander or an injustice, is generally a more efficacious antidote than sensitiveness, anger, or revenge. The contempt of a slander at once disperses it, but anger shows a weakness, and gives the accusation an appearance of probability. If this does not suffice, and the slander continues, let us persevere in humility' and lay our honor and our soul into the hands of God, according to the admonitions of the Apostle.
How do we "heap coals of fire on the head of our enemy?"
When we return him good for evil, for seeing our well meaning towards him, the flush of shame reddens his face for the wrongs he has done us. St. Augustine explains these words thus: "By giving food and drink or doing other kindnesses to your enemy, you will heap coals, not of anger, but of love, upon his head, which will inflame him to return love for love." Learn therefore, from the example of Christ and His saints, not to allow yourself to be overcome by evil, but do good to those that hate and persecute you.
ASPIRATION Ah, that I might, according to the words of St. Paul, so live that I may be a child of the Heavenly Father, who lets His sun shine on the just and the unjust!
GOSPEL (Matt. VIII. 1-13.) At that time, when Jesus was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him; and behold, a leper came and adored him, saying: Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, stretching forth his hand, touched him, saying: I will, be thou made clean. And forthwith his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus saith to him, See thou tell no man: but go, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift which Moses commanded for a testimony unto them. And when he had entered into Capharnaum, there came to him a centurion, beseeching him, and saying: Lord, my servant Beth at home sick of the palsy, and is grievously tormented. And Jesus saith to him: I will come and heal him. And the centurion making answer, said: Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man subject to authority, having under me soldiers; and I say to this man: Go, and he goeth; and to another: Come, and he cometh; and to my servant: Do this, and he doeth it. And Jesus hearing this, marvelled; and said to them that followed him: Amen I say to you, I have not found so great faith in Israel. And I sad to you that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the children of the kingdom shall be cast into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said to the centurion: Go, and as thou hast believed, so be it done to thee; and the servant was healed at the same hour.
Why did the leper say: “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean"?
He believed Christ to be the promised Messiah, who as true God had the power to heal him. From this we learn to have confidence in the omnipotence of God, who is a helper in all need, (Ps. CVI. 6. 73. 19.) and to leave all to the will of God, saying: Lord, if it be pleasing to Thee, and well for me, grant my petition.
Why did Jesus stretch forth His hand and touch the leper?
To show that He was not subject to the law which forbade the touching of a leper through fear of infection, which could not affect Jesus; to reveal the health-giving, curative power of His flesh, which dispelled leprosy by the simple touch of His hand; to give us an example of humility and of love for the poor sick, that we may learn from Him to have no aversion to the infirm, but lovingly to assist the unfortunate sick for the sake of Jesus who took upon Himself the leprosy of our sins. The saints have faithfully imitated Him in their tender care for those suffering from the most disgusting diseases. Oh, how hard it will be for those to stand before the Tribunal of God at the Last Day, who cannot even bear to look at the poor and sick!
Why did Christ command the leper to tell no man?
To instruct us that we should not make known our good works in order to obtain frivolous praise, (Matt. VI 1.) which deprives us of our heavenly reward.
Why did Christ send the healed leper to the Priest?
That he might observe the law which required all the healed lepers to show themselves to the priests, to offer a sacrifice, to be examined and pronounced clean: that the priest if he beheld the miracle of the sudden cure of the leper, might know Him who had wrought the cure, to be the Messiah; and finally, to teach us that we must honor the priests because of their high position, even when they do not live in a manner worthy of their dignity, as was the case with the Jewish priests.
What it taught by the centurion's solicitude for his servant?
That masters should take care of their sick servants, see that they are attended to in their illness, and above all that they are provided with the Sacraments. It is unchristian, even cruel and barbarous, to drive from the house a poor, sick servant, or to leave him lying in his distress without assistance or care.
Why did Christ say: I will come and heal him?
Because of His humility, by which He, although God and Lord of lords, did not hesitate to visit a sick servant. Here Christ's humility puts to shame many persons of position who think themselves too exalted to attend the wants of a poor servant.
Why did the centurion say: Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof?
Because he recognised Christ's divinity and his own nothingness, and therefore regarded himself as unworthy to receive Christ into his house. From this we learn to humble ourselves, especially when we receive Christ into our hearts, hence the priest in giving holy Communion uses the centurion's words, exhorting those to humility who are about to receive.
Why did he add: But only say the word, and my servant shall be healed?
By this he publicly manifested his faith in Christ's divinity and omnipotence, because he believed that Christ, though absent, could heal the servant by a word. If a Gentile centurion had such faith in Christ, and such confidence in His power, should not we Christians be ashamed that we have so little faith, and confidence in God?
What is meant by: Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the children of the kingdom shall be cast into the exterior darkness?
This was said by Christ in reference to the obdurate Jews who would not believe in Him. Many pagans who receive the gospel, and live in accordance with it, will enjoy heavenly bliss with the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who were the most faithful friends of God, while the Jews, God's chosen people, who as such, possessed the first claim to heaven, will, because of their unbelief and other sins, be cast into outer darkness, that is, into the deepest abyss of hell, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Thus it will be with those Christians who do not live in accordance with their faith. Therefore, fear lest you, for want of cooperation with God's grace, be eternally rejected, while others who have faithfully corresponded to the divine inspirations will enter into your place in the kingdom of heaven.
ASPIRATION O Jesus, rich in consolations! grant me the leper's faith and confidence, that in all things I may rely upon Thy omnipotence, and may resign myself to Thy divine will, and may ever honor Thy priests. Grant me, also, O most humble Jesus! the centurion's humility, that for Thy sake, I may compassionately assist my neighbor, and by doing so render myself worthy of Thy grace and mercy.
ON RESIGNATION TO THE WILL OF GOD
Lord, if thou wilt. (Matt. VIII. 2.)
Those who in adversity as well as in prosperity, perfectly resign themselves to the will of God, and accept whatever He sends them with joy and thanks, possess heaven, as St. Chrysostom says, while yet upon earth. Those who have attained this resignation, are saddened by no adversity, because they are satisfied with all that God, their best Father, sends them, be it honor or disgrace, wealth or poverty, life or death. All happens as they wish, because they know no will but God's, they desire nothing but that which He does and wills. God does the will of them that fear Him. (Ps. CXLIV. 10.)
In the lives of the ancient Fathers we find the following: The fields and vineyards belonging to one farmer were much more fertile and yielding than were his neighbors'. They asked how it happened and he said: they should not wonder at it, because he always had the weather he wished. At this they wondered more than ever: How could that be? "I never desire other weather," he replied, "than God wills; and because my desires are conformable to His, He gives me the fruits I wish." This submission to the divine will is also the cause of that constant peace and undimmed joy of the saints of God, with which their hearts have overflowed here below, even in the midst of the greatest sufferings and afflictions. Who would not aspire to so happy a state? We will attain it if we believe that nothing in this world can happen to us except by the will and through the direction of God, sin and guilt excepted, for God can never be the cause of them. This the Holy Ghost inculcates by the mouth of the wise man: Good things and evil, life and death, poverty and riches, are from God, (Eccles. XI. 14.) that is, are permitted or sent by God; all that which comes from God, is for the best, for God doeth all things well. (Mark VII. 37.)
Whoever keeps these two truths always in mind, will certainly be ever contented with the will of God, and always consoled; he will taste while yet on earth the undisturbed peace of mind and foretaste of happiness which the saints had while here, and which they now eternally enjoy in heaven, because of the union of their will with the divine will.
INSTRUCTION FOR MASTERS AND SERVANTS
The master of a house should be careful to have not only obedient, faithful, willing, and industrious servants in his home, as had the centurion in the gospel, but still more, pious and God-fearing ones, for God richly blesses the master because of pious servants. Thus God blessed Laban on account of the pious Jacob, (Gen. XXX. 30.) and the house of Putiphar because of the just Joseph. (Gen. XXXIX. 5.) The master should look to the morals and Christian conduct of his servants, and not suffer irreligious subjects in his house, for he must, after this life, give an account before the tribunal of God, and he makes himself unworthy of the blessing of God, often liable to the most terrible punishment by retaining such. Will not God punish those masters and mistresses who suffer those under them to seek the dangerous occasions of sin, keep sinful company, go about at night, and lead scandalous lives? Will not God, one day, demand the souls of servants from their masters? The same punishment which will befall those who deny their faith, will rest upon careless masters and mistresses, for St. Paul the Apostle writes:
But if any man have not care of his own, and especially of those of his house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. (I. Tim. V. 8.)
Subjects should learn from the centurion's servants who obeyed his only word, that they also should willingly, faithfully, and quickly do every thing ordered by their masters, unless it be something contrary to the law of God. They should recollect that whatever they do in obedience to their superiors, is done for God Himself. Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not serving to the eye, as pleasing men, but in simplicity of heart, fearing God. Whatsoever you do, do it from the heart as to the Lord, and not to men: knowing that you shall receive of the Lord the reward of inheritance. Serve ye the Lord Christ. (Col. III. 22-24.)
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| March 2nd - Blessed Henry Suzo |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 01-23-2021, 04:08 PM - Forum: March
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Blessed Henry Suzo
Confessor
(1300-1366)
Blessed Henry Suzo was born in 1300 at Constance in Germany. There he entered the Dominican convent at the age of thirteen, and made his preparatory studies in the sacred disciplines. In 1327 he became a teacher of theology, and in 1334 began preaching. In 1343 he was elected prior of a convent at Diessenhofen. Blessed Henry is known especially as a mystic who regarded himself as the servant of Eternal Wisdom become Man. He practiced severe austerities and experienced, along with his visions and ecstasies, bitter persecutions and grievous calumnies.
He assisted in the restoration of strict religious observance in the cloisters, especially in the Dominican convents for women at Katherinentahl and Töss. One of the Superiors in these convents preserved most of his letters and obtained the history of his life, which he himself later edited and published. As a preacher he was highly esteemed in many Swiss and Dutch cities. It is said that for 150 years there was no book of meditation more widely read in the German language than his Little Book of Eternal Wisdom. Blessed Henry translated this work into Latin as well, and added at that time to its contents.
He died in 1366; 250 years later, in 1613, workers in the old convent at Ulm found his body perfectly conserved and emitting a pleasant fragrance. Unfortunately the non-Catholic authorities of the city had the tomb closed; and the Bollandists, famous hagiographists of 19th century France, wrote in 1882 that no trace was any longer known of it. He was declared Blessed in 1831 by Pope Gregory XVI.
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| March 1st - St. Albinus |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 01-23-2021, 04:05 PM - Forum: March
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Saint Albinus
Bishop
(470-550)
Saint Albinus was of an ancient and noble family in Brittany, and from his childhood was fervent in every exercise of piety. He ardently sighed after the happiness which a devout soul finds in being disengaged from all earthly things. Having embraced the monastic state, despite his parents' disapproval, he shone a perfect model of virtue, taking upon himself all the humblest offices and disciplining his flesh by every kind of mortification. In brief, he lived as if in all things he were without any will of his own; and his soul seemed so perfectly governed by the spirit of Christ as to live only for Him.
In 504, at the age of thirty-five Saint Albinus was chosen Abbot of his monastery; Saint Fortunatus, his first historian, compared the monastery at that time to a garden rendered beautiful by the most exquisite, most varied, most fragrant flowers. Twenty-five years later, divine Providence gave the Abbot to the entire region as Bishop of Angers. A day did not pass without his instructing his people, for he believed that the soul needs daily nourishment just as imperatively as does the flesh.
Many Christians of his diocese had fallen into slavery through the invasions of the barbarians, and Saint Albinus used every resource available to him for their redemption. To the graces of charity from which his people benefitted, were joined those deriving from his public miracles. He resurrected a young child; and when one of his servants died during his absence, those who carried the man to his grave were unable to lower him until the bishop arrived to give the final benediction. He established and restored measures of ecclesiastical discipline, through the third Council of Orleans, convened through his influence over King Childebert, son of Clovis, who greatly respected his opinions. In brief, he was inflamed with a holy zeal for the glory of God in all aspects of life. Honored by all, he was never affected with vanity.
Saint Albinus died after making a long journey which he undertook to consult Saint Cesarius, Bishop of Arles, concerning matters of episcopal government. He had been the benediction of his diocese for twenty-one years; he died on March 1, 549. He is often represented preaching in the episcopal pulpit or curing the sick, or holding chains while commanding prison doors to be opened.
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| Fauci assures World Health Org. Biden regime is committed to funding abortions |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-22-2021, 07:34 AM - Forum: Abortion
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Fauci assures World Health Org. Biden regime is committed to funding abortions
Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s newly appointed Chief Medical Adviser, promised, ‘President Biden will be revoking the Mexico City Policy in the coming days.’
WASHINGTON, D.C., January 21, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – In comments made to the World Health Organization (WHO) today, Dr. Anthony Fauci announced the Biden regime’s commitment to the promotion of abortion, as well as a new relationship between the United States and the WHO.
Fauci has been named as Chief Medical Adviser to Joe Biden, who was sworn in as president yesterday, and became Biden’s de facto spokesman to the WHO at the 148th session of the Executive Board of the organization which is currently taking place. Fauci is the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who became famous for his constant media appearances during the coronavirus outbreak.
He made clear that the Biden regime would be very closely aligned with the WHO, noting that Biden had already “signed letters retracting the previous Administration’s announcement to withdraw from the organization.”
“I am honored to announce that the United States will remain a member of the World Health Organization,” Fauci declared.
Under Biden’s authority, the U.S will be “fully engaged in advancing global health,” he added, and would “work constructively with partners to strengthen and importantly reform the WHO.”
However, the newly appointed Chief Medical Adviser also highlighted Biden’s commitment to the promotion of “sexual and reproductive health,” and “reproductive rights,” both of which are common euphemisms for abortion and contraception.
“And it will be our policy to support women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights in the United States, as well as globally. To that end, President Biden will be revoking the Mexico City Policy in the coming days, as part of his broader commitment to protect women’s health and advance gender equality at home and around the world.”
The Mexico City Policy prohibits federal funding of abortion abroad. Under former President Donald Trump, it was expanded into a policy called Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance.
Biden is very public about his claims of being Catholic, even attending Mass shortly before his inauguration, yet has been very open about his strong support for abortion as well as LGBT ideology. He has called abortion an “essential health service” and wishes to enshrine abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy into federal law.
Pope Francis extended his congratulations to Biden yesterday, yet did not call mention the issue of abortion in his message.
In the flurry of executive orders which Biden signed by yesterday evening, he gave permission for gender-confused soldiers to serve openly in the military.
Aside from committing the U.S. to assist the WHO in funding, and promoting abortion, Fauci repeatedly mentioned the close relationship which would exist between the two going forward. He thanked the WHO for its “role in leading the global public health response to this pandemic,” and assured the organization that that U.S. “intends to fulfill its financial obligations.”
Trump had defunded the WHO for its botching of the coronavirus response and its close ties to Communist China.
In a “directive” to be signed by Biden today, Fauci related that the U.S. would “join COVAX and support the ACT-Accelerator to advance multilateral efforts for COVID-19 vaccine, therapeutic, and diagnostic distribution, equitable access, and research and development.”
“We will commit to building global health security capacity, expanding pandemic preparedness, and supporting efforts to strengthen health systems around the world and to advance the Sustainable Development Goals,” he added, referring to the U.N.’s 2030 pro-abortion goals.
Despite advocating for a renewed focus on promoting abortion and contraception, Fauci closed his speech by claiming that the U.S. would work to “improve the health and wellbeing of all people throughout the world.”
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| Please pray to save comatose Polish man from starvation in UK hospital |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-22-2021, 07:30 AM - Forum: Appeals for Prayer
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Polish archbishop asks British cardinal to save comatose Polish man from starvation in UK hospital
Archbishop Stanislaw Gądecki has explained that there is strong public feeling in the patient’s homeland against the British court which permitted the hospital responsible for his care to remove the patient's clinically assisted nutrition and hydration
POZNAN, Poland, January 19, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — The head of the Bishops Conference of Poland has written to Cardinal Vincent Nichols in the hope that his English counterpart will do something to save a Polish Catholic currently dying of passive euthanasia in an English hospital.
Archbishop Stanislaw Gądecki has explained that there is strong public feeling in the patient’s homeland against the British court which permitted the hospital responsible for his care to remove his clinically assisted nutrition and hydration.
“He was, de facto, sentenced to death of starvation,” Gądecki wrote.
The patient, who is known in the English-speaking world as “RS” because of a court order protecting his identity, is a Polish Catholic who suffered a heart attack in his home in England on November 6 and sustained serious brain damage. Although he can breathe for himself, he relies on clinically assisted nutrition and hydration (CANH) for survival. His hospital doctors believe that he is in a vegetative state and that he has only a small chance of becoming even minimally conscious. At the same time, they expected him to live another five or more years with the help of CANH. Believing this was not in his “best interests” the doctors received permission from the British Court of Protection to discontinue CAHN.
In Britain, CANH is considered “medical treatment” and therefore its withdrawal is not legally considered euthanasia. The practise is considered barbaric and cruel in RS’s native Poland, and the case has caught the attention of the Polish press and public. Video footage of RS in his hospital bed has been widely circulated in Poland, much to the disgust of the judge who made the order forbidding the identification of RS. Two neurologists consulted by RS’s birth family have given their opinion that RS is progressing to a minimally conscious state, but their evidence has been rejected by both the Court of Protection and the Court of Appeal.
In his letter, which Polish online newspaper Polonia Christiana reproduced in full, the Polish archbishop reminded the English cardinal of the basic details of the case: that the patient’s wife and children, who live in England, agree with the decision to end his life, but that his mother and sister who live in Poland, and his sister and niece, who live in England, are opposed to it. Gądecki noted also that the European Court of Human Rights have refused to hear the latter’s case on more than one occasion, and so the hospital is continuing to allow RS to die.
RS’s birth family testified that RS was a devout Catholic who was opposed to both abortion and euthanasia, who believed that sick people deserved compassionate care and had a right to their lives. One of RS’s sisters told LifeSiteNews that he was furious with British court decisions to end the life of toddler Alfie Evans. However, RS’s wife testified that her husband would not want to be “a burden” or to be remembered by his children as “disabled.”
Although RS’s birth family, with the support of the Polish Government, have attempted to appeal the decision to end RS’s life and, as Gądecki recalled in his letter, the Polish Government has asked permission to take RS to Poland for care, the British courts have refused. Mr Justice Cohen has repeated his judgment that it is in RS’s “best interests” not to receive life-sustaining care.
RS’s sister also told LifeSiteNews that her brother had met St. John Paul II and treasured a photograph he had of the two of them together. In his letter to Cardinal Nichols, Archbishop Gądecki reminded the prelate of the Polish pope’s warnings against the “culture of death.”
St. John Paul II, in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae, wrote:
it is possible to speak in a certain sense of a war of the powerful against the weak: a life which would require greater acceptance, love and care is considered useless, or held to be an intolerable burden, and is therefore rejected in one way or another. A person who, because of illness, handicap or, more simply, just by existing, compromises the well-being or life-style of those who are more favoured tends to be looked upon as an enemy to be resisted or eliminated. In this way a kind of "conspiracy against life" is unleashed. This conspiracy involves not only individuals in their personal, family or group relationships, but goes far beyond, to the point of damaging and distorting, at the international level, relations between peoples and States.
The Polish archbishop concluded his letter by asking Cardinal Nichols’ help in “this difficult situation” and to make an attempt at saving the life of “our compatriot.” The Polish word Archbishop Gądecki used to describe RS, “rodak,” is derived from the same root from which the Polish word for family, “rodzina”, is derived. It denotes strong and warm ties through nationality.
Hitherto, the most prominent Catholic to speak up against the dehydration and starvation death of RS was the Anscombe Bioethics Centre’s Dr. David Jones, who published a position paper on the topic on January 12, 2021. Jones underscored that RS had previously expressed opposition to euthanasia. He was particularly troubled by the implications of hydration and nutrition being removed from vulnerable people on the grounds that they would not want to be “a burden.”
LifeSiteNews has reached out to the Archdiocese of Westminster for comment and is awaiting a response.
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| February 28th - Sts. Romanus and Lupicinus; St. Oswald |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 01-21-2021, 02:07 PM - Forum: February
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Saints Romanus and Lupicinus his brother
Founder and Abbots
(†460 and †480)
Saint Romanus, born in the late fourth century, left his relatives and spent some time in the monastery of Ainay at Lyons, near a large church at the conflux of the Saône and Rhone. The faithful had built it in honor of the famous martyrs of that region, whose ashes were thrown into the Rhone. His purpose for this retreat was to study all the practices of monastic life, and he obtained from the Abbot of Ainay some recently written books on the lives of the Desert Fathers.
At the age of thirty-five, Romanus retired into the forests of Mount Jura, between France and Switzerland, and fixed his abode at a place called Condate, at the conflux of the rivers Bienne and Aliere, where he found a plot of ground fit for culture, and some trees which furnished him with wild fruit. Here he spent his time in praying, reading, and laboring for his subsistence. Lupicinus, his brother, came to him there, accompanied by several other disciples, who then were followed by still others, drawn by the fame of the virtue and miracles of these two Saints. Other monasteries became necessary. Saint Romanus, when he was 54 years old, was ordained a priest by Saint Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers; he remained simple in his conduct and never sought any privileges among his brethren.
As their numbers increased, the brothers built several monasteries as well as a convent for their sister and other women, called La Baume; before Saint Romanus died, there were already five hundred nuns cloistered there in prayer and sacrifice. They kept strict silence, and like their brothers, sons or relatives in the nearby monastery of Lauconne, considered themselves as persons dead to the present life.
The two brothers governed the monks jointly and in great harmony, though they were of different dispositions; the gentleness of the first was balanced by the severity of the other, according to need. When a group of rebellious monks departed, Saint Romanus, by his patience and prayer, won them back, and if they departed a second or even a third time, received them with the same kindness. When Lupicinus, whose habits were very mortified, reproached him for his leniency, he replied that God alone knew the depths of hearts, and that among those who never departed, there were some whose fervor had declined, whereas some of those who returned after leaving even three times, were serving God in exemplary piety; and finally, that among the brethren who remained outside the monastery, certain ones had religiously practiced the maxims they had learned in the monastery, even becoming priests and authorities for other religious functions or offices.
Saint Romanus died about the year 460, and Saint Lupicinus survived him for twenty years.
*On leap years, the feast day of these Saints is celebrated on February 29.
Saint Oswald
Archbishop of York
(† 992)
Oswald was of a noble Saxon family; he was endowed with a very rare and handsome appearance and with a singular piety of soul. Brought up by his uncle, Saint Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury, he was chosen, while still young, as dean of the secular canons of Winchester, at that time very lax. His attempt to reform them was a failure, and he saw, with that infallible instinct which so often guides the Saints in critical times, that the true remedy for the corruption of the clergy was the restoration of monastic life.
He therefore went to France and took the habit of Saint Benedict. When he returned to England it was to receive the news of Odo's death. He found, however, a new patron in Saint Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, through whose influence he was nominated to the see of Worcester. To these two Saints, together with Ethelwold of Winchester, the monastic revival of the tenth century is mainly due.
Oswald's first care was to deprive of their benefices all disorderly secular clerics, whom he replaced as far as possible by religious priests. He himself founded seven religious houses. Considering that in the hearts of the secular canons of Winchester there were yet some sparks of virtue, he would not at once dismiss them, but rather reformed them through a holy artifice. Adjoining their cathedral church he built a chapel in honor of the Mother of God, causing it to be served by a body of strict religious. He himself assisted at the divine Office there, and his example was followed by the people. The canons, finding themselves isolated and the church deserted, chose rather to embrace the religious life than continue to injure their own souls, and be also a mockery to their people, through the contrast offered by their worldliness and the regularity of their religious brethren.
Later, as Archbishop of York, Saint Oswald met a like success in his efforts. God manifested His approval of his zeal by discovering to him the relics of his great predecessor at Worcester, Saint Wilfrid, which he reverently translated to the church of that city. He died while washing the feet of the poor, as he did daily during Lent, on February 29, 992.
*On leap years, the feast day of this Saint is celebrated on February 29.
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| February 27th - St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows and St. Leander |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 01-21-2021, 02:02 PM - Forum: February
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Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows
Passionist
(1838-1862)
Saint Gabriel was born at Assisi in 1838. He was guided by Our Lady into the Passionist Order founded by Saint Paul of the Cross, and became a veritable Apostle of Her Sorrows. He was a very great and truly contemplative soul, whose only preoccupation was to unite himself to God at all times. He allowed no distractions to enter his spirit, and even though Italy, his country, was in a state of ferment when he entered religion, he wanted to know nothing of it.
The way to attain union with our Saviour and our God was, for Saint Gabriel, as for Saint Louis de Montfort, his Heavenly Mother. He wrote home to his father, from the first month of his noviciate, Believe your son, whose heart is speaking by his lips; no, I would not exchange one single quarter of an hour spent near the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, our consolatrix, our protectress and our hope, for a year or several years spent in the diversions and spectacles of the earth. Among his resolutions was that of visiting Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament each day, and praying for the gift of a tender and efficacious devotion to His Most Holy Mother. He wrote a beautiful Credo, worthy to be printed in letters of gold, expressing all that he believed of the Mother of God.
At twenty-four years of age Saint Gabriel died of tuberculosis, having already attained heroic sanctity by a life of self-denial and great devotion to our Lord's Passion and the Compassion of His Mother.
Although his life was without any miraculous event, after his death in 1862 many miracles occurred at his tomb in Isola di Gran Sasso, Italy. He was canonized by Pope Benedict XV in 1920, and his feast was extended to the entire church by Pope Pius XI in 1932. He is the patron of youth, and especially of young religious.
*On leap years, the feast day of this Saint is celebrated on February 28.
Saint Leander
Archbishop of Seville
(† 596)
Saint Leander was born of an illustrious family at Carthagena in Spain. He was the eldest of five brothers, several of whom are numbered among the Saints. He entered into a monastery of Seville very young, where he lived many years and attained to an eminent degree of virtue and sacred learning. These qualities occasioned his being promoted to the see of Seville; but his change of condition made little or no alteration in his way of life, though it brought on him a great increase of solicitude.
Spain at that time was held in possession by the Visigoths. These Goths, being infected with Arianism, established that heresy wherever they came, in such wise that at the time Saint Leander was made bishop, it had already reigned in Spain a hundred years. This was his great affliction. Nonetheless, by his prayers to God and by his most zealous and unwearied endeavors, he became the happy instrument of the conversion of that nation to the Catholic faith, as his story makes clear.
The holy archbishop had converted, among others, his own nephew Hermenegild, who was the king's eldest son and heir apparent, and for this he was banished by King Leovigild, his own brother-in-law. The pious Catholic prince, now known as Saint Hermenegild, was put to death in prison by his unnatural father in the following year, for refusing to receive Communion from the hands of an Arian bishop. Afterwards, touched by grace and filled with remorse, the king recalled Saint Leander.
When Leovigild fell sick and found himself past hopes of recovery, he sent for Saint Leander, and recommended to him his other son Recared. This son, by listening to Saint Leander, became a Catholic, and finally brought the whole nation of the Visigoths to the faith. The new king Recared also brought the Suevi back to Catholic unity; they were a people of Spain whom his Arian father Leovigild had perverted.
Saint Leander was no less zealous in the reformation of morals than in restoring the purity of faith, and planted the seeds of the zeal and fervor which produce martyrs and Saints. He received from Saint Gregory the Great a painting of the Mother of God by the hand of Saint Luke, Evangelist, since known as Our Lady of Guadelupe (of Spain). It is he who, as a refutation of Arianism, added to the liturgy of Spain the recitation during Mass of the Nicene Creed, which practice spread to Rome and then to the entire Church. This holy doctor of Spain died about the year 596, on the 27th of February.
*On leap years, the feast day of this Saint is celebrated on February 28.
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| February 26th - St. Mechtildis of Hackeborn and St. Porphyry |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 01-21-2021, 01:59 PM - Forum: February
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Saint Mechtildis of Hackeborn
Abbess
(1240-1298)
Saint Mechtildis, born in 1240 in Saxony, was the younger sister of the illustrious Abbess Gertrude of Hackeborn. She was so attracted to religious life at the age of seven, after a visit to her sister in the monastery of Rodardsdoft, that she begged to be allowed to enter the monastic school there. Her gifts caused her to make great progress both in virtue and learning.
Ten years later, when her sister had transferred the monastery to an estate at Helfta offered by their brothers, Mechtildis went with her. She was already distinguished for her virtues, and while still very young became the valuable Assistant to Abbess Gertrude. One of the children who in the monastic school were committed to her care, was the child of five who later became known as Saint Gertrude the Great.
Saint Mechtildis was gifted with a beautiful voice, and was choir mistress of the nuns all her life. Divine praise, it has been said, was the keynote of her life, as also of her famous book, The Book of Special Grace. When she learned, at the age of fifty, that two of her nuns had written down all the favors and words of their Abbess, which she had become, she was troubled, but Our Lord in a vision assured her that all this has been committed to writing by My will and inspiration, and therefore you have no cause to be troubled over it. He added that the diffusion of the revelations He had given her would cause many to increase in His love. She immediately accepted the Lord's bidding, and the book became extremely popular in Italy after her death. Its influence on the poet Dante's Purgatorio is undeniable, for she had described the place of purification after death under the same figure of a seven-terraced mountain. The Donna Matelda of his Purgatorio, who guides him at one point in his vision, is Saint Mechtildis as she represents mystical theology. She died in 1298 at the monastery of Helfta.
*On leap years, the feast day of this Saint is celebrated on February 27.
Saint Porphyry
Bishop of Gaza
(353-420)
At the age of twenty-five, Porphyry, a rich citizen of Thessalonica, left the world for one of the great religious houses in the desert of Scete. Here he remained five years, and then, finding himself drawn to a more solitary life, passed into Palestine, where he spent a similar period in the severest penance, until ill health obliged him to moderate his austerities. He then made his home in Jerusalem, and in spite of his ailments visited the Holy Places every day, thinking so little of his sickness, says his biographer, that he seemed to be afflicted in another body than his own. About this time God put it into his heart to sell all he had and give it to the poor; then, to reward the sacrifice, He restored him, by a miracle at the Holy Sepulchre, to perfect health.
In 393 the zealous Christian was ordained priest and entrusted with the care of the relics of the True Cross in Jerusalem. Three years later, in spite of all the resistance his humility could make, he was consecrated Bishop of Gaza. That city was a hotbed of paganism, and Porphyry found in it an ample scope for his apostolic zeal. His labors and the miracles which attended them effected the conversion of many; and an imperial edict for the destruction of the pagan temples, obtained through the influence of Saint John Chrysostom, greatly strengthened the influence of the Bishop in Gaza. During a long drought, a fast and a procession to the tombs of the martyrs outside the city, held by the Christians in obedience to their bishop to obtain rain from God, brought the trial to a successful end. Many pagans were converted when a torrential rain descended.
When Saint Porphyry first went to Gaza, he found there one temple more splendid than the rest, in honor of the chief god. When the edict went forth to destroy all traces of heathen worship, Saint Porphyry determined to put the demon to special shame, there where he had received special honor. A Christian church was built upon the site, and its approach was paved with the marble stone of the heathen temple. Thus every worshiper of Jesus Christ trod underfoot the vestiges of idolatry and superstition, each time he went to assist at holy Mass.
Saint Porphyry lived to see his diocese cleared of idolatry, wholly Christian, and then died in the year 420.
*On leap years, the feast day of this Saint is celebrated on February 27.
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| "The Reign of Antichrist" by Fr. Culleton |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 01-21-2021, 01:50 PM - Forum: Catholic Prophecy
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You can download the book at this link in multiple formats: https://archive.org/details/TheReignOfAn...1/mode/2up
THE REIGN OF ANTICHRIST
*
By
R. GERALD CULLETON
*
"Lord wilt Thou at this time restore the Kingdom of Israel?..." "It is not for you to know tILe times or dates which the Father has fixed . .." Acts 1:6-7
"Let no one deceive you . .. The day of the Lord will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of sin is revealed . .. who . .. gives himself out as if he were God." 2 Thes. 3-4
*
TAN BOOKS AND PUBLISHERS, INC.
Rockford, Illinois 61105
PUBLISHER'S PREFACE
Originally issued in 1951, the The Reign of Antichrist forms a companion volume to The Prophets and Our Times (1941) and is very much like the latter in scope and content. Two important differences in the books, however, should be noted: The Reign of Antichrist comprises Biblical prophecies as well as saintly prophecies; whereas, The Prophets and Our Times covers saintly prophecies almost entirely. Secondly, The Reign of Antichrist deals with a slightly different period of time, that, obviously of the individual Antichrist; The Prophets and Our Times deals with the period just before the reign of Antichrist, a period dominated by the Great Monarch. A careful reading of these two books will indicate that the time of the Great Monarch more or less prefigures that of Antichrist, although the two personages have generally reversed roles; that is, the times of both men are calamitous for the Catholic Church and for society. The Great Monarch's ascension to power ends the turmoil and initiates an unprecedented peace; on the other hand, Antichrist's coming to power ends the great peace and prosperity of the Great Monarch and heralds the most dreadful situation for both Church and society, which situation ends in the second coming of Our Lord.
The present work is by no means perfect, and all readers should recognize this before they start. Our purpose in reprinting it is twofold: It is a wonderful source book, one from which students of the subject can make an excellent beginning and from which, perhaps some really good student of eschatology, using other existing sources also, can give us a truly authoritative work on the subject. Secondly, there is practically nothing in print in this area that is even remotely reliable. History of Antichrist, by Rev. P. Huchede (1884) is a notable exception, being not only authoritative, but brief and highly readable. Our suggestion is that this book be read before The Reign of Antichrist, if possible, or at least shortly thereafter; it is an excellent outline of Catholic teaching relative to Antichrist. A first reading of Father Huchede's book should be followed by one where the reader looks up all the Biblical passages cited there. In this manner, the subject becomes extremely clear. Father Huchede bases his thesis upon Scripture, Tradition, and the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. Father Culleton, however, actually quotes the passages from scripture and the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, plus gives numerous sources of written tradition; added to these, moreover, he quotes many saints and holy people who possessed the gift of prophecy themselves. Having all these prophetic passages under one cover singularizes The Reign of Antichrist as a unique and valuable book in its field.
A word of warning needs to be interjected here. Saintly prophecies are not "of faith" (de fide pronouncements) and most of the Biblical prophecies regarding Antichrist have not been given official interpretation; consequently, we must observe precaution in interpreting them and in basing our actions upon them, especially until the Church has made judgment in their regard. Nonetheless, these prophecies, both Biblical and saintly, were given and intended for our enlightenment and should not be casually put aside. "Despise not prophecies," says St. Paul, "but prove all things." (1 Thes. 5:20-21). Also he tells us, "Follow after charity, be zealous for spiritual gifts; but rather that you may prophesy ... He that prophesieth, speaketh to men unto edification, and exhortation, and comfort ... He that prophesieth, edifieth the church ... For greater is he that prophesieth, than he that speaketh with tongues." (1 Cor. 14:1,3,4,5). We would indeed be most foolish if we debunked the prophecies Father Culleton has gathered together here, for they form an impressive collection, probably the most thorough treatment on the subject in print. Perhaps it is even providential that the book is being reissued at this time, along with The Prophets and Our Times as well. Together, these two books tell quite a story about the future. And the great divergence of the sources of the prophecies cited is itself the most compelling argument for their validity.
Needless to say, the doctrine on Antichrist is very much a part of our Catholic theology and Tradition, and as such, must be considered carefully by all men, the learned and the unlearned alike, for the Antichrist, when he comes, will affect the lives of all men. Based upon the firmness of their faith and the correctness of their knowledge, men will either apostatize or remain faithful to Christ and His Church. Thus, it will be seen that a knowledge of the prophecies regarding Antichrist is of an immensely practical nature.
We have omitted from the book the secret messages of the La Salette apparition (1846-approved by the Church in 1851), and the reader will find under Number 337 on page 163 a note to this effect. Pages 164 through 170 are missing entirely and only part of pages 163 and 171 appear. In the proper place we have explained why this was done. Other than that, a correction has been made concerning the "Secret of Fatima" on page 186. The wording of the original edition was not precisely what it should have been, and the author issued with each book a preface sheet containing also some corrections; this particular correction we have thought to include new in the body of the book, as well as two others of merely typographical nature. The balance of the author's loose-leaf enclosure has been added as the "Author's Preface."
Some readers no doubt will question Father Culleton's including Number 315, the prophecy of Michael Nostradamus (page 144) because Nostradamus was an astrologer, or at least a student of that subject. Presumably, this was due to Nostradamus' great overall accuracy as a prophet. Although Jewish by birth, he was a Catholic and apparently a very devout one. Moreover, he believed his prophetic foresight was so accurate that he scrambled his quatrains (the enigmatic, four-line verses in which he cast most of his prophecies), in order that people would not be too frightened of the future. Cultivation of the occult sciences is of course forbidden, but to what extent he relied upon astrology to make his predictions, if at all, I do not know. Nonetheless, his reputation for accuracy is great; however, in the particular predictions Father Culleton quotes here, he seems to have made several errors. But the same is true for the predictions of Father Theophilus Reisinger, O.F.M., Cap. (No. 369; page 222), the renowned exorcist of Earling, Iowa fame, popularized by the booklet Begone Satan.
This leads immediately into the question of errors in saintly prophecies. Does this obvious element of error vitiate the entire book. I do not believe it does, and for the following reasons: First, prophecies are about the future, and events, spiritually speaking, are greatly dependent upon the moral quality of human lives; when mankind improves his behavior, he can forestall or remove imminent catastrophe from happening. The prophet might be predicting in the sense of "if conditions do not change, then..." Second, a prophet may simply be misquoted. Third, he may be misinterpreted. And finally, the person in question may not in fact have the prophetic gift, as I believe is the case with Father Reisinger, whose forte or charisma was exorcism; the prediction given by him was through a second party, a mystic who received a locution.
Over all, however, the reader will see that most of Father Culleton's book contains passages that tend to support one another and which in general elucidate what Sacred Scripture has to say on Antichrist, and it is for this reason that we have reissued his book. May it bring enlightenment to its readers on this sorely abused subject, and may it inspire people today to turn to a serious spirituality in their lives, as the only valid bulwark to the onslaught of "the man of sin," a spirituality including prayer, penance, good works, spiritual reading, and frequenting the Sacraments, the formula laid down by the saints for spiritual perfection. This, after all, should be the end result of all our reading-growth in holiness so that we may earn salvation through the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ, no matter what it may be our fate to live through.
Thomas A. Nelson July 1, 1974 Feast of the Precious Blood
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| "The Prophets and Our Times" by Fr. Culleton |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 01-21-2021, 01:16 PM - Forum: Catholic Prophecy
- Replies (17)
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You can download the book in multiple formats at this link: https://archive.org/details/TheProphetsA...s/mode/2up
THE PROPHETS
AND
OUR TIMES
By
R. GERALD CULLETON
"It shall come to pall in the last days. says the Lord, that I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughtera shall prophesy. and your young men shall see visions. and your old men shall dream dreams. And moreover upon my servants and upon my handmaids in those days will I pour forth of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy."
( Acts 2: 17-1 8)
"In all ages men have been divinely instructed in mallers expediem for the salvation of the elect ... and in all ages there have been persona possessed of the spirit of prophesy. not for the purpose of announcing neW doctrines, but to direct human actions."
(St. Thomas: Summa: 2: 2 :174 :Res. et ad 3)
TAN BOOKS AND PUBLISHERS, INC.
Rockford, Illinois 61105
PUBLISHER'S PREFACE
A few words need to be said about reissuing Father Gerald Culleton's The Prophets and Our Times. First of all it is now thirty-three years since the book was first published, and Father Culleton had an idea the world was then witnessing the events foretold by the prophecies he had recorded, the colossal occurence of that time being of course, World War II, the greatest struggle the world has ever known. Yet, from our view we realize those prophecies he presented and interpreted have not been fulfilled. Then too, there appeared in 1970 Mr. Yves Dupont's Catholic Prophecy-The Coming Chastisement, which for its brevity and command of the significance of the prophecies' meaning, has no equal in any book that I am familiar with, and certainly the present volume will not replace his nor eliminate the need of students interested in this subject reading Catholic Prophecy as well. Father Culleton's work traces many of the same prophecies as Mr. Dupont's and in general restricts itself to the same era; however, Father's book is considerably larger and more comprehensive in its coverage, for which reason, mainly, we have thought to reprint it. Added to this, however, is the general accuracy of The Prophets and Our Times, despite Father's penchant for interpreting the prophecies as being fulfilled by the events of his day.
Probably the most provocative characteristic of this book, especially to readers who have had no introduction to the subject, is the cohesiveness of the various prophecies-how they coalesce, dovetail, agree, and complement one another-this despite the fact that they were made in different centuries, from the fourth down to our own, and at times generally when transportation and communication were very poor, a factor which would preclude collusion (this is virtually unthinkable, given the conditions). The question arises then, do these prophecies, taken together, form a body of knowledge, or even a quasi body of knowledge? The author certainly treats them as if they do. Still the contemporary reader will ask: "Well, do they?" This, I believe, each person will have to answer for himself, based largely upon the interior evidence of the prophecies themselves. For my own part, I think they do. This judgment, however, is more mature than perhaps most readers will be able to make and comes from having read in various books prophecies other than those appearing here or in any recent editions, all of which prophecies I feel fit the general pattern laid down by Father Culleton in The Prophets and Our Times. Moreover, it has been my good fortune to come across a number of books from which he draws his material, some of these over a hundred years old. The impression which a reading of these older books gives, most decidedly, is that people in those days were just as interested in the prophecies as we are today, and the writers of those books were extremely careful to cite their sources and would be judged by their work as sane, sensible and careful academicians, giving most scrupulously their own sources and filling in many details about the lives of the various saintly prophets. In this regard I am thinking especially of The Christian Trumpet. The present author, moreover, has not exerpted all that he could from these books, but rather has selected only the most apropos material.
If we are to grant that this group of prophecies forms a sort of corpus of knowledge, what are the general outlines of this information? Here, I believe, we all owe a great debt to Father Culleton for his grouping of this information into two general categories, the first of which he covers in the present book and the second of which he treats in his Reign of Antichrist (1951), also being reissued concomitantly with the present book, and one which the reader, if he is interested in this subject at all will surely want to peruse, in order to flesh out his view or perspective of events. In general, the information covered by his two books concerns the time of Antichrist, on the one hand, and the time generally which precedes it, on the other. The time preceding Antichrist we might well refer to as the "dress rehearsal" period. Now the time of the Antichrist will be the most distressing the world has ever known, and the Bible is very explicit in specifying that his reign will last three and one-half years or forty-two months or 1,290 days. These figures are given in several different places in the Bible (Daniel 12:7; 12:11; Apoc. 11:2-3; 13:14), in order that, it would seem, we do not in any way understand them symbolically; the reason for this is obvious: God wishes to console the good people of that time with the knowledge of precisely when their great tribulation will end-in truly :t touching measure of His mercy toward frail humanity. Shortly after the end of Antichrist comes the End of Time, the most prophesied event in the Bible, otherwise referred to as "the Day of the Lord," which is a time not to be longed for: "Woe to them that desire the day of the Lord" says the prophet Amos (5: 18). In the view of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Day of the Lord immediately precedes the General Judgment. At that time Our Lord returns in triumph and in judgment as the Lord of lords and King of kings. Now, the whole affair is so jmportant, it would seem, considering both the Biblical prophecies and the saintly prophecies (which Father: Culleton concerns himself with here), that it is not sufficient for it simply to happen once. Rather it seems we are to have a foretaste of both the agony and the joys at that later set of events, during a time which serves very much as a warning to the world. This period is dominated by the personage of the Great Monarch: the world in his time enters a severe period of tension (social, political, and religious), which eventuates in terrific military struggles (none of which appear to be Armageddon, it might be added), the final result being the world-wide triumph of this Catholic prince, under whom and through whose influence virtually the entire world becomes Catholic. During his reign there is unprecedented peace, prosperity, and progress. But toward the end of his time, the stiffnecked, hard-hearted men of that day descend once more into widespread sin, and shortly after the Great Monarch, Antichrist makes his appearance. Just as Our Lord at His second coming, the Great Monarch is a king of kings and lord of lords, who rules in justice and who brings an unheralded Pax Christiana, thus it would seem, forming a "type of Christ" in His second coming. Such, then, is a rough delineation of the events recorded in Father Culleton's two books. whether or not it is valid the reader can judge for himself.
A number of other questions arises in this regard which might be considered briefly. "Are we in the Great Apostasy)" mentioned by St. Paul in 2 Thessalonians, Chapter 2? One encounters among troubled Catholics today a good deal of mention about this. The answer is that it would seem we are not, but in view of the "dress rehearsal" concept elucidated above, we are most certainly experiencing a serious loss of faith on the part of a large portion of the Catholic population; yet many are still holding fast, despite the confusion rampant in the Church. When the reader has read the prophecies contained here, he will begin to see that most likely "the eat Apostasy" will come after the reign of the Great Monarch and refers to the general falling away after his time.
It might well be asked, "Are we close to the End of Time, or to the time of Antichrist?" Many authoritative writers think that we are. Personally, I, would not discount the possibility, especially since some of the conditions are now fulfilled, and it takes little imagination to see how others could be. In this regard writers, and even saints, have been mistaken in the past, for which reason none of us should be too hasty to say yes to this question. Referring to the End of Time, Our Lord Himself told us, "But of that day or hour no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father." (Mk. 13: 32). Nonetheless, we are certain that it will come and come "as a thief in the night." (1Thess. 5:2). St. Paul tells us that Our Lord will return "in very little while" (Heb. 10:37), and St. Peter tells us that "one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Pet. 3:8), from which we can safely infer that the present Christian era is not going to be all that long. If indeed we are close to the End of Time, or at least close to or beginning the "dress rehearsal" period, it would seem providential chat these prophecies would be made known now on so widespread a basis, enabling those who thus desire to be advised on the matter.
"Have some of the prophecies about the first of these two periods ill fact been fulfilled?" The answer to this question is yes, some of these prophecies seem to be coming true, notably the widespread loss of faith, confusion in the Church (even in matters of Faith), bankruptcy of the democracies in Western Europe (that is to say their inability to cope with problems of labor, inflation, political unrest, social justice, international finance, and simple "planning for the future"). Already, we are hearing more and more about an imminent eruption in Italy, which will be one of the hallmarks of the period of the Great Monarch. Given the space to develop the notion in a substantive way, and citing additional prophecies to this effect, I believe I could quite easily support this answer.
Despite the fact that these prophecies, taken together, form a compelling tract, we must remember that they are not dogma, that is, do not concern de fide pronouncements of the Church. They are simply given for our instruction, to help us, it would seem, in a trying time. If some good Catholics choose not to accept them or choose to lay little stock in them, it is not the duty of any one of us to coerce his mind into assent (as if that were possible). These prophecies are not needed for salvation, but they may indeed be needed for sanity, and certainly for hope, by some or many of us. Indeed, there is a great deal of hope in the personages of the Great Monarch and the Angelic Pastor (a holy Pope) mentioned here. They are truly romantic figures, in the best sense of the word, and so much after the style of God, who in His action among men tends to be both simple and surprising, subtle and irresistible; in His own good time surely something like the events predicted in this book are bound to occur-they are, as it were almost wrapped up part and parcel in the confusion of the world's current life. With the development of that confusion, so trying on us all, is bound to emerge the solution from a most unpredictable quarter. Hence, the enemies of God and of His
Holy Church will not know where or how to prepare themselves to resist successfully the advent of the Great Monarch. God will nurture this man in His own manner, who the prophecies seem to indicate, will not even be known to himself until a late moment. When that man finally takes the field, it will be all over for the enemies of God, despite their numerical superiority and seeming greater power.
With these thoughts in mind we are pleased to reissue The Prophets and Our Times and hope that it will bring enlightenment and consolation to those who read it.
Thomas A. Nelson
June 26, 1974
Feast of Sts. John and Paul
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| Devotion for the Dying |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 01-21-2021, 01:13 PM - Forum: Prayers and Devotionals
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The following information is taken from the 2021 Traditional Liturgical Calendar from Canada.
DEVOTION FOR THE DYING
"Will you not join with our dear Heavenly Mother Mary
in this work to save many of these souls who otherwise,
without our prayers, will go to hell?"
- Bl. Mother Mary Potter
Devotion for the Dying
The Month of the Holy Family - January
Mother Mary Potter and the Little Company of Mary
After making her total consecration to Jesus through Mary, Mother Mary Potter was drawn to praying for the dying.
She established an order, the Little Company of Mary, which cared for the sick and dying and prayed for all the dying.
She realized the importance of having persons in a state of grace near a deathbed. A person in a state of grace carries
God with him and so their presence has a great power against the attacks of the devil at the time of death.
Her desire was to have people all over the world and at all times praying and sacrificing for the sols of the dying who had
lost sanctifying grace or who where about to despair of God's mercy.
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