Florida “Monoclonal Antibodies are much more tied to Abortion than the Jab. They are made from Humanized Mice, in a Frankensteinesque Practice”
– Multiple innovative platforms are currently available for antibody discovery using genetically modified mice that express fully-human heavy and light chain variable regions. These animals can generate diverse repertoires of in vivo affinity-matured antibodies with intrinsic drug-like properties necessary for successful development, including high potency, specificity, solubility, and manufacturability. A key advantage is that in having full-human variable regions, the antibodies have low risk of immunogenicity, thus mitigating efficacy-killing anti-drug responses when reformatted as therapeutics. [https://hybridoma.com/human-ab-producing-mice/]
– Florida is rolling out a mobile unit to administer monoclonal antibody treatments to coronavirus patients, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced. – NPR [https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/08/13/1027370861/florida-gov-desantis-monoclonal-antibody-treatments-covid-19-spike]
The following is from a Catholic Monitor reader:Sadly, my friend read further and there is a lot of evil involved in some of their treatments suggested for COVID-19.
Here’s the 1st paragraph when you click on the link found on the DISTRIBUTE TO EVERYONE note …
“The EU Strategy on COVID-19 Therapeutics delivers today its first outcome, with the announcement of the first portfolio of five therapeutics that could soon be available to treat patients across the EU. Four of these therapeutics are monoclonal antibodies under rolling review by the European Medicines Agency. Another one is an immunosuppressant, which has a marketing authorisation that could be extended to include the treatment of COVID-19 patients.”
Monoclonal antibodies!!! 😱
This is from my pro-life friend, who has been an oncology nurse for decades. She used to pray in front of the Hagerstown abortion mill years ago, until she moved to Virginia. She sent me this after I sent her the news about them stopping the shot in Europe. She went to the article or read further & texted this back to me… (Her words are in quotes. My question is marked with a 🦋)
“Yes, I started to read that and it is still sad. Remember what we learned about the monoclonal at antibodies being formed from humanized mice. They will be loaded with longterm retroviruses – very dangerous.”
“Monoclonal antibodies are much more tied to abortion than the jab. They are made from humanized mice, in a Frankensteinesque practice of destroying embryos that were created in vitro, and then grafting them into mouse embryos. Fr Patrick Fenton “
“That’s how they make monoclonal antibodies. Yes they call the mice: Frankenmice. A number of hospitals in the United States have already bought a fair number of these to use to make the monoclonal antibodies. University of Pittsburgh was one of them. NIH and some place in North Carolina.”
🦋So monoclonal antibodies are going to be used or are being used to “cure” Covid?
“Yes, they are very popular in Florida.”
Pray an Our Father now for reparation for the sins committed because of Francis’s Amoris Laetitia.
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Stop for a moment of silence, ask Jesus Christ what He wants you to do now and next. In this silence remember God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost – Three Divine Persons yet One God, has an ordered universe where you can know truth and falsehood as well as never forget that He wants you to have eternal happiness with Him as his son or daughter by grace. Make this a practice. By doing this you are doing more good than reading anything here or anywhere else on the Internet.
Francis Notes:
– Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church in such a situation:
“[T]he Pope… WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See.” (The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)
– LifeSiteNews, “Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial weight behind communion for adulterers,” December 4, 2017:
The AAS guidelines explicitly allows “sexually active adulterous couples facing ‘complex circumstances’ to ‘access the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'”
– On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:
“The AAS statement… establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense.”
– On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:
“Francis’ heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters magisterial documents.”
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.
Mark Morgan Former Acting Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection
Mark Morgan is a visiting fellow at the Federation for American Immigration Reform and at the Heritage Foundation. He served as acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Trump administration and as chief of U.S. Border Patrol in the Obama administration. A Marine veteran and a former officer in the LAPD, he served for over 20 years in the FBI, including as the assistant section chief of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime Branch; deputy on-scene commander in Baghdad, Iraq; special agent in charge of the El Paso Division; and assistant director in charge of the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. He has a B.S. in engineering from Central Missouri State University and a J.D. from the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
The following is adapted from a speech delivered on July 22, 2021, at Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C., as part of the AWC Family Foundation Lecture Series.
In just a few short months, the Biden administration has created a disaster on the southern border of the United States. It did so by methodically—and by all indications intentionally—undoing every meaningful border security measure that had been in place. As a result, we have had five straight months of over 170,000 illegal immigrants apprehended at the border. The number in June was the highest in over 20 years. And Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been effectively shut down.
Our national discussion of border security is generally misleading, and it is designed to be misleading by those who favor open borders. They frame the issue as if the American people face a binary choice: either let all immigrants in because they are “looking for a better life” or close our borders completely and inhumanely. But this is a false choice. The unspoken alternative is to enforce the law, taking in immigrants who enter the U.S. legally while securing our borders against those who attempt to enter illegally—particularly those meaning to do us harm.
Illegal immigration is, of course, nothing new. It has been a problem in our country for many decades. What is relatively new is the total lack of concern we see in the Biden administration, especially in terms of the national security aspect of border control.
Unbelievable as it may seem to us today, it was only 15 years ago—with the 9/11 terrorist attacks still fresh in our minds—when Congress came together in a bipartisan effort to pass the Secure Fence Act of 2006. The Secure Fence Act directed the Department of Homeland Security to take appropriate actions to achieve “operational control” over U.S. land and maritime borders to “prevent unlawful entry.” It defined operational control as the prevention of all unlawful entries into the U.S., including terrorists, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband. And it specifically set the goal of “provid[ing] at least two layers of reinforced fencing, installation of additional physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors.” It added thousands of Border Patrol personnel, mandated the acquisition of new technologies, and resulted in the construction of more than 650 miles of physical barrier along the southern border of the U.S. between 2006 and 2011.
To repeat, this legislation was passed in a bipartisan spirit, with 80 members of the U.S. Senate voting to approve it. This included Senator Barack Obama, who said in 2005: “We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked, and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently, and lawfully to become immigrants in this country.” It included Senator Chuck Schumer, who said in 2009: “Illegal immigration is wrong, plain and simple. . . . People who enter the United States without permission are illegal aliens and illegal aliens should not be treated the same as people who enter the U.S. legally.” And it included Senator Joe Biden, who said in 2006: “Let me tell you something, folks, people are driving across that border with tons, tons—hear me, tons—of everything from byproducts from methamphetamine to cocaine to heroin, and it’s all coming up through corrupt Mexico.”
Some attribute the breakdown of the bipartisan consensus on securing the border to the fact that Democrats came to look on illegal immigrants as much-needed Democrat voters. For whatever reason, a decade later these same Democratic leaders were lambasting President Trump’s border wall policy as “immoral and ineffective,” even “racist,” and fiercely opposing any and every serious proposal aimed at enforcing immigration law.
***
When I say that the Biden administration methodically undid every meaningful border security policy that it inherited, what specifically do I mean? I’ve mentioned the border wall. And it is a demonstrable fact that border walls, placed in strategic locations, act as effective impediments and improve the ability of law enforcement to drive and dictate the behavior of criminal organizations rather than being driven and dictated to themselves. One of the most ridiculous criticisms I’ve heard is that the wall is “a fourteenth century solution for a twenty-first century problem.” The same could be said of the wheel, which also still works pretty well.
In any case, the first bullet point of President Biden’s budget for the Department of Homeland Security this year trumpets the fact that not a cent will go towards the construction of border walls.
Yet despite the amount of intense debate the border wall engendered, it was not the only or even the most important border security measure instituted under the Trump administration. Let me outline two other key game changers.
Prior to Trump’s presidency, a combination of three things had the effect of forcing the Department of Homeland Security to institute a “catch and release” policy for illegal immigrants: the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, which mandated that the U.S. detain all unaccompanied minors from non-contiguous countries (countries other than Mexico and Canada); Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an executive policy adopted in 2012 to allow some of the migrants brought into the country illegally as children to receive a renewable deferred action from deportation; and the Flores Settlement Agreement, a 1997 court decree that was reinterpreted in 2015 to prevent the U.S. from detaining migrant families and unaccompanied minors for more than 20 days. In addition to catch and release, these things combined to bring about a demographic shift in illegal immigration that was immediately exploited by smuggling organizations—a shift from the influx of predominantly single adult males from Mexico to an explosive influx of families and unaccompanied minors from far and wide, and particularly from Central America. By 2016, the message had been sent and received that America’s southern border was wide open.
In response to this, the Trump administration negotiated the Migrant Protection Protocol, a bilateral agreement with Mexico more commonly known as the Remain in Mexico Program. Under this agreement, people illegally entering or being smuggled into the U.S. with a minor would no longer be able to stay simply by asking for asylum. It was chiefly this Remain in Mexico Program that ended catch and release, removing the greatest incentive for people to try to enter the U.S. illegally.
Prior to the full implementation of the Remain in Mexico Program—at the height of the 2019 border crisis when Department of Homeland Security facilities were overwhelmed—the Flores Settlement Agreement had forced Border Patrol to release illegal alien families, often just hours after they were apprehended. In May of that year, Customs and Border Protection were apprehending over 5,000 illegals per day. After full implementation of Remain in Mexico, illegals who applied for asylum were returned to Mexico to await their hearings. This resulted in a dramatic reduction in the flow of illegal immigrants, especially of families and unaccompanied minors. By February 2020, we had seen a 75 percent reduction in families attempting to enter illegally. Many chose to return home—either on their own or with the assistance of the Mexican government—since catch and release was no longer in effect. It was a big victory for the rule of law.
The current out-of-control surge at the border stems chiefly from the fact that the Biden administration acted quickly to halt the Remain in Mexico Program and return to catch and release. In response to a lawsuit brought by the Texas Attorney General, a federal judge has recently ruled that Remain in Mexico must be reinstated, and the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to overturn that ruling. How this will play out remains to be seen.
Another game-changing development under the Trump administration was a series of Asylum Cooperative Agreements made between the U.S. and the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. These Asylum Cooperative Agreements codified accepted international practices governing asylum seekers, which encourage migrants to seek relief from the first safe country able to assist them. Migrants from these countries seeking asylum in the U.S. were traversing thousands of miles, across multiple countries, and our policies were encouraging that. The Agreements not only encouraged migrants to obtain immediate assistance closer to home, they also served as a deterrent to those with fraudulent claims.
Less than three weeks after President Biden took office, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that “in line with the President’s vision” the U.S. had suspended, and was in the process of terminating, the Asylum Cooperative Agreements with Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. In the same announcement, Blinken said that the new U.S. approach to the problem of migration from these countries would be to address the “root causes” of that migration—especially economic underdevelopment and poverty, although, oddly enough, climate change has been mentioned as a root cause as well.
We are hearing more and more subsequently about root causes—especially from Vice President Harris, who President Biden charged with developing a “Root Causes Strategy.” But what we are hearing is bunk. The fact is that when the U.S. opens its borders—which is what it amounts to when we return to a catch and release policy—illegal immigrants flock to the U.S. That’s the root cause of the crisis on our southern border. Compare the numbers in April of last year to those of this April: there was a 900 percent increase in illegal immigration. The economic conditions in Central America didn’t markedly change during that period. The climate didn’t markedly change. Our policies changed! That’s the root cause.
There is a second important point to make in this regard. The basic legal premise of asylum is that the migrant must have a valid claim to be the victim of persecution in his or her home country due to race, religion, nationality, political affiliation, or membership in a protected class. Under current law, a desire to improve one’s economic status is not a valid asylum claim. If it were, the overwhelming majority of people in the world would have a valid claim to seek asylum here. Open borders advocates, including those in the Biden administration who harp on root causes, cultivate the myth that a desire for economic betterment is a valid reason by itself to seek asylum. That would require a radical change in U.S. law that I don’t think the American people would accept.
***
The incoming Biden team received exhaustive briefings on the situation at the border and was warned about the consequences of undoing the security policies they inherited. They were told clearly that Border Patrol stations didn’t have adequate capacity to handle the surge of illegal immigrants that would follow a reversal of policy; they were told clearly that the Department of Health and Human Services did not have the detention capacity to handle it. They were told that smuggling organizations and other criminal groups would exploit a return to catch and release.
Despite this, they rushed to dismantle the entire system. And with the results becoming evident to the public, they resorted to deception. I’ve served in federal law enforcement in various capacities for more than 35 years, under six different administrations. And while I’ve become numb to the spin and misdirection that is commonplace in Washington, I have never seen as blatant a disinformation campaign as this one.
Initially, this campaign involved outright denial: “Our message has been straightforward—the border is closed,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas on March 21, in the midst of a surge across the border of families and unaccompanied minors. There was also deflection: Mayorkas blamed the surge on the Trump administration, which he claimed had “torn down” the “entire [immigration] system” that had been in place. This took a lot of gall, given that the surge was so obviously a direct response to the termination of Trump’s Remain in Mexico Program and Asylum Cooperative Agreements and the revival of catch and release.
We were also treated to a fictitious narrative according to which the surge was the reflection of seasonal trends. A “significant increase” in migration “happens every year” in the winter months, President Biden claimed at his first presidential press conference, since that is when migrants “can travel with the least likelihood of dying on the way.” The problem is that this year’s winter numbers dwarfed those of 2020—not to mention the fact that the surge has continued unabated into the spring and summer. The June apprehension number exceeded 180,000, and in July it exceeded 210,000. Year-to-date apprehensions are over one million, including more than 100,000 unaccompanied minors—a 444 percent year-to-year increase.
At the point when the administration could no longer deny the dangerously overcrowded conditions at Border Patrol facilities, some operating at more than 400 percent capacity, it adopted a shell game strategy, first moving migrants into newly-constructed facilities and then surreptitiously flying families and unaccompanied minors to cities throughout the U.S. The point of this ongoing shell game is not to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into our country, but to improve the political “optics” of the crisis.
***
Make no mistake, criminal organizations—which are adept at exploiting weak and ambiguous U.S. immigration policies—are paying close attention to what’s happening and will adapt their tactics and procedures accordingly. The commonsense reality is that by incentivizing and facilitating illegal immigration, the Biden administration is making it easier for drugs to pour into the U.S., for human trafficking to expand, and for criminal aliens to infiltrate our society. Simply consider that between 40 and 50 percent of Border Patrol and other Customs and Border Protection enforcement resources have been pulled off the front lines to provide humanitarian aid, leaving large areas of the border unmonitored and unsecured.
It is estimated that the number of “got aways”—not the illegal immigrants being relocated around the country, but those who have successfully entered undetected—already surpasses 260,000, more than the population of the city of Arlington, Virginia. And we can safely assume that not all of them are good upstanding people.
In the past decade, the Border Patrol has apprehended tens of thousands of criminal aliens and gang members. It is estimated that just this year, the Border Patrol has apprehended 8,000 criminal aliens—including 46 murderers, 393 sex offenders, and 880 assailants. Over the July 4 weekend, it apprehended several members of MS-13, the most violent transnational gang operating in the U.S. It also recently apprehended two Yemeni nationals who were listed on the U.S. Terrorist Screening Database. In 2020, ICE made more than 100,000 arrests, with 90 percent of those arrested having a criminal conviction or pending criminal charges.
In addition to utilizing illegal immigration as a distraction technique, smuggling organizations often force migrants to carry drugs across the border as a means of payment. And they use their profits from human smuggling activities to finance increasingly more sophisticated drug smuggling techniques that involve tunnels, drones, ultra-light aircraft, and maritime operations. So far this year, Customs and Border Protection assets have participated in the seizure of more than 600,000 pounds of drugs. Fentanyl seizures have skyrocketed in 2021, with more than 6,000 pounds being seized by Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection—a 300 percent increase over this time last year.
Let me end by saying something about what is bureaucratically called the 287(g) program—it is called that because it was established in Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1996. This is the program that makes it possible for local law enforcement to work with ICE in removing illegal criminal aliens. A majority of Americans oppose the idea of so-called sanctuary cities, which are disastrous in terms of public safety. What they might not realize is that every city is now threatened with becoming a sanctuary city. Why? Because the Biden administration has effectively shut down ICE. So today, for instance, a sheriff’s department can arrest a known gang member who is in the U.S. illegally for a non-violent felony such as burglary or drunk driving. But if that sheriff calls ICE, he will be told that is not a priority and that he should release the criminal gang member back into the community.
Thomas Feeley—until recently the director of ICE in New York State—resigned from ICE out of frustration that the Biden administration is, in his words, “doing everything [it] can to cripple [enforcement and removal operations].” In an interview following his resignation, Feeley related an incident where he was told to release an illegal immigrant who was a convicted arsonist. The rationale for releasing the illegal was that he hadn’t been arrested in the past ten years. He hadn’t been arrested, Feeley pointed out, because he had been in prison during that period. But that didn’t matter. He was released into the community anyway.
***
In conclusion, it is simply common sense to view border security as national security. If you make this point today, you risk being called a racist or worse. But it needs to be said over and over until we fight our way back to the point where we have a bipartisan consensus that immigration laws should be enforced. This is not going to be easy. Even as the acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, I had my official government Twitter account blocked prior to the 2020 election for posting a photograph of the border wall and explaining that it is an integral part of effective border security. The powers-that-be eventually reversed this decision, but it is an indication of what the American people—who overwhelmingly support border security—are up against.
What we need is widespread active public involvement. Illegal immigration, border security, the erosion of the rule of law, and the loss of our nation’s sovereignty are interconnected, and should be debated as important issues in local and state politics as well as national. When I was the chief of U.S. Border Patrol in the Obama administration, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson told us that 1,000 illegal immigrants a day is a bad day. Today that number is approaching 7,000, and nothing is being done about it. This can’t be allowed to continue. A country that cannot control its borders is not a country, and I’m sad to say that we are facing that eventuality.
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Due to the popularity of recent emails related to the “mind”, I’ve decided to share something that came through while parenting my children the other day. It really helped them to make sense of how their minds work, and why their minds sometimes seek to complicate things or create challenges for them.
Before we lived under rooftops, in air conditioning (or heat) and with beds to sleep on, we lived outside. Perhaps we found caves for nighttime to keep a bit warmer or safer from wildlife, although we lived outside.
And outside is how we were designed to live. Today’s societal infrastructure has created many luxuries and comforts, although it has also created disease, disorder, and misconduct. Let’s take a closer look… The mind’s primary responsibility when we lived outside was to prioritize survival. In other words, “survival” came down to:
Food & Water
Temperature Regulation (not getting too hot or cold)
Safety (not getting attacked)
And the day was planned out this way. First, you would have woken up and thought about how hungry you were going to be later on. So, you would have formed a plan to hunt or gather food, depending upon where you were and what season it was at the time. Next, you’d make sure you had a safe place to sleep that night and that you wouldn’t get too hot or too cold. Not to mention, the natural discomfort of sleeping outside in fluctuating temperatures, on the ground, etc. would have provoked pain each night until your body adapted and learned to sleep more comfortably. In short, you would be tougher and more resilient to pain as a result of progressive tolerance and natural living. In today’s world, it’s just the opposite, in that we have softened our environments and we are now more sensitive when things feel uncomfortable than we were before. And throughout each day, you would closely be monitoring your environment to see if you were being hunted. You would be prepared to be attacked, have created weapons or some form of defense, and you would have a map of where safe locations might be along the way for familiar paths taken. You would be outside exploring. You would be on an adventure. You would be one with nature, and a part of the life cycle you see in front of you. You wouldn’t feel so disconnected, and you would regularly celebrate feats of nature such as the sunset, sunrise, rain, thunder, lightning, and moon cycles. These characteristics of life would be built in. Now, let’s take a look at modern life:
We set our own schedules by using artificial lights.
We store food in our freezers and refrigerators, so we don’t run out.
We sleep on beds that we constantly want to be even ‘more’ comfortable.
We regulate temperature through thermostats and use artificial air conductors to simulate wind inside of a home through heat, a/c and fans.
We don’t experience much pain, bleed often (especially if male), or have to worry about being attacked.
So, our mind finds other things to worry about. They instead fear safety through relationships, self-sabotage safety through poor self-care, choose foods that make us unhealthy so we have to worry about food again, and they have made our “comfort zones” for temperature closer to 4-5 degrees, instead of 30-40 degrees fluctuation each day. This way, we have temperature to worry about as well. In short, the mind is an expert at finding obstacles and overcoming them, especially related to:
Food & Water
Temperature
Safety
So, whether you live in an environment that is super comfortable or totally uncomfortable, your mind will be tasked with these responsibilities. And when you come to terms with this, you can learn to relieve anxiety by reassuring yourself that you are safe, have enough food, and the temperature will be great for your health.
Then, get outside and let nature do its thing.
Spend as much time outside as possible to relieve any challenges related to anxiety, depression, recurring sadness, mood swings, fear, etc. Nature is incredibly healing — and centering — for the mind. If you’ve really been stuck in a negative thought cycle or pattern of thoughts, consider an adventure. Get your mind to reset by bringing it back to its natural environment: outside. Because outside is where your mind has real work to do. And where it feels most useful and appreciated.
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By Tim Pearce September 22, 2021 | Image Source: Daily Wirehttps://lockerdome.com/lad/14284740949694566?pubid=ld-4107-2654&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Frepublicanupdate.com&rid=&width=730
Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-OH) introduced three articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden on Tuesday citing his handling of Afghanistan, immigration, and the now-defunct federal eviction moratorium.
“I take this seriously. I don’t think it’s haphazard. I’m not trying to get media attention for myself,” Gibbs told The Washington Examiner, which first reported the impeachment push. “He’s done so much damage to this country in less than nine months, which is really scary.”
“He’s not capable of being commander-in-chief, and that’s obvious by the actions since Day One when he took the presidency back in January,” he said. “Maybe something like this makes the White House think twice before they do some of this nonsense.”
Within the past week, the border crisis has received renewed attention as thousands of illegal migrants flooded into the U.S. near the Texas town of Del Rio. Federal agents are holding thousands of migrants in a makeshift pen underneath an overpass with little supplies or shelter, risking a humanitarian crisis. Twenty-six Republican governors co-signed a letter to the White House on Monday calling for Biden to crack down on illegal immigration and end the “national security crisis created by eight months of unenforced borders.”
The eviction moratorium was scrapped in August by the Supreme Court after the Biden administration expanded it in a move the White House had previously claimed was unconstitutional. At the time of the extension, Biden softened his language on the moratorium, claiming he “can’t tell” whether it was constitutional. He said the extension would buy time for another solution to be found.
Biden ordered the U.S. out of Afghanistan at the end of August, leaving potentially hundreds of Americans behind in the terrorist-controlled country. Biden also left potentially tens of thousands of Afghans who had worked with the U.S. military against the Taliban during the United States’ two-decade occupation of the country.
Thirteen U.S. servicemembers died in a terror attack during the chaotic and rushed withdrawal. In carrying out drone strikes against the ISIS-K terror group in response to the attack, the Biden administration bombed an Afghan aid worker, killing him and nine members of his family, including seven children. The Pentagon admitted the mistake last week.
Gibbs acknowledged that the articles of impeachment are unlikely to go anywhere with Democrats in charge of the House.
“Obviously, it’s not going to go anywhere with Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi,” Gibbs told the Examiner. “It shows that there are some Republicans that think that this president needs to be impeached, he needs to be removed from office one way or another.”
“At some point, they’re gonna be held accountable for their actions, and this is kind of putting them on notice,” he said.
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Clarence Thomas issued a warning to Americans about this leftist behavior and what he said may shock you
September 21, 2021
Clarence Thomas is a man of few words.
Lately, when Justice Thomas does choose to speak publicly, his words are that of caution for the American people.
Case in point, Clarence Thomas issued a warning to Americans about this leftist behavior, and what he said may shock you.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas blasted the Left for demanding justices operate like legislators in a speech at the University of Notre Dame.
Thomas also railed against Democrats for threatening to pack the Supreme Court when they didn’t get their way.
“When we begin to venture into the legislative or executive branch lanes, those of us, particularly in the federal judiciary with lifetime appointments, are asking for trouble. The Court was thought to be the least dangerous branch, and we may have become the most dangerous,” Thomas stated.
As Thomas states, the Supreme Court is venturing into dangerous territory when justices begin acting like elected politicians and start making up rights that do not exist in the Constitution.
Thomas, who is currently the most senior member of the Supreme Court, went on to blast Democrats like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who threatens to pack the Court each time she loses.
It’s like a child whining that they’re going to take the ball and go home when they lose at a kickball game.
“It’s not about winning or losing at the Court. It is about the entire country and the idea of this country,” Thomas went on, warning against “destroying our institutions because they don’t give us what we want, when we want it.
Not surprisingly, the Left doesn’t see it the way Thomas does and believes that the Court should be working for them.
Of course, when someone believes the United States Constitution is something they can manipulate in their favor or even just do away with, they will never accept being told no.
As Thomas warned, packing the Court is a dangerous move because the justices are unelected and receive lifetime appointments meaning America would be under the rule of these men and women and whatever law they decided to put in place on any given day.
The Left wants to abuse the Judiciary and make it work to their advantage, just as they do with everything else.
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To the average Penn State student, the fourth of September of 2018 was a day like any other. A Tuesday early in the semester, the weather in State College, Pennsylvania was perfect, and the buzz of a promising football season (coupled with a narrow victory the week before) permeated campus. It was around 2 o’clock in the afternoon when I received a call I had been dreading but, unfortunately, expecting.
My mother had died.
For the past four years, my mother, Cheryl, had battled stage IV metastatic breast cancer. Over the course of her illness, the disease had spread throughout her body, rendering her progressively weaker as time wore on. Always peaceful, those who did not know she was sick would later remark that they had no idea of the extent of her illness. So willing was her embrace of the Cross she was given that the priest who administered Viaticum to her remarked on his way out of the house that he “had never seen a soul so at peace.”
The day I received the phone call, something within me changed. That day, I attended daily Mass on-campus for the first time, beginning a faith journey that has brought me to the farthest corners of the state of Pennsylvania in search of that precious pearl of our forefathers, the Mass of Antiquity. My time in college has been eventful, to say the least; the foundation of the Penn State Latin Mass Society—previously featured on this site—perhaps the defining moment not only for myself, but for the other Catholic students in the Class of 2022 as well. Through these experiences, both in the Newman Club and the Latin Mass Society, I have come to realize the powerful majesty of the ancient liturgy and its ability to captivate those individuals who had, in their earlier experience with the Catholic faith, come to reject the religion outright because of their lackluster experiences with liturgy—a fate that may have befallen me had my mother’s death not brought me back into the fold. I have witnessed the powerful evangelical ability of the unchanging Roman Rite to draw in those souls yearning for their birthright, authentic Catholic liturgy.
It is a sad reality that such a significant number of the hierarchy do not realize the power of the Tridentine Mass. Unfortunately, such is the case in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, where Penn State is located. Previously, Penn State students had access to the Latin Mass at a parish roughly 35 minutes from campus on Saturday mornings and select Holy Days. With the publishing of the facetiously-named Traditionis Custodes, the Bishop of Altoona-Johnstown, Rev. Mark Bartchak, abruptly cancelled this Mass with no reason given. With this was also cancelled the Requiem Mass, long-scheduled for my mother on Saturday the 4th of September, the third anniversary of her death.
There is, in my opinion, no liturgy offered by the Roman Church more profoundly beautiful than the Missa pro Defunctis, the Requiem Mass for the Dead. Rich with symbolism, the prayers of the Requiem are wholly ordered to that most pious custom of Christian charity—praying for the souls of the faithful departed. The entirety of the Mass, so ordered to beg almighty God to have mercy upon the soul deceased, rightly offers us the reminder that we too will one day enter into eternal judgement. The Introit of the Mass is perhaps the most beautiful piece of music the Church has ever given us; in this text, we the living, with the words of eternity, beg pardon at the hands of the most just of Judges. It is, therefore, altogether fitting and proper that those faithful who have died be prayed for with this most potent and beautiful of prayers.
With the news that my mother’s Requiem Mass was to be cancelled, I decided to call the Bishop’s office in Altoona to ask that special permission be given that this Mass be celebrated. To most, it would seem as if the simple request of a grieving son that a Mass be said for his mother would be granted enthusiastically, so I anticipated a short endeavor in which I explained the situation to the Bishop and he granted permission. Unfortunately, what I have since experienced highlights the dire situation of the traditional Catholic in the time of Traditionis Custodes.
When I first called the Bishop’s office on Thursday, August 20th, I left a message with his secretary, who told me she would notify the Bishop of the situation. I then waited until the following Tuesday (the 24th), hearing nothing from the Chancery. When I called again, I left a voicemail, again reiterating the simple request of a son who still mourns the loss of his mother. After yet again receiving no reply, I called on Thursday the 26th and left a voicemail, which again went unreturned. Once more, I called the following day, Friday the 27th of August, this time hearing from the Bishop’s secretary that the Mass was not to happen, and the priest who was to originally celebrate the Mass was to “contact me to find a solution.” With this, I received the news that my mother’s Mass had been cancelled, seemingly in accordance with the recent directives from Rome. Never once has the Bishop contacted me to express this most disappointing fact or to explain his reason for doing so.
Unfortunately, the treatment I have received is not unique in this diocese. Countless other faithful Catholics who attend the only regularly-scheduled Sunday Latin Mass in the diocese have received similar treatment, and the restrictions placed on the Mass of Antiquity are, I believe, some of the most draconian in the United States. While no formal decree has been issued by the Bishop, these restrictions have been corroborated by public pronouncements from the parish pulpit and the shared experiences of the faithful. In the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, no sacraments, other than the celebration of the Mass, are to be celebrated using the Old Rite. This includes weddings and baptisms, but also funeral Masses—were I to die in this diocese, I would likely not be allowed to have my own Requiem Mass. Parents-to-be have been told that, if they want their unborn children baptized in the rite used by their ancestors, they must go to the neighboring Diocese of Harrisburg or Pittsburgh to do so. Further, banned is the participation of other clerics in the celebration of the Usus Antiquior—permission must be given for any priest, deacon, or seminarian other than the prescribed celebrant to serve as deacon, subdeacon, or to even sit in choir. Holy Day Masses are also cancelled, forcing the faithful to seek shelter yet again in a neighboring diocese should they wish to attend the Old Mass on days of obligation. Together, these restrictions represent a crushing blow to the faithful of Altoona-Johnstown who so ardently wish to worship in the manner of their forefathers.
In conclusion, while my mother may not receive her scheduled Requiem Mass, I trust in the charity of the readers of this site to offer many prayers for the repose of her soul. I ask that those who may read this pray especially for Bishop Bartchak, the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, and Catholic Campus Ministry at Penn State. Though she may not receive chanted for her the beautiful words of the Requiem, I may only hope that the vision alluded to by the In Paradisum, sung as the body of the deceased is taken from the church to the cemetery, may ring true for my mother.
May the angels lead thee into Paradise; at thy coming may the martyrs receive thee, and bring thee into the holy city, Jerusalem. May the choir of angels receive thee, and with Lazarus, once a beggar, mayest thou have eternal rest.
Victor Fuentes is a senior in Penn State’s Schreyer Honors College majoring in political science and philosophy. He is the president of the Penn State Latin Mass Society and a parishioner of St. Rita parish in Alexandria, Virginia.
Texas Rejects Biden’s Sexual Politics September 21, 2021 Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the Biden administration’s latest example of sexual politics: On September 20, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration in an attempt to stop a June 15 guidance, or legal notice, by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on the rights of transgender persons. The EEOC says it is authorized to make a wide-ranging decision on the rights of transgender persons, leaning on the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County for legitimacy. Texas disagrees saying that the EEOC is guilty of overreach, assuming powers it was never granted by this high court ruling. According to the EEOC, relying on Bostock, it is empowered to force employers to allow biological persons to dress as a member of the opposite sex. However, as the Texas brief points out, there are state agencies that have a dress code, and if an employee were to dress as a member of the opposite sex, it would violate its standards. Texas also objects to the EEOC directive that says employers must respect the right of biological persons to use the bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers of the opposite sex, meaning that males could use the facilities reserved for women. The EEOC also seeks to force employers and employees to call persons of the opposite sex by the pronouns of their choice, so that it would be a violation not to call a woman who identifies as a man “he/him,” or even “they/them,” despite the fact that such nomenclature is biologically and grammatically illiterate. Texas not only refuses to discipline workers for these alleged infractions, it insists that the guidance violates the free speech rights of employees. Does Bostock give the EEOC the powers it claims it has? No one disagrees that Bostock concluded that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination on the basis of race and sex, applies to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. This clearly means that no one can be fired from the workplace for simply being a homosexual or a transgender person. But what about dress codes, males showering with females, and transgender speech codes? They are not even hinted at in Title VII. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the majority decision in Bostock, anticipated the first two concerns, and sought to alleviate fears that they could be justified on the basis of this ruling. “The employers worry that our decision will sweep beyond Title VII to other federal or state laws that prohibit sex discrimination. And, under Title VII itself, they say sex-segregated bathrooms, locker rooms, and dress codes will prove unsustainable after our decision today. But none of these other laws are before us; we have not had the benefit of adversarial testing about the meaning of their terms, and we do not prejudge any such questions today. Under Title VII, too, we do not purport to address bathrooms, locker rooms, or anything else of the kind.” In other words, the EEOC is deliberately ignoring the plain language of Bostock by granting itself the authority that is nowhere sanctioned in this Supreme Court ruling. As for forcing employees to yield their First Amendment right to free speech, the word “pronouns” is nowhere mentioned by Gorsuch; he is agnostic on this issue. The Texas lawsuit also contends that the Fourteenth Amendment does not permit the federal government to “substantively redefine a State’s constitutional obligations.” It argues that this is exactly what the EEOC power grab does. Very few Americans want to see people discriminated against on the basis of any conventional demographic characteristic, but when it comes to matters involving privacy and modesty—to say nothing of looming sexual assault issues—that is a different story. Moreover, telling people what linguistic terms they must use in addressing coworkers is draconian. The contempt that President Biden has for respecting elemental standards of decency, as well as his dismissal of our First Amendment right to free speech, did not begin with his administration’s twisted interpretation of Bostock. It began on his first day in office. On January 20, 2021, our “devout Catholic” president signed an executive order saying that biological persons can use the bathroom and locker room of their choice. On the same day, the White House website was updated to allow visitors to use whatever pronouns they want, thus setting the table for transgender-pronoun mandates in the workplace. Never before has there been a presidential administration so determined to promote sexual engineering, complete with a wholesale disregard for freedom of speech. It is becoming increasingly clear that Biden is an abolitionist of the worst kind: he is bent on abolishing the nature-based differences between men and women. Moreover, he will punish those who do not adopt his sexually correct lexicon. At a minimum, we need to know more about who is advising him on these issues. This is especially urgent given that it is becoming more obvious by the day that he is not in full command of his faculties.
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Onward I received literally dozens and dozens of emails last night and this morning from people who tried to view the Viganò Tape #10, and found that it has been taken down by YouTube. In order not to receive a “Strike #2” from YouTube, we ourselves last evening decided to make Viganò Tape #9 “private,” because with two strikes, and then a possible sudden third strike — if I understand the situation correctly (and my understanding may be faulty!) — we would be banned permanently from YouTube, and all of the tapes would have to be taken down, and all of the recent rapid growth of our channel would be lost. So the news is that we have decided to continue onward by posting material on other, freer, sites, like Rumble (which costs $99 per month, while YouTube is free), Gab, Odisee (link), and others. We will send you precise links soon. *** But it seems — seems — that even these sites can potentially, and sometimes do, censor information. Therefore, we are also of the mind to construct an entirely free spaceon the internet, where we will continue to post The Viganò Tapes. Of course, ultimately, without one’s own rocket-launched satellites, sponsored by one’s own government or state, it does not seem possible to fully maintain the freedom of any portion of the internet, because even temporary areas of freedom could be closed down. So… this suggests the need to maintain these email letters, and then also our print magazine, Inside the Vatican, and person to person conversation (what a novel idea!), as well as developing a modest, free space on the global internet. *** With regard to “violating community standards” with regard to health information, or “health misinformation,” I do — of course — think it wrong and dangerous to promote medical misinformation which could directly harm the health of people. But what is the greater danger? Allowing questions to be raised about possible dangers of side-effects, or imposing a total global “blackout” on the raising of such potentially important concerns? It seems clear to me, based on watching the ordinary procedures developed over decades for the testing of health procedures, including vaccines, that a series of steps, a series of tests, were in the past always insisted upon, to avoid something unexpected and dangerous from happening. And it seems clear that this entire process was “fast-tracked” in recent months; one might even say, “super fast-tracked.” Is it not true that many doctors and scientists, in many areas, are still researching and attempting to come to a reasoned conclusion about the effectiveness, and potential side-effects, of various medical treatments, including the various vaccines — and there are now more than 20 “vaccines” on offer throughout the world? (One preliminary question: are all the vaccines equal? If I must give one to my son or daughter, can anyone tell me which of the 20+ is the best among them, and choose that one? I do not think anyone has given us such a graded evaluation of the treatments. Am I wrong? Does everyone want to just guess?) While this research is still continuing, it seems to me essential, especially for our children, that we maintain freedom of thought and research, in order to ensure, as much as possible, that our children do not suffer unexpected side-effects from any medical procedures, or environmental pollutions, or food additives, or drugs prescribed for various painful conditions. I therefore conceive of my position as one of true love and care for our children and grandchildren, a care that makes me willing to face ridicule and de-platforming, because it is what I conceive to be, to quote Pope Francis, an “act of love” to try to get to the truth on these matters. Am I wrong? *** I just received this email: Dear Doctor Robert, I believe No 9# is unavailable also. I was able to hear no 10#, almost immediately, and then it disappeared. Then I looked & only 1 to 5 were available. Then later I found 7#, and now 6, 7, and 8 are listed. For how long? I am not surprised. Thank you and Archbishop Viganò for these — from the bottom of my heart. Bitchute and Brighteon are good platforms. We need to build our community & these tapes will draw us together. That’s what they wish to stop. But the long isolation and loneliness I find myself in, is eroding my spirit. Although it will never rob me of my faith, which I will die for, I do feel daunted by the tribulations, now and to come. Ruth Rose *** I replied to Ruth Rose: I appreciate your email to me very much, and send my encouragement — and wish to tell you this to encourage you: Do not allow your emotions to shake you. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said she felt emotions of abandonment, of blackness, of a dark night… The deepest truth is not emotional, it is faith based on assent of the will to reliable testimony, both of others, starting with parents and friends, and priests and evangelists, and confirmed by one’s own soul. So, do not be moved by emotions of isolation and loneliness… Do not allow such emotions to erode your spirit! By an act of will, recall that the victory has been won, recognize that we all face these difficulties, but all of us can be comforted by the “Good News” that Christ is truly Risen, conquering sin and death, and isolation and loneliness, and recall that the human person is capable of love and humility, and that the world, though under the sway of powerful forces, powers and principalities who foment and promote thoughts of isolation and loneliness and despair, is under the final authority of God, and that we are aided by recourse in prayer to Mary, the Mother of God. This physical world of air, and water, and sky, and trees, and the heavens above, is our temporary home. We are pilgrims on the way to our eternal home. The way has been taken by Christ, and by the Apostles, and by many witnesses. We can take this way, and continue to the end. God bless you, and keep you, and may His light shine upon you. Robert
Last week, law professor Aaron Tang posted a long article titled “The Originalist Case for an Abortion Middle Ground.” In that article, Tang disputes the proposition that, “at the time of the Fourteenth Amendment’s enactment, 27 of the 37 states in the union prohibited abortion at all points in pregnancy.” The actual number, he argues, was 15.Tang somehow imagines that his argument, if it were correct, would undermine the predominant originalist position against a constitutional right to abortion. But he badly misunderstands that position.To state the matter most simply, the originalist proposition that the states have the authority to prohibit elective abortion does not depend at all on whether 27 or 17 or seven states prohibited abortion from conception at the time the 14th Amendment was enacted. Under standard originalist methodology, any of those counts would place on proponents of a constitutional right to abortion a very high burden of demonstrating that the original public meaning of the 14th Amendment somehow disallowed those state laws. To be sure, the higher the number, the more patently ridiculous the originalist argument for a right to abortion is. But Tang is simply wrong to posit that the originalist argument against a right to abortion depends on what he calls the “27-states claim.”When a state chooses to allow an action, it does not ordinarily imply that it lacks the power to prohibit the action. By contrast, when it chooses to bar an action, it ordinarily conveys its belief that it has the power to do so.In other words, even if Tang were right that, at the time the 14th Amendment was ratified, there were 22 states in which “pregnant persons [sic] were free to obtain an abortion at any time before quickening,” he’s utterly wrong to think that that datum ought to lead originalists to conclude that the 14th Amendment protects a constitutional right to abortion before quickening. If, by his count, 15 states then had laws that barred abortion “at all points in pregnancy,” that establishes a very strong presumption that the 14th Amendment allowed such laws.What’s more, if the 14th Amendment somehow protected a constitutional right to abortion before quickening, you’d expect that the states that had pre-quickening bans would, immediately after ratification, eliminate those bans. Instead, the trend was in the opposite direction: States that had in place the common-law ban on abortion post-quickening enacted statutes that barred abortion from conception.In any event, it appears that Tang has gotten his history badly wrong. In a “preliminary rejoinder,” law professors John Finnis and Robert P. George offer what appears to be a devastating demolition of Tang’s claims. Working their way alphabetically through the states in which Tang says that there is “clear [and] specific historical evidence” that the states did not forbid pre-quickening abortion, they rebut Tang’s claims and identify one gross misrepresentation after another. Their bottom line:To our surprise, Tang’s essay sadly outdoes the articles of Cyril Means on which Roe relied. Just as partisan, the new essay is conceptually even more confused and historically even more error-strewn, at all levels of generality, from big picture to granular case law.(Finnis and George, I’ll note, argue not merely that the 14th Amendment allows states to prohibit elective abortion from conception but that it compels states to do so.)
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This is a story about the origins of the “synod on synodality.”https://26d47454280e3321d6d451b02899f32a.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
It is a story about dreams—and déjà vu.
All his life, Carlo Maria Martini (pictured above left) was a dreamer. In the Italian documentary Vedete, Sono Uno di Voi, we hear Martini’s conviction that only dreams make reality bearable.
As a boy, Martini’s dream had been to throw himself into studying the Holy Bible. He grew up to be a respected Biblical scholar—until Pope John Paul II plucked the shy Jesuit from his books to become the new Archbishop of Milan.
That’s when the other dream gripped him.
In 1981—says biographer Marco Garzonio—Martini “began to speak of a ‘synodal Church,’” categorizing this goal as a “dream.” According to Garzonio, this was a “dream” because “as a realistic person, as well as a prudent Jesuit, he had understood that his arguments did not constitute material welcome to the leadership.”
“He presented his ideas as a goal that was perhaps a long way away, but he was not silent,” says Garzonio.
This tension between dreams and reality gnawed at Martini—and by 1999, he could no longer wait.
For Martini—the bookish Biblical scholar—had a secret. Since the mid-1990s, he had been leading the St. Gallen mafia. It was a clandestine group of high-ranking churchmen opposed to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. These men favored decentralizing and revolutionizing the Church—and, it is said, they at first wanted Martini to be pope.
At the mafia’s January 1999 meeting (according to the authorized biography of member Godfried Danneels), Martini shared the latest permutation of his dream. He said he wanted a new council.
A new council. It was the deepest dream of a man who would one day tell Aldo Maria Valli that the time of Vatican II had been the greatest period of his life (Valli, Storia di un Uomo: Ritratto di Carlo Maria Martini).
Later that year, at a synod on Europe, Martini stood up and shared a version of this “dream.” Invoking Vatican II’s memory, he spoke of a future “collegial and authoritative consultation among all the bishops.” Then he listed the “key issues” to address collegially, from “sexuality” to the “deficit… of ordained ministers.”
“Though Martini never used the words ‘a new council,’ the Italian press wasted little time reporting his comments that way,” says vaticanista John Allen, Jr. “Others, however, say Martini was talking about a new instrument between a synod and a council.”
Yet according to Garzonio, there was an edge of “bitterness and disappointment” in Martini’s voice. For as the new millennium approached, his dream remained elusive, unrealized.
Time passed. Martini revealed he was ill with Parkinson’s and retired to Jerusalem in 2002; Ratzinger was elected as Pope Benedict XVI in 2005; the St. Gallen mafia allegedly broke up around 2006; Martini died in 2012.
That’s when the déjà vu began.
***
“When Cardinal Martini talked about focusing on the councils and synods he knew how long and difficult it would be to go in that direction. Gently, but firmly and tenaciously.”
It was October 2013, and a new pope, Francis, was telling journalist Eugenio Scalfari of his plans to copy Martini’s focus on “councils and synods.” Soon, Pope Francis announced a synod on the family—and tapped St. Gallen alumnus Cardinal Walter Kasper to deliver an agenda-setting address at a key consistory. The subject of Kasper’s crusade was Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried, which Ratzinger had formally condemned through the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1994.
The eerie part was that in 2009 Martini had himself told Scalfari that his dream was to hold, first of all, a council on the divorced (Scalfari, Il Dio Unico e la SocietàModerna, p. 21). The opening synodal maneuver of the Francis pontificate had been presaged, years in advance, by another Scalfari interview.
In 2015, vaticanista Sandro Magister began decoding Martini’s 1999 “dream” speech as a blueprint for the Francis pontificate. Spotting the uncanny symmetry between Martini’s old wish list and Francis’s synods, Magister accurately predicted that the next synod after the family synods would address the ordination of married men.
Meanwhile, in 2016, vaticanista Edward Pentin—author of a key book on the rigging of Pope Francis’s first synod—published a report highlighting concerns about synodality’s subversive potential. As Pentin put it:
[S]ome are concerned that [synodality] is essentially ‘protestantizing’ the Church, turning it into a quasi-democratic republic rather than a papal monarchy that safeguards and defends Church doctrine.
One Church observer, an expert in ecclesiology… believes synodality as it is currently being discussed has Trotzkyist connotations (‘permanent synodality’ being synonymous with ‘permanent revolution’).
The current emphasis on synodality partly derives from the aspirations of the late Jesuit Cardinal Carlo Martini who hoped for ‘a sort of permanent council of regents for the Church, beside the Pope.’ He was one of the first to propose the model of a ‘synodal’ Church in which the Pope no longer governs as an absolute monarch.
Which means that the upcoming “synod on synodality” isn’t just a self-referential bureaucratic exercise.
“Given the tensions and acrimony associated with recent synods, and especially the national ‘Synodal Path’ underway in Germany, which critics say could lead the country’s Church into schism, apprehension is growing about the disunifying effects of this kind of governance and its tendency to be used to introduce heterodoxy into the Church,” Pentin notes.
The official preparatory document of the synod on synodality does little to soothe these fears. Mentioning some version of the terms “synod,” “synodal,” or “synodality” over sixty-five times, the document seems fixated on the very concept that Martini wanted to weaponize. The accompanying Vademecum text, notably, alludes to the controversial “synodal journey” in Germany. But it does not condemn this potentially schismatic energy; rather, it urges the country to “creatively articulate the synodal processes already underway.”
When the preparatory document, meanwhile, goes on to suggest “remaining open to the surprises that the Spirit will certainly prepare for us,” the déjà vu is undeniable: in Night Conversations,Martini had already talked of being “open to the surprises of the Holy Spirit.”
Because, almost a decade after his death, Martini still won’t let go. The synod on synodality will be yet another battle to escape the hold of a dream that refuses to die. With a synod about the very weapon of the St. Gallen mafia—a synod apparently approving the German path to schism—this could be the end game: Martini’s dream come true.
Julia Meloni is the author of The St. Gallen Mafia (TAN, 2021). She writes from the Pacific Northwest. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Yale and a master’s degree in English from Harvard.
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Mark Morgan is a visiting fellow at the Federation for American Immigration Reform and at the Heritage Foundation. He served as acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Trump administration and as chief of U.S. Border Patrol in the Obama administration. A Marine veteran and a former officer in the LAPD, he served for over 20 years in the FBI, including as the assistant section chief of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime Branch; deputy on-scene commander in Baghdad, Iraq; special agent in charge of the El Paso Division; and assistant director in charge of the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. He has a B.S. in engineering from Central Missouri State University and a J.D. from the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT / DEEP CALLS TO DEEP 
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