“Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20)
25. Jesus’ conversation with the rich young man continues, in a sense, in every period of history, including our own. The question: “Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?” arises in the heart of every individual, and it is Christ alone who is capable of giving the full and definitive answer. The Teacher who expounds God’s commandments, who invites others to follow him and gives the grace for a new life, is always present and at work in our midst, as he himself promised: “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20). Christ’s relevance for people of all times is shown forth in his body, which is the Church. For this reason the Lord promised his disciples the Holy Spirit, who would “bring to their remembrance” and teach them to understand his commandments (cf. Jn 14:26), and who would be the principle and constant source of a new life in the world (cf. Jn 3:5-8; Rom 8:1-13).
The moral prescriptions which God imparted in the Old Covenant, and which attained their perfection in the New and Eternal Covenant in the very person of the Son of God made man, must be faithfully kept and continually put into practice in the various different cultures throughout the course of history. The task of interpreting these prescriptions was entrusted by Jesus to the Apostles and to their successors, with the special assistance of the Spirit of truth: “He who hears you hears me” (Lk 10:16). By the light and the strength of this Spirit the Apostles carried out their mission of preaching the Gospel and of pointing out the “way” of the Lord (cf. Acts 18:25), teaching above all how to follow and imitate Christ: “For to me to live is Christ” (Phil 1:21).
26. In the moral catechesis of the Apostles, besides exhortations and directions connected to specific historical and cultural situations, we find an ethical teaching with precise rules of behaviour. This is seen in their Letters, which contain the interpretation, made under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, of the Lord’s precepts as they are to be lived in different cultural circumstances (cf. Rom 12-15; 1 Cor 11-14; Gal 5-6; Eph 4-6; Col 3-4; 1 Pt and Jas). From the Church’s beginnings, the Apostles, by virtue of their pastoral responsibility to preach the Gospel, were vigilant over the right conduct of Christians,35 just as they were vigilant for the purity of the faith and the handing down of the divine gifts in the sacraments.36 The first Christians, coming both from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, differed from the pagans not only in their faith and their liturgy but also in the witness of their moral conduct, which was inspired by the New Law.37 The Church is in fact a communion both of faith and of life; her rule of life is “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6).
No damage must be done to the harmony between faith and life: the unity of the Church is damaged not only by Christians who reject or distort the truths of faith but also by those who disregard the moral obligations to which they are called by the Gospel (cf. 1 Cor 5:9-13). The Apostles decisively rejected any separation between the commitment of the heart and the actions which express or prove it (cf. 1 Jn 2:3-6). And ever since Apostolic times the Church’s Pastors have unambiguously condemned the behaviour of those who fostered division by their teaching or by their actions.38
27. Within the unity of the Church, promoting and preserving the faith and the moral life is the task entrusted by Jesus to the Apostles (cf. Mt 28:19-20), a task which continues in the ministry of their successors. This is apparent from the living Tradition, whereby — as the Second Vatican Council teaches — “the Church, in her teaching, life and worship, perpetuates and hands on to every generation all that she is and all that she believes. This Tradition which comes from the Apostles, progresses in the Church under the assistance of the Holy Spirit”.39 In the Holy Spirit, the Church receives and hands down the Scripture as the witness to the “great things” which God has done in history (cf. Lk 1:49); she professes by the lips of her Fathers and Doctors the truth of the Word made flesh, puts his precepts and love into practice in the lives of her Saints and in the sacrifice of her Martyrs, and celebrates her hope in him in the Liturgy. By this same Tradition Christians receive “the living voice of the Gospel”,40 as the faithful expression of God’s wisdom and will.
Within Tradition, the authentic interpretation of the Lord’s law develops, with the help of the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit who is at the origin of the Revelation of Jesus’ commandments and teachings guarantees that they will be reverently preserved, faithfully expounded and correctly applied in different times and places. This constant “putting into practice” of the commandments is the sign and fruit of a deeper insight into Revelation and of an understanding in the light of faith of new historical and cultural situations. Nevertheless, it can only confirm the permanent validity of Revelation and follow in the line of the interpretation given to it by the great Tradition of the Church’s teaching and life, as witnessed by the teaching of the Fathers, the lives of the Saints, the Church’s Liturgy and the teaching of the Magisterium.
In particular, as the Council affirms, “the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether in its written form or in that of Tradition, has been entrusted only to those charged with the Church’s living Magisterium, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ“.41 The Church, in her life and teaching, is thus revealed as “the pillar and bulwark of the truth” ( 1 Tim3:15), including the truth regarding moral action. Indeed, “the Church has the right always and everywhere to proclaim moral principles, even in respect of the social order, and to make judgments about any human matter in so far as this is required by fundamental human rights or the salvation of souls”.42
Precisely on the questions frequently debated in moral theology today and with regard to which new tendencies and theories have developed, the Magisterium, in fidelity to Jesus Christ and in continuity with the Church’s tradition, senses more urgently the duty to offer its own discernment and teaching, in order to help man in his journey towards truth and freedom.
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“Serious question: Is the Pope Catholic? Or is he [a] Marxist Impostor pushing the Woke Agenda of the Globalist Elite, and Selling Out Chinese Catholic[s] to the CCP?”
We have come to the point that even simple people with little knowledge of doctrinal issues understand that we have a non- Catholic pope. – Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
Yesterday, the political website, Tiger Droppings, reported that “Warroom guest, Liz Yore, basically said this pope is a Marxist impostor”:Is the pope Catholic? This was discussed on Bannon’s Warroom… linking a statement by Archbishop Vigano (12pg pdf) Archbishop Vigano’s response to Pope Francis on restricting the Latin Mass where Vigano says… We have come to the point that even simple people with little knowledge of doctrinal issues understand that we have a non- Catholic pope…
… Warroom guest, Liz Yore, basically said this pope is a Marxist impostor.
Is there evidence that Francis is a Marxist impostor?
Francis’s book “Dialogos entre Juan Pablo II Y Fidel Castro” presents evidence that he is pro-Communist “Revolution,” anti-Capitalism and by inference Anti-American because the United States is the driving force behind the global free market system.
He wrote on page 23 that there apparently could be a “convergence” of “premises” between Communism and Catholicism:
“Fidel Castro offered a… convergence or points of connection between Catholicism and the premises (los postulados) of the [Cuban Communist] Revolution.”
However, later in the his book he states there cannot be a convergence of premises between Capitalism and Catholicism:
You cannot hold the premises (los postulados) of “neoliberalismo” (Capitalism) and be considered a Christian. The failures of Marxism and Collectivism don’t authorize the Capitalist system (al sistema capitalista)… we find in “neoliberalismo” (Capitalism) the opposite of the Gospel… because it empties man of the economic progressivism or economic progress (los progresos economicos).” (Dialogos entre Juan Pablo II Y Fidel Castro, By Jorge Bergoglio, Copyright – Ciudad Argentina, Pages 48-49, Translation by Fred Martinez with the help of a Spanish to English dictionary)
In 2015, the Muslim global news source Al Jazeera in a article asked:
“Is Pope Francis some kind of Communist? Is he anti-American? Why is he so down on the wealth-creating engine that is global capitalism?”
The global news source answered those questions by saying “he [Francis] adhered to a diluted Argentine version of [Marxist] liberation theology.”
Al Jazeera actually quoted from Francis’s book without giving a source which is given above with my translation. It’s translation is:
“No one can accept the precepts of neoliberalism and consider themselves Christian.”
It appears that for Francis “neoliberalism” is a Marxist-like synonym for global Capitalism.
The global news source reported that Francis was anti-Capitalist and apparently anti-American since the driving force of global Capitalism is the United States.
Al Jazeera disclosed that in a disquieting screech, he reviled capitalism for “death and destruction” and having the “stench of the dung of the devil”:
“During a trip to [Leftist Socialist] Bolivia this summer, Francis delivered his most ferocious denunciation to date. Behind all the ‘pain, death and destruction’ wrought by unrestrained global capitalism, there lurks ‘the stench of the dung of the devil,’ he told a gathering of activists. ‘We want change, real change, structural change. This system is now intolerable.'” (Aljazeera, “Liberation theology, once reviled by church, now embraced by pope,” September 22, 2015)
Are the unsound mental workings of Francis’s apparently unbalanced mind telling him that it was not the Russian Communists and the Chinese Maoist Communists (who are still in power) that committed the holocaust of tens of millions of human “death[s] and destruction” in historical concrete reality, but instead the Communist “holocaust” was committed by global Capitalism in the imagination of the seemingly crazy brain of Francis?
Does this craziness for “real change” to end “intolerable” American global Capitalism bring about Marx-like Francis allowing without protest:
– the Communist Chinese regime to systematically attack the human rights of the Chinese Catholic underground Church, all the Christian denominations in China and even the Chinese Muslims?
– the human rights violations and starvation of the citizens of Venezuela by the Chinese Communist supported Venezuelan Leftist totalitarian regime?
And here is more evidence that Francis may be a Marxist Impostor:
Jose Azel, a senior scholar at the University of Miami, in the respected international relations quarterly journal World Affairs wrote a review of a book by Pope Francis, which he wrote in 1998 while he was still the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires, which apparently Francis and Vatican don’t want publicized or read:
There are usually only available a few copies of Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s [Francis’s] book “Dialogos Entre Juan Pablo y Fidel Castro [Dialogue between John Paul II and Fidel Castro]” and when they are available on Amazon it can be selling for a pretty penny.
The Spanish speaking Azel in his review of the book reported “[i]n my reading of the pope’s complex Spanish prose…”:
– “he favors socialism over capitalism provided it incorporates theism…”
– “He does not take issue with Fidel Castro’s claim that ‘Karl Marx’s doctrine is very close to the Sermon on the Mount’… “
– “… and views the Cuban polity [form of government] as in harmony with the Church’s social doctrine…”
– “… Francis leaves no doubt that he sympathizes with the Cuban dictatorship…”
– “… and that he is not a fan of liberal democracy or markets…”
– “… He clearly believes in a very large, authoritarian role for the state in social and economic affairs…”
– “… his language in the prologue is reminiscent of the ‘liberation theology’… very intertwined [with] Marxist ideology. Fathered by Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutierrez, the movement provided the intellectual foundations that, with Cuban support, served to orchestrate’ wars of national liberation’ throughout the continent. It’s iconography portrayed Jesus as a guerrilla an AK-47 slung over his shoulder…”
– “… Francis speaks of a ‘shared solidarity’… that solidarity appears to be with the undemocratic, illegitimate authority in Cuba and not with the people…”
– “… Cubans will remember that this pope had a choice between freedom and authoritarianism.” ( World Affairs, “Whose Pope? Francis and Cuba,” Fall 2015)
The University of Miami senior scholar Azel in his own translation of Francis’s book quotes him, Marxist-like, saying:
“[N]eoliberal capitalism is a model that subordinates human beings and conditions development to pure market forces… thus humanity attends a cruel spectacle that crystallizes the enrichment of the few at the expense of the impoverishment of the many.”
Is this the reason why among legitimate world leaders, that is leaders who are not Islamists (Iran’s leadership), ex-Communists (the Russian leadership) and Communists (the Cuban and Chinese totalitarian leadership) and only the Socialist Democratic presidential Marxist-like candidate Bernie Sanders as well as Francis refuse to condemn the Venezuelan Nicolas Maduro’s Socialist dictatorship and back Venezuelan assembly leader, Juan Guaido, as the country’s interim president? (Politico, “‘He is not going to be the nominee’s: Dems slam Sanders over Maduro stance,” February 21, 2019)
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.
“We were on our way to the mountain. We had been told in the preceding days that we would bear witness to the Kingdom of God. But we did not understand at the time that the Kingdom of God comes not until the intersection of heaven with earth is complete, and His will is done on earth as it is in heaven. Therefore, we were on our way to the mountain, not understanding at the time why, as we walked, earth fell from our feet, and heaven entered our hearts.
On the mountain, the veil was pulled back, and we saw as we are seen, with nothing to obscure our sight. And the glory of the Lord was overpowering to our earthly eyes, and therefore demanded that we gaze upon Him with eyes that were transformed by His presence. Moses and Elijah were with Him, and we were shown clearly the intersection of earth with heaven as it would be when completed, and therefore we bore witness at that moment to the kingdom of God. We were also shown that Christ transforms that which He shines upon, and thus we see Christ transfigured when we are transformed by Him. Christ spoke with Moses and Elijah about His Passion which, when accomplished, would complete the intersection between heaven and earth.
For Moses brought the Israelites to the Promised Land, but he was not allowed to enter, for in order to complete the journey and enter into the Passion of Christ in which all is transformed, it is necessary to understand that the true exodus is not from Egypt but from the world which represents sin and death. Elijah lived in the Promised Land, but the rain was scarce and the harvest few and soon again were the people exiled, for in order to remain in the Promised Land and to avoid exile, it is necessary to understand that we are called to be separate from the world while in the world until we have entered fully into the Passion of Christ and have left the world behind.
Peter asked to build sukkah upon the mountain as is done in the Feast of Tabernacles for he wished to preserve that connection between heaven and earth. Building sukkah was done to celebrate Israel being set free from bondage and the fulfillment of God’s promise. But the time had not yet come, for His will being done on earth as it is in heaven had not yet come about.
Moses and Elijah were then taken from sight, and we saw only Christ before us in His glory for as of yet the intersection had not been completed. We asked Him why it had been told that Elijah was to come first, and He explained to us that he was the forerunner, that he was earth extending its hand to heaven, and that then Christ had come to extend His hand to earth, so that the intersection might be made complete. And through the Passion of Christ would men be transformed if they would enter into the Passion and suffer with Him until completion so that they might be redeemed.
Now in your time is also the Passion of the Church as she enters into the Passion of her Groom. Now must all men turn their backs to the world and turn their faces to the mountain where they shall encounter the glory of the Risen Christ. You may say, as Peter, “Lord, it is good for us to be here, let us build sukkah.” Living in sukkah is good for it is living as though the intersection has been completed and heaven and earth are now merged. It is living as though what is hoped for has now occurred. It is living as though to claim, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
But Christ will say to His bride, “Live in sukkah, but the time for building has not come about. For first you must enter into My passion completely, and when I have cleaned and transformed My Church so that she is worthy of her Groom, then will you build sukkah to celebrate your redemption, and we shall dwell together.”
LifeSite hosted a townhall conference with The Truth For Health Foundation, “Stop the Shot… The Rest of the Story.” This online meeting will feature Dr. Peter McCullough, Attorney Thomas Renz, Dr. Michael Yeadon, Sister Deidre Byrne, Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet, Dr. Jose Trasancos, and other prominent physicians, scientists, attorneys, and religious leaders who will be discussing vital information related to the COVID jab, clinical trials, and more.
Here’s a brief look at what was shared at this online meeting:
Breaking information will be shared by the lead attorney in U.S. suit against the Biden regime’s HHS regarding VAERS, adverse events, under-reporting deaths, and injuries. This presentation will also include an update on the CDC Whistleblower affidavit, which indicates more than 45,000 actual deaths have taken place following the COVID shot, versus the VAERS reports of only 11,000.
Previously undisclosed data from both Pharma-clinical trials and subsequent additional studies on the COVID jab related to specific, serious, immediate, and long-term impacts on fertility in both men and women.
Updates on international medical studies regarding actual vaccine immunity versus what has been reported to the public by the media.
Breaking information regarding international lawsuits and theological implications related to the latest COVID news around the world.
**In order to have the opportunity to ask questions after the conference, please email Info@TruthforHealth.org to receive the conference call link. We ask that only serious individuals RSVP as space is limited on the post presentation Q&A conference call.
Fast-forward to 1hr30min mark for beginning of livestream in below video:
Learn more about the truth about COVID, the jab, and masks here.
FW: Pfizer document describes vaccine “shedding” from person to personInboxSMattacchione9:13 A Pfizer document describes vaccine “shedding” from person to person by Jon Rappoport (To read about Jon’s mega-collection, The Matrix Revealed, click here.) Pop quiz: During their clinical trial… If Pfizer insists that certain unvaccinated persons who come into contact with a vaccinated person creates a… SAFETY SITUATION that must be reported to Pfizer within 24 hours… Would you say that implies… The transfer of vaccine components from person to person can occur? If you answered YES, you win four tickets to Oobladee, a little-known island nation where vaccines are forbidden and the people naturally remain healthy and live to a ripe old age. Here is a Pfizer document, admitting and warning of person-to-person transfer of dangerous vaccine components: “A PHASE 1/2/3, PLACEBO-CONTROLLED, RANDOMIZED, OBSERVER-BLIND, DOSE-FINDING STUDY TO EVALUATE THE SAFETY, TOLERABILITY, IMMUNOGENICITY, AND EFFICACY OF SARS-COV-2RNA VACCINE CANDIDATES AGAINST COVID-19 IN HEALTHY INDIVIDUALS,” (see page 67). I’m going to take this in small chunks, and translate the fake-speak clinical language as we go along. “Exposure to the study intervention under study during pregnancy or breastfeeding and occupational exposure are reportable to Pfizer Safety within 24 hours of investigator awareness.” The “study intervention” means the RNA COVID shot. That’s what the study is FOR—intervening with a jab. “Hi, I’m your intervener, you’re a volunteer in the clinical trial, and I’m going to hit you in the arm with this needle and inject you.” “Exposure” to the shot doesn’t mean injection. It means somebody who hasn’t been injected gets physically close to somebody who has been injected. Or it could mean an un-injected person touches vaccine-liquid from a vial. And that un-injected somebody would be a woman who is pregnant or breastfeeding. For example, she could be a lab worker, or a person who is giving the shots. If THIS exposure event happens, it’s a safety situation, and it has to be reported within 24 hours. A lab worker who is pregnant or breastfeeding gets physically close to a person who has received the vaccine and BANG, it’s serious, and it has to be reported. Why? Because, obviously, there is a potential danger to the unborn baby. Or the mother, who is already breastfeeding her baby, could pass this danger to the baby through her breast milk. The woman just came physically close to a person who already received the vaccine. That’s all. That’s all that happened. But it’s enough. It means THERE CAN BE A TRANSFER OF VACCINE COMPONENTS FROM PERSON TO PERSON, AND THIS IS NOT GOOD, THIS IS DANGEROUS TO PREGNANT AND BREASTFEEDING MOTHERS AND THEIR BABIES. Here is the next piece of the Pfizer document. It’s crucial: “An EDP [exposure to the vaccine during pregnancy] occurs if a male participant who is receiving or has discontinued study intervention exposes a female partner prior to or around the time of conception.” This is a dangerous situation, too. A man who did get the shot then gets physically close to his female partner, who didn’t get the shot. This doesn’t necessarily mean sex. It means close physical contact. But the warning is obviously all about danger to the woman who is going to conceive a child or has just conceived, and the warning is also about a danger to that child. Some kind of severe injury. Or a miscarriage. Again, the document is obviously referring to the transfer of vaccine components from a vaccinated to unvaccinated person. And then, in the Pfizer document, we find an example of this dangerous, immediately reportable situation: “A female family member or healthcare provider reports that she is pregnant after having been exposed to the study intervention by inhalation or skin contact….” Here, as plain as day, we see two meanings of “come in close contact with.” Inhalation, and skin contact. Do not assume this has to mean physically rubbing up against or breathing in the liquid in the vaccine vial. Go back and read the other quotes I gave you from the Pfizer document. They are clearly talking about something much different. They’re talking about close contact between PEOPLE, one of whom has ALREADY had the shot, and one who hasn’t. They’re talking about vaccine components passing from the inside of one person’s body to another person. Call it shedding, call it transfer, call it transmission, call it whatever you want to. Pfizer was clearly worried about it, because they insisted that any such occurrence had to be reported to company safety personnel. They were aware that damage could be the result. Damage to mothers conceiving, mothers pregnant, mothers who are breastfeeding, and damage to babies. Through person to person passage of components in the vaccine. A person might object, saying, “Well, maybe the pregnant woman had skin contact with someone who was just vaccinated, and the vaccinated person has a small amount of vaccine on his skin, because that tiny amount of liquid somehow escaped from the needle during injection.” That’s highly doubtful. And if you go back and read the Pfizer statement about the man who received the vaccine and then had close contact with his female partner, there is no time line mentioned. A) He received the shot and then b) at some point later, he came into close contact with his female partner. It could be days later, weeks later. There would be no amount of vaccine left on his skin. We ARE talking about the passage of vaccine components from the inside of one person’s body to another person. ~~~ (The link to this article posted on my blog is here.) (Follow me on Gab at @jonrappoport)
‘This is a battle between Our Lord and the devil’: Doctor-nun slams forced vaccines, communism
Sister Deirde Byrne, M.D., a retired U.S. Army officer and graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Medicine, said the push to force everyone to receive abortion-tainted COVID-19 shots ‘has a diabolic flavor to it.’Sr. Deirdre Byrne.PBS NewsHour / YouTube
Thu Aug 5, 2021 – 10:25 am EDT
WASHINGTON D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Religious sister, general surgeon, and U.S. Army veteran Sister Deirde Byrne, M.D. took the nation by storm last year when she appeared at the Republican National Convention in full religious habit to give a stirring pro-life address while wielding her weapon: the rosary.
Now Byrne’s message for America is to pray and remain in a state of grace in the face of experimental COVID-19 vaccine mandates and a government she fears is headed toward communism.
“This battle is not between the right and the left, it’s not between conservatives and liberals or Republicans and Democrats,” the retired Army colonel, who spoke at today’s “Stop the Shot” conference, told LifeSiteNews in an exclusive interview.
She added that “this is a battle between Our Lord and the devil,” and warned that everyone must choose a side.
After having earned her M.D. from Georgetown University and serving as an officer with the U.S. Army Medical Corps, Byrne fulfilled her religious vocation by becoming a sister with the Little Workers of the Sacred Hearts in Washington, D.C.
Sister Byrne holds a board certification in family medicine and general surgery and is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. She currently serves as the medical director of the Little Workers’ Physical Therapy and Eye Clinic and is a volunteer surgeon for the Catholic Charities Medical Clinic in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of D.C.
Byrne, whose military service took her to Korea and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, and who worked as a missionary surgeon in Haiti, Sudan, Kenya, and Iraq, told LifeSite that “common sense” preventive measures and therapeutic drugs can sharply reduce hospitalizations and deaths for patients with COVID-19.
“If we treat them early – early is the ticket – with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine,” Byrne said, “80% of the people will not have to go to the hospital.”
But Byrne lamented that the treatments have been largely ignored in favor of experimental “vaccines” which have become increasingly mandated.
“That’s the shame of it all, that because this is an emergency mandate of vaccination, they’re trying to push it on everybody,” Byrne said, noting that emergency vaccination would only be necessary if there were a lack of effective therapeutics.
“We have therapy, and it’s proven therapy, and the powers-that-be, the government leaders here in the states, are ignoring this data.”
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Byrne said that at the start of the pandemic she became aware that people were being sent home after getting a positive COVID-19 test without being directed to safe and effective drugs to prevent serious illness.
“As things started to unfold people started to reach out to me and tell me they were sick. I said, ‘well, are you on any treatment?’”
When her patients said they were not taking any treatments, Byrne said she “got them started.”
“I just said, ‘let’s get going on this,’” she said. “So we just sort of take the bull by the horns, and if a patient comes in and we have a therapy, we give it to them.”
But Byrne, whose medical clout includes having provided emergency care to war-torn Kurdistan with the Global Surgical and Medical Support Group, a non-profit founded to bring medical care to conflict zones across the world, has not been able to say much about her successes.
Despite her experience with the efficacy of common, safe therapeutics, Byrne told LifeSite that COVID patients treated at her clinic must be assisted “on the side without making a lot of noise about it.”
She mentioned that hydroxychloroquine, a safe drug routinely used as a prophylaxis for malaria and found useful for early treatment of COVID-19, has been restricted by some government leaders like New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
According to Byrne, “These governmental officials are making medical decisions [for] people, not allowing them to make their own decision about hydroxychloroquine, which is such a benign drug.”
When the treatments provided by Byrne and her fellow doctors and nurses have made patients well, Byrne said, “We just smiled when we saw the person getting better.”
With consistent success with early treatment using safe and effective drugs, Byrne said the focus on experimental COVID-19 “vaccines,” developed or tested using aborted fetal tissue, to the exclusion of proven therapeutics, has “a bit of a diabolic flavor to it.”
Describing the unprecedented power seized by unelected government officials during the pandemic, Byrne suggested COVID-19 shots are being mandated for “total control.”
“They want to force an experimental compound that we really don’t know the long-term effects [of]. Then they want to, on top of that, make sure everyone has a [vaccine] passport,” she said. “So, it’s total control of a populace. And that’s communism. We’re headed that way.”
Byrne, whose military service saw her tending to the medical needs of people living under harsh and totalitarian regimes, described the inherent atheism of communistic and socialistic systems, saying “those people hate God, because the people are not subservient to the government, they’re subservient to God. So this is competition.”
“Christians, people of good will, faithful people, who love God, love Jesus, and want to just do all for Him, and would even die for Him, [are] a threat to communistic, socialistic regimes,” she said.
Byrne suggested that the push to impose COVID-19 shots and mandatory proof of vaccination is related to an inversion of traditional morality that has beset the world.
“They’re all interrelated,” Byrne said. “It’s not only this whole thing with the vaccine mandate but it’s also the desecration of the most Blessed Sacrament, the Eucharist. And just even allowing people who are in a mortal state of sin to receive our Lord. And this would encompass people who are in a public arena who are promoting abortions, or euthanasia, or transgenderism.”
“It’s a web,” Byrne continued. “They’re not separate issues. These are diabolic concepts or issues that are affecting us at every level, and we have to pray. That’s the only way we’re going to fight all these issues.”
Byrne urged everyone, particularly those of faith, to resist fear.
“There’s a lot of people who are afraid out there. And we just have to assure them, to tell them that God is there with them and not to be afraid,” she said. “But we can’t give what we don’t have.”
“Our mission is to love Christ and to be with him, and we have to bring as many as we can with us,” she explained.
Sister Byrne said everyone must partake of the sacraments and be in a state of grace. She cited St. Joan of Arc, saying that when her persecutors asked her whether she was in the state of grace, “her answer was just a prayer: ‘Lord if I’m in the state of grace please keep me there, if I’m not please put me there.’”
Finally Byrne warned that people must recognize the high stakes of the current moral and political situation in the U.S., particularly with regard to forced COVID-19 shots.
“If we are all forced to take an experimental vaccine – that has known high risk side [effects] for a disease that has low mortality – in which many religious and medical exemptions are being refused,” Byrne said, “we have lost what is most precious to all Americans, and that is our religious freedom.”TOPICS
(LifeSiteNews) – In conversations with different sources – all of them Vatican experts or members of the Vatican who wished to remain anonymous – LifeSite has learned that there is an expectation that Pope Francis intends to implement his motu proprio essentially suppressing the Traditional Latin Mass with the help of a spy system and especially of the head of the Congregation of Religious, Cardinal João Braz de Aviz. Braz de Aviz has a record of harshly persecuting tradition-oriented religious communities, most prominently the Franciscans of the Immaculate. In his July 16 motu proprio (art. 7), the Pope gave the Congregation for Religious, as well as the Congregation for Divine Worship under Archbishop Arthur Roche, the duty to supervise the implementation of his instructions.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, in his new response to the July 16 motu proprio Traditionis Custodes also speaks of the persecution of faithful communities that has been taking place both under Braz de Aviz and Pope Francis. He refers here to the fact that Pope Francis has now placed the communities dedicated to the Traditional Latin Mass under the direct authority of Braz de Aviz, “as a sad prelude to a destiny that has already been sealed.”
“Let us not forget,” Viganò continues, “the fate that befell the flourishing religious Orders, guilty of being blessed with numerous vocations born and nurtured precisely thanks to the hated traditional Liturgy and the faithful observance of the Rule.”
Two sources told LifeSite that the Pope will use a “spy system” or “spy network.” As one Vatican source wrote: “They will use the spy system. There are everywhere overly zealous ones who will report to Rome that somewhere the Ancient Rite is being celebrated, or they will accuse those bishops who do not intervene.” The information gained by these “spies,” the source continued, will be used against those bishops who are anyway already being regarded as unpleasant.
“The greatest damage will be done by Cardinal Braz de Aviz and his secretary,” the source continued. They will accuse people of “being against the Second Vatican Council or against the Pope.”
As one well-experienced Vatican observer who asked to remain unnamed puts it: “I think the pope will punish in every way possible any bishop who defies him directly. He has used his spy networks to good effect during his entire career, and he has never ceased.” This source thinks that the Pope might even use accusations of cover-up of sexual abuse as a tool to silence the resistant bishops.
This source fears that the bishops of our day have already a weakened disposition to start with, and that they therefore might very well easily fall. “We have a mental illness in the Church right now that makes weak minded people want to prove their loyalty by committing ritual suicide.”
As an example, this source points to religious communities who have already eagerly implemented papal directives, even though they led to the destruction of their communities, thereby becoming “their own enemy in order to prove their obedience.” This source points out that it is not only Braz de Aviz, but also his secretary, who are behind many harsh measures taken against good communities.
As our friend and colleague, Marco Tosatti wrote in a 2017 First Things article about these two clergymen:
It seems that Rome keeps a particularly piercing eye on religious orders that revere tradition, and that happen to enjoy many priestly vocations. The eye belongs to two persons: João Cardinal Braz de Aviz, a Brazilian sympathizer of Liberation Theology; and Archbishop José Rodríguez Carballo, a Spanish Franciscan. The former is the prefect for the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life; the latter is its secretary.
Tosatti went on to describe the different cases in which Braz de Aviz and his secretary have destroyed good traditional communities. He mentioned the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate (FFI), the Family of the Incarnate Word, and the Heralds of the Gospel.
About the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, the Italian journalist wrote that they are a “relatively new order, rich in vocations both in Europe and in Africa, the FFI was inspired by St. Maximilian Kolbe and approved by John Paul II.” In 2013, the FFI was placed under the authority of a Vatican commissioner, and its founder, Father Stefano Manelli, has been segregated from his order, “in order to limit his influence,” as Tosatti wrote.
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Adds the journalist: “The only known accusation against him and his followers is that of ‘Lefebvrist drift.’ One of the problems seems to be FFI’s love for Church tradition, and for the old form of the Mass. Vocations of both sexes to FFI dropped after this intervention by the Vatican.”
As one member of the FFI, Father Paolo M. Siano, said in 2018: “over these past six years I have witnessed the objective devastation of my Religious Family (Friars, Nuns, Laity) the persecution (still going on) of our Founding Father and our authentic FI [Franciscans of the Immaculate] charism approved by Pope St. John Paul II.”
About the Family of the Incarnate Word, Marco Tosatti reported in 2017:
There is the similar case of the Family of the Incarnate Word. This religious order, begun in Argentina in the 1980s, has more than one thousand members in twenty-six countries on five continents, including in regions where nobody else is willing to go. The Family has roughly 800 seminarians. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, then archbishop of Buenos Aires and president of the Argentine bishops’ conference, did not care for the Family. He made reference to it, while addressing the bishops: “In Latin America we happen to find in small groups, and in some of the new religious orders, an exaggerated drift to doctrinal or disciplinary security.” At one time, he blocked the ordination of the Family’s priests for three years. The founder, again, is more or less segregated from his order.
In 2017, there was also an impending apostolic visitation of the Heralds of the Gospel. Here, Tosatti tells us that “the Heralds are an association of pontifical right, begun in Brazil in the last years of the twentieth century, from a highly traditionalist order known as Tradition, Family, and Property. The Heralds have many priests, many seminarians, and great vitality. The reasons for the apostolic visitation are far from clear.”
As the Vatican Insider had it, the Heralds were believed to have some “occult doctrine” and therefore, their visitation was not part of a “witch hunt against those more traditional and conservative associations.” Comments Tosatti: “It seems likely that the Vatican anticipated criticism of this investigation and sought to silence it.” (See also Hilary White’s later 2019 analysis of the situation of the Heralds of the Gospel – who received special attention from Pope Benedict XVI – which gives more background information.)
Next to these cases mentioned by Tosatti, the Spanish website Infovaticana reports that Braz de Aviz is also responsible for the destruction of the Familia Christi, a small Italian priestly fraternity community which had been founded in 2014 by Ferrara Archbishop Luigi Negri whom Francis quickly removed once he reached his retirement age.
Next to these cases, Braz de Aviz is known for the following troubling facts:
During the Amazon Synod, he expressed support for the idea of ordaining married men to the priesthood.
In 2006, he participated, together with the founder of Liberation Theology, Leonardo Boff, in an interreligious event that was co-hosted by Freemasons.
Already in May of this year, Braz de Aviz made it public that the Pope is concerned that some young priests “go a bit far from the Second Vatican Council” and take “traditionalist positions.”
In 2019, when talking about the “transformation of the formation” of religious communities, the Brazilian stated: “Many things of tradition, many things that are from the past culture, are no longer useful.”
In light of these facts, let us listen here to more voices concerning the future of traditional communities. One Vatican observer told LifeSite that for now, during the summer, “nothing will happen,” and that it will be difficult to say what will happen. But it is clear that “the Vatican is a regime, and it is obvious that Bergoglio wants to eliminate the traditional Latin Mass.” This pope, the source went on, “has a deeply rooted ideological hatred” against this Mass, and he is an “aggressively autocratic man of power who does not accept opposition.”
“Therefore,” this Vatican expert continued, “I can well imagine that we have to prepare ourselves.”
The shocking news that Cardinal Wilton Gregory decided to cancel a Traditional Latin Mass at the National Shrine of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., that would have been celebrated by the recently retired nuncio of Switzerland, Archbishop Thomas Gullickson, might give us an idea what might soon come to many of us.
To prepare ourselves for the worst case – Rome’s clamping down on every bishop in the world who tries to preserve the traditional liturgy – we might listen to the British journalist and Catholic commentator Damian Thompson. He stated on Twitter on someone’s estimation that some bishops will maintain the status quo with regard to the traditional Mass: “Let’s hope so. But the head of the CDW [Congregation for Divine Worship, which was also appointed by the pope to supervise the implementation of his motu proprio] is Arthur Roche, a veteran enemy of the TLM who, despite his affable roly-poly appearance (he is an unlikely former champion ice-skater), is one of nature’s witch-hunters. There are few more unpleasant bishops in the entire Church.”
Abbé Claude Barthe, one of the organizers of the yearly Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage that drew thousands of Catholics to Rome, also has issued some warnings. He said in a new interview that this new motu proprio Traditionis Custodes “is of course very painful. It will hinder the diffusion of the traditional Mass. It will start new persecutions.”
Barthe declared that religious communities formerly under the protection of the Ecclesia Dei commission will be “affected.”
“They are also in the crosshairs … The document says it clearly, the Pope’s letter indicates it in a cynical way. It is a question of destroying the traditional celebration of the Mass by ensuring there will be no more priests to celebrate it.”
The French liturgy expert goes on to describe what will happen under the new leadership of Braz de Aviz:
The Congregation for Religious, presided by Cardinal Braz de Aviz, is very much aligned with Francis and is going to get work to put things in order. For example, they will make canonical visits to the seminaries to verify that the teaching given there is in conformity with Vatican II, and to ensure they study and celebrate the new liturgy there. In short: the goal will be to discourage vocations. When we object: “But you are going to cause these institutes’ vocations to dry up”, they answer, “But we don’t need these people, they are useless.” (That was the actual response of a certain person I shall not name!)”
Regarding the question as to what we need to do in preparation, we learned from Bishop Athanasius Schneider that he expects many traditional priests and laymen clandestinely continuing the traditional liturgy and devotions. What this specifically would entail, we would like to learn.
Archbishop Viganò, in his own assessment of the current situation after the motu proprio, wrote that “the Bishops, priests and clerics incardinated in dioceses or religious Orders know that hanging over them is the sword of Damocles of removal from office, dismissal from the ecclesiastical state, and the deprivation of their very means of subsistence.”
He pointed out that Pope Francis usually gets what he wants to achieve, and His Grace mentions, as an example, the recent synods, which the pope was able to use for his goals. “We all know,” writes the Italian archbishop, “that if Bergoglio wants to obtain a result, he does not hesitate to resort to force, lies, and sleight of hand: the events of the last Synods have demonstrated this beyond all reasonable doubt, with the Post-Synodal Exhortation drafted even before the vote on the Instrumentum Laboris [which is the preparatory text written before the synod starts].”
Further describing the pope’s methods, Viganò explained that “in order to prevent the ontological superiority of the Mass of Saint Pius V from becoming evident, and to prevent the criticisms of the reformed rite and the doctrine it expresses from emerging, he prohibits it, he labels it as divisive, he confines it to Indian reservations, trying to limit its diffusion as much as possible, so that it will disappear completely in the name of the cancel culture of which the conciliar revolution was the unfortunate forerunner.”
Pope Francis’s goal is “to cancel every trace of Tradition, relegating it to the nostalgic refuge of some irreducible octogenarian or a clique of eccentrics, or presenting it – as a pretext – as the ideological manifesto of a minority of fundamentalists.” This prelate is concerned about the “overall tyrannical nature accompanied by a substantial falsity of the arguments put forward to justify the decisions imposed.”
Archbishop Viganò also calls upon Catholics “to prepare ourselves for a strong and determined opposition, continuing to avail ourselves of those rights that have been abusively and illicitly denied us,” explaining that “our resistance to abuses of authority will still be able to count on the Graces that the Lord will not cease to grant us – in particular the virtue of Fortitude that is so indispensable in times of tyranny.”
He expects that not all of the bishops “will be willing to passively submit to forms of authoritarianism” and he points out that “the Code of Canon Law guarantees the Bishops the possibility of dispensing their faithful from particular or universal laws, under certain conditions.”
According to Archbishop Viganò:
It will be our duty, whether as Ministers of God or as simple faithful, to show firmness and serene resistance to such abuse, walking along the way of our own little Calvary with a supernatural spirit, while the new high priests and scribes of the people mock us and label us as fanatics. It will be our humility, the silent offering of injustices toward us, and the example of a life consistent with the Creed that we profess that will merit the triumph of the Catholic Mass and the conversion of many souls.
As LifeSite reported today, the Italian prelate further clarified his thoughts on what priests should do in circumstances where the Traditional Mass is being persecuted, stressing “that in continuing to celebrate the Mass of Saint Pius V no priest performs any act of disobedience, but on the contrary he exercises his right sanctioned by God, which not even the Pope can revoke.”
He invites priests to reach out to their bishops and to make their hearts known to them and even to invite them to celebrate themselves the ancient rite of the Mass, which possibly could work a “miracle” in their own hearts.
Archbishop Viganò says that a priest has to make a decision as to how to proceed in light of where his own bishop stands with regard to the Mass of Ages. Some bishops might try to help these priests. In some cases, it might be better to continue the traditional Mass in hiding, but in other case, a priest might have to resist his bishop, and the latter solution might very well be the response of the saints. States the archbishop:
The priest must therefore consider whether his action will be more effective with a fair and direct confrontation, or by acting with discretion and in hiding. In my opinion, the first option is the most linear and transparent, and the one that responds most to the behavior of the Saints, to which we must comply.
Dr. Maike Hickson was born and raised in Germany. She holds a PhD from the University of Hannover, Germany, after having written in Switzerland her doctoral dissertation on the history of Swiss intellectuals before and during World War II. She now lives in the U.S. and is married to Dr. Robert Hickson, and they have been blessed with two beautiful children. She is a happy housewife who likes to write articles when time permits.
Dr. Hickson published in 2014 a Festschrift, a collection of some thirty essays written by thoughtful authors in honor of her husband upon his 70th birthday, which is entitled A Catholic Witness in Our Time.
Hickson has closely followed the papacy of Pope Francis and the developments in the Catholic Church in Germany, and she has been writing articles on religion and politics for U.S. and European publications and websites such as LifeSiteNews, OnePeterFive, The Wanderer, Rorate Caeli, Catholicism.org, Catholic Family News, Christian Order, Notizie Pro-Vita, Corrispondenza Romana, Katholisches.info, Der Dreizehnte, Zeit-Fragen, and Westfalen-Blatt.TOPICS
Archbishop Viganò on what priests should do in light of Traditionis Custodes
‘Allow me to say first of all that in continuing to celebrate the Mass of Pope Saint Pius V no priest performs any act of disobedience, but on the contrary he exercises his right sanctioned by God, which not even the Pope can revoke.’
(LifeSiteNews) – In a new response to a question from LifeSite (see full text below), Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò insists that priests have a right to celebrate the Tridentine Mass, adding that at times they might have to continue to do so in hidden ways. But the way of the saints, he adds, would be to go into open disagreement and even “disobedience” should their local bishop forbid them to continue to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass. With this response, Archbishop Viganò acts as a pastor who tries to help priests and faithful in a very difficult situation.
On August 2, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò published a video and statement with his response to Pope Francis’s July 16 motu proprioTraditionis Custodes which aims at banning the Tridentine Mass, or Traditional Latin Mass, as it has been celebrated for centuries. In his response, the Italian prelate pointed out that this Pope shows himself to be a “anti-Catholic Pope” aiming at the undermining the Faith, rather than fostering it.
“Just when Bergoglio recognizes the Bishops as guardians of the Tradition, he asks them to obstruct its highest and most sacred expression of prayer,” Viganò writes.
He makes it clear that the Tridentine Mass is a superior rite in comparison to the Novus Ordo Mass and says that these two rites represent two different churches, thus negating the idea that there is a continuity between the Church before and after the Second Vatican Council. “Francis has once again disavowed the pious illusion of the hermeneutic of continuity, stating that the coexistence of the Vetus and Novus Ordo is impossible because they are expressions of two irreconcilable doctrinal and ecclesiological approaches,” the Italian prelate states.
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Pointing out the differences between these two rites, he adds: “on the one hand there is the Apostolic Mass, the voice of the Church of Christ; on the other there is the Montinian ‘Eucharistic celebration,’ the voice of the conciliar church.”
In light of the importance of continuing to celebrate this beautiful traditional rite of the Mass, LifeSite reached out to Archbishop Viganò and asked him what he thinks priests should now concretely do, should their bishop deny them the right to celebrate this Mass.
“Allow me to say first of all,” the prelate answers, “that in continuing to celebrate the Mass of Pope Saint Pius V no priest performs any act of disobedience, but on the contrary he exercises his right sanctioned by God, which not even the Pope can revoke.”
He invites priests to reach out to their bishops and to make their hearts known to them and even to invite them to celebrate the ancient rite of the Mass, which possibly could then work a “miracle” in their own episcopal hearts.
Archbishop Viganò says that a priest has to make a decision as to how to proceed in light of where his own bishop stands with regard to the Mass of Ages. Some bishops might try to help these priests. In some cases, it might be better to continue the traditional Mass in hiding, but in other cases, a priest might have to resist his bishop, and the latter solution might very well be the response of the saints. The archbishop thus states:
The priest must therefore consider whether his action will be more effective with a fair and direct confrontation, or by acting with discretion and in hiding. In my opinion, the first option is the most linear and transparent, and the one that responds most to the behavior of the Saints, to which we must comply.
This answer might be important to some priests in the world, especially in light of what several Vatican sources have recently told LifeSite. As an upcoming report shows, several observers and experts are expecting that Pope Francis will soon make use of a “spy system” or “spy network” and especially of Cardinal João Braz de Aziz, the head of the Congregation for Religious, in order to pressure the bishops worldwide to comply with his new motu proprio. In light of this possible development, priests and faithful might do well to consider what they would do in this very case.
Below is Archbishop Viganò’s full statement:
August 5, 2021 In Dedicatione B.M.V. ad Nives
Dear Maike,
Regarding your request for clarification, I am sending you some considerations that I hope will make my thoughts more explicit. This is the reference sentence: “It will be our duty, whether as Ministers of God or as simple faithful, to show firmness and serene resistance to such abuse, walking along the way of our own little Calvary with a supernatural spirit, while the new high priests and scribes of the people mock us and label us as fanatics. It will be our humility, the silent offering of injustices toward us, and the example of a life consistent with the Creed that we profess that will merit the triumph of the Catholic Mass and the conversion of many souls”.
You ask me: “What shall priests and faithful do when the bishop clamps down on them? Shall they go into clandestinity, or shall they cut publicly off, in public disobedience?” Allow me to say first of all that in continuing to celebrate the Mass of Pope Saint Pius V no priest performs any act of disobedience, but on the contrary he exercises his right sanctioned by God, which not even the Pope can revoke. Whoever has the power to offer the Holy Sacrifice has the right to celebrate it in the ancient rite, as it was solemnly proclaimed by Saint Pius V in the Apostolic Constitution Quo Primum, promulgating the Tridentine Liturgy. This has been reiterated by the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum as an indisputable fact. Anyone who contravenes these provisions should know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul (Quo Primum).
The response to any limitation or prohibition of the celebration of the traditional Mass must obviously take into account both the objective elements and the different situations: if a priest has as an Ordinary a sworn enemy of the ancient rite who has no qualms about suspending him a divinis if he were to celebrate the Tridentine Mass, public disobedience could be a way to make the abuse of the Ordinary clear, especially if the news is spread by the media: the Prelates are very afraid of media coverage about their actions, and sometimes they prefer to refrain from canonical measures just to avoid ending up in the newspapers. The priest must therefore consider whether his action will be more effective with a fair and direct confrontation, or by acting with discretion and in hiding. In my opinion, the first option is the most linear and transparent, and the one that responds most to the behavior of the Saints, to which we must comply.
Obviously there may be the case of a comprehensive Ordinary, who leaves his priest free to celebrate the Tridentine rite; speaking with an open heart to one’s Bishop is certainly important, if one knows that he can find in him a father and not an official. Unfortunately, we know well that most of the time it is a question of tolerance, and almost never of encouragement on the path of Tradition. In some cases, however, inviting one’s Ordinary to celebrate the Mass of St. Pius V himself can be a way to make him understand, by touching the deepest chords of his heart and his priestly soul, which are the treasures reserved for the Ministers of God who have the opportunity to offer the Holy Sacrifice in the apostolic rite. When this “miracle” happens, the Bishop becomes an ally of his priest, because in addition to the intellectual and rational aspect that makes the traditional Mass preferable, he experiences firsthand its spiritual and supernatural dimension, and how it affects the life of Grace of those who celebrate it.
I hope that my words will clarify the points that I had not developed in my previous speech.
Dr. Maike Hickson was born and raised in Germany. She holds a PhD from the University of Hannover, Germany, after having written in Switzerland her doctoral dissertation on the history of Swiss intellectuals before and during World War II. She now lives in the U.S. and is married to Dr. Robert Hickson, and they have been blessed with two beautiful children. She is a happy housewife who likes to write articles when time permits.
Dr. Hickson published in 2014 a Festschrift, a collection of some thirty essays written by thoughtful authors in honor of her husband upon his 70th birthday, which is entitled A Catholic Witness in Our Time.
Hickson has closely followed the papacy of Pope Francis and the developments in the Catholic Church in Germany, and she has been writing articles on religion and politics for U.S. and European publications and websites such as LifeSiteNews, OnePeterFive, The Wanderer, Rorate Caeli, Catholicism.org, Catholic Family News, Christian Order, Notizie Pro-Vita, Corrispondenza Romana, Katholisches.info, Der Dreizehnte, Zeit-Fragen, and Westfalen-Blatt.TOPICS
Last month, Mississippi presented a brief to the Supreme Court arguing that our national charter, the Constitution of the United States, does not confer a right to abortion. This is irrefutably true. No such right can be found in the text of the Constitution, or in its structure, logic or original understanding. Mississippi then took the next step: asking the court to finally admit that cases claiming that there is such a right – Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey – had been wrongly decided and need to be overruled.
In what will prove to be the most watched – and most important – Supreme Court case in nearly half a century, the court will have an opportunity to correct a grievous error, one that has not only lent legal, indeed constitutional, cover to the elective killing of unborn children literally by the millions, but has also deeply corrupted American constitutional jurisprudence. If the justices – particularly those nominated as originalists and constitutionalists – fail to correct that error, they will undermine their own and the court’s credibility and precipitate a social revolt from conservative and Republican voters — voters who worked so hard to produce the current composition of the court.
The nonexisting ‘right’ to abortion
Mississippi’s argument is straightforward: Roe and Casey confected a “constitutional right” to abortion out of thin air. The majorities in those cases did not actually find such a right; they simply imposed their own moral-political opinions about the desirability of legal abortion.
Neither the so-called right to privacy appealed to by the Roe court, nor the “liberty” right to “personal decisions” that the Casey court conjured up, was agreed to, in practice or in principle, by the framers and ratifiers of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, where the justices in Roe and Casey claimed to find them, or in any other provision of the Constitution.
Even some notable legal scholars who favor legal elective abortion as a policy have been willing to acknowledge this. Writing in the Yale Law Journal in 1973, the year Roe was decided, John Hart Ely of Harvard Law School (later dean of Stanford Law School) derided the decision as “bad because it is bad constitutional law, or rather because it is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.”
And he is not alone. Writing in the Harvard Law Review in 1973, Laurence Tribe explained that “one of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.”
Meanwhile, Edward Lazarus, a former clerk to Harry Blackmun, the justice who authored Roe, explained that “as a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, Roe borders on the indefensible.” And it’s worth noting that Lazarus describes himself as “utterly committed to the right to choose.”
Because Roe is not constitutional law at all, the past 48 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence have proved utterly unworkable to lower courts trying to adjudicate various state protections for unborn life, the safety of women and the integrity of medicine – the three main areas of concern that Mississippi cites in defense of its law (which prohibits elective abortion after 15 weeks). As its brief points out, “Because the Constitution does not protect a right to abortion, it provides no guidance to courts on how to account for the interests in this context.”
Given that neither Roe nor Casey can be taken seriously as constitutional judicial review but are simply, as Kennedy appointee Justice Byron White put it, “raw judicial power” in making social policy, Mississippi makes clear in its brief that the varied social arguments the court has advanced do not hold water.
Justice Blackmun, writing for the majority in Roe, claimed that there was some great scientific (and metaphysical and theological) mystery about when the life of a new human being comes into existence. This was false even in 1973. Science had by then long established that a new living member of the species Homo sapiens begins from the very earliest embryonic stage (long before a woman would even know of a pregnancy).
Moreover, Mississippi points out that “scientific advances show that an unborn child has taken on the human form and features months before viability.”
That’s true. One of us recently saw the 12-week ultrasound of his unborn child – with vivid clarity of the distinctively human form. It is unseemly for grownups, especially those exercising public authority as judges, to pretend to be ignorant of these basic realities.
Women don’t need abortion to be free
The Casey court held that American women had become so reliant on abortion that even though Roe may have been wrongly decided, the court had to uphold “abortion rights” in order to protect women’s liberty in modern society. Not only is that absurd but it does a disservice to women to suppose that their social equality must be purchased at the price of the lives of their children and the corruption of constitutional law.
As Mississippi points out, “Innumerable women and mothers have reached the highest echelons of economic and social life independent of the right endorsed in those cases. Sweeping policy advances now promote women’s full pursuit of both career and family.”
Given that there is no constitutional or social defense of Roe or Casey, that leaves the court with only one path forward: Correct its mistake. The best originalist reading of the 14th Amendment, we are convinced, would include unborn persons within the scope of the provision stating that no state may “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Historic scholarship by professors Charles Rice and Michael Stokes Paulsen, along with more recent research by John Finnis and Josh Craddock – including a forthcoming amicus brief one of us has co-authored with Finnis – demonstrates that it was well-established that the unborn were considered legal persons at the time of the ratification of the 14th Amendment.
While the current court may not be willing to go so far as to invalidate all legislation protecting abortionists, at the very least it must correct its own prior mistake of barring states from enacting legislation protecting unborn persons. Failure to do so will be, and will certainly be regarded as, a gross betrayal of the trust of those who worked to build a court whose members would be faithful constitutionalists. Worse than that, it would be a betrayal of persons in the womb.
Robert P. George is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.
SMattacchione9:13 A 
Sr. Deirdre Byrne.PBS NewsHour / YouTube
ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT / DEEP CALLS TO DEEP 
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