Dulce et Decorum Est: In Defense of Healthy Patriotism

MARCH 7, 2021BY CHARLES J. CHAPUTThe things we’re willing to die for are tied to what we hold as sacred. In fact, the willingness to die for something also consecrates it as sacred. We need to entertain the possibility that love for our country might lead us to sacrifice greatly, even radically, in order to preserve the best that remains in it.

None of us is an independent agent surfing a private island in time. Each of us belongs to a much larger continent of human experiences stretching backward over centuries, experiences that situate us within a network of home, family, clan, tribe, friends, country, religion.

These things tug on our emotions. They demand our fidelity, and rightly so. In large measure, they make us who we are. They give us the context for our lives. When the poet Horace wrote his famous line Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s homeland,” he put into words what the Roman people yearned to believe: that their struggle to survive and thrive in the ancient world had meaning.

When Spartan hoplites fought to the last man against a much larger Persian force at Thermopylae, they gave their lives defending their families, their city, and their Greek allies. And when Shakespeare wrote the words, “we few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he today who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother,” and put them into the mouth of Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt, he touched one of the deepest chords of human loyalty. Cultures unable to inspire the ultimate sacrifice from their people for a commonly shared need or code have no future. They’re already dead without knowing it. So it has always been. And barring a miraculous change in human nature before Jesus returns, so it will always be.

Consider: In A.D. 778, rear elements of the army of Charlemagne were ambushed by Basque warriors and their Muslim masters. The engagement took place at Roncevaux Pass in the Pyrenees, near the border of what are now Spain and France. Over time, it passed into legend. In the mid-eleventh century, one thousand years ago, traveling minstrels began telling the story of a great Frankish warrior from the Roncevaux Pass battle. His name was Roland. The poem that bears his name, La Chanson de Roland (theSong of Roland), has many scenes. But the most famous recounts his heroic stand against a fierce and much larger enemy.

In the poem, Roland is revered by his king and loved by his men, for both his warrior prowess and his noble character. Thus he’s trusted with the crucial task of covering the rear of Charlemagne’s army of Franks. The army is retiring to rest in France after fighting in Spain against its Muslim conquerors. A resentful nobleman betrays him. The Muslim force learns that Roland’s men are vulnerable. They set a trap and attack. But Roland and his men, united in a brotherhood of arms, fight courageously. They ensure the safety of Charlemagne’s main body of men.

As the battle wears on, the size of the enemy force weighs against the valor of Roland and his men. In the end, enemy warriors overrun them. Only in the final moments does Roland blow his great horn Oliphant. The mountainsides echo with the sound. Charlemagne, alerted, returns to crush the enemy. But he arrives too late to save Roland and his men. They’ve given their lives, faithful to their duty.

The Song of Roland is one of the great epic poems of Western civilization. In my high school years in the 1950s, it was essential reading. The violence in the text is lavish and bloody. At one point, Roland cleaves an attacker in two. The havoc is matched only by the intense brotherhood of Roland and his men. When Roland surveys the field where so many of his friends lie slain, he weeps at the loss of those he loved. As his own death draws near, Roland turns his face toward his homeland. He thinks “of gentle France, of his kin and line; of his nursing father, King Karl benign.” His last thoughts turn to God, whom he begs to “shield my soul from its peril.” God answers his prayer by sending Gabriel the archangel to bear Roland’s soul to paradise.

We no longer live in a warrior culture. The poem’s mix of slaughter and tender emotion can seem unsettling today, but we can still learn a great deal from the Song of Roland. The poem’s great age takes nothing away from its timeless truths about the high dignity of loyalty to one’s comrades, a loyalty closely tied to patriotic devotion.

Roland and his men share a bond that unites them. Their bond is consecrated with a spirit of sacrifice. The Song of Roland bears the language of feudal oaths and duties. But these commitments don’t createthe mutual loyalty of Roland and his men. Rather, and more accurately, the words and conventions of the warriors’ fealty express something already at work in their hearts, something deeper. It is “gentle France,” the ties of “kin and line,” and memories of what they’ve done together that seal the declarations of loyalty. Our loves and loyalties desire public and durable forms. We seek to celebrate the bonds that unite us. These bonds precede formal expressions of official ties. The impulse to recognize pre-existing bonds is the key impulse of civic life. We have nation-states because we have nations, not the other way around.

The Song of Roland captures an enduring truth about the human condition: The things we’re willing to die for are tied to what we hold as sacred. In fact, the willingness to die for something also consecrates it as sacred.

Many students who’ve gone through US higher education in recent years have been taught to be skeptical of patriotism. A critical, and often poisonously cynical, spirit has undermined a great deal of modern life, including the nation. At the same time, a naïve kind of globalist utopianism has grown. It promises a new solidarity transcending national borders. But it’s a “solidarity” as shallow as it is wide. A peculiar free-market ideology is married to this globalist dreaming. It asks us to see ourselves almost solely in economic terms. It reduces us to stateless, homeless consumers, not citizens.

We do need to be wary of excessive national pride. It has caused great harm in the modern era. A nation can become so corrupt and Babylon-like that it’s not worth defending, and America is no exception. We also need to remember that the nation-state, however happily we conceive it, is distinct from, and finally less important than, the purpose of our life in this world. Man’s purpose is to know and love God. We should never imagine our citizenship in any nation as sufficient. Our true and lasting commonwealth is in heaven, and therein lies our real citizenship (Phil 3:20).

Thus, in civic affairs, zealotry for one’s country can be a vice. But there’s also a vice called indifference. And today, in America, we suffer from a media-driven culture that feeds this indifference while simultaneously aggravating divisions. A distorted emphasis on diversity and multiculturalism at the expense of communion and unity discourages any particular loyalty to the nations that constitute the West.

These and other efforts to weaken our love for our native land dovetail with the acquisitive consumer spirit of our time. We’re encouraged to believe that real happiness comes from satisfying our personal desires. And the rapacious individualism that this nurtures is what will dominate the world if we one day live as post-national “global citizens.” That destiny would not be the unity of a universal brotherhood. It would be life in a managed, technocratic cocoon organized to promote consumption and self-invention.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori may be too sweeping a claim for many in the twenty-first century to accept, or even to understand. But we need a healthy patriotism. We need to entertain the possibility that love for our country might lead us to sacrifice greatly, even radically, in order to preserve the best that remains in it. That love is not an evil. It’s a source of liberation. It breaks the bonds of our addiction to lesser things. It leads us to stand as brothers, sisters, and friends with others. Fidelity to the good in our nation is not our final end. It doesn’t deliver us from sin and death. It doesn’t have an absolute claim on our souls. It doesn’t replace our hunger for heaven.

But it is a natural grace; a partial but real deliverance from the prison cell of a world without loyalties, and the confines of self-love.

This essay is excerpted and adapted from the archbishop’s forthcoming book, Things Worth Dying For: Thoughts on a Life Worth Living.

About the Author

CHARLES CHAPUT

Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., Is the archbishop emeritus of Philadelphia. This essay is excerpted and adapted from his forthcoming book, Things Worth Dying For: Thoughts on a Life Worth Living.

Cuomo Cooked His Own Goose March 8, 2021 Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the trials and tribulations of Gov. Andrew Cuomo: Gov. Cuomo is finished, and everyone knows it. The investigative reports on the nursing home scandal, along with a probe of accusations of sexual harassment, will detail his deadly decisions and his sexual misconduct. If he were prudent, he would resign. But his unremitting arrogance will not allow him to do so. Regarding the latter charges, it is now clear that Cuomo’s campaign for a new law on sexual harassment in the workplace backfired. Indeed, he cooked his own goose. Cuomo started 2019 bragging how New York will enact legislation on sexual harassment that will be the strongest in the nation. In mid-February, when the first public hearings were held, he said, “I am very proud that New York is the most aggressive state in the country on women’s rights. Anything I can do on sexual harassment we will do.” One month later, after championing what he said was the gold standard on sexual harassment legislation, Cuomo was asked by Karen DeWitt, a reporter for NPR, about a recent high-ranking official in his administration who had to resign amid a sexual harassment probe. That set Cuomo off. According to one news story, “Cuomo got extremely testy.” Another report said he “scolded” DeWitt. Her crime? She asked what he was going to do different about this problem in his state government. “When you say it’s state government,” the governor said, “you do a disservice to women, with all due respect, even though you are a woman. It’s not government; it’s society.” In June, state lawmakers passed the new law. Cuomo was delighted that the bar was set very low. “We will make it easier for claims to be brought forward and send a strong message that when it comes to sexual harassment in the workplace, time is up.” The New York Times weighed in, saying, “The legislation eliminates the state’s ‘severe or pervasive’ standard for proving harassment, which advocates said had allowed judges to dismiss claims of inappropriate comments or even groping as insufficiently hostile.” Cuomo signed the legislation in August. When it went into effect in October, he said something that came back to haunt him. “The ongoing culture of sexual harassment in the workplace is unacceptable and has held employees back for far too long. This critical measure finally ends the absurd legal standard for victims to prove sexual harassment in the workplace and makes it easier for those who have been subjected to this disgusting behavior to bring claims forward.” As it turns out, five women have accused Cuomo of sexual harassment, and one of them, Lindsey Boylan, specifically accused him of creating “a culture within his own administration where sexual harassment and bullying is so pervasive that it is not only condoned but expected.” Isn’t that what Cuomo explicitly said was “unacceptable”? Cuomo said at a press conference on March 3rd, “I never touched anyone inappropriately. I never touched anyone inappropriately.” This is contradicted by four of his accusers. Boylan says Cuomo kissed her on the lips without her consent and touched her lower back, arms and legs. Anna Ruch (unlike the others she did not work for Cuomo) said he put his hands on her lower back and cheeks and asked to kiss her. Karen Hinton said that after he embraced her, she tried to pull away, but he pulled her back. Ana Liss says he touched her lower back and kissed her hand, calling her “sweetheart.” Only Charlotte Bennett has not accused Cuomo of “inappropriate touching.” However, she said he asked her about her sex life, and whether she ever slept with older men, making her feel uncomfortable. “I thought he was trying to sleep with me,” Bennett told Norah O’Donnell in a CBS interview. As the New York Times noted about Cuomo’s new law, offenses include “inappropriate comments.” Now it can be argued that some of these offenses are more infractions than they are serious cases of sexual misconduct. However, when he was giving the green light to lawyers wanting to pursue old cases of alleged clergy sexual abuse, Cuomo knew that many of the accusations involved  “inappropriate touching.” So why should we give him a break now? No one is saying Cuomo is guilty of doing what President Bill Clinton did with Monica Lewinsky. But according to his own relaxed standard of what constitutes sexual harassment in the workplace, he is guilty as sin.

You might be a Neanderthal if… By: Jack Hellner American Thinker March 5, 2021(emphasis added) Rip McIntosh Joe Biden disparaged governors who are opening their economies by calling them “Neanderthals.” It is so nice that he is seeking unity instead of dividing us. To paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, you might be a Neanderthal if: You believe the masks are the solution even though states and countries without the mask mandate did as well or better than the ones who had the mandate. You believe that masks and other tyrannical mitigation rules stopped the seasonal flu this year when states and countries without the mask mandate and strict lockdowns also did not have much seasonal flu this year. (there is no correlation) You still believe that the virus easily spreads off surfaces. You still believe that millions of people without symptoms are actively spreading the virus. You continue to keep schools closed while you bend over for your special interest groups. You keep destroying small businesses while you allow yourself to be controlled by social media billionaires and while you allow large corporations to remain open. You say that walls don’t work while the White House and Capitol remain walled off.  You say that walls don’t work while you watch human smugglers drive SUVs through holes in the un-upgraded border fence and kill their young passengers.  You tell citizens they can’t travel and must quarantine while you let illegal aliens roam the country free with the virus.  You called governors who forced nursing homes to take in sick people to kill the vulnerable elderly “the gold standard” while chastising governors who dared give their residents freedom to stay open and not wear masks who had better results.  You might be a Neanderthal (or their sheep) if you believe and follow everything Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United Nations WHO, or the CDC say, despite all the things they have intentionally or unintentionally gotten wrong.  Finally, you might be a Neanderthal and puppet for special interest groups if you believe that oil and coal consumption is destroying the planet as well as control temperatures, sea levels, and temperature despite zero scientific data that show that that is true. Why would we want to get rid of a product that has improved the quality and length of life for almost everyone who has used it when crude oil is used in thousands of products? Do we want to regress to when life expectancy was 40? Maybe someone should ask Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and John Kerry what they would replace rubber tires with. Maybe Jen Psaki could circle back with that answer. Thankfully we have many governors with spines and brains who understand that we have always lived with viruses and that we need to open to reduce depression, suicide, and economic collapse. It is a shame that the Democrat governors are Neanderthals who are anxiously awaiting their huge kickbacks from the taxpayers for intentionally destroying their economies. Thank goodness we have Republicans who understand that the best way to stimulate the economy and give people of all income levels, all races, and all education levels the chance to move up the economic ladder and out of poverty and depression is opening up, capitalism and economic freedom. The Neanderthals who control Congress, the White House, and the high tax blue states believe that the way to stimulate is a massive pork bill, socialist policies, a few handouts, and continued lockdowns. They strive for making more people dependent on the government because that is how they hold on to power, which is their main goal.  If America wants to become weaker and more dependent on China, Russia, Iran, and Russia we should just follow the real Neanderthal in the White House’s recipe for collapse. Open borders, massive regulations, higher taxes, destroying the private health insurance industry, destroying for-profit schools, keeping schools closed, major restrictions on small companies while large companies are exempt, destruction of the oil and coal industries, a high minimum wage to destroy small businesses, etc. These policies will all contribute to the massive and quick destruction of the private sector but the Neanderthals in power will do great and that is all they truly care about.  We could stop this intentional destruction if we had more independent thinkers in the media instead of Neanderthals repeating the talking points and cheering on the Neanderthals in power.  Should a president who appears to be incapable of conducting an independent news conference, or reading a State of the Union Speech, while being a figurehead who signs executive orders radical leftists prepare for him, call governors who have independent policies “Neanderthals”? Yesterday, Biden appeared to be ready to take questions, in a very controlled environment, and his puppet masters at the White House abruptly cut off the feed? It appears they thought they couldn’t afford Biden going off-script. Maybe Biden and the other Neanderthals should read the 10th Amendment: The Tenth Amendment’s simple language—“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people” It should also be noted that we have had fewer cases of COVID in the last year than in the six months of the 2019-2020 seasonal flu despite testing people with no symptoms and despite not having free testing sights and contract tracers throughout the country. The cases averaged over 200,000 per day and we had no lockdowns nor masks, nor social distancing. We did not have headlines every day to scare the public nor did we have reports of hospital usage. In other words, we lived through it as we always have. The headlines should read: The economy, individuals, children, businesses are being destroyed by tyrannical politicians and bureaucrats who quest for ever greater power. The virus is the excuse they are using to confiscate and keep this power.

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10224816222930548&id=1162747837

AADistrict Court (Obama Appointee): ERA Ratification Deadline Expired Decades Ago

By ED WHELAN

March 8, 2021 11:09 AM

Late Friday, federal district judge Rudolph Contreras (an Obama appointee) ruled against the states of Nevada, Illinois, and Virginia on their outrageous claim that the Archivist of the United States is obligated to publish and certify the Equal Rights Amendment as part of the Constitution.

Judge Contreras soundly determined that Congress, as an incident of its power to designate the mode of ratification for a constitutional amendment that it proposes, has power to set a ratification deadline for that amendment and that it is proper for Congress to place that deadline in the proposing clause of its resolution (as an alternative to placing it in the constitutional text). Therefore, the ERA proposed in 1972 expired decades ago. (See pp. 24-35.)

Contreras sensibly found it unnecessary to decide whether the ERA’s original 1979 deadline governed or whether Congress lawfully prospectively extended that deadline to 1982 via a majority vote of each House in 1978. Either way, the deadline long ago expired. He also found it unnecessary to decide whether states can validly rescind prior ratifications. (The plaintiff states argued that states can’t do so, as the five pre-deadline rescissions would leave them well short of the ratification threshold even if the deadline hadn’t expired.)

Contreras’s ruling that the ratification deadline is valid and has expired broadly comports with the opinion that the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel issued in January 2020 (and that binds the executive branch). It also comports with the recognition by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg—an ardent proponent of the ERA—that the ratification process would need to “start over again.”

All of this, alas, may not deter current members of Congress from pursuing their absurd Constitution-betraying claim—legally on a par with the efforts to get Vice President Pence to reject electoral votes—that Congress may by joint resolution (indeed, even by simple majority vote) retroactively abolish the expired deadlines and deem the ERA to have been ratified.

Just a note for those who wonder why anyone would care about constitutional niceties like actual ratification when “equal rights” are said to be at stake: What the ERA would mean in practice is far from clear. For example, supporters of abortion rights see the ERA as a valuable tool to reinforce a constitutional right to abortion.

THE CATHOLIC MONITOR

Fred Martinez

Texas Gov. Abbott: “The Unconscionable Act by the Biden Administration of Releasing COVID Positive Illegal Immigrants”

March 07, 2021

KWTX reported that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared the “unconscionable act by the Biden Administration of releasing COVID positive illegal immigrants in our state puts the lives of Texans and Americans at risk”:

The governor later shared the following statement on Twitter:

“The unconscionable act by the Biden Administration of releasing COVID positive illegal immigrants in our state puts the lives of Texans and Americans at risk.

“Border security is strictly a federal responsibility. The federal government alone has the responsibility to test, screen and quarantine illegal immigrants crossing our border who may have COVID.

“Instead of doing their job, the Biden Administration suggested it did not have the sufficient resources and, remarkably, asked Texas to assist them in their illegal immigration program.

“Texas refused. We will not let our state aid a program that makes our country a magnet for illegal immigration.” [https://www.kwtx.com/2021/03/04/governor-accuses-biden-administration-of-releasing-migrants-with-covid19-into-texas-communities/]

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)

Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said “the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church.”
[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]

– “If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html

– “Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html

 –  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.

Election Notes:  

– Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: “212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted…Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden” [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]

– Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times “Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003”: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html– Tucker Carlson’s Conservatism Inc. Biden Steal Betrayal is explained by “One of the Greatest Columns ever Written” according to Rush: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/tucker-carlsons-conservatism-inc-biden.html?m=1 – A Hour which will Live in Infamy: 10:01pm November 3, 2020: 
http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1 What is needed right now to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to even go to outdoor prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our civil liberties. [Is the DC Capitol Incident Comparable to the Nazi Reichstag Fire Incident where the German People Lost their Civil Liberties?: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/is-dc-capital-incident-comparable-to.html?m=1 and Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capitol Incident: “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs‘”: 
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1] 
Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it. 

THE CATHOLIC MONITOR

SEARCH

Texas Gov. Abbott: “The Unconscionable Act by the Biden Administration of Releasing COVID Positive Illegal Immigrants”

March 07, 2021

KWTX reported that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared the “unconscionable act by the Biden Administration of releasing COVID positive illegal immigrants in our state puts the lives of Texans and Americans at risk”:

The governor later shared the following statement on Twitter:

“The unconscionable act by the Biden Administration of releasing COVID positive illegal immigrants in our state puts the lives of Texans and Americans at risk.

“Border security is strictly a federal responsibility. The federal government alone has the responsibility to test, screen and quarantine illegal immigrants crossing our border who may have COVID.

“Instead of doing their job, the Biden Administration suggested it did not have the sufficient resources and, remarkably, asked Texas to assist them in their illegal immigration program.

“Texas refused. We will not let our state aid a program that makes our country a magnet for illegal immigration.” [https://www.kwtx.com/2021/03/04/governor-accuses-biden-administration-of-releasing-migrants-with-covid19-into-texas-communities/]

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)

Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said “the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church.”
[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]

– “If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html

– “Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html

 –  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.

Election Notes:  

– Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: “212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted…Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden” [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]

– Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times “Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003”: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html– Tucker Carlson’s Conservatism Inc. Biden Steal Betrayal is explained by “One of the Greatest Columns ever Written” according to Rush: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/tucker-carlsons-conservatism-inc-biden.html?m=1 – A Hour which will Live in Infamy: 10:01pm November 3, 2020: 
http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1 What is needed right now to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to even go to outdoor prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our civil liberties. [Is the DC Capitol Incident Comparable to the Nazi Reichstag Fire Incident where the German People Lost their Civil Liberties?: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/is-dc-capital-incident-comparable-to.html?m=1 and Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capitol Incident: “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs‘”: 
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1] 
Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it. 

If It Ain’t BrokeBy: Judd GarrettObjectivity is the ObjectiveMarch 7, 1021
In the 1921 movie, The Kid, Charlie Chaplin plays a “Tramp” who is working in cahoots with a “Kid” who walks around town throwing stones at houses and businesses shattering their windows. Shortly thereafter, The Tramp, working as a window-repairman, shows up and fixes the window for a price. The Kid creates the problem, Charlie Chaplin fixes it, and the homeowner pays.
There is a criminology theory called the “broken window theory” which asserts that visible signs of crime and civil disorder, such as “broken windows” and vandalism, create an anti-social environment that encourages further crime and disorder, eventually leading to more serious crimes. So, stopping the breaking of windows and repairing vandalism reduces the chaos and disorder which in turn, reduces a climate of criminality.
Keynesian economic theorists, believe that “broken windows” can be very useful to society. They believe that “during the periods of high unemployment, it would be better for the government to pay workers to dig out holes and fill them up again, or even to break and fix windows, than doing nothing at all.” 
Like in the movie, breaking windows stimulate economic action; money is spent on a new window and to hire the repairman to install the new window. But the end result only gets us back to zero; a window in the wall that had already been there before it was intentionally broken. Economic activity is created but no new value is, and that’s the problem with intentionally breaking windows.
We used to have a saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” That was the philosophy of a hands-off, laissez-faire approach to governing. But many of our leaders today follow a different philosophy, similar to The Kid in the movie, “If it ain’t broke, break it.” So, they can “fix” it. They are political Keynesians relying on “broken windows” to create political action to get what they want. Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel famously said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste… it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not before.” Which means, ‘let’s exploit the crisis, let’s exploit the pain and suffering of the people to get the stuff that we want.’
Politicians justify their existence, and even derive their power from addressing the problems they have either created or failed to fix previously. This is why very few problems ever get solved. The $14 trillion the United States spent on Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” created more poverty than it prevented. The “fix” usually breaks more things than needed to be fixed, which creates a very expensive vicious cycle. 
The ultimate “broken window” was Covid-19. The Covid-lockdowns were unnecessary. Many of the politicians, such as; Newsom, Whitmer, Cuomo, Pelosi, Feinstein, believed they were unnecessary because they violated the lockdown orders they imposed on others. Recently, Matt Meyer, the head of the San Francisco Teachers’ Union who has kept the San Francisco public schools closed for 12 months, was caught dropping his daughter off at in-person private school proving he does not believe in-person school is a health risk. So why is he keeping the schools closed? He is “breaking a window”; exploiting a crisis, benefitting from others’ suffering.
Lockdowns were unnecessary, but useful, designed to drive our country into an economic and psychological ditch to influence the election. This time last year, Donald Trump was on his way to a landslide victory; The Democrats were close to losing the House and Senate; China had been knocked to its knees by Trump’s tariffs and negotiations, and Big Tech was facing a hard crackdown from the Federal government. But, as a result of Covid, the Democrats control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. China is positioned to become the world’s economic superpower, and Silicon Valley has more money and more power than before. 
Is it a coincidence that the only states that ordered Covid-positive patients back into nursing homes causing tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths of seniors, were heavily-populated states with a Democrat Governor; NY Cuomo, MI Whitmer, CA Newsom, NJ Murphy, and PA Wolf? No Republican Governor made such an order. A 4th grader would have enough sense to ask, ‘why would you send people with a deadly virus to go live with old and weak people? Wouldn’t that make those people sick?’ 
Is it another coincidence that these states also enacted the harshest lockdowns of small businesses, churches, and public schools? So, they intentionally exposed the most vulnerable to Covid while placing extreme restrictions on the least vulnerable. It was almost as if these Governors wanted as many deaths of the elderly as possible, and as much destruction of the other citizens’ lives as possible. They knew that the complicit media would blame Trump for every Covid-death, every job lost, every ounce of misery. So, the more the merrier. 
But people wouldn’t make decisions that will cause others to die, would they? Well, maybe. Enter Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of Rahm (never let a crisis go to waste) Emanuel. He was a member of Joe Biden’s coronavirus task force. In 2014, Zeke Emanuel wrote an editorial arguing that people should not live past age 75, because they become a burden to their families and society.So, at the same time Democrat Governors were intentionally exposing seniors to death by Covid, within the Democratic brain trust on Covid, there was a powerful individual who believes that people over the age of 75 dying in nursing homes is a preferred outcome, and possibly, he saw the coronavirus as a crisis “not to let go to waste” in that effort.
Dr. Emanuel is not alone. Proponents of government-run healthcare don’t mind when the elderly die, either. Death of the elderly means significantly less money the state pays in Medicare expenses. Barack Obama, the man whose name is on Obamacare, said in his 2013 State of the Union Address, “the biggest driver of our long-term debt is the rising cost of health care for an aging population. And those of us who care deeply about programs like Medicare must embrace the need for modest reforms.” He speaks as if he cares more about saving Medicare than saving the lives of the aging population. And what were the reforms he was referring to? Obama once told senior citizens that “maybe you’re better offnot having the (life-saving) surgery, but taking the painkiller.”
Politicians have been pushing government control of “end-of-life care” for many years which simply means ending elderly people’s lives as quickly, and as cost-effectively as possible. Covid-positive patients in nursing homes is a win all around for the Democrats; kill off as many elderly nursing home patients as possible which saves money in their much-revered Medicare program, and blame all the deaths on Trump which will help them win the Presidency. 
Maybe Governor Cuomo’s current #metoo scandal is not solely a distraction from his deadly nursing home policy, but the shiny object taking everyone’s eyes off all 5 Democrat Governors deadly nursing home policies and the real reasons behind them. 
Joe Biden and the Democrats care so much about stopping the spread of Covid in our country that they have completely opened the border, creating a surge of over 4,000 illegal immigrants per day into America without a Covid test or a vaccine, creating a border crisis that is overwhelming the system. All of these policies, opening nursing homes and the border to Covid-positive people while shutting down businesses, schools and churches are designed to create chaos, and misery, and death, which they can exploit politically.
The crisis of Covid allowed certain politicians to unconstitutionally change the election laws in many of the battleground states which handed an uncharismatic, uninspiring, cognitively compromised Presidential candidate the most votes in United States election history. The “broken window” was Covid, the “fix” they benefitted from was changing the election laws. It’s interesting that very few election laws were changed in non-battleground states, as if those states were immune to Covid. On Thursday, Hillary Clinton said that the U.S. has a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to reshape election rules via HR 1, which means, continue to exploit the Covid crisis to nationalize the election law changes making every election as susceptible to as much fraud as possible.
The $1.9 trillion “Covid-Relief” Bill that recently passed the House and Senate is another exploitation of the broken window. This “Covid-Relief” Bill is very light on Covid-relief and very heavy on political pay backs with less than 9% going to Covid-relief, and less than 1% going to vaccines. They are not even trying to pretend anymore. In the old days, there would be about a 50-50 split between stated-spending and pork-barrel spending. This bill has a 10-90 split. They are using Covid to do the things they would not normally get done. 
Throughout 2020, we watched tens of thousands of windows broken, building burned down, stores looted, cars set on fire while the same politicians who condemned the Capital riots cheered those riots on for months. To them, riots were good as long as they could exploit the chaos. There has not been much improvement in race relations since November, but how many BLM and Antifa riots have there been in the last four months now that the election is over, and no one can benefit politically from the chaos? We probably won’t see many of these riots until the summer and fall of 2022, and definitely 2024.
Since June 2020, the Democrats have called for “defunding the police”, and recently, the Democratically-led house passed, H.R. 1280, a.k.a. “The George Floyd Bill” to defund the police. Exploiting that tragedy to create more chaos they can exploit. House Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy said, “H.R. 1280 would cost police departments hundreds of millions of dollars — the equivalent of taking 3,000 cops or more off the streets.” Defunding the police creates the chaos, the “broken windows”, they can exploit to grab more and more power for themselves.
The Capital riot on January 6 is another “broken window” that has allowed the Democrats to not only lock down the Capital, but to target their political opponents. They are using the riots as the justification to go after those they disagree with; anyone they deem “dangerous” can be shut down, banned, and even arrested. They impeached Trump for the riot, so they could ban him from running for office again. They are exploiting the riot so expertly; it is almost as if they wanted the riot to occur so they could do these things they could not do before.
Remember, evil people exploit crises. Evil people benefit from the suffering and death of others. Look at all the people who are better off today than they were 12 months ago. They didn’t just make a few extra bucks off of breaking windows, they fully empowered themselves by breaking a country, and exploiting the death of millions of people. And that is a glimpse into the moral and ethical character of those who will be leading this country both politically and economically. It does not look promising.

Hat Tip: Rip McIntosh

THE CATHOLIC MONITOR

Fred Martinez

CDC & FDA “Reports Show 966 Deaths Following Vaccination for COVID-19”

March 07, 2021

The Epoch Times reported “Adverse Incident Reports Show 966 Deaths Following Vaccination for COVID-19”:

According to adverse incident reports collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 966 individuals have died after having received an mRNA vaccine for COVID-19.

Between Dec. 14 and Feb. 19, 19,769 reports were made to the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) following immunizations with either the Moderna or Pfizer BioNTech mRNA vaccines (the only two vaccines given during the time period assessed). At this time, VAERS data is not available after Feb. 19.

The 966 deaths represent 5 percent of the total number of adverse events reports. Of those who died, 86, (8.9 percent) died on the same day they got the shot. An additional 129, (13.4 percent) died within one day. An additional 97 died within 2 days, and 61 within 3 days.

A total of 514 (53.2 percent) died within a week. 173 died within 7-13 days. 106 within 14-20 days.

85 percent of deaths occurred in individuals over 60; below 60 there were five deaths among those aged 20-29; 8 aged 30-39; 20 aged 40-49; and 57 aged 50-59. [https://www.theepochtimes.com/adverse-incident-reports-show-966-deaths-following-vaccination-for-covid-19_3723384.html?utm_source=morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-03-07]

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)

Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said “the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church.”
[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]

– “If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html

– “Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html

 –  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.

Election Notes:  

– Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: “212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted…Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden” [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]

– Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times “Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003”: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html– Tucker Carlson’s Conservatism Inc. Biden Steal Betrayal is explained by “One of the Greatest Columns ever Written” according to Rush: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/tucker-carlsons-conservatism-inc-biden.html?m=1 – A Hour which will Live in Infamy: 10:01pm November 3, 2020: 
http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1 What is needed right now to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to even go to outdoor prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our civil liberties. [Is the DC Capitol Incident Comparable to the Nazi Reichstag Fire Incident where the German People Lost their Civil Liberties?: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/is-dc-capital-incident-comparable-to.html?m=1 and Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capitol Incident: “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs‘”: 
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1] 
Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it. 

Words from Our Blessed Mother

March 6, 2021

“I have not allowed my children to be unknowing about what now comes.

I have come again and again, and I have said to them—

“Open your eyes, for a great evil walks throughout the world. 

Do not allow your garments to be tainted by that evil, 

And heed my words that you will not be caught unaware.”

But my children have heeded not my words.

My Son has poured great mercy upon the world,

For I have pleaded for mercy for my children.  

I have said to Him—

“They are children, and they will heed the voice of their Mother.”

But although I called to them again and again,

They heeded not my words.

They have made deals with the devil, that great serpent,

And their garments are stained with sin,

And they repent not of their wickedness.  

They have counted life as naught,

Placing their hands on the sacred work of God,

And declaring that they have the right to take away

What God has given.  

Oh, myriads of angels have wept at the sight of the discarded babies,

As they have gathered them in their arms and taken them to the Lord,

And each baby has silently testified to the Lord of the depravity of His people,

And His hand will not be stayed.  

Do you think it of little consequence

That your nation has thrown the plan of the Lord in His face?

Do you think He will overlook where your nation has now moved?

America, your fate is written across the broken and mangled bodies

Of every baby who has been pulled from the womb,

And the hand of the Lord moves, 

And it will not be stayed.  

How I have pleaded for you to listen to my words,

How I have invited you to take shelter in my mantle,

And to turn from evil,

But you have not.

The blood of the babies drips on every person in this nation,

And their cries drown out your petitions for help

Which you have directed unto the Lord.  

America, the day of reckoning is upon you,

And the hand of the Lord will not be stayed.  

Evil comes wearing the disguise of freedom,

Proclaiming that you must throw off the shackles of the past,

For this is a new day, and it requires new ways.

But my children, do you not see that the shackles you throw off

Are the laws of God that have kept you safe,

And without them you will perish?  

Oh my children,

You were warned that to tamper with life is to tamper with the plan of God,

And yet you heeded not those words.

There are those who will say—

“But Mother, we have done all we could to prevent these evil things.”

But when the ship sinks, all those on board will go down,

And it is not only those who participated in evil that will drown.

But guard your souls and not your physical life,

For spiritual lifeboats are in the water.

These lifeboats are the Sacraments the Lord has given unto His people.

Forsake them not, for the ship is even now taking on water.

America, the Lord has cried unto you as He cried unto Jerusalem,

But you turned away your face.

And as the ship sinks, 

The cries of the babies will drown out your cries for help.

For the hand of the Lord moves,

And America, your days are numbered.”

-S