JANUARY 13, 2021

Far from the Spirit of the Lord: On the Pope’s New Motu Proprio

PETER KWASNIEWSKI

CRISIS MAGAZINE

The obvious problems with the recent opening of the ministries of lector and acolyte to women by Pope Francis has already been the subject of a number of articles, including one that I wrote earlier this week. As I reflect further on the motu proprio Spiritus Domini, I see more and more disturbing implications of this modification to canon law. Those who think “it’s not a big deal, it just formalizes what we’ve already been doing for decades!” greatly underestimate the difference between custom (which can include bad custom) and legal formalization, and more to the point, between substitution (women filling in for certain functions) and institution (women being installed in ministry by episcopal action).

As I noted in a recent article, Pope Francis’s documents seem to bear clever titles that indicate that the document is about to parody tradition. In the case at hand, the phrase Spiritus Domini (“The Spirit of the Lord”) immediately calls to mind the great centuries-old Introit of Pentecost (and of any Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit). The motu proprio’s first two words brings us squarely to the mystery of Pentecost.ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW

Now, what happened on the original day of Pentecost? The apostles were gathered around the Blessed Virgin Mary. She was indescribably holier than they, but after the descent of the Spirit, did she go out and preach the Gospel? No. It was the male apostles who did that, in imitation of, by the power of, and in the person of Christ. The Blessed Virgin Mary is the highest-ranking human person in the Church and the most powerful, but she was not and is not intermingled with the earthly ecclesiastical hierarchy. This is not how her Son set things up.

As the eminent Swiss theologian Charles Cardinal Journet explains (echoing countless other theologians), the ultimate and only lasting hierarchy in the Church is that of charity and sanctity. In heaven, everyone’s “rank” is determined by this and by nothing else. On earth, however, the Mystical Body is differentiated into offices or roles; and among holders of these offices, the most important ones for the threefold ministry of ruling, teaching, and sanctifying are the successors of the apostles, the bishops. Taking part in their ministry are the presbyters and deacons they ordain, and, at a further remove but still in the same line, the ministers who assist them in the performance of their duties. These viri, or males, represent Christ in and to the Church. They are also, as baptized faithful, simultaneously members of the Church, and in this capacity, they receive gifts from God just like the laity.

The Spirit of the Lord raised up twelve men to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth, while the holiest among them by far, the Mother of God, never spoke a word in public. Had she done so, we can be sure that these words would have been cherished, gathered up like gold, and preserved for posterity, as occurred with the other precious words of Mary in the Gospels. Her role was superior to that of the male apostles. She received the Son of God in the most sublime manner and lived her union with Him with sinless perfection. None of the apostles could say that of themselves. Nevertheless, hers was an absolute perfection of receiving, embodying, nurturing, and following—the fundamental Christian vocation that belongs to all of us by virtue of our baptism. It would not have added to her sanctity or her charity to busy herself, like Martha, by taking on “ministries” in the sanctuary of a church; in fact, it would have detracted from it. In like manner, it would not have added to the sanctity or charity of the apostles to farm out their apostolic tasks to other competent individuals; again, it would have detracted from it.ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW

The latest motu proprio therefore commits a double categorical error by conflating the dignity of the baptized with the dignity of active liturgical ministry. On the one hand, it implies that only the baptized who take up instituted ministries are fulfilling their proper lay vocation as fully as they might: they become clerical, to the extent possible, in order to be fully lay. On the other hand, it implies that the laity who choose simply to receive the gifts of grace provided in the liturgy—to be, in other words, just like the Virgin Mary at and after Pentecost—are (or, at least, could easily be perceived as and could perceive themselves as) second-class citizens in the Church, men and women who have not embraced their calling to be “engaged,” to “exercise” their rights, to “participate” in a leadership role. In short, Spiritus Domini, as has been pointed out, is a triumphant proclamation of clericalism, exactly contrary to the warning of Pope John Paul II in his Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici. We have seen before that the teaching contained in John Paul II’s documents, such as Veritatis Splendor and Familiaris Consortio, does not fare well under this pontificate of rupture.

That Spiritus Domini is an intentional rupture is signaled clearly in the text of the letter to the Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith that accompanied the motu proprio (emphasis added):

For centuries the “venerable tradition of the Church” has considered what were known as “minor orders”—including, indeed, the Lectorate and the Acolyte—as steps on a path that was to lead to the “major orders” (Subdiaconate, Diaconate, Presbyterate). Since the sacrament of Orders was reserved for men only, this also applied to the minor orders. A clearer distinction between the attributions of what are today called “non-ordained (or lay) ministries” and “ordained ministries” makes it possible to dissolve the reservation of the former to men alone. 

Note how Francis openly acknowledges that there is a centuries-old (indeed, bimillennial) “venerable tradition of the Church” concerning the minor orders that reserved all of these orders to men only. Then, in the manner of a rabbit emerging from a hat on its own initiative, “a clearer distinction” somehow gets drawn between “lay ministries” and “ordained ministries.” Where did this come from? Why was it done? What are the grounds for departing from the venerable tradition of the Church? On what basis do we simply “dissolve” what the Church has always done, everywhere and by everyone? There has been no adequate explanation and there will not be, because any attempt at explanation would expose the latent confusion about baptismal dignity and the underlying clericalism, feminism, and activism of the project.ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW

What we need to see, and see clearly, is this: the highest dignity of the baptized is to welcome Christ the Lord in Holy Communion. Period. Nothing else they do, no other function or service or activity, can compare to the Marian privilege of receiving God. When we elaborately multiply functions, services, and activities, we introduce distractions, invert priorities, build false hierarchies, and undermine simple faith, devotion, humility, and reverence. The participatio actuosa or actual participation of the faithful in the liturgy is not about doing, but about being, or more precisely, being a good recipient of the Word, so that this Word may be fruitful in us. It is not about busyness with much serving, but about contemplation, the union of love.

The proper role of the clergy, for its part, is to serve actively, bestowing divine gifts or assisting in their bestowal. This role embraces all ministers who assist the clergy in the sanctuary, as they collectively prepare and offer the sacrifice of Christ on behalf of all and for all. The purpose of this distinction, written into the Mystical Body of the Church no less than sexuality is written into the human body, is not to show off the better members, or let them lord it over others, or announce that they have powers, privileges, and perqs that lesser mortals lack. No. It is a power to lead the people closer to the Lord Jesus, whom the clergy and liturgical ministers are to show forth not only in their official actions but also, importantly, in their very being. What we do, what we see, what we hear: in traditional Catholic worship, these are and must be utterly consistent. The powerful, primal, sacramental symbolism of the sexes should not, and in the end cannot, be ignored.

If we are no longer able to recognize these luminous and fundamental truths of the Faith, then we are far indeed from the Spirit of the Lord, and well mired in the Spirit of the Age.ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW

[Photo Credit: Apse of Chapel Miniscalchi in Saint Anastasia’s church, Verona (Shutterstock)]https://www.facebook.com/v2.10/plugins/like.php?action=like&app_id=485814248461205&channel=https%3A%2F%2Fstaticxx.facebook.com%2Fx%2Fconnect%2Fxd_arbiter%2F%3Fversion%3D46%23cb%3Df2d153f1c6ca9aa%26domain%3Dwww.crisismagazine.com%26origin%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.crisismagazine.com%252Ff392366e6213bb%26relation%3Dparent.parent&container_width=660&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crisismagazine.com%2F2021%2Ffar-from-the-spirit-of-the-lord-on-the-popes-new-motu-proprio&layout=button_count&locale=en_US&sdk=joey&share=true&show_faces=false

By Peter Kwasniewski

Dr. Peter A. Kwasniewski is a writer and speaker on traditional Catholicism. He is the author of ten books, most recently The Holy Bread of Eternal Life (Sophia, 2020). Visit his website at http://www.peterkwasniewski.com.

Dems, Big Tech Don’t Value Free SpeechAmericans’ rights are currently under attack because Big Tech sees them as problematic.
 BY: THOMAS GALLATINThe Patriot PostJanuary 12, 2021
If one does not value something, one will not act to preserve it. Worse, one might even oppose it. What America has witnessed in recent days — Big Tech’s swift and thorough purge in banning President Donald Trump coupled with a coordinated effort to eliminate a social media competitor, Parler — is the reality that these Silicon Valley tycoons don’t value freedom of speech at all. In fact, Big Tech, encouraged by Democrats, a party that ironically derives its name from democracy, attacked the very spirit of free speech by limiting and even eliminating the speech of those they disagree with — all under the guise of preventing “incitement to violence.” Such is the disingenuous justification of totalitarians.
The sad reality is that the West has seen this type of speech-trampling rhetoric before, and the results have never produced greater Liberty. Quite the opposite.
The Left loves to argue these Big Tech companies are private enterprises that aren’t bound by the First Amendment. As such, they are free to run their companies as they see fit, including banning or limiting the free speech of those who use their platform. Yet as David Harsanyi observes, “If you say that targeted deplatforming, though not Stalinist, is troubling, the same people who want to compel everyone to buy state-mandated health insurance, who want to dictate how corporations compensate their employees, who want to force nuns to buy abortifacients, and who want to destroy the lives of bakers and florists who run businesses according to long-held religious beliefs will vigorously defend the value of free-association rights that allow corporations to act this way. So I’m pretty skeptical that most of these people are genuine champions of individual market choices, and aren’t just super excited about silencing people.”
Big Tech companies are not merely banning speech with which they disagree; they are working beyond the confines of their private business context to actively encroach on the speech rights of those in other businesses with whom they disagree politically. On Monday, AR15.com, the world’s largest online firearms forum, was suddenly de-platformed by web host GoDaddy. The rationale was of course an unfounded and ambiguous allegation without any evidence provided of a violation of GoDaddy’s terms of service. Furthermore, GoDaddy’s decision was final, with no opportunity for recourse or method of appeal offered. It was simply a “we decided you’re guilty and the sentence is immediate elimination.”
One of the greatest ironies is Big Tech’s use of the “incitement to violence” canard to justify banning and deplatforming individuals and organizations while it has done little against Black Lives Matter and Antifa activists who promoted and directly engaged in months of leftist violence and rioting across the country this past summer. Democrat politicians who actively supported the riotous mobs were not banned by these platforms either.
Just yesterday, Facebook announced that it would ban any messages containing the phrase “stop the steal.” The reason? To stop “harmful” misinformation. “We’re removing content containing the phrase ‘stop the steal’ under our Coordinating Harm policy from Facebook & Instagram,” the company announced. Since when is “stop the steal” an incitement to violence? Since Democrats, Big Tech, and the Leftmedia declared it so, that’s when. Funny how when someone like Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims, as she did in May of 2017, that “our election was hijacked,” no one claimed she was “inciting violence” and should be banned.
To bring it back around to values, free speech is something Americans, maybe even particularly on the left side of the aisle, have long treasured, to a sometimes ridiculous extent. Remember when flag burning was the preferred method of “speech”? Now only one side of the political divide truly values free speech. And the other side is doing everything in its vast power to crush it.

Life after Trump, Part I: Living in the Lightning
By Peter ZeihanJanuary 11, 2021
Let me start off by saying that in an advanced democracy like the United States, political violence must never be tolerated. We have institutions and courts and elections expressly to manage our differences and debates. That isn’t simply how things are, that is how things should be. The ban on political violence is entrenched in both our norms and our laws and is the foundation of not simply our Constitution or our civilization, but of civilization itself. Anyone who encourages otherwise should rot. Many have compared the events of the January 6 Capitol riots with the violence which occurred concurrently with the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020. The idea cannot simply be dismissed out of hand. But not being correct isn’t the same as being right. During the 2020 protests, some figures in national leadership encouraged people to do more than simply march and cheerfully paid their bail after their arrests. AOC comes to mind. That is indeed crassly irresponsible. Damaging. Stupid. But we expect different things from different people. We hold four-year-olds to different standards than college students, much less parents of four. That’s life. So, while I am the polar opposite of impressed when folks like AOC engage in dubious political acts and grandstanding, I can’t say that I’m shocked or offended or mourning for the future of my country. I expect that sort of crap from young, first-term Congresspeople and I weigh it against some of the less-than-wise things I did in my 20s. Yes, from time to time they besmirch their office and their place in history, but they are rabble-rousers. It’s their schtick. It isn’t like they are leaders. In contrast, Trump is the president. He is the leader of the free world. The presidential standard is higher than the standard for a 31-year-old-until-recently-bartender-now-first-term-Congresswomen. Even if the standard were the same, Trump has surrounded himself with people seeped in law & order conservatism and respect for American institutions like Reince Priebus, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Rex Tillerson, James Mattis, John Kelly, Nikki Haley, and HR McMaster. Even folks on TeamTrump that I might personally disagree with more often – such as John Bolton, Jeff Sessions, and Gary Cohn – are hardly what I would call fascists or anarchists. Even if you hate any or all these men and women on ideological grounds, you must admit that they are adults and that they realize spending a month of your time encouraging the most violent portions of American society to descend on the capital to lay siege to the Capital complex isn’t a good call. I have zero doubt that all of them warned Trump against similar actions on multiple occasions. I have zero doubt such warnings were the proximate reasons all no longer serve in the White House. Trump knew exactly what he was doing. He was deliberately assembling a mob over the course of weeks. He deliberately encouraged them to march on the Capitol. He wasn’t shocked when they stormed the People’s House, but instead the opposite; leaks from the White House are rife with details about how he was overjoyed. Trump’s problem is he just couldn’t fathom that what he did was…wrong. Ethically, morally, institutionally, civilizationally, democratically, legally, criminally wrong.
Geopolitics has two speeds.
The first is glacial. The immutable features of land and ocean, mountain and plain, jungle and river, shape who we are, what we dream, what we can attain, what we must try, how we succeed and how we fail. But not necessarily today. The forces of geography and demography rarely play out in years. It is more often decades. 
We always live in the shadow of geopolitics, but we can and do and always will mold the short-term to our will.
The second speed is lightning. We can live. We can build. We can fly. We can fight. We can rage against the dying of the light. But no matter who we are or what we believe, the forces of geography and demography will always win out in the end. Germany was destined by geopolitics to soar in a century-long rise, and then history sped up and Germany crashed in a six-year cataclysmic war. The Soviet Union was similarly destined to dominate, just as history was destined to speed up with the Soviet collapse. I’d argue we are approaching the end of China’s time in the sun, and very soon history will speed up and plunge the Chinese into a long, horrible dark.
The world is a messy, often violent place. Wars over this or that patch of land, or this or that resource, have dominated all of recorded history…until recently. After World War II the Americans crafted the world’s first true global Order, wielding their unparalleled military in a manner that enabled all countries to participate in global trade without needing to protect their production, their citizens, or the ebb and flow of materials and goods shipments. We did it to purchase the loyalty of the allies to fight the Cold War, but the American rationale hardly prevented the strategy from transforming our world.
This Order is all most of us know. It is responsible for everything from peace in Europe to mass immunizations to the device you are reading this series on. But make no mistake. Our world is new. Our world is fragile. But above all our world is artificial and it bears absolutely no resemblance to the rest of the six-thousand-year saga of human history. We are able to live in our world because the Americans have been holding back the glacier, preventing the world from reverting to its long norm. But for the Americans, the globalized world is little more than a side effect of a war that ended thirty years ago. And holding back the glacier is hard.
Geopolitics always wins in the end. The glacier always lurches forward into lightning. The longer we hold back the glacier, the more furious the lightning – and the Americans have been holding back the glacier for seventy-five years.
I…I’m not sure precisely what I’m expecting to achieve with this series. An end? A beginning? A mourning for what once was? Hope for what might still be? A bit of schadenfreude? Maybe. Certainly, a double fistful of commiseration. I freely admit I’m horrified at what has transpired in DC. I’m still in a bit of shock.
What I know for certain is that globalization is over. Politically, each president who took office after the Berlin Wall fell has demonstrated ever-less interest in holding it together. In that, Trump was no outlier, but simply the next step down the road. There is no globalization without the United States providing global safety, and the globalized world has grown to the point that the United States lacks the economic and military capacity to sustain the system. Culturally, in the aftermath of January 6, the Americans no longer have the cultural capacity to even try to hold the center.
What I know for certain is that there was a coup on January 6, but it didn’t happen when the guy in paramilitary dress with a fistful of zip ties managed to break into the Gallery, or when the guy wearing the swastika shirt emblazoned with SMNE (six million is not enough) walked into the Speaker’s office, or when the guy in the Chewbacca bikini traipsed through the Capitol Rotunda where just two years ago the last president with global ambitions and a global conscience – George HW Bush – lay in state. It occurred when the acting Secretary of Defense and the Vice President called in the National Guard to eject the rioters from the Capitol complex over Trump’s express refusals. It happened January 7 when the office of the Attorney General began a criminal investigation of the President of the United States. At the time of this writing, on January 10, the United States does not have a leader.
What I know for certain is that Trump’s fall from grace has changed us as a nation. If there is one thing that both diehard Trumpists and Trump’s staunchest opponents agree on, it is that the United States needs to change. The year 2021 will be the year we debate what must change, and maybe even how. This year will be about groping our way forward. About deciding what we want our political parties to be. About the role of technology in society. About law enforcement. About disease. About (in)equality. This is the year we debate both what America is and what it should be. That’s a big plate of stuff to chew through. I have little confidence we’ll finish it this year. This means the United States is utterly incapable of dealing with the world in any meaningful way.
What I know for certain is that I’m going to try to keep my personal politics out of this series. I’m going to attempt to avoid dancing on graves or crying in corners. I’m going to attempt to avoid falling down rabbit holes on topics ranging from violence in society to the First Amendment to Congress to the American political system. I’ll try to point out when analysis veers into opinion. I’m pretty sure I’m going to fail here and there. I will try to act like I’m not on Twitter. I’m pretty sure I won’t bat a thousand on that either.
And that’s because I know one more thing for certain:
We are not simply in a time of transition. From globalization to something newer (or older). From Trump to Biden. From calm to chaos. The glacier of history has broken free. We are living in the lightning.

Rip McIntosh

January 11, 2021

The Epoch Times show Crossroads reported that “Antifa Tactics Seen at Jan 6 Capitol Protest—Interview With Michael Yon”:

 “The United States is still making sense of what took place on Jan 6 at Capitol Hill in Washington, and among the accusations has been that the radical organization Antifa was involved at the protests. To learn more about this we’ve invited to speak with us Michael Yon, a war correspondent who has attended hundreds of protests, and who has deep insights into Antifa and their tactics.”

“These stories and more in this episode of Crossroads.” [https://mb.ntd.com/antifa-tactics-seen-at-jan-6-capitol-protest-interview-with-michael-yon_551491.html]

Moreover, on the Bladder Buzz news outlet, it was reported that the former U.S. special forces member and protest journalist Yon said “Security Failure During Capitol Hill Breach Is Adding To Evidence That Event Was ‘Pre-Planned'”:

Yon, a former member of U.S. special forces who were at the Capitol protests himself, said that in the areas he was in near the Capitol, there was no actual security on Jan. 6.

“There was no real security at all, really. It was like a straight shot, like Atlanta airport, with lights telling you where to land,” Yon said. “It was a clear shot to the Capitol. Where was the security on a day like this? It was unbelievable.”

Yon said that loss of security looked like an offer to proceed to charge the Capitol.

“They had taken down the barriers, which were nothing, they were like the snow fence—you know, the plastic ones that you can unfurl—so those were nothing. I mean, literally, a child can take them down,” he said during an interview with Jan Jekielek’s “American Thought Leaders.” 

Yon said that loss of security looked like an offer to proceed to charge the Capitol.

“They had taken down the barriers, which were nothing, they were like the snow fence—you know, the plastic ones that you can unfurl—so those were nothing. I mean, literally, a child can take them down,” he said during an interview with Jan Jekielek’s “American Thought Leaders.”

He said he believes the invasion of the Capitol was inspired by some typical crowd control techniques, though he didn’t say if the tactics were purposely used or not. [https://www.blabber.buzz/blab/pop/1023287-security-failure-during-capitol-hill-breach-is-adding-to-evidence-that-event-was-pre-planned?utm_source=c-alrt&utm_medium=c-alrt-email&utm_term=c-alrt-AOL&utm_content=8bN5OrM4vG8yTZWr9jZmSiRV43DITIlWztuwgK6xcl-A.A]

Note: Please put America in the following Prayer of Command intention against the “satanic forces” unleashed against it:

Prayer of Command of  Exorcist Fr. Chad Ripperger: In His Name and by the power of His Cross and Blood, I ask Jesus to bind any evil spirits, forces and powers of the earth, air, fire, or water, of the netherworld and the satanic forces of nature.  By the power of the Holy Spirit and by His authority, I ask Jesus Christ to break any curses, hexes, or spells and send them back to where they came from, if it be His Holy Will.  I beseech Thee Lord Jesus to protect us by pouring Thy Precious Blood on us (intention), which Thou hast shed for us and I ask Thee to command that any departing spirits leave quietly, without disturbance, and go straight to Thy Cross to dispose of as Thou sees fit.  I ask Thee to bind any demonic interaction, interplay, or communications.  I place N. (intention) under the protection of the Blood of Jesus Christ which He shed for us. Amen  Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it.

Pray an Our Father now for the United States of America.
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of MaryThe publisher of the Catholic Monitor has made a pledge to wear the Brown Scapular and say the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary everyday for a Rosary Lepanto-like victory for America. He asks all CM readers to make this pledge until January 20.

“THE HOLY ROSARY, MOST POWERFUL WEAPON AGAINST THE ENEMY OF GOD AND MAN… Saint Pius V ordered the faithful to recite the Rosary to impetrate victory from God in the epic battle of the Christian Armada against the Turk in the waters of Lepanto: still today, at noon each day, the bells ring in our cities to recall [the victory of] October 7, 1571… Let us pray for the United States of America; let us pray for our President; let us pray for his victory, that the Lord God of Hosts – Dominus Deus Sabaoth –will grant that he may know how to place himself under God’s protection.” –  Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò

President Trump Takes a Hit for the TeamBy Jack CashillAmerican ThinkerJanuary 12, 2021
“The Republican nominee for president will be that candidate who best learns that there is no future in apologizing,” I wrote in a June 10, 2015, column. Six days later Donald Trump descended the escalator at Trump Tower and, in so doing, launched the most volatile period in American history since the Civil War.
I wish I could say I had Trump in mind when I wrote the above, but as right as my prediction proved to be, I did not even know Trump was running. His refusal to back down or apologize came at a huge personal cost, but the rest of us, including his enemies, benefited from his un-Republican-like willingness to punch back when punched.
The benefits came in two primary forms: what Trump accomplished as president and what he exposed. The last few months, and the last week especially, were all about exposure. We will get to this in a minute, but first a quick brief on Trump’s accomplishment.
No matter how visceral their loathing of Trump, even our leftist friends benefitted from four years of peace and prosperity. So vibrant was the economy in early 2020 that it pushed us through the globalist fear pandemic in relatively good order. Enjoy the fruits of that economy while you can. They won’t last.
As to peace, Trump launched no new wars, nor did he expand any old ones. No president since Jimmy Carter can make this claim, and Carter accomplished his peace through submission. Trump accomplished his through strength: a military rebuilt, North Korea subdued, Russia restrained, China looking over its shoulder, Israel making new friends throughout the region.
Of universal benefit, too, were the trade deals that Trump pulled off. In 2016, these deals were on the agenda of no other candidate from either party. In 2019, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which replaced the disastrous NAFTA, passed a Democrat-controlled House 385-41. In his eight years, Barack Obama had no bipartisan accomplishment of this magnitude, nothing close.
From the conservative perspective, Trump’s most enduring accomplishment were the judicial appointments, a high percentage of whom are constitutionalists, nearly 500 at all levels, including three in the Supreme Court.
Although another Republican president might have secured, as Trump did, deregulation, tax cuts, and energy independence, none other would have dared to build a wall, help move the capital of Israel to Jerusalem, speak at the March for Life, or rescue us from the delusional Paris Accord.
Then too, despite four years of media race baiting, Trump secured the highest Republican percentage of minority votes in sixty years, not to mention 12 million more total votes than any Republican had ever received.
Reportedly, Louisiana Governor Huey Long was once asked, “Do you think we will ever have Fascism in America?” Said Long, “Sure, only we’ll call it anti-Fascism.” What Trump exposed, and which may prove of more lasting value than what he accomplished, was the real-life unfolding of Long’s paradox.
Even before Trump was elected, he had panicked the bipartisan deep state into overreaction. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan refused to appear with Trump on stage in Wisconsin. Hillary Clinton and the DNC meanwhile launched the Russia collusion hoax as a dirty trick operation, and the Obama administration finessed it, with the help of the FBI and CIA, into the foundation for a coup. The media meanwhile cheered the coconspirators on.
On August 15, 2016, the FBI’s Peter Strzok memorably signaled the shared motive of all the conspirators. “There’s no way [Trump] gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk,” he texted FBI lover Lisa Page. “It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
As the coup progressed, renegade Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi said out loud what should have been obvious to everyone on his side of the barricades, “Being on any team is a bad look for the press, but the press being on team FBI/CIA is an atrocity, Trump or no Trump.”
The major media were well beyond caring about appearances. Laughably, in 2018, the Washington Post shared a “national reporting” Pulitzer with the New York Times “for deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.” Not since the Times’ Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer for concealing the Soviet terror-famine has the prize been awarded so promiscuously.
In gauging scores in sports like diving and figure skating, judges factor in a “degree of difficulty.” No president since Lincoln has labored under a higher degree of difficulty than Trump. I cannot recall seeing a positive headline in any major media during the duration of his presidency. The fact that America’s most beautiful and stylish first lady never made it onto the cover of a magazine suggests just how monolithic was the opposition. And still Trump never apologized, never backed down.
In the 2020 election, Trump showed us just how inherent was the Left’s fondness for fascism. Big Tech crossed something of a Rubicon two weeks before the election when its agents colluded in censoring the Hunter Biden story. Big Media helped their allies across.
With the story blocked, Biden had a chance of winning. Using COVID as a cover, Democratic operatives in key states just had to steal thousands more votes than usual. Big Media and Big Tech colluded by mocking those who dared question the rigging of the election, and the FBI sat on its hands. Although Trump had carried congressional Republicans to unexpected wins, most collaborated with the conspirators by either keeping silent or scolding Trump for daring to question the outcome.  
The “fascist” movement began with Italy’s Benito Mussolini. He took the name of his party from the Latin word fasces meaning a bundle of rods gathered together in one strong hand. Starting in ten days all the rods will be gathered — the presidency, the House, the Senate, Big Tech, Big Media, Hollywood, the CIA, the FBI, perhaps even the military. Just in the last few weeks, their collective eagerness to suppress dissent has shown up their mentors in the CCP.
To enforce the new order at the street level, the Left has developed its own private army. In a marvelous bit of self-parody, the bully boys of the new fascism, the Left’s own SA, call themselves anti-fascists or Antifa for short. Huey Long had the last laugh on that one.
With his back to the wall, Trump rallied the last bulwark against this encroaching tyranny, the American people. In so doing, he showed the comically obvious hypocrisy of the Left’s support for protests called “largely peaceful”.
Although events this past week did not appear to work out as we might have liked, appearances can be deceiving. There were lessons learned, eyes opened. It seems somehow providential that the people’s protest at the “People’s House” occurred on the Epiphany.

INTELLECTUAL HONESTY AND THE MORAL HIGH-GROUNDBy: Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army retired,January 11, 2021
The moral high-ground: That is what people around the world used to think of when the subject of the United States came up. It is where we want our leaders to reside but, unfortunately, it is not the first thing that comes to mind when we think about our politicians.
The moral high-ground is not a place you are just entitled to be; you have to earn your way to that lofty spot through words and deeds.  Additionally, there is a pathway to the moral high-ground and at the bottom of the hill, the street sign says, Intellectual Honesty Lane. 
It is also important to point out that residing on the moral high-ground is not limited to we-the-people. Every organization and institution, no matter how large or small, has a culture associated with it. Stated another way, culture is an organization’s personality. It could be positive…..selfless, trustworthy, honest, morally stable……, you get the picture. Or, unfortunately, it could be a culture of blame, hate, self-serving, vengeful. The one thing that is common to all cultures is, “culture is a powerful and pervasive force”. If that definition is correct and I believe it is because it is mine, then it is a force to be reckoned with.
For the past four years, we have been subjected to our organization’s (the United States of America) culture of blame and hate. That is an ugly place to be. 
The culture of blame has been growing for the past 25 years, is now deeply entrenched in our political structure, and has rendered our Congress hopelessly dysfunctional. The culture of hate is a relatively new-comer.
Background: President Obama set out in 2009 to, his words, “transform America.” Everything seemed to be moving toward the goal, big government with government control, and then Donald Trump happened. 
In the lead-up to the 2016 election Trump told us what he was going to do…..fix immigration, fix the economy (every piece of it), rebuild the military, make our NATO allies more responsible, stop nuclear development in North Korea, challenge China’s move toward world economic domination, challenge Iran’s goal of Middle East hegemony, get tough on Russia, cut taxes for everyone, energy independence, Middle East peace, not start any new wars, shut down ISIS, free up small business expansion through deregulation, the list goes on. And then after elected, he had the audacity to accomplish all of it. 
The political left was shocked when Donald Trump shredded their transformation plans. They hate him for it; not just a little bit but deep-seated, blind, illogical hatred. Hatred so intense that if you supported what he was accomplishing for every citizen then their hatred expanded to include you. They denigrated every one of his accomplishments and attacked his character by proclaiming him to be an active racist. The Trump haters moved to a place so dark they could not even see the moral high-ground let alone understand the importance of it.
The hatred was so strong they openly spoke of and planned for his impeachment. It started immediately after the 2016 election; Vanity Fair headline November 14, 2016: “Will Trump Be Impeached?”  Vanity Fair December 15, 2016: “Democrats Are Paving the Way to Impeach Donald Trump.” In a Washington Post article, inauguration day, January 20, 2017 “The Campaign to Impeach President Trump Has Begun.” A recent TV montage showed a lineup of main-stream media journalists and/or leading democrat spokespersons every single month from January 2017 through January 2021 make reference to the imperative to impeach President Trump. 
A culture of hate quickly swept across the nation and was embedded in the minds of possibly 75 -100 million citizens. The principal enabler for this rapid spread of hate was the main-stream media. Journalists quickly became the extended arm of the democrat party and its leaders.
With that background, let’s turn to the subject at hand, intellectual honesty, and the moral high-ground. When a president has successfully taken on decades-old domestic and world-wide problems and solved them, is it feasible that daily media reporting of the Trump Administration’s actions should be 93% negative continuously for four years? Can there be any intellectual honesty associated with 93% negativism? How is it even feasible that 75-100 million people would believe and foster 93% negative reporting? It can happen and did happen because of a powerful and pervasive culture of hatred.
Beyond my definition,” Culture is a powerful and pervasive force”, I believe that, “In order for it to endure, culture needs to be nourished and reinforced.”  Knowing they can rely on the media to carry their dirty laundry, Trump-haters have bombarded us with their intellectual dishonesty and immorality. Examples:Maxine Watters, June 2018, screams to her supporters, “If you see anybody from this Cabinet in a restaurant, in a Department Store, in a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd! You push back on them! You tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere!” And what did the democrat party and democrat leaders have to say about all that? Of course, nothing. In many instances like this one, it is good to remember that silence can be construed as consent.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently tweeted that lists of Trump supporters should be, “archived so they could be held accountable for their behavior.” Could anything be more un-American? Has she no knowledge of Germany in the 1930s or the USSR during the cold war? Without knowledge, there is little hope of seeing her on the moral high-ground.
Kamala Harris: In the wake of deadly fires and looting last summer, Harris asked her five million-plus Twitter followers to donate money to bail out the protesters and then commenting in June 2020 that the protesters “should not let up.” There is a long list of those who received cash for bail including, Jaleel who shot at members of a SWAT Team during the riots in May. He received $75,000 in cash to get out of jail. Darnika, charged with second-degree murder, received $100,000 for her release. The list is long. What was the push-back from her party for this outrageous behavior? Zero.
 The American people are not impressed by this kind of intellectual flimflam. Where is the moral high-ground? And, by the way, did these ladies get their Twitter accounts suspended or even commented on? Nope!
Biden campaigned on a pledge to reunify the nation and I fully expect him to go on and on about it during his inauguration address. Any discussion of reunification should begin by defining the existing division but he won’t do that so his arguments may well ring hollow.
Here is what Joe will not say during his speech. Prior to 2016 conservatives and liberals disagreed about many aspects of US foreign and domestic policy. Nothing new about that; we have always had the majority of our population slightly left and right of an imaginary center line as well as a few relatively small lunatic fringe elements to the far left and right.
But what immediately emerged in 2016 was an enormous bulge on the left-of-center line consisting of many tens of millions of Trump haters. They are the “divide” that all liberal politicians talk about but will never admit they are the cause of the divide. The left’s leaders cannot see it because they are the divide; akin to “unable to see the forest for the trees.” By contrast, where did the conservatives go? Nowhere, we are still just to the right side of the centerline on policy issues. The culture of hatred towards Trump has nothing to do with policy, is it just pure unadulterated, stand-alone hatred. 
So, Mr. Biden how do you go about reuniting the country? You and your party are all about identity politics. Democrats know how to divide Americans into identifiable groups and pander to them. I suggest you use some of that know-how.
President Trump is going away in a few days. You won. Forget about Trump; let the historians worry about him. Without Trump to kick around, the hate culture might begin to dissolve as an up-front-in-your-face daily issue. Additionally, journalists will hopefully find something more constructive to deal with. You have been saying for months that you want to be the president for all Americans. Unless that is just another campaign sound bite, you need to actually do something about it. 
Seventy-five million Americans voted for President Trump. Look at them as your newest and most challenging identity group and do the following:
One, keep your antagonistic mouth shut about Trump. You hate every positive, successful policy he championed on behalf of all Americans. Stop running all the good accomplishments down.  And watch what you say. Your sound bites are too often wrong and inflammatory. For example, on the Capitol Hill riot, 6 January, your knee-jerk reaction was to openly charge the president with insurrection. The immediate follow-on was that “insurrection” became the operative word description for use by the main-stream media. What happened on that day was tragic, poor judgement on the president’s part but it most certainly was not, “open revolt against a constituted government”, insurrection.
As an aside, calling the Capitol Police racist was not a smart move. You might want to remove that too-often-used word from your vocabulary going forward or perhaps get some new writers. 
Two, pick up the phone and have a come-to-Jesus conversation with the single most vindictive person in government; Nancy Pelosi. What is to be gained by a presidential impeachment in his last few days in office? The answer is a resounding nothing, but there is a lot you can lose. Her actions on impeachment make you look weak. It makes her look like the leader of your party. Everyone knows, even the democrats, you are supposed to be leading and her actions are simply all about revenge. The leading constitutional authorities I have seen on TV since 6 January have been unanimous that the president’s words were not intended to result in a riot on Capitol Hill.  
On impeachment, you have three choices; 1) support it, 2) not say anything or 3) emphatically and clearly tell we-the-people that impeachment is neither necessary nor appropriate. Choices 1 and 2 will be an enormous impediment to gaining the trust and respect of the 75 million Trump supporters.
Three, announce immediately (preferably at your inauguration) that you understand that about 90 million voters, republican, democrat and independents, want answers concerning potential fraud during the election. Tell us that you understand the importance of honest elections and if there was fraud anywhere it must be rooted out and the system fixed. 
Doing those three things immediately will send a powerful and positive message to 75 million Trump supports. Your failure to do so will run the risk of shifting the left’s entire hate-bulge to the right side of the median. 
Mr. President-elect Biden, you are about to ascend to the most challenging and prominent leadership position in the world. I ask that you keep intellectual honesty and the value of being on the moral high-ground upper-most in your mind and in the minds of senior leaders who surround you.

Rip McIntosh

CATHOLIC MONITOR

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Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capital Incident: “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs'”

January 12, 2021

The Epoch Times show Crossroads did an interview with the former U.S. special forces member and protest journalist Michael Yon. The former U.S. special forces member revealed that he thought leftist Antifa may have coordinated to some extent the the Capital incident from his experience of Antifa tactics in the Hong Kong protests. 

Click to the Crossroads video, titled “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs,'” below: 

https://mb.ntd.com/antifa-tactics-seen-at-jan-6-capitol-protest-interview-with-michael-yon_551491.html

On the Crossroads show, Yon in the interview explained that there were”Antifa tactics seen at [the] Jan 6 Capitol Protest.”

If this is true then it appears that the Capitol incident was a type of Reichstag Fire event where the German people lost their civil liberties to the Nazis. The On This Day website gives a summary of the Reichstag Fire incident:

Four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as the new Chancellor of Germany, the seat of the German Parliament in Berlin, the Reichstag, was burned down. This is one of the most contested and controversial events of Hitler’s early years in power, as a mere one day later, Hitler signed the Reichstag Fire Decree which gave his government the legal authority to imprison opponents of the Nazis and suspend many civil liberties in Germany.

The Nazis arrested Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch Communist, with setting the fire. He was tried, and executed on January 10, 1934, for the arson act. There has been much debate on whether Lubbe acted alone or whether the Nazis set the fire as a false-flag attack in order to pass the Reichstag Decree and increase their power.

Foremost Nazi historian Ian Kershaw wrote in 1998 that the consensus was that Lubbe had acted alone and that the fire was merely a stroke of luck that the event occurred so the Nazis could use it to their advantage. However, new evidence since then has pointed to the possibility of a Nazi conspiracy. In June 2019 an affidavit in the archives of former investigator Fritz Tobias was discovered. In it Hans-Martin Lennings, an SA operative, claimed in 1955 that he and his SA group drove Lubbe to the scene of the fire – and that the Reichstag was already on fire when they arrived.

Lennings claimed that his team were made to sign a paper denying knowledge of the event, and that they had protested Lubbe’s arrest. He later claimed that many involved had been executed but that he had been warned and fled to Czechoslovakia.

Whatever the case, in 2008 a German court posthumously pardoned Lubbe under a law designed to reverse unjust convictions during Nazi persecutions. [https://www.onthisday.com/photos/reichstag-fire]

Dinesh D’Souza, in his book The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left explains in great detail how and why something like a Reichstag Fire-like incident is possible in America. [https://www.amazon.com/Big-Lie-Exposing-Roots-American/dp/1621573486]

What is needed right now, if the above is true, 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.

Note: Please put the Church, America, President Donald Trump and Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò  in the following Prayer of Command intention against the “satanic forces” unleashed against it:

Prayer of Command of  Exorcist Fr. Chad Ripperger: In His Name and by the power of His Cross and Blood, I ask Jesus to bind any evil spirits, forces and powers of the earth, air, fire, or water, of the netherworld and the satanic forces of nature.  By the power of the Holy Spirit and by His authority, I ask Jesus Christ to break any curses, hexes, or spells and send them back to where they came from, if it be His Holy Will.  I beseech Thee Lord Jesus to protect us by pouring Thy Precious Blood on us (intention), which Thou hast shed for us and I ask Thee to command that any departing spirits leave quietly, without disturbance, and go straight to Thy Cross to dispose of as Thou sees fit.  I ask Thee to bind any demonic interaction, interplay, or communications.  I place N. (intention) under the protection of the Blood of Jesus Christ which He shed for us. Amen  Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it.

Pray an Our Father now for the United States of America and President Donald Trump.
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of MaryThe publisher of the Catholic Monitor has made a pledge to wear the Brown Scapular and say the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary everyday for a Rosary Lepanto-like victory for President Trump. He asks all CM readers to make this pledge until January 20.

“THE HOLY ROSARY, MOST POWERFUL WEAPON AGAINST THE ENEMY OF GOD AND MAN… Saint Pius V ordered the faithful to recite the Rosary to impetrate victory from God in the epic battle of the Christian Armada against the Turk in the waters of Lepanto: still today, at noon each day, the bells ring in our cities to recall [the victory of] October 7, 1571… Let us pray for the United States of America; let us pray for our President; let us pray for his victory, that the Lord God of Hosts – Dominus Deus Sabaoth –will grant that he may know how to place himself under God’s protection.” –  Archbishop Carlo Maria ViganòSHARE

President Trump Takes a Hit for the TeamBy Jack CashillAmerican ThinkerJanuary 12, 2021
“The Republican nominee for president will be that candidate who best learns that there is no future in apologizing,” I wrote in a June 10, 2015, column. Six days later Donald Trump descended the escalator at Trump Tower and, in so doing, launched the most volatile period in American history since the Civil War.
I wish I could say I had Trump in mind when I wrote the above, but as right as my prediction proved to be, I did not even know Trump was running. His refusal to back down or apologize came at a huge personal cost, but the rest of us, including his enemies, benefited from his un-Republican-like willingness to punch back when punched.
The benefits came in two primary forms: what Trump accomplished as president and what he exposed. The last few months, and the last week especially, were all about exposure. We will get to this in a minute, but first a quick brief on Trump’s accomplishment.
No matter how visceral their loathing of Trump, even our leftist friends benefitted from four years of peace and prosperity. So vibrant was the economy in early 2020 that it pushed us through the globalist fear pandemic in relatively good order. Enjoy the fruits of that economy while you can. They won’t last.
As to peace, Trump launched no new wars, nor did he expand any old ones. No president since Jimmy Carter can make this claim, and Carter accomplished his peace through submission. Trump accomplished his through strength: a military rebuilt, North Korea subdued, Russia restrained, China looking over its shoulder, Israel making new friends throughout the region.
Of universal benefit, too, were the trade deals that Trump pulled off. In 2016, these deals were on the agenda of no other candidate from either party. In 2019, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which replaced the disastrous NAFTA, passed a Democrat-controlled House 385-41. In his eight years, Barack Obama had no bipartisan accomplishment of this magnitude, nothing close.
From the conservative perspective, Trump’s most enduring accomplishment were the judicial appointments, a high percentage of whom are constitutionalists, nearly 500 at all levels, including three in the Supreme Court.
Although another Republican president might have secured, as Trump did, deregulation, tax cuts, and energy independence, none other would have dared to build a wall, help move the capital of Israel to Jerusalem, speak at the March for Life, or rescue us from the delusional Paris Accord.
Then too, despite four years of media race baiting, Trump secured the highest Republican percentage of minority votes in sixty years, not to mention 12 million more total votes than any Republican had ever received.
Reportedly, Louisiana Governor Huey Long was once asked, “Do you think we will ever have Fascism in America?” Said Long, “Sure, only we’ll call it anti-Fascism.” What Trump exposed, and which may prove of more lasting value than what he accomplished, was the real-life unfolding of Long’s paradox.
Even before Trump was elected, he had panicked the bipartisan deep state into overreaction. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan refused to appear with Trump on stage in Wisconsin. Hillary Clinton and the DNC meanwhile launched the Russia collusion hoax as a dirty trick operation, and the Obama administration finessed it, with the help of the FBI and CIA, into the foundation for a coup. The media meanwhile cheered the coconspirators on.
On August 15, 2016, the FBI’s Peter Strzok memorably signaled the shared motive of all the conspirators. “There’s no way [Trump] gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk,” he texted FBI lover Lisa Page. “It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
As the coup progressed, renegade Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi said out loud what should have been obvious to everyone on his side of the barricades, “Being on any team is a bad look for the press, but the press being on team FBI/CIA is an atrocity, Trump or no Trump.”
The major media were well beyond caring about appearances. Laughably, in 2018, the Washington Post shared a “national reporting” Pulitzer with the New York Times “for deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.” Not since the Times’ Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer for concealing the Soviet terror-famine has the prize been awarded so promiscuously.
In gauging scores in sports like diving and figure skating, judges factor in a “degree of difficulty.” No president since Lincoln has labored under a higher degree of difficulty than Trump. I cannot recall seeing a positive headline in any major media during the duration of his presidency. The fact that America’s most beautiful and stylish first lady never made it onto the cover of a magazine suggests just how monolithic was the opposition. And still Trump never apologized, never backed down.
In the 2020 election, Trump showed us just how inherent was the Left’s fondness for fascism. Big Tech crossed something of a Rubicon two weeks before the election when its agents colluded in censoring the Hunter Biden story. Big Media helped their allies across.
With the story blocked, Biden had a chance of winning. Using COVID as a cover, Democratic operatives in key states just had to steal thousands more votes than usual. Big Media and Big Tech colluded by mocking those who dared question the rigging of the election, and the FBI sat on its hands. Although Trump had carried congressional Republicans to unexpected wins, most collaborated with the conspirators by either keeping silent or scolding Trump for daring to question the outcome.  
The “fascist” movement began with Italy’s Benito Mussolini. He took the name of his party from the Latin word fasces meaning a bundle of rods gathered together in one strong hand. Starting in ten days all the rods will be gathered — the presidency, the House, the Senate, Big Tech, Big Media, Hollywood, the CIA, the FBI, perhaps even the military. Just in the last few weeks, their collective eagerness to suppress dissent has shown up their mentors in the CCP.
To enforce the new order at the street level, the Left has developed its own private army. In a marvelous bit of self-parody, the bully boys of the new fascism, the Left’s own SA, call themselves anti-fascists or Antifa for short. Huey Long had the last laugh on that one.
With his back to the wall, Trump rallied the last bulwark against this encroaching tyranny, the American people. In so doing, he showed the comically obvious hypocrisy of the Left’s support for protests called “largely peaceful”.
Although events this past week did not appear to work out as we might have liked, appearances can be deceiving. There were lessons learned, eyes opened. It seems somehow providential that the people’s protest at the “People’s House” occurred on the Epiphany.

January 12, 2021

The National Pulse reported that a poll showed that battleground American voters think that totalitarian censorship of President Donald Trump “can” lead loss of “free speech for any American”:

A new voter survey from McLaughlin & Associates reveals Americans overwhelmingly oppose the U.S. House of Representatives impeaching President Trump and big tech’s moves to censor the sitting president. 

The survey of 800 battleground voters “matches the actual turnout from the November 3 election” and took place on January 10th and 11th…

… 60 percent of voters view impeachment as a “waste of time and money,” and, similarly, 77 percent of all voters feel “dealing with Coronavirus” should take precedence.

“74 percent of all voters agree that efforts by Pelosi and the Democrats to try to impeach the President after Joe Biden was sworn in would be politically motivated to prevent the President from running again, stripping his Secret Service protection, and preventing him from having a Presidential Library,” the study adds.

On the issue of big tech’s censorship of President Trump, 74 percent feel that “Twitter, Facebook and Google can censor and take away the President’s right to free speech they can take away the right to free speech for any American.”

As a result, 70 percent of voters agree that companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon “have too much power and need to be regulated to protect the freedoms and privacy of Americans.”

The poll also finds that President Trump retains a 49 percent job approval rating in the battleground states. [https://thenationalpulse.com/breaking/impeachment-tech-poll/]

Note: Please put the Church, America, President Donald Trump and Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò  in the following Prayer of Command intention against the “satanic forces” unleashed against it:

Prayer of Command of  Exorcist Fr. Chad Ripperger: In His Name and by the power of His Cross and Blood, I ask Jesus to bind any evil spirits, forces and powers of the earth, air, fire, or water, of the netherworld and the satanic forces of nature.  By the power of the Holy Spirit and by His authority, I ask Jesus Christ to break any curses, hexes, or spells and send them back to where they came from, if it be His Holy Will.  I beseech Thee Lord Jesus to protect us by pouring Thy Precious Blood on us (intention), which Thou hast shed for us and I ask Thee to command that any departing spirits leave quietly, without disturbance, and go straight to Thy Cross to dispose of as Thou sees fit.  I ask Thee to bind any demonic interaction, interplay, or communications.  I place N. (intention) under the protection of the Blood of Jesus Christ which He shed for us. Amen  Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it.

Pray an Our Father now for the United States of America and President Donald Trump.
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of MaryThe publisher of the Catholic Monitor has made a pledge to wear the Brown Scapular and say the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary everyday for a Rosary Lepanto-like victory for President Trump. He asks all CM readers to make this pledge until January 20.

“THE HOLY ROSARY, MOST POWERFUL WEAPON AGAINST THE ENEMY OF GOD AND MAN… Saint Pius V ordered the faithful to recite the Rosary to impetrate victory from God in the epic battle of the Christian Armada against the Turk in the waters of Lepanto: still today, at noon each day, the bells ring in our cities to recall [the victory of] October 7, 1571… Let us pray for the United States of America; let us pray for our President; let us pray for his victory, that the Lord God of Hosts – Dominus Deus Sabaoth –will grant that he may know how to place himself under God’s protection.” –  Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò

Fred Martinez