FBI warned about ‘biosecurity risk’ after Chinese nationals snuck suspicious vials into US ^Featured

Written by Washington Examiner | Source:  Washington Examiner | April 01, 2020 08:05 PM

An intelligence bulletin from the FBI late last year warned of a growing “biosecurity” threat within the United States after Chinese nationals were caught attempting to sneak potentially dangerous viruses into the country by plane.

The “tactical intelligence report” from the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate assessed in November that “foreign scientific researchers who transport undeclared and undocumented biological materials into the U.S. in personal carry-on and/or checked luggage almost certainly present U.S. biosecurity and biosafety risks,” according to the unclassified document obtained by Yahoo News. 

Even when these samples were declared, investigators warned, “It is impossible to determine, without testing, the validity of the contents of the samples and if they pose a risk to U.S. human, animal, or plant populations.” 

The bureau’s Chemical and Biological Intelligence Unit pointed to at least three separate instances in 2018 and 2019 where Chinese nationals tried to bring undeclared samples of bacteria and viruses, some of them potentially highly dangerous, into the U.

S. All of the failed attempts were stopped by Customs and Border Protection at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

One of the incidents took place a couple months before the coronavirus outbreak first appeared in Wuhan, China. The U.S. intelligence community believes the Chinese lied about the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak for months and to this day is covering up the real number of cases and deaths in China. 

Last year’s FBI report said in September that a Chinese national was stopped after he “initially made no positive declarations, but was later found to have eight vials of clear liquid in their checked luggage.

” The bureau noted that “the vials had no supporting documentation.” The Chinese national claimed that it was “DNA … derived from a low-pathogenicity strain of H9N2,” which was a flu-type virus that killed a small number in Asia. But some vials had “WSN” handwritten on top, an acronym for the H1N1 influenza virus commonly known as swine flu, which killed over 12,000 in the U.S. and more globally. The bureau said that “the materials were confiscated” and that the unnamed person was allowed to travel to Texas “to work with a researcher associated with” an unnamed “U.S. research institution.”What’s Trending on BlabberBuzzCalif. Gov. Newsom Commutes Sentences of Two Child Killers, Nine Other Convicted MurderersGreg Gutfeld Slams Media For Attacking Mike Lindell Of My Pillow At Trump Presser (VIDEO)

The bureau advisory also recounted how, in November 2018, another Chinese national was found with three vials labeled “antibodies” in his luggage.

The person identified himself as a “biologist” but “had not declared the materials” and “did not have appropriate documentation for the items.” The Chinese national said that “the items came from a researcher in China who asked him to deliver them to another colleague,” again at an unnamed “U.S. research institution.” The writing on the vials combined with their destination led U.S. officials to believe the vials might contain “viable” specimens of Middle East respiratory syndrome and severe acute respiratory syndrome viruses. MERS has killed just under one thousand people worldwide since 2012, and SARS killed just under 800 globally between 2002 and 2004.

FBI investigators further noted that, in May 2018, a Chinese national was stopped.

This person claimed to be “a breast cancer researcher in Texas” who “was not traveling with any biological products.” But, upon further inspection, the person admitted to be “possibly traveling with plasmids,” a type of extrachromosomal DNA. He was found to have one “centrifuge tube” in his checked bag, saying it was “non-infectious E. Coli bacteria-derived plasmids.” The bureau said the Chinese national was “unable to provide any accompanying documentation or permits,” so the U.S. officials put the centrifuge on an “agricultural hold” and let him go.

The U.S. government’s concerns about Chinese research in the U.S. have grown recently. 

In January, the Justice Department announced Charles Lieber, the chairman of Harvard’s chemistry department, was charged with one count of “making a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement” about his connections to China’s Thousand Talents Program, which the FBI has deemed a Chinese form of “nontraditional espionage.” 

Lieber, a specialist in nanoscience, received more than $15 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Pentagon, requiring him to disclose foreign financial conflicts of interest.

But Lieber became a “strategic scientist” at China’s Wuhan University of Technology in 2011 and was a participant in the Thousand Talents Plan from roughly 2012 to 2017. The foreign university paid Lieber $50,000 per month and living expenses of approximately $158,000 and awarded him more than $1.5 million to establish a research lab at the Chinese school. Lieber was obligated to work for the foreign school “not less than nine months a year” by “declaring international cooperation projects, cultivating young teachers and Ph.D. students, organizing international conference[s], applying for patents, and publishing articles in the name of” the Wuhan University of Technology.

Lieber allegedly falsely told investigators in April 2018 that he was never asked to participate in the Thousand Talents Program and “wasn’t sure” how China categorized him. The Justice Department said Lieber also caused Harvard to tell the NIH that Lieber “had no formal association with” the Chinese university after 2012 and that Lieber “is not and has never been a participant in” China’s Thousand Talents Plan. What’s Trending on BlabberBuzzGOP senator wants coronavirus hearings, probe over WHO role promoting China’s ‘misinformation’Michigan Gov Threatened Docs Who Used Promising COVID-19 Drug, Now She’s Begging Trump for It

The Justice Department simultaneously announced charges against two Chinese nationals. 

Zaosong Zheng was a Chinese researcher arrested in December and accused of trying to smuggle vials of cancer cells out of the U.S. The FBI claimed that Zheng stole the vials from a laboratory at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He was charged with making false statements to investigators. 

Yanqing Ye studied at Boston University and was accused of lying to authorities about her status as a lieutenant in the People’s Liberation Army. Ye, who was charged with visa fraud, making false statements, and acting as an agent of a foreign government, wasn’t arrested because she was in China. 

The Education Department announced in February that it would be scrutinizing both Harvard University and Yale University over their funding, including money from China and any ties to Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei and the Thousand Talents P.

Chinese Journalists Keep Disappearing. This Congressman Wants Answers

This article was sourced from The Daily Caller Politics

Republican Indiana Rep. Jim Banks on Wednesday sent a letter to the U.S. State Department requesting an investigation into the disappearances of three Chinese journalists who challenged the communist regime’s narrative in the coronavirus’s early stages.

“All three of these men understood the personal risk associated with independently reporting on coronavirus in China, but they did it anyway,” Banks wrote in a letter to Acting Undersecretary of State Nathan Sales, whose portfolio includes human rights abroad.

“They decided that they had an obligation to do what the Chinese Communist Party would not—provide useful and accurate information to the Chinese public about the risks and potential consequences of coronavirus,” Banks continued. “For their service, the Chinese government imprisoned them — or worse.”

Fang Bin, Chen Quishi and Li Zehua — the three missing journalists — haven’t been seen since February.

(RELATED: WHO Director-General Won Election With China’s Help. Now He’s Running Interference For China On Coronavirus)

Bin is a clothing salesman who began documenting the Chinese government’s response to the virus in Wuhan in videos that he published on YouTube. He hasn’t been seen since Feb. 9.

(ISAAC LAWRENCE/AFP via Getty Images)

Quishi is a citizen journalist who reported on the chaos at Wuhan hospitals and interviewed local residents before going missing.

Despite widespread attention on Quishi’s reporting and subsequent disappearance, China’s ambassador to the U.S. claimed not to know anything about the missing journalist in an interview that aired March 22.

Zehua was an anchor on a Chinese state television channel before he resigned in February and began independently reporting on the virus. He hasn’t been seen since his arrest in late February.

Banks said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo should use block the “individuals responsible for Li, Chen and Fang’s mistreatment” from entering the U.S.

“If any of the three citizen journalists were murdered, I would urge Secretary of State Pompeo and Secretary of Treasury Mnuchin to respectively administer visa and financial sanctions under section 1263 of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act to the responsible individuals,” Banks wrote.

“We owe these journalists a debt of gratitude for their sacrifice. As part of our investigation into the origins of this outbreak and the subsequent cover-up by the Chinese Communist Party, the United States should apply diplomatic pressure on the Chinese government to learn these journalists’ whereabouts and ensure their safety,” the congressman said in a press release.

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For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

This article was sourced from Washington Examiner×

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IDAHO BISHOP BANS MASS ‘AD ORIENTEM’

NEWS:US NEWS

by William Mahoney, Ph.D.  

•  ChurchMilitant.com  

•  March 31, 2020    

Bp. Peter Christensen’s order comes amid rapid expansion of Traditional Latin Mass

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BOISE, Idaho (ChurchMilitant.com) – While the traditional Latin Mass is growing prolifically in Idaho and elsewhere, the bishop of Boise has forbidden priests from facing east, using Communion rails or incorporating traditional elements when offering Novus Ordo Mass.   

Published in the March-April issue of the Idaho Catholic Register is a February memo from Bp. Peter Christensen clarifying liturgical practices in the diocese, ostensibly to “reduce confusion among the faithful and the increasing disinformation regarding liturgical matters” and “promote harmony and unity.”

Though stating he thinks priests who prefer offering Mass ad orientem (facing east) mean well, Christensen banned the practice in his diocese.

“Priests in the diocese of Boise will face the people when presiding at the Ordinary Form of the Mass: Paragraph 299 in the General Instruction to the Roman Missal [GIRM] makes it plain that the universal Church envisions the priest presiding at Mass facing the people,” he stated.

He said the way that the altar is constructed, also noted in paragraph 299, makes this clear:

The altar should be built separate from the wall, in such a way that it is possible to walk around it easily and that Mass can be celebrated at it facing the people, which is desirable wherever possible.” This is unambivalent, and I am instructing priests in this diocese to preside facing the people at every celebration of the Ordinary Form of the Mass. 

Noting the norm for receiving Holy Communion in the United States is standing, Christensen also banned any items used for kneeling.

“I am instructing that priests do not use furniture or items such as prie dieus [His Excellency presumably means a ‘prie-dieu’ (kneeler)] or Communion rails, as these may seem to undermine the norm or to imply a preference for kneeling to receive,” he said.

The bishop further barred the addition of any “words, gestures, actions, etc., to the liturgy that are not found in the appropriate Missal … (the Missal of John XXIII for Extraordinary Form; the 3rd edition of the Missal of Paul VI for the Ordinary Form).” 

While Christensen has banned these traditional elements of Catholic worship, the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, which exclusively offers the traditional Latin Mass, reported prolific growth in October 2019. This included its parish in Idaho: “St. Joan of Arc Parish, our apostolate in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, has gone from 650 to 840 in the past two years, an increase of about 29%.”Free clip from CHURCH MILITANT PremiumWATCH MORE LIKE THIS

Christensen’s reasoning for these prohibitions is based on his understanding of Vatican II and his interpretation of the GIRM. 

Regarding banning priests from facing ad orientem, he said it “was clearly the mind of the Council that the priest should face the people.” He also claimed “the overwhelming experience worldwide after Vatican II is that the priest faces the people for the Mass, and this has contributed to the sanctification of the people.”   

One Catholic, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Church Militant: “He [Christensen] has no idea what he is talking about. The section of the GIRM he quotes [#299] does not forbid offering Mass ad orientem; it merely expresses a desire Mass be offered facing the people where possible.” The Ordinary Form is just that, the ordinary, accepted way in which we are to regularly celebrate Mass as faithful Catholics.Tweet

On their website Sancta Missa, the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius explain the ancient practice of facing east:

The priest offers Mass facing the same direction as the people because he and the people together are offering worship and sacrifice to God. He is not turning his back on the people to exclude them. Rather, as a Christian community, are all facing ad orientem (toward the east) waiting in joyful expectation for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ who will return to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire (Rite of Baptism, 1962).

Christensen has asked that anywhere the traditional Latin Mass (Extraordinary Form) is offered be reported to him.

“I request that you report this practice [Traditional Latin Mass] to me, along with frequency and attendance,” he said, adding: “Remembering always that the Ordinary Form is just that, the ordinary, accepted way in which we are to regularly celebrate Mass as faithful Catholics.”

ANTHROPOLOGY, EDITORIALS

COVID-19 & THE POVERTY AND NEGLECT OF THE ELDERLY

APRIL 2, 2020

FROM ROME EDITOR

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

One of the saddest realities of the Coronavirus is that it afflicts the elderly most of all.

In modern times, the elderly have pretty much been seen as a group to attack and exploit: attack, inasmuch as their ability to be a collective memory of an age before modern errors were as viciously predatory as they are, and exploited for their votes to propose a slower down spiral to the brave new world of socialist tyranny.

But for the most part the elderly are neglected. Part of the reason is the continual Marxist propaganda though mass media (TV and Movies) which focuses on a youth culture and ignores the elderly as if they do not exist or as persons who are only worthy of interest when they are ridiculously portrayed. Part of the reason is the excessive hands off policies of modern nations which have allowed work to be divorced from family live, and thus have deprived elderly parents of the company and care of their children, who are forced to work, increasingly, far from home.

But no sooner as the Corona Stunt began, all of a sudden the whole world should stop for the elderly to prevent their death by coronavirus. As soon as I began to hear this propaganda, I realized it was totally dishonest, because no one in the State nor Church nor Media has given one bit of concern to the elderly for 70 years.

The real reasons why so many elderly die of the influenza is because they live in poverty and neglect. This is especially true in Italy, where the majority of elderly live alone in their ancestral villages, without any support or assistance of children and grand children, who had to seek work and careers abroad or in distant cities.

This is further exacerbated by the abysmal discrimination of the Italian welfare system against the aged. In Italy only those receive pensions who have worked at a salaried job for all their lives. But most of today’s elderly never had that kind of economic opportunity. For the last two decades, in fact, there have been complaints from the elderly across Italy, that they have to forgo eating to afford their medicine or to pay their rent. They are even made to pay income taxes on the little income they have if it is less than 10 thousand euros!

Indeed, there are some entire cities, such as Caltabellota, in Sicily, which are more than 65% populated by the elderly and where the average citizen lives on less than 12,000 dollars a year!

It is not surprising then, that the elderly are the predominate victims of Coronavirus, because they lack proper nutrition and have no one to look out for them. Many of them are obviously turning to medical care much too late to be helped through the infectious stages of Coronavirus.

When I look at the long lines outside in the winter cold, in front of each supermarket on a daily basis — because the Decrees for Health Safety for the Corona Pandemic require no more than so many persons in a supermarket at any one time — I cringe at heart, knowing that such exposure to the elderly is the worse thing they need during an epidemic. They are given, moreover, no priority in line.

The ultimate cruelty, is that when they do fall sick to Coronavirus, and go to a hospital, that in the hospital they are denied all human consolation and solace by their loved ones and are forced to die without their family around them, without the Sacraments, and even without a public funeral.

Worse still is that in many western countries, now, there is a move to euthanize corona patients who are very old. It is called Pallative Care, and in the USA they hare setting up such teams at each hospital to ensure death without any oversight or intervention by relatives.

So the next time you hear your daily Main Stream Median shout that the elderly will be massacred by this virus, understand it as pure bluster. The Corona Control being imposed is the worse thing for the elderly and will enable them to be killed off in silence.

The deaths of the elderly are a political necessity for Globalists and Marxists, because both want to remove the foundations of morality and destroy the collective knowledge of the past, so that they can establish their dictatorship of the globalist elite.

_________

CREDITS: The Featured Image is a screenshot of the Google.com image search page under the rubric, Poverty of the Elderly, to show how many images Google.com image search engine can access, and used here in accord with fair use standards for editorial commentary.

EDITORIALS

JOIN THE LEAGUE OF PRAYER FOR POPE BENEDICT XVI

APRIL 2, 2020

FROM ROME EDITOR

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

This is a reposting of the original article of Dec. 19, 2019

There are a lot of prayer initiatives around, which are merely human in origin. But when we pray, we should do so out of supernatural motivation and especially when requested by Heaven.

One of the most important prayer initiatives in Catholic History, is the Request that we pray much for the Holy Father. This request comes from no less than the saintly Children at Fatima, who urged us not only to pray very much for sinners, but that we should pray very much for the Holy Father.

This prayer request for the Holy Father comes from Sr. Lucia and from Jacinta, who being shown the grave difficulties in the Church spoke of the need to pray for the Holy Father for 2 reasons:  That he might perform the Consecration to Russia requested by Our Lord; and that he might endure the persecution that he would one day suffer from those all around him.

Regarding the first reason, Sr. Lucia makes this statement in her Memoirs, p. 414:

“‘The Holy Father! Pray very much for the Holy Father! He will do it, but it will be late. Nevertheless, the Immaculate Heart of Mary will save Russia, which has been entrusted to it.’”

Jacinta’s Two visions

Regarding the second reason, Jacinta calls for prayers for the Holy Father, after seeing TWO of the events which are now taking place in the Church (Source): which Sr Lucia relates her third Memoir:

Also, in her third memoir, she tells us about two incidents in which Jacinta saw visions of a future Pope, and these also relate to the secret.

One day, while they were near the well at Lucia’s home, Jacinta asked her if she had seen the Holy Father. When Lucia replied, “No,” Jacinta said: “I don’t know how it was, but I saw the Holy Father in a very big house, kneeling by a table, with his head buried in his hands, and he was weeping. Outside the house, there were many people. Some of them were throwing stones; others were cursing him and using bad language. Poor Holy Father, we must pray very much for him.”

Sr Lucia then tells us: “At another time, we went to the cave called Lapa do Cabeço. As soon as we got there, we prostrated on the ground, saying the prayers the Angel had taught us. After some time, Jacinta stood up and called to me: ‘Can’t you see all those highways and roads and fields full of people, who are crying with hunger and have nothing to eat? And the Holy Father in a church praying before the Immaculate Heart of Mary? And so many people praying with him?’Some days later, she asked me: ‘Can I say that I saw the Holy Father and all those people?’ ‘No. Don’t you see that that’s part of the secret? If you do, they’ll find out right away.’ ”

Let us respond!

Many authors believe that this FIRST vision of Jacinta is a prophetic revelation of what Pope Benedict is suffering since February 2013, because at no time in the history of the modern Papacy has a Pope resided in a small house, and been nearly universally derided by those in the Church. The image of a house being pelted with stones by those around it, also seems to imply that the worst enemies of the Holy Father are those in the Vatican which surrounds where he presently lives: in the Monastery of Our Lady Mother of the Church, at the heart of the Vatican Gardens.

The second vision of Jacinta appears to be Heaven’s indication of how to respond to the First vision: namely by JOINING WITH THE HOLY FATHER in prayer to the Immaculate Heart of Mary!

Let us be that “so many people” praying with the Holy Father “before the Immaculate Heart of Mary”!

Chose whatever prayers you wish, but PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!

THIS IS THE LEAGUE OF PRAYER for the Holy Father. Spread the word and recruit others to offer:

1. Daily prayers.
2. Worthy communions and confessions.
3. Acts of penance and sacrifices.
4. Fasting and abstinence.
5. Alms for the poor.
6. Recitation of THE MOST HOLY ROSARY.
7. Acts of Consecration to Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart, whether personal or in groups, parishes, Dioceses etc.

Versione Italiana: https://www.chiesaromana.info/index.php/2019/12/19/la-lega-di-preghiera-per-papa-benedetto-xvi/(This version is a deepl.com translation, if you find errors, leave a comment there)

The Following Blogs or Websites have joined

… in this League of Prayer by promoting it with a re-posting of the call to prayer:

(Listed in order of their adhesion, according to time)

• Passaparoladesso Blog: https://passaparoladesso.wordpress.com/2019/12/19/join-the-league-of-prayer-for-pope-benedict-xvi/
• Remnant Disciples: https://remnantdisciplesjtm.com/2019/12/19/join-the-league-of-prayer-for-pope-benedict-xvi/
• Benedetto XVI Blog: https://benedettoxviblog.wordpress.com/2019/12/19/unisciti-alla-lega-di-preghiera-per-papa-benedetto-xvi-iscrivetevi-al-gruppo-telegram-messanger-t-me-papa_benedetto_xvi-una-richiesta-di-preghiera-che-proviene-da-suor-lucia-e-da-giacinta/ (who is also promoting it on their Telegram Channel)
• Veri Catholici Association: https://vericatholici.wordpress.com/2019/12/21/join-the-league-of-prayer-for-pope-benedict-xvi/
• Deacon John’s Blog: https://deaconjohn1987.wordpress.com/2019/12/21/join-the-league-of-prayer-for-pope-benedict-xvi-veri-catholici/
• Father Walter Covens’ Blog: http://www.homelie.biz
• Religión, La Voz Libre Blog: https://religionlavozlibre.blogspot.com/2020/01/las-dos-visiones-de-jacinta.html
• Contra Hostes Tuos: https://contrahostestuos.com/2020/01/16/join-the-league-of-prayer-for-pope-benedict-xvi/

Please let us know of your adhesion to this Effort, via comment or ping-back. Thank you!

The Ballad Of Father Gilligan 

by William Butler Yeats

The old priest Peter Gilligan
Was weary night and day;
For half his flock were in their beds,
Or under green sods lay.

Once, while he nodded on a chair,
At the moth-hour of eve,
Another poor man sent for him,
And he began to grieve.

‘I have no rest, nor joy, nor peace,
For people die and die’;
And after cried he, ‘God forgive!
My body spake, not I!’

He knelt, and leaning on the chair
He prayed and fell asleep;
And the moth-hour went from the fields,
And stars began to peep.

They slowly into millions grew,
And leaves shook in the wind;
And God covered the world with shade,
And whispered to mankind.

Upon the time of sparrow-chirp
When the moths came once more.
The old priest Peter Gilligan
Stood upright on the floor.

‘Mavrone, mavrone! the man has died
While I slept on the chair’;
He roused his horse out of its sleep,
And rode with little care.

He rode now as he never rode,
By rocky lane and fen;
The sick man’s wife opened the door:
‘Father! you come again!’

‘And is the poor man dead?’ he cried.
‘He died an hour ago.’
The old priest Peter Gilligan
In grief swayed to and fro.

‘When you were gone, he turned and died
As merry as a bird.’
The old priest Peter Gilligan
He knelt him at that word.

‘He Who hath made the night of stars
For souls who tire and bleed,
Sent one of His great angels down
To help me in my need.

‘He Who is wrapped in purple robes,
With planets in His care,
Had pity on the least of things
Asleep upon a chair.’

FUNDAMENTAL THEOLOGY

ONLY THE ONE WHO HOLDS THE PETRINE MUNUS CAN CONFIRM THE BISHOPS IN THE FAITH

APRIL 1, 2020FROM ROME EDITOR1 COMMENT

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

One of the primary and constant themes of the preaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ was that we should judge things according to the truth. And the truth regards not only what can be seen, but what cannot be seen, but inferred from looking at the facts with faith.

And He put us to the extreme test by what He did and suffered. Because if you only allowed yourself to be amazed at His miracles and to admire His teaching, His Passion was so much the utter contradiction of worldly logic, that mere human admiration would be shattered.

The other extreme test He put us to was to have faith that He was the Bread of Life come down from Heaven, and thus that He is truly, really and substantially there in the Blessed Sacrament. The eyes see bread and wine, but with faith, they see the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Many ask me what is going on in the Church right now, and I have written an essay about this before. But now I want to approach the same problem from a different point of view.

The Vicar of the Christ Who ascended into Heaven

When Christ was about to ascend into Heaven, He said some truly marvelous words:  All power in Heaven and Earth has been given to Me(Matthew 28:18 according to the Vulgate). This passage is often translated with the word, “authority”, not “power”, which if understood badly, as it often is, is understood to refer only to legal authority. But the Greek says, πᾶσα ἐξουσία, means the power to act. It is not just the right to act.

These words are tremendous because of their implication. Christ Our Lord, is not only God, but wields the Divine Power in all its fullness even as Man.

The import for us is that this God become Man is the author of the office of Saint Peter. Peter is not just the Vicar of Christ on earth. Peter is the Vicar of the Christ Who ascended into Heaven and wields all power to act, in Heaven and Earth.

This can be seen in the history of the Church. We Roman Catholics often boast about the Roman Church being superior to the other Apostolic Churches or more fecund in spreading the faith or having saints. We speak often as if this is because of the superiority of Western Civilization or of the Roman Culture, legal system, or philosophical or theological sciences in the West.

The Vicar of the Christ with all power to act

But the mystical truth is quiet other. It is not us, nor the work of our hands, it is the Office of Peter. For the Successors of Saint Peter hold the office of the Vicar of Christ. and not only of any Christ, but of Christ with all the power to act.

The man who in truth has this office, by his mere existence and our communion, with him, merits for us grace to act. He does not merit this by being a good pope or a bad pope, though if he be a good pope he manifests this more.  No he merits it in a higher sense, because the Office of St. Peter has this instrumentality in the order of grace by its very nature as the Vicarship or Vice-Roy of Christ Jesus, Who has all power to act.

In this way, the last words of Our Lord on Earth, were a profound catechesis on the the nature of the Church and the order of grace. Our Lord was promising, by these words, that those who remained in communion with His Vicar, Saint Peter and his successors, would have the grace to accomplish His Final and Greatest Commandment: Go make disciples of every nation, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the things which I commanded you!

The Petrine munus cannot be hidden

It follows then, that you cannot hide the effects of the Papal Office. You cannot bury them in your sins or wipe out its force by your personal defects. It exists and is empowered on a divine level, the human cannot overwhelm it.  This is because as Vicar of the One who has all power to act, there is no greater instrument in all the cosmos to mediate that active power, than the Office of Peter.

And thus, all of us who are in communion with the true Successor of Saint Peter will have the graces to accomplish the will of God, not because we merit it for our personal good works, but because we obtain it by being in and remaining in communion with the Vicar of Our Lord and Savior.

Likewise, if you are not the true successor of Saint Peter you cannot hide it. It will be evident in the immorality, blasphemies, idolatries, loss of faith, loss of every virtue and finally total abandonment of the divine ministry. You can see that in the cult of Palmar, Spain, who claim to have the true pope, but whose popes leave office and marry women.

Interpret the signs of the times!

Likewise, if the man you follow as Pope is ordering you not to be a Bishop, not to be a priest, not to believe, not to pray, not to frequent the sacraments, not to have devotion, not to practice virtue, not to be chaste, not the resist the world, the flesh or the devil, in short, not to be a Christian…

Then I say you need to discern the signs of the times.  Christ Jesus did not say, All power to not act in Heaven and Earth has been given to Me.

Thus, the conclusion is inescapable. You’re mistaken. The one you think has the petrine munus, does not have it, because if he did, he would have the power to act and communicate this power to all the Bishops and clergy in communion with him. But it has been 7 years that he and they have been in formal schism with the one who does have that power, and now, their spiritual batteries have run down, and are dead. And the lights of the Church, that is the Sacraments, have gone out.

+ + +

️Watch THE EPIC HAND WASHING SONG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gfOHEaHdjo

 

Virginia Christians Could be Jailed for 1 Year for Attending Church, But Abortion Clinics Can Keep Killing Babies

STATE   MICAIAH BILGER   MAR 27, 2020   |   10:11AM    RICHMOND, VA 

Virginia churches could face criminal penalties for holding services during the coronavirus outbreak.

Meanwhile, Gov. Ralph Northam, a pro-abortion Democrat who defended infanticide last year, is allowing abortion facilities to continue killing unborn babies in elective abortions unhindered.

“Ralph Northam is putting the profits of the $1 billion abortion industry ahead of the health, safety, and well-being of all Virginians,” said Victoria Cobb, president of the Family Foundation of Virginia. “His decision to allow abortions to continue when other elective procedures have been suspended is anti-science, anti-health, and anti-life.”

Pro-lifers all across the country are outraged by the situation in Virginia and other states where elective abortions are being prioritized over actual health care and religious freedom.

Though most churches already have stopped in-person services to combat the spread of the coronavirus, Northam issued an order, effective Tuesday, that would punish pastors with jail time or fines for holding religious services with more than 10 people, according to the Catholic News Service.

His Executive Order 53, unlike similar orders in other states, does not exempt churches. It states: “All gatherings of more than 10 people are banned statewide, beginning at 11:59 PM on Tuesday, March 24, 2020. This does not include gatherings that involve the provision of health care or medical services, access to essential services for low-income residents, such as food banks; operations of the media; law enforcement agencies; or operations of government.” The order will be in effect through April 23, but it could change and violator face a possible 12 month jail sentence and $1,200 in fines.

Earlier, Northam also ordered all non-essential businesses to close and non-essential medical procedures to be postponed. However, he carved out exceptions for elective abortions.

“The public health emergency order does not apply to any procedure if the delay would cause harm to a patient,” a news release from his office states. “The order also does not apply to outpatient visits in hospital-based clinics, family planning services, or emergency needs.”

Northam’s office pointed to concerns about sufficient medical supplies as a reason for temporarily banning non-essential medical procedures. But, in the same release, his office allowed abortion facilities to continue to kill unborn babies, even though abortions are almost entirely elective.

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In other words, right now in Virginia, people are banned from going to church, but they can still abort their unborn babies for any reason.

Judie Brown, president of American Life League, described the situation in more blunt terms: “All other elective surgery must be postponed … unless you want to rip a baby into six parts. That is the substance of a statewide order from Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, perhaps the most bloodthirsty governor in America.”

As Brown pointed out, Northam is still in office despite numerous scandals, including his defense of infanticide and a racist photo of him either in blackface or a KKK hood.

“And now? Northam has ordered all elective surgeries to be postponed … unless you want to rip a baby into six pieces, in which case, keep stacking up the dead babies,” Brown said. “What’s worse is that this is the same governor who has made it a Class 1 misdemeanor to go to Holy Mass.”

Despite what Democrat leaders claim, abortions are elective. Recently, medical groups representing more than 30,000 doctors in America emphasized that abortions are not “essential” or “urgent,” and abortion facilities that continue to operate during the pandemic are being “medically irresponsible.”

Abortions kill unborn babies and put mothers’ lives at risk. Common abortion complications include infections, blood clots, hemorrhaging and an incomplete abortion where parts of the baby remain inside the mother’s womb. Abortion risks include future preterm births, breast cancer, suicide, anxiety/depression, and death. And it is not true that abortions are safer than childbirth.

Settimo Cielodi Sandro Magister 30 mar 

Face To Face with Death. How To Share the News That the World Does Not Want To Hear

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(s.m.) Published as received. Professor Leonardo Lugaresi is a scholar of the New Testament and of the Church Fathers highly appreciated by the readers of Settimo Cielo, who at the end of this letter will find links to all of his previous contributions.

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Dear Magister,

The letter from the French priest who scoffs at the “medieval” anguish he attributes to Professor Pietro De Marco and contrasts with the lesson of his “modern” Christianity (“la religion n’est pas le lieu de transfert de ses angoisses”) grasps in spite of himself, and I fear entirely without the author’s knowledge, the heart of the problem.

The world today is indeed in the grip of an anguish of death. The Covid-19 pandemic that is terrorizing everyone is not the absolute leading cause of death and probably will not be in the future, despite its feared development. More men die on our planet for a thousand other reasons, every year in the tens and tens of millions. This does not distress us because it is, so to speak, the death of others. […]

Death from coronavirus, on the other hand, is our death. The one that at any time and in spite of all caution could touch me and you. The invisible and ubiquitous virus brings about, as a universal possibility, the constant imminence of my death. That is, precisely what modernity has systematically claimed to exclude from its horizon.

What is unbearable, for us moderns, is in fact the condition of substantial defenselessness in which we have found ourselves overnight. The instinctive and general use of the metaphor of war to represent the present condition of humanity also betrays our unconscious need to have weapons in hand. Which we probably will have, perhaps in the near future, but not now.

This condition, however, as much as it is abhorred by modernity, belongs essentially to human life in its relationship with death, and this must be said.

The point, today as yesterday and as always, is that man is defenseless in the face of death, first of all because he is unable to think of it, of death. The maxim attributed to La Rochefoucauld: “Il y a deux choses qu’on ne peut regarder fixement, le soleil et la mort,” corresponds to such elementary evidence that anyone at any time could have uttered it. Death is, in itself, unthinkable. One can naturally think infinite things around it (from the idea that it doesn’t concern us at all because when it is there we are not and vice versa, to the one that our being-in-the world is to be understood as a being-for- death, etc., etc.) but death cannot be thought of. And in this collapse of human thought, the modern subject fails. For this reason, he absolutely needs to admit it to his horizon only as the death of others.

Does the Church have a word to say about death? Yes she does, and she is the only one who holds onto it because she has received it from Christ, who is the only one able to pronounce it because he is the only one who knows what death is, through having undergone and defeated it.

But this unique word is also a hard word, which the modern world does not want to hear. Paul put it this way: “None of us lives for himself and nobody dies for himself, because if we live, we live for the Lord, if we die, we die for the Lord. Whether we live or die, therefore, we are the Lord’s.”(Romans 14: 7-8).

We are the Lord’s: here is all that is essential to know in order to live and to die, and the virus that scares us so much does not negate at all but rather makes more stringent the literal truth of this statement, which is the linchpin of the whole Christian life. We could even be exhausted by fear and not find any apparent psychological comfort from the faith, from the practices of piety, from the words and actions of the Church, but all this does not detract from the objectivity of the fact that “we are the Lord’s.”

Perhaps, to make the meaning of this statement even clearer, we could translate “kyrios” as “master”: “we are the Master’s,” that is, we belong to an Other, we are not our own stuff. To the extent that our consciousness adheres to this reality, fear will also retreat, it will stop being decisive. It will remain, but as an instinctive reaction of the flesh that does not want to perish; it will remain, so to speak, out of the soul. Fear will remain, not the anguish anymore.

In this sense, I believe I share Professor De Marco’s concern about the current lack of a public presence “of the Church ‘mater et magistra’ that would measure up to its universal motherhood and teaching office.” But I also have the impression that in recent weeks, despite the initial defeat, at least communicative, of the visible, institutional Church, an invisible flowering of gifts of grace has occurred by contrast in the mysterious depth of many hearts, which might surprise us if we were able to measure it.

This really is the Great Lent, and who knows what “mirabilia Dei” are being accomplished, without us noticing.

But there is more: the defenselessness that is so intolerable for modern man constitutes, on closer inspection, the normal condition of the Christian in the world, and the acceptance of this condition is the premise for the witness – that is, martyrdom – that the Christian makes to the world. To use Paul’s words again: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Perhaps tribulation, anguish, persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger, the sword?” (Romans 8:35). The virus that scares us so much does nothing but add to this list, making it finally concrete for each of us, this time no one excluded.

In recent days I have returned to a book that is very dear to me and that, half a century after its publication, seems to me more timely than ever, “Cordula” by Hans Urs von Balthasar, from which I draw these illuminating sentences:

“Immediately after charity comes joy, […] joy in defenselessness, a defenselessness without worry, in which a mysterious superiority becomes visible. […] There is nothing negative except sin, which however is carried in the heart of the Lord. Every suffering, even the darkest night of the cross, is always enveloped in a joy, perhaps not felt, but affirmed, known in faith. […] Death gives form to life. This was not known before; but after the good thief it will be known until the end of the world. Does the Christian therefore have the unprecedented possibility of giving form to life on the basis of its final form? […] What matters is the defenselessness, […] the defenseless exposure of the Church to the world.”

For this reason I believe that ever more, in today’s non-Christian world, the form of the Christian minority’s presence will again be the “martyrial” one of its defenseless exposure to the hostility of the “enemies of the cross of Christ” (Philippians 3:18) . And for this reason I am afraid that I disagree with Professor De Marco where he seems to oppose “the ideology of a Church as prophetic minority” – which he calls, I do not know why,  “inevitably utopian” – to the concept of “a Church ‘militans’.”

We probably mean two different things by the term “prophetic minority.’’ I would prefer to say: critical minority, with reference to the “krisis,” that is, to the Christian judgment that enters into the things of the world, discerns good from evil and “keeps what is good,” teaching its correct use. But his statement that “a true, prophetic biblical minority is a reality in dialectic with the People of God extended to the ecumene” leaves me perplexed in two respects.

The first refers to the fact that from the beginning (see the Petrine kerygma of Acts 2:14 ff.) the Church is constituted as fulfillment of the promise of the universal outpouring of the prophetic spirit linked to the advent of the messianic time. Peter says that Joel’s prophecy is fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, and from that moment all Christians are called to be prophets. So I do not see how a dialectic can be established between a “Catholic ecclesiosphere” and a “prophetic minority.” If a prophetic minority, or one claiming to be such, thinks of itself as a “sect,” it places itself ipso facto outside the Church, even before or without condemnation by the authority. That this is always an impending risk is unfortunately true, and the sad parable that so many new foundations and so many new charisms overwhelmed by scandals have experienced or revealed in recent years is there to prove it. If De Marco intended to point out this danger, I am in full agreement. But the fact remains that the Church is, by definition, entirely and always prophetic.

The other aspect on which I have reservations is that image of a  “‘Catholica,’ which is potentially made up of the majority of men (in conformity with the ‘missio’), held together in the communion of the Mystical Body,” of which De Marco speaks. An image that is theologically always true, let’s be clear, even when there were 120 Christians in the whole world (as they are reckoned, with biblical-symbolic values ​​but probably according to a plausible order of magnitude, in Acts 1:15) and even if we should again become so few. But an image that historically and sociologically is ever less plausible in the present circumstances.

From the human perspective, Christians in the near future will be ever fewer in a world ever less Christian. Knowing and conceiving of oneself as  minority and “creative minority,” according to an apt expression used also by Benedict XVI, is therefore essential in my view in order that we may do, in a not unrealistic way, what De Marco rightly recalls at the end of his contribution: be “co-responsible for the infinity of ordinary men and for the baptized in the first place,” and speak to them the words that are really needed, meaning “those of age-old sacred history” and not those of “utopia, proudly founded in the myth of the future, in the not-yet-existing that alone gives meaning, [which] are exhausted quickly and miserably.”

With cordiality and esteem.

Leonardo Lugaresi

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The previous writings of Professor Lugaresi on Settimo Cielo and on http://www.chiesa:

> Pachamama and the Gods of Ancient Greece. The Lesson of Paul in Athens (13.11.2019)
> The Wrath of God Is Not Taboo. Even Pope Francis Admits It(28.2.2019)
> How To Be a “Creative Minority” Today. The Example of the Christians of the First Three Centuries (17.2.2018)
> Thespian, Throw Away the Mask! (20.2.2011)
> The New Polytheism and its Tempter Idols (9.12.2010)

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