The Politicization of the Department of Justice

Harmeet K. Dhillon

Dhillon Law Group, Inc.

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on September 16, 2022, in Washington, D.C., at Hillsdale College’s Constitution Day Celebration.

The seal of the U.S. Department of Justice reads, “Qui Pro Domina Justitia Sequitur”—“Who prosecutes for Lady Justice.” Depictions of Lady Justice are as familiar as they are instructive: she stands blindfolded while holding the scales of justice, representing her unyielding devotion to equal justice under the law. Contrary to this ideal, the DOJ today appears to be increasingly motivated by partisanship. Compounding the problem, it has access to the powers of the modern surveillance state. As someone passionate about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, I believe there is no higher priority than addressing this danger. 

The tragic events of 9/11 marked a turning point in our nation’s recent civil rights history. First the terrorists attacked us—and then, in the name of national security, we began to attack ourselves. It has become almost cliché to say that we live in a surveillance state, but we do. Ever since Congress, on a fully bipartisan basis, enacted the Patriot Act six weeks after the attacks on 9/11, the ever-present eye of the government has been searching for new and creative ways to spy on American citizens. The government has the technology to monitor all of our electronic devices, listen to our phone calls, and read our emails and text messages—all under the auspices of national security. 

This special law designed for an emergency has become a permanent addition to the government’s investigatory toolbox. The unfortunate reality is that the bulk of the actions taken by law enforcement under the Patriot Act have almost nothing to do with combating terrorism. Once-rare applications for surveillance warrants to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court have multiplied many times in relative peacetime. Most of the spying conducted under the Patriot Act is for run-of-the-mill crimes that we’ve long expected law enforcement to address without special surveillance authority.

Now, it is bad enough to have a politically-neutral surveillance state controlled by the national security crowd and their DOJ cousins. But take that panopticon and put it in the hands of an executive branch willing to weaponize its reams of information against its perceived political enemies, and we’ve got a frightening problem on our hands.

Laws such as the Patriot Act were designed to fight the unique problem of terrorism. But they quickly morphed into a mechanism by which the government keeps constant tabs on law-abiding Americans and threatens to disrupt their lives if they dare act contrary to those in power. And it’s within this world of omnipotent oversight and control that the U.S. Department of Justice now operates. They have all the tools of the surveillance state at their disposal, and the only thing standing in their way is an independent judiciary willing to enforce our constitutional rights. But we all saw how easy it is to spy on Americans—with virtually no judicial oversight—from the disgraceful episodes of broad surveillance applications, on flimsy and sometimes falsified pretexts, against citizens such as Carter Page.

*** 

Let me discuss three recent examples that illustrate the threats we face from a politicized DOJ: the DOJ raid on Project Veritas journalists, the DOJ raid on Mar-a-Lago, and the DOJ’s efforts to undermine election integrity and chill free speech. 

Project Veritas Raid

In July 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo forbidding federal prosecutors from seizing journalists’ records. He did this with much fanfare, hauteur, and virtue signaling. But even as Mr. Garland was decrying the seizure of journalists’ records as a “wrong” his department would “not let . . . happen,” the DOJ was in the midst of a year-long campaign of spying on Project Veritas—a campaign that involved no fewer than 19 clandestine subpoenas, orders, and warrants obtained from nine magistrate judges. The secrecy of this spying campaign was maintained through the use of wide-ranging gag orders, including at least two that were obtained without notice to the judge overseeing the Project Veritas case. Through this spying campaign, we now know that the DOJ obtained approximately 200,000 Project Veritas emails from Microsoft and countless text messages (and heaven knows what else) from Apple, Google, Uber, and other still unknown companies.   

Only six months after Mr. Garland’s memo was issued, the DOJ raided the homes of three Project Veritas journalists, seizing 47 electronic devices. And how did the world learn about this? Conveniently, someone leaked information about the raids to The New York Times—which Project Veritas happens to be suing. Indeed, The New York Times called Project Veritas for comment as the raids were still in progress.

What was the pretext for the raids? In the fall of 2020, confidential sources had approached Project Veritas journalists with a diary and other materials supposedly belonging to Ashley Biden, the President’s daughter. The sources said that the materials had been in their possession prior to contacting Project Veritas. The Project Veritas journalists proceeded to investigate whether the materials were authentic and whether the allegations they contained against Joe Biden were true. Ultimately, Project Veritas decided it could not sufficiently verify the allegations and that it would not publish the diary’s contents. It then turned the items over to local law enforcement in Florida.

The DOJ claims that Ashley Biden’s belongings were stolen. Project Veritas was told they weren’t, but even this is legally irrelevant. In the 2001 case Bartnicki v. Vopper, the U.S. Supreme Court held unequivocally that as long as journalists did not commit an alleged theft themselves, they were entitled to receive, investigate, and publish (or not publish) supposedly stolen materials. In the more recent case DNC v. Russian Federation, a federal court made it clear that the reporter could even ask for the stolen materials. This is not a crime—it’s called journalism.  

Compare the DOJ’s treatment of Project Veritas to the DOJ’s inaction earlier this year when a Politico reporter was given a U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. The Politico reporter behaved precisely with this purloined document as the Project Veritas reporters had behaved with the diary, except that the Politico reporter did decide to publish the draft opinion. The different reactions on the part of the DOJ seemed to hinge entirely on whose ox was being gored.

But to repeat, the Garland Justice Department was rifling through the emails and phone messages of Project Veritas journalists before Project Veritas even knew of Ashley Biden’s diary. These documents contain donor information, source communications—including communications from whistleblowers within the federal government—and attorney-client communications. In its actions, the DOJ was not only ignoring court decisions and its own policies, it was violating the Privacy Protection Act, the common law Reporter’s Privilege, and the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution.

The Project Veritas matter is ongoing. Thanks to the DOJ’s leaks to The New York Times, which themselves violate federal law, Judge Analisa Torres overruled the DOJ’s objections and ordered the appointment of a special master to review the seized materials for various privileges. It’s a hollow victory, because Project Veritas has to pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege, so to speak, of being able to protect its own privileged documents.

Mar-a-Lago Raid

Although I have represented and continue to represent President Trump in several matters, I do not represent him on the matter of the DOJ’s raid on his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago. But that raid is significant and worth some attention.

Consider first the raid’s timing. President Biden’s approval ratings have been abysmal, and it is a mid-term election year. Bloomberg reports that the DOJ will likely delay “charging” Trump with anything arising from the raid on his home until after the mid-terms. The effect of this is to create a cloud of perceived guilt running up to November 8, and use that as a political tool to smear pro-Trump voters and candidates. The DOJ hides behind its longstanding policy of not taking politically portentous actions close to an election—but how could the raid itself be construed as anything but such a portentous action? 

President Trump and his lawyers were engaged in a cooperative dialogue with both the DOJ and National Archives representatives on the issue of storing and archiving confidential documents. He went as far as to invite the DOJ to survey the documents he had on his property, and the DOJ seemed to have expressed little urgency in pursuing the matter.

This latest episode of G-men gone wild is not all that different from the FBI strategy before and after Trump’s election in 2016, when the FBI was weaponized to investigate claims of Russian collusion that ultimately proved to have been made up by Democrat operatives. But more importantly, the raid raises serious constitutional objections.

The Fourth Amendment provides that the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The American Founders were intensely concerned about government intrusion. Breaking into the homes of political opponents and depriving them of their possessions was common practice under the rule of the British king in colonial America. The use of general warrants and writs of assistance by the Crown was the ultimate interference with the colonists’ right to political and personal autonomy. Such invasions were so pervasive, and so universally despised, that the Founders saw fit to ensure that the Constitution expressly forbids such practices.

For over 180 years after the Founding, the Supreme Court applied the Fourth Amendment’s protections largely to places and things. Unsurprisingly, this meant that dwellings were given a heightened sense of protection against government intrusion. The Supreme Court has reiterated, in the 1980 case Payton v. New York, that “the physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.”

In addition to where and what receives Fourth Amendment protection is the question of how the government can conduct searches and seizures without offending the Constitution. Searches are only permitted if they are “reasonable,” and a search is generally considered “reasonable” only when the government first obtains a properly issued warrant. “Properly issued” means the warrant must describe with specificity the places to be searched and the things to be seized, must be supported by probable cause, and must be issued by a “neutral and detached magistrate.” Taken together, this is colloquially known as the “warrant requirement”—and it is central to any honest analysis of the Mar-a-Lago raid. 

At its core, the problem with the FBI’s search of President Trump’s home is its inconsistency with the letter and the spirit of the Fourth Amendment. The shroud of secrecy surrounding the probable-cause affidavit used by the FBI to obtain the warrant prevents the public from judging whether the government had a valid reason for this unprecedented search. Even more, the list of places to be searched and things to be seized contained in the warrant application comprised a blanket sweep of the former president’s entire private residence and offices, targeting “any evidence” supporting a potential violation of a handful of federal statutes that are the usual suspects when it comes to politicized prosecutions. 

While this alone doesn’t make the warrant defective, the Justice Department’s “just trust us” approach to support the raid makes it nearly impossible to determine the legitimacy of the government’s unprecedented actions. This leaves us no choice but to speculate. And based on the information publicly available, the DOJ’s actions have all the trappings and appearances of a vindictive and politically-motivated fishing expedition.

As in the Project Veritas case, the judge in the Mar-a-Lago case has issued an order appointing a special master. In doing so, the judge pointedly observed that some of the resultant delay the government complains of is caused by the government’s cutting corners, suggesting implicitly that the government abused the warrant process. 

Election Integrity and Free Speech

As has been widely reported, the DOJ is currently issuing subpoenas to individuals who have dared to question the 2020 election results. This is occurring against the backdrop of President Biden’s vendetta against what he calls “ultra MAGA Republicans.” This is the type of behavior you’d expect in a third-world dictatorship.

Included in the DOJ’s crosshairs are those who participated in the political process as alternate electors; those in Congress who voted against certifying the election results; those who organized or peacefully attended a permitted rally on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, even if they had nothing to do with the activities at the Capitol on that day; and those who have raised funds from donors with a promise to investigate and challenge election fraud. 

All of these activities have long historical precedents in our country and are protected by the First Amendment. Indeed, it was Democrats who challenged the presidential election results in 2000, 2004, and 2016. Let’s review the evidence.

In 2000, 15 House Democrats objected to counting Florida’s electoral votes. Several members of Congress called the 2000 election “fraudulent,” and Texas Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson vowed that there would be “no peace” because of the allegedly stolen election. 

In 2004, Democrats in Congress forced a vote to recess the joint session of Congress counting electoral votes in order to debate perceived election irregularities in Ohio. Thirty-one House Democrats voted to reject Ohio’s electoral votes and were applauded for doing so by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, among others. 

In 2016, several Democrats objected to the certification of Trump electors based on “overwhelming evidence of Russian interference” in the election. Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin objected to ten of Florida’s electors based on a Florida statute that prohibits state legislators from being electors. Texas Representative Sheila Jackson Lee proclaimed, “If in that voting, you have glaring matters that speak to the failure of the electoral system, then it should be challenged.”

No DOJ action was taken in any of these previous years. What has changed, if not the politicization of the Justice Department?

Elections are the engine of our republic. They ensure the peaceful transfer of power and are the primary method for the people to influence their government. And our Constitution’s elections clause—Article I, Section 4, Clause 1—gives states the primary duty of regulating the time, places, and manner of elections for federal office. The DOJ’s role is very limited in this regard. It has the power to administer the Voting Rights Act, a power that was once necessary to push back on Jim Crow laws. But the era of Jim Crow is long gone, and it shouldn’t be up to a politicized DOJ to dictate what election integrity looks like.

The 2020 election was rampant with reports of irregularities. Some of these reports were more accurate than others. But states were right to take appropriate steps to increase the security of their elections in the wake of such reports. And yet, from its first days, the Biden administration has been bent on waging an intimidation campaign against states attempting to bolster election integrity. 

Consider Georgia. The midnight ballot dump that pushed Biden ahead of Trump had all the appearances of manipulative ballot stuffing. That was followed by days of uncertainty about who won. Reports soon surfaced of massive ballot harvesting—illegal in Georgia—as well as deeply concerning evidence that Mark Zuckerberg-funded nonprofits had placed personnel in election operations in blue counties with the effect of decreasing signature-matching efforts. 

Given the backdrop in which the 2020 election took place—with new and expansive vote-by-mail procedures—it’s not surprising that alarms went off and that many citizens questioned the final vote tally. So rather than allow this scenario to repeat itself in future elections, Georgia’s legislature took action, enacting a package of election-reform legislation designed to bolster ballot security. 

President Biden denounced these reforms—which, as many commentators noted, made voting easier than in Biden’s home state of Delaware—as “Jim Crow 2.0.” The DOJ sued Georgia to block the new law and issued two new guidance documents intended to put states including Georgia on notice of potential violations of federal election laws. It has used similar tactics in Arizona and Texas.

***

It is not just political activists who are subject to DOJ intimidation. Attorney General Garland recently issued a guidance document prohibiting DOJ employees from speaking directly to members of Congress. This was plainly in response to at least 14 FBI whistleblowers reaching out to members of Congress—including Ohio Representative Jim Jordan and Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley—about misconduct within the DOJ. Garland’s action was highly improper, but it pales in comparison to the intimidation of concerned parents at local school board meetings. 

On October 4, 2021, Garland issued a memorandum directing the FBI to address “threats” at local school board meetings. This was in response to a request from the National School Boards Association that the DOJ leverage the Patriot Act and other counterterrorism tools to investigate moms and dads who were voicing their displeasure with school policies at local school board meetings.

Despite Garland’s sworn testimony denying the use of counterterrorism tools to investigate concerned parents, whistleblower evidence tells a different story. 

On October 20, 2021, Carlton Peeples, the Deputy Assistant Director for the FBI’s Criminal Investigation Division, sent an email directing FBI personnel to use the tag “EDUOFFICIALS” for all school board-related investigations. Whistleblowers say that the FBI opened investigations into parents in every region of the country. These included an investigation of a “right-wing mom” based on her participation in a “Moms for Liberty” group and personal ownership of a gun. Another investigation was opened when a dad was deemed to “fit the profile of an insurrectionist” after complaining about school mask mandates.

It is time to wake up to the danger.

On November 11, 1762, King George’s men had a warrant when they stormed and raided the home of pamphleteer John Entick. They broke open locked doors, boxes, chests, and drawers and seized his private papers and books—all because the Crown suspected Entick of fomenting political opposition against the King. If the FBI’s raid on Project Veritas journalists’ homes or President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago teaches us anything, it’s that the political oppression of the eighteenth century remains a threat today. But today, in addition to brute force, our government has the power of the modern surveillance state.

As a graduate of the University of Virginia Law School, I would be remiss in speaking about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights without quoting Thomas Jefferson, who wrote: “the most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.” We must find a way to return our Department of Justice to that central principle of American constitutionalism, as it carries out its duties in the name of Lady Liberty. 

Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America

Mike Lee is an outstanding Senator who has been abused, in an unprecedented way, by a fellow Republican Senator from his own State, something which rarely has happened in political History. Such an event would only be understandable if Mike did not perform his duties as a United States Senator, but he has, and he has performed them well. Mitt Romney is the Junior Senator from the Great State of Utah, which I won twice in a landslide, once by beating the candidate, Evan “McMuffin” McMullin, who is currently running against Senator Lee. McMuffin does not represent the values of Utah, but neither, as you will see in two years, does Mitt Romney, who refuses to endorse his fellow Republican Senator, Mike Lee. Mike should now accept that fact and go on to win a race against a man who should have, based on his failed career as a politician, no chance of winning. Mike Lee is outstanding and has my Complete and Total Endorsement. Mitt Romney and Evan McMuffin can count on the fact that they will never have my Endorsement!

Bp. Schneider’s new book beautifully explains the sacrificial nature of the Latin Mass

---

Bishop Schneider distributes Holy Communion during an October 9, 2022 Mass in Pittsburgh.Peter Kwaśniewski/Facebook

---

Maike
Hickson

Wed Oct 12, 2022 – 2:20 pm EDT

BeyondWords

(LifeSiteNews) – On October 18, Bishop Athanasius Schneider will speak at an eventhosted by Sophia Institute Press, in Virginia near Washington, D.C. Together with Dr. Peter Kwasniewski and Diane Montagna, he will discuss his new book The Catholic Mass (published by Sophia Institute Press), which is a defense of the traditional Latin Mass and its God-centered spirituality.

There are numerous reasons why I would urge Catholics not only to try to come to that event, but also to read His Excellency’s new book.

First of all, I consider Bishop Schneider to be one of the holiest and most courageous prelates we currently have in the Catholic Church. Everybody who has been blessed to meet him in person and to spend time with him will have noticed his utmost pastoral nature.

He is, first and foremost, a priest. A priest who is always open to requests for baptisms, sick calls and for pastoral counsel and care. Bishop Schneider is a man who distributes blessings wherever he goes, whether by car or on foot.

I remember one time, when he was to bring the Holy Eucharist to a sick person in town, he carried the Host down the aisle in the church, bestowing a Eucharistic blessing on each and every one who happened to be in church or arriving outside. Bishop Schneider is truly a Christ-bearer. Just recently, when talking about him with a lady who also knows him, we noticed how over the years this bishop has increasingly become more and more like Christ. I wish everyone of our readers to be blessed to meet Bishop Schneider in person.

READ: Bishops, priests and scholars correct Pope Francis’ statement on Holy Communion

But recently, our family also had a more painful experience. When our children recently traveled out of state for a weekend, they went to a Novus Ordo Mass, which they barely do. They were so shocked about what they saw that they had to tell us everything in detail when they returned home. Our daughter Isabella even told us that she had to leave the church at some point and had tears in her eyes, in light of the irreverence of the priest and the congregation. There were barely any genuflections during Mass; the priest greeted the congregation at the beginning and asked them questions which they answered.

As our son Robby related, at the end of Mass, the priest leaned on the altar (table) as if it was a kitchen table, telling his audience a joke. The final blessing was so fast, one could not even get on one’s knees to receive it reverently. Not to mention how the priest handled the Holy Eucharist and its Particles that were on his hands: he rubbed them off on his vestments! These things are so painful to those who believe in the Real Presence, because all of this conduct and these gestures reveal a lack of reverence toward God Himself, Who died for us on the Cross to redeem us.

After this painful experience of our children and in preparation for this essay, I returned to reading Bishop Schneider’s new book The Catholic Mass: Steps to Restore the Centrality of God in the Liturgy, and it is like a cold glass of water in the midst of a desert.

Chapter by chapter, Bishop Schneider explains the nature of Holy Mass and why and how it is celebrated in the traditional way. He tells us about the Mass as “Prayer,” “Adoration,” “Ritual,” and as “Sacrifice” and “Salvation’s Source,” to name only a few explanations of the Mass. Everybody reading this book will deepen his faith in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and will return to it with more awe and reverence (or with more indignation, should the Mass he attends be unworthy of God). And it will also foster our determination to remain loyal to the traditional Latin Mass and the traditional Sacraments, at all costs. This ancient rite is worth fighting for.

In this new book, the auxiliar bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan also enters into the discussion about the defects of the Novus Ordo Mass, and his words very well explain how we could come to the point in Church history where children, like the Hickson children, have to come home heart-broken from a Novus Ordo Mass somewhere in America.

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR DAILY HEADLINES US Canada Catholic

As my husband Robert always stresses to our children, the Holy Mass is most of all a sacrifice, and he likes to call it the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which immediately highlights this aspect.

Bishop Schneider begins his chapter on “The Mass Is Sacrifice” with the sentence: “The Holy Mass is the Sacramentum Crucis, the Sacrament of the Cross: this is its essential definition.” And a little later he adds that the Holy Mass “is the sacramental form of the sacrifice of Golgotha.” And since “this act of sacrifice is the greatest act that has ever taken place or will ever take place in human history,” every aspect of the Mass deserves utmost reverence and attention, both from the priest and from the congregation.

From this one tenet, everything flows. It flows that we bow our heads, that we kneel during the Consecration, that we sing to God and say prayers of thanksgiving and of praise. We thank God for having saved us from damnation and for continuously giving us His Grace to lift up our wounded human nature toward Him, unto eternal salvation.

It is this love and gratitude for this Divine Love, as expressed by Christ laying down His Life for us – and by God the Father sacrificing His Only Son – that makes us want to defend the ancient rite, the Mass of all ages and the traditional Sacraments.

This becomes also clear when reading Bishop Schneider’s book. Our resistance flows out of a deep affirmation and gratitude.

READ: Bp. Schneider: Pope’s ‘persecution’ of the Latin Mass an ‘abuse of power’ which must be resisted

The bishop of German descent explains the different aspects of the Mass as a sacrifice, especially that Christ offers Himself again in an unbloody manner, as a “victim to the Eternal Father” (Pope Pius XII), as well as that the Mass is an expansion of the one Sacrifice that took place on Calvary, with Christ’s giving again and again His Body and Blood for us. Schneider says that the “sacrifice of the Cross speaks to us of the most fruitful love, and its fruits are infinite because they are borne by a Divine Person.”

By way of sacrificing His Life for us, Christ showed His Love for us – He proved it.

That is why the aspect of the sacrifice is so important. Yet, as Bishop Schneider shows us, “it is an obvious fact that the dimension of sacrifice is diminished in the Novus Ordo Missae.” He also points out how Protestants have been “consultors in its drafting” and that later Protestant congregations were saying that they could easily attend that new Mass, since, in the words of one such Protestant congregation, “many obstacles that could prevent a Protestant from participating in a Eucharistic celebration seem to have disappeared.”

Further explaining what was changed in the Novus Ordo Missae, the Kazakh prelate says that this Mass “weakens the essential, sacrifical aspect” as it can be seen “in the new Offertory Prayers, which are essentially prayers for the blessing of a meal, emptied of their properly sacrificial meaning.”

It is worth quoting Bishop Schneider here some more: “The Offertory is meant to point to the Cross, so the Church expresses in a solemn and somewhat drawn-out manner the intentio, i.e., what she intends to do, which is not to carry out a simple meal, but the greatest action, which is the sacrifice of Christ.” Thus, the Novus Ordo Offertory Prayers are in his view “dogmatically, doctrinally, and spiritually defective and should be replaced by the ancient prayers.”

Bishop Schneider even goes so far as to issue a warning. By expressing “such a limited intention,” the Novus Ordo Offertory Prayers are “theologically ambiguous” and “fail to recall” what the Council of Trent stated, namely: “If anyone says that in the Mass a true and real sacrifice is not offered to God; or that to be offered is nothing else than that Christ is given to us to eat, let him be anathama.”

The Kazakh prelate then goes on to say that the Eucharistic Prayer II of the Novus Ordo“almost entirely” lacks the “sense of sacrifice.” The consequence of such prayers is that even priests lose the sense of the nature of the Mass. States the bishop:

Were we to survey the clergy, we might be surprised to learn that many now consider the Mass to be merely a banquet. This Protestantizing tendency is very dangerous and cannot be denied.

Here comes to mind once more the priest whom the Hickson children just witnessed at a Novus Ordo Mass during their vacation.

I hope that many of our readers will be able to attend the event with Bishop Athanasius Schneider on October 18. May he continue to spread his blessing wherever he goes, and may he continue to enlighten Catholics about the current errors that have crept into the Church and to encourage a holy resistance, at the same time raising the hope that God one day will restore the Church in her ancient beauty again.

The public event with Bishop Schneider will take place October 18, from 6:30–8:00 PM, at the Crystal Gateway Marriott, 1700 Richmond Hwy Arlington, VA 22202.

---

Dr. Maike Hickson was born and raised in Germany. She holds a PhD from the University of Hannover, Germany, after having written in Switzerland her doctoral dissertation on the history of Swiss intellectuals before and during World War II. She now lives in the U.S. and is married to Dr. Robert Hickson, and they have been blessed with two beautiful children. She is a happy housewife who likes to write articles when time permits.

Dr. Hickson published in 2014 a Festschrift, a collection of some thirty essays written by thoughtful authors in honor of her husband upon his 70th birthday, which is entitled A Catholic Witness in Our Time.

Hickson has closely followed the papacy of Pope Francis and the developments in the Catholic Church in Germany, and she has been writing articles on religion and politics for U.S. and European publications and websites such as LifeSiteNews, OnePeterFive, The Wanderer, Rorate Caeli, Catholicism.org, Catholic Family News, Christian Order, Notizie Pro-Vita, Corrispondenza Romana, Katholisches.info, Der Dreizehnte,  Zeit-Fragen, and Westfalen-Blatt.

FBI Raids Home of Another Pro-Lifer, Still No Arrests in Pregnancy Center Fire-Bombings

 0

With weapons drawn, FBI agents raided the home of another Pro-Life activist, Chet Gallagher.

Mr. Gallagher, a 73-year-old Pro-Lifer and former policeman, along with 11 other Pro-Life activists are being arrested under the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

This comes just weeks after the raid on Pro-Life father, Mark Houck, which made national headlines when FBI agents terrorized Houck’s children by converging on his home with drawn weapons.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==

With his companions, Gallagher had already been arrested and released by local authorities after posting bail for misdemeanor trespass charges. Despite being released by local authorities, the Department of Justice picked up the case, executing an armed FBI raid to arrest Mr. Gallagher.

Video taken by the Pro-Lifers who organized the protest shows a small group of Christian activists praying and singing in the halls outside an abortion office in Tennessee. Though remaining respectful and non-violent throughout the ordeal, the Pro-Life activists did not cooperate with authorities’ demands to vacate the halls.

Footage of the incident shows police arriving to the scene and ordering the Pro-Lifers to vacate the building. Eventually, an officer makes an announcement, saying, “We are going to be making the final warning right now… Anybody that is still here after the five minutes is up will be arrested… You guys have been really good to us and we appreciate the cooperation. Okay?”

Video taken outside the building shows some of the activists being removed from the building in handcuffs.

If convicted under the federal charges, Mr. Gallagher faces up to eleven years in prison and fines of up to $250,000.

Meanwhile, no arrests have been made in the ongoing string of attacks and acts of terror and vandalism against Pro-Life organizations and churches. As reported by the Catholic News Agency, there have been 98 recent attacks and acts of intimidation perpetrated by abortion activists on Pro-Life organizations and groups.

This imbalance of justice and the vitriol with which the Biden DOJ punishes Pro-Lifers is sadly no surprise.

Since taking office, Joe Biden has proven himself the most radically pro-abortion president in U.S. history.

The Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is also a rabid anti-Lifer. In response to the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, Garland issued a statement, announcing, “The Justice Department strongly disagrees with the Court’s decision. This decision deals a devastating blow to reproductive freedom in the United States. It will have an immediate and irreversible impact on the lives of people across the country.”

With such biased and radically anti-Life leadership in the federal government, it is no wonder that anti-Life acts of terror and violence are going unpunished while Pro-Life family homes are being raided by armed agents.

Pro-Lifers must not be intimidated. Trusting in God, Pro-Life Texans must continue to peacefully and legally stand up for the preborn and vulnerable.

THE CATHOLIC MONITOR

SEARCH

Epoch Times: Biden in an Executive Order may have given himself “Unilateral Spy Powers” & “Can keep these [Spy] Operations Hidden from the Public”

October 12, 2022

Yesterday, the Epoch Times TV Crossroads award-winning investigative reporter Joshua Philipp said that Joe Biden in an executive order may have given himself “unilateral spy powers”:

“Joe Biden issued  a very strange executive order… the wording of his executive order could give him unilateral spy powers in the way I’m interpreting it.” [https://www.theepochtimes.com/biden-gives-himself-new-spy-powers-evidence-stacks-for-hunter-biden-charges_4787016.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&src_src=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-10-12&src_cmp=mb-2022-10-12&utm_medium=email&est=F4N94vW2TFRgq3w022IoSVxvcvzD36sNZ%2BCl0O9K%2FLBt3MoknzDHlb7yMsqg]

Philipp on The Epoch Times Crossroads website wrote:

“President Joe Biden issued an executive order that increases government spy operations in the United States, yet leaves the door open to expand surveillance powers. The order establishes that the president can create new surveillance operations, and can keep these operations hidden from the public if he believes it would jeopardize the integrity.” [https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/biden-gives-himself-new-spy-powers-evidence-stacks-for-hunter-biden-charges_4787016.html]

Pray an Our Father now in reparation for the sins of Francis’s Amoris Laetitia.

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Stop for a moment of silence, ask Jesus Christ what He wants you to do now and next. In this silence remember God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost – Three Divine Persons yet One God, has an ordered universe where you can know truth and falsehood as well as never forget that He wants you to have eternal happiness with Him as his son or daughter by grace. Make this a practice. By doing this you are doing more good than reading anything here or anywhere else on the Internet.

Francis Notes:

– Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church in such a situation:

“[T]he Pope… WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See.”

(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)

Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said “the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church.”

[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]

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

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

 –  LifeSiteNews, “Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial weight behind communion for adulterers,” December 4, 2017:

The AAS guidelines explicitly allows “sexually active adulterous couples facing ‘complex circumstances’ to ‘access the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'”

–  On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:

“The AAS statement… establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense.”

– On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:

“Francis’ heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters magisterial documents.”

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.

Election Notes: 

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

– Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times “Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003”: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html

– Tucker Carlson’s Conservatism Inc. Biden Steal Betrayal is explained by “One of the Greatest Columns ever Written” according to Rush: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/tucker-carlsons-conservatism-inc-biden.html?m=1

– A Hour which will Live in Infamy: 10:01pm November 3, 2020:

http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1

What is needed right now to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to even go to outdoor prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our civil liberties. [Is the DC Capitol Incident Comparable to the Nazi Reichstag Fire Incident where the German People Lost their Civil Liberties?: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/is-dc-capital-incident-comparable-to.html?m=1 and Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capitol Incident: “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs‘”:

http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1] 

Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it.

Pray an Our Father now for 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 MarySHARE

Russia Offers to Annex US States Who Wish to Leave Union

By

 Paul Duke

 – 

October 12, 2022

 Facebook Twitter Pinterest

There have been plenty of abjectly strange statements made over the course of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and some of the sentiments being bandied about today are far more bizarre than we would have imagined.

It all began when Vladimir Putin suggested that Ukraine’s government had been taken over by “Nazis”, despite the country’s President being a Jewish descendant of Holocaust victims.

Now, after months of nuclear threats and bizarre banter, one Russian official is suggesting that states within the US could be annexed by Russia if they should so choose.

State Duma deputy Alexander Tolmachev was responding to an online poll that showed that some Americans wanted their states to break free from the U.S.

If Americans vote to secede some states from the country and express a desire to join Russia, Moscow will consider it, Tolmachev told Russian news site Podmoskovye Segodnya.

The lawmaker said that the U.S. was beginning “to decay,” and that its ally, the European Union, which has also provided strong military assistance to Ukraine, was “bursting at its seams.”

And there was more where that came from.

Tolmachev said this was a result of a failed American foreign policy. “Such initiatives are a signal that the citizens of the United States are dissatisfied with their leadership and are ready to take extreme measures, up to secession, if the current policy of America continues,” he said.

Mosregtoday.ru also reported the news, noting that on social media, some 80 percent of New Hampshire residents said they wanted to break away from the United States.

The statement comes just days after sham elections in several Ukrainian territories were used as a pretext for the Kremlin to annex those regions into Russia.

Ukraine and the Malevolent Legacy

of the Obama-Biden Administration

By: Victor Davis Hanson

American Greatness

October 10, 2022

During the current Ukrainian war, the media has created a mythology that the Left was tough on Vladimir Putin’s Russia. And thus, now it simply continues its hard-nosed efforts in Ukraine.

But nothing could be further from the truth. Aside from Biden’s original panic of evacuating American diplomatic personnel from Kyiv, offering a ride out of Ukraine for the Zelenskyy government that would have effectively collapsed his nation’s resistance, and hesitation in selling Ukraine offensive weapons, there is also a prior legacy that had done a great deal of harm.

Indeed, many of America’s current difficulties in Ukraine originate from the Obama-Biden Administration’s former disastrous policies toward Russia birthed between 2009-2016.

Remembering the Reset Disaster

Remember the initial premise of Russian “Reset”—the idea and the term were first used by Vice President Joe Biden (“It’s time to press the reset button”)—was based on the myth that the “cowboy” George W. Bush had been too tough on Putin after the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. To Biden and Obama, Bush had unduly sanctioned Vladimir Putin following his opportunistic absorption of South Ossetia in 2008 and attack on Georgia. And thus, the Russian dictator would easily then be wowed by Obama’s legendary charisma and charm from needless hostility to accommodation.

Accordingly, the reformist hope-and-change Obama Administration would rebuild a friendly relationship with Russia. Thereby they would win strategic help from Russia with Obama’s new ambitious agendas for Iran and Syria in remaking a more “equitable” Middle East. Translated that meant “balancing” the region. Thus, by weakening our former overdog allies in the Gulf and Israel while empowering our former underdog terrorist-sponsoring enemies in Tehran and Damascus, Obama sought to create strategic tension.

What followed was an utter disaster. Hillary Clinton in March 2009 at the comical “reset” ceremony in Geneva with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov greenlighted outright Russian aggression. In response, Moscow’s policy was soon to be against whatever the United States was for. In the Russian mind, the more an appeasing Obama looked the other way at Putin’s cyberattacks or later the dual invasions in 2014 of eastern Ukraine and Crimea, the more Washington compensated for its impotence by shrill sermons and empty lectures on Russian human-rights violations.

For Putin, nothing was emptier than the loud moralistic harangues of the Obama-Biden Administration that were also carrying a mere twig. During those eight years, Russia, after a near half-century hiatus, was invited back into the Middle East as a “guarantor” that its client Syria’s WMD stockpile would be destroyed (it was not). Russia instead became a formable promoter of the Iranian, Hezbollah, the Assad regime, and Hamas axis, an obstacle to Israeli responses to cross-border terrorism, and a deterrent to any Western notion of preemptively destroying Tehran’s nuclear potential.

The Trump Hiatus

The irony is that while Trump was later smeared by the Obama-Biden Left as a “Russian asset” —in the words of former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper who himself had confessed to lying under oath to Congress—he managed to comprehensively overturn the reset.

Trump vacated an asymmetrical and calcified anti-missile treaty with Russia. He upped sanctions on Russian oligarchs. He ordered lethal retaliation against Russian mercenaries in Syria. He flooded global markets with cheap U.S. oil and gas at Russia’s expense. He eventually sent deterrent offensive weapons to Ukraine—once canceled by the Obama Administration. Trump upped the Pentagon budget and controversially jawboned NATO members to increase their defense expenditures. That effort in part explains why the alliance had more confidence and resources in 2022 to oppose Russian aggression than it would have at anemic 2016 funding levels.

In contrast, it was Hillary Clinton—and the American FBI—who hired Russian informants like Igor Danchenko and their conduit Christopher Steele to spread dirt during the 2016 election. The Russians likely feared the unpredictable “America First” Trump and were only too eager to see the Left lap up its concocted, seedy “Kompromat” on him.

Recall that the projectionist Secretary of State Clinton had earlier further appeased Russia when her State Department approved the sale of the North American company Uranium One’s uranium holdings to the Russian-government-controlled company Rosatom—the same company that recently stole the Ukrainian-owned nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear generator. It was also about this same time when Hillary Clinton greenlighted the deal that Bill Clinton received a preposterous quid pro quo $500,000 speaking fee in Moscow from a Russian bank, while millions of dollars from Moscow-affiliated companies suddenly flowed into the Clinton Foundation coffers.

The New York Times headline succinctly summed up the Clinton-Russian trifecta of reset, appeasement, and aggrandizement as “Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal.”

How strange then that we now totter on the brink of a full-throttled war with nuclear Russia over Putin’s latest aggressions in Ukraine. All the while we apparently forget that the Trump Administration never colluded with Russia, was tough in action rather than verbiage with Putin, and thus remained the only one of the last four administrations during which Vladimir Putin did not invade a former Russian republic.

The Obama-Russian Quid Pro Quo

Obama himself inadvertently outlined some of the parameters of the disastrous reset relationship in his infamous March 2012 hot-mic concessions to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at a summit in Seoul, South Korea:

Obama: ‘This is my last election . . . After my election I have more flexibility.’

Medvedev: ‘I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.’  

Obama: ‘On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.’ 

Medvedev: “Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you . . .”

 Obama: ‘This is my last election . . . After my election I have more flexibility.’ 

Medvedev: ‘I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.’

The implications of that exchange were never fully appreciated, although then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney claimed at the time that the diminution of U.S. national security for Obama’s own 2012 political reelection interests should have disqualified his reelection effort. Mortgaging U.S. security interests to help a reelection campaign was certainly far more an impeachable offense than the Trump phone call.

So often it is also forgotten that the terms of the hot mic “deal” were eventually “solved” as Obama promised. The Russians did give “space” to candidate Barack Obama. And eight months later he was reelected—in part because of the perceived international quiet that the Obama appeasement policies had supposedly achieved.

Indeed, the Obama-Putin understanding may have postponed Russian invasions of Ukraine and Crimea until Obama was safely—and welcomely—reelected. As also promised, Obama did finalize his cancellations of missile defense by nixing the U.S., Polish, and Czech strategic initiatives. Note that the lost network of anti-ballistic missile defense today might have been of value in offering Europe deterrence against Putin’s current nuclear bomb threats.

Russian appeasement and the Iran Deal

Yet even as late as 2015, as Putin was escalating his open-ended cyber-attacks on U.S. domestic targets, Vice President Joe Biden was still wedded to appeasing him:

Once we pressed that reset button in 2009, between then and 2012, we achieved a great deal in cooperation with Russia to advance our mutual interests and I would argue the interests of Europe—the New START Treaty that reduced our strategic nuclear arsenal by one-third; a vital supply route for coalition troops in and out of Afghanistan; at the United Nations Security Council, resolutions that pressured North Korea and Iran and made possible serious nuclear discussions in Tehran, which continue as I speak.

All of us, we all invested in a type of Russia we hoped—and still hope—will emerge one day: a Russia integrated into the world economy; more prosperous, and more invested in the international order.

Had Biden not contributed to that fantasy of green-lighting Putin, he might not now be name-calling the nuclear, wounded autocrat as a “killer” whom the president boasts should be removed—as he warns us that we are nearer to nuclear Armageddon than at any time in our history.

What explains the Obama-Biden serial denial of reality that their own appeasing of Russia was the height of folly? One reason is surely the crackpot notion that Russia had been seen as vital to the so-called Iran deal and related Middle East messes. Then as now, the Left believed that through Russian auspices it could massage Tehran into a nuclear deal and reset the entire Middle East in the bargain.

The result is an Orwellian scenario in which Biden still begs Russia’s aid to ensure an Iran deal while believing his invaluable broker is an abject murderer who should be yanked out of office.

Indeed, the Obama-Biden disastrous fixation with courting Iran has had lots of unfortunate ripples for years. And some of them continue in our current conundrum in Ukraine.

In May 2014, remember, the Iranians with much braggadocio showed off a mockup of their reverse-engineered new RQ-170 drone. That once implausible feat was facilitated by the Iranians’ December 2011 downing of a U.S. Sentinel drone. At the time, several administration critics had blasted the Obama Administration for not immediately bombing all downed American drones to smithereens on Iranian soil to prevent Iranian reverse-engineering.

And now? One of the greatest worries during the Ukrainian offensive has been the sudden emergence of Russian-purchased cheap Iranian suicide drones. Few imagined that the low-cost imports would exhibit such a deadly sophistication in stealth, range, and targeting—and well beyond either Iran’s indigenous research and development or Russia’s available drone fleet. The origins of these Iranian drones can also be traced directly back to the Obama-Biden appeasement of Iran.

“Don’t Underestimate Joe’s Ability to F–k Things Up.”

We are in a conundrum in Ukraine, all at once pursuing several mutually exclusive agendas:

ü cutting back our energy production while beseeching illiberal third parties to up theirs to supply what we could but will not produce,

ü worrying about protecting Europe from Russia while demanding it become more aggressive toward Putin,

ü ensuring the EU has enough energy to survive the winter but doing so without relying on Russian gas or oil,

ü green-lighting Ukraine to expel every last Russian—including raids into Russia proper and hits on Russian citizens—as we warn Putin that his nuclear threats to Ukraine will earn him a strong but still unspecified U.S. counter-response—even as the Biden Administration insidiously assumes complete responsibility for arming, sustaining, and protecting Ukraine from nuclear Russia and as Zelenskyy urges America to consider preemptive first nuclear strikes against Russia.

ü ostracizing Russia from the international community while we beg it to be a good international citizen in helping us to reboot the Iran deal as it buys lethal American-fed Iranian drones.

The United States has few options in Ukraine not just because of the Biden Administration’s fiascos in Afghanistan that destroyed our deterrence or because of the Biden family syndicate’s years of corrupt money leveraging of Russian, Ukrainian, and Chinese interests that make Joe Biden vulnerable to pressures from all the major interests in the Ukraine mess.

It is also not just because the woke politicization of the U.S. military has cast global doubt on American military readiness. And it is not even because Biden deliberately has cut back on U.S. gas and oil production at a time of surging global demand and reduced capacity, thus enriching Putin and strangling Western economies.

Instead, we are shackled by a near decade of Russian reset and the aggression it invited on February 23, 2022. Obama and Biden long sought to placate Putin to help with their puerile Mideast agendas. They invited him into Syria. They made him the key player in their pursuit of the Iran deal. And they ignored his 2014 invasions of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea.

How ironic that we now find ourselves sending arms to protect Ukraine from reverse-engineered Iranian drones, beseeching in vain regimes to send us oil that we refuse to produce for ourselves, and having given up an Eastern European missile defense system to counter Putin’s nuclear threats—even as we coax both our enemies Tehran and Moscow into cementing a nuclear deal that will be as disastrous to our friends as it is to ourselves.

Fr. MacRae’s Case Is at a Pivotal Moment October 11, 2022 Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on new developments in the case of Fr. Gordon MacRae: This is a pivotal moment for Fr. Gordon MacRae. Those who have been following his case know that the Catholic League has long stood by him, holding that he was unjustly convicted in 1994 of sexual assaults that allegedly took place nearly twelve years earlier. To read my account of his travails, click here. Now there is a new development that could change things dramatically. Harvey Silvergate is a crackjack civil liberties attorney from Boston. His piece in the October 10 edition of the Wall Street Journal lays out how matters have changed. We have never trusted the account of Detective James McLaughlin, who was in charge of the MacRae case, and now we have more reason to doubt him. McLaughlin has allegedly been engaged in falsifying records in at least one of the cases he handled. The question is whether he also falsified MacRae’s records. To read Silvergate’s article click here. Please keep Fr. MacRae in your prayers. For more information, see his blog post, www.BeyondTheseStoneWalls.com.

   

Cardinal Müller on Synod on Synodality: ‘A Hostile Takeover of the Church of Jesus Christ … We Must Resist’

Cardinal Gerhard Müller spoke about the papal silence surrounding the arrest of Cardinal Joseph Zen and the Synod on Synodality, saying the Catholic Church is facing ‘a hostile takeover’ by people who ‘think that doctrine is like the program of a political party’ that can be changed by votes.

Raymond Arroyo InterviewsOctober 7, 2022

Editor’s Note: Cardinal Gerhard Müller appeared on EWTN’sThe World Over with Raymond Arroyo on Oct. 6. Please find the interview transcript below, edited for length and clarity.

Arroyo’s words are in italics / Cardinal Mueller words are in plain type.

Your Eminence, thank you for being here. The last two years, the Church has been polling Catholics all over the world, and non-Catholics we might add, about their desires in the Church and from the Church. Now, these national reports have been sent to Rome. Internationally, an average of 1% to 10% of baptized Catholics have really taken part in these synodal discussion groups, for such a small representative group. Do these national surveys mean very much? Do they actually reflect what Catholics are most concerned about?

I think the approach is wrong. … We have to listen to the word of God. And then to put it into practice. …

The concerns of these reports are curious. In England, Ireland, France and others, they cite the need for a more welcoming Church, your Eminence. In particular, the synthesis identifies the “LGBTQ” community, divorced Catholics, women in the Church. Regarding the “LGBTQ“ community, the U.S. report states the following: “The hope for a welcoming Church expressed itself clearly with the desire to accompany, with authenticity, LGBTQ+ persons in their families. In order to be a more welcoming Church, there’s a deep need for ongoing discernment of the whole Church on how to best accompany our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters.” What do you make of this focus on the “LGBTQ” community? And how do you see the evolving synod taking up those concerns? 

The aim of this ideology … was to instrumentalize Catholic Church on the face, for promoting their own ideas. But, in reality, everybody is welcome in the Church; but first he must repent his sins and change his life according to the commandments of God. It’s best for us, human beings, to follow the way of Jesus Christ and to change our life according to his commandments and to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

These reports, they all seem to tend in a direction of stronger leadership and more presence in decision-making for women. The Australians specifically request an ongoing discussion about the ordination of women and deacons. Now, hasn’t this question of female ordination been settled by the last several pontificates, including Pope Francis?

… In the Church, we have nothing to do with political power, and to self-representation, but we have to follow the will of God and to be responsible for the salvation of all mankind; and we have to cooperate with the will of God. We have the mission of Jesus Christ, to lead everybody towards a salvation, to Jesus Christ, who is the only Redeemer, not to self-creation, to self-redemption. It’s all manipulated [these ideas], of ideology, and that has nothing to do with the Gospel and the doctrine of the Catholic Church 

You were head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. What must you think as you watch  a system being created, where all of that doctrine seems to be up for grabs?

The basis of the Church is the word of God as a revelation … not our strange reflections. … This [agenda] is a system of self-revelation. This occupation of the Catholic Church is a hostile takeover of the Church of Jesus Christ. … And if you look at only one page, or read one page of the Gospel, you’ll see that it has nothing to do with Jesus Christ … and [in this agenda] they think that doctrine is only like a program of a political party, who can change it according to their votes.

Your Eminence, Cardinal Mario Grech, who is the secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, spoke to 200 U.S. Catholic leaders last month in Rome. He talked of “complicated issues” — that’s what he called them, such as divorced-and-remarried people receiving Communion, blessing same-sex couples — and he said the following: “These are not to be understood simply in terms of doctrine, but in terms of God’s ongoing encounter with human beings. What has the Church to fear if these two groups within the faithful are given the opportunity to express their intimate sense of spiritual realities which they experience? Might this be an opportunity for the Church, to listen to the Holy Spirit, speaking through them also.” Your thoughts, when you hear that? Setting up doctrine against God’s ongoing experience with mankind.

That is a hermeneutic of the old cultural Protestantism; and observe modernism: That is the individual experience, as the same level as objective revelation of God. And God is only a wall to you, which you can project your proper ideas, and to make certain populism in the Church; and surely everybody outside of the Church who want to destroy the Catholic Church, and the fundaments, they are very glad about these declarations. But it is obvious that is absolutely against the Catholic doctrine. We have Revelation of God in Jesus Christ. And it is definitely closed and finished in Jesus Christ. … This is absolutely clear: that Jesus has spoken about the indissolubility of matrimony. And how is it possible that Cardinal Grech is more intelligent than Jesus Christ, where he takes his authority to relativize, to subvert of God?

I have to say, I am, I am shaken when I hear you say, and you were just at a consistory, which we’ll talk about in a moment, that you believe the synodal process is … shaping up into a hostile takeover of the Church, of an attempt to destroy the Church. Is that what you see here?

If they succeed, it will be the end of the Catholic Church. And we must resist it like the old heretics of the Arianism. When Arias thought, according to his ideas, what can God do and what can God not do? And it is irrationalism: human, the intellect to decide what is true and what is wrong.

All these national reports are being synthesized into a working document, known in Rome, as the instrumentum laborious. This document continues to be refined, but, ultimately, it will guide all these discussions for the synod in Rome. This is being drafted by the synod leadership and advisory committee and a group of approximately 20 so-called experts. These are laypeople, religious sisters, Catholic priests, an archbishop. Who are the these people, and why have they been chosen to put this working document together? Why not a group of cardinals to do this?

They are dreaming of another church that has nothing to do with the Catholic faith … and they want to abuse this process, for shifting the Catholic Church — and not only in other direction, but in the destruction of the Catholic Church. … Nobody can make an absolute shift and substitute the revealed doctrine of the Church, but they have these strange ideas, as doctrine as only a theory of some theologians. 

The doctrine of the apostles is a reflection and manifestation of the Revelation of the word of God. We have to listen to the word of God in the authority of the Holy Bible, of apostolic tradition, and of the magisterium. And all the Council said before: that it is not possible to substitute Revelation, given once and forever in Jesus Christ, by another revelation.

Why do you believe the Pope is allowing this?

That is a difficult question. But I cannot understand it. I must say it openly, because the definition of the pope is, and [based in] the Vatican Council and also the history of Catholic theology, he has to guarantee the truth of the Gospel and the unity of all the bishops, and in the Church, in the revealed truth. And Peter was asked, and all the apostles asked: “Who is Jesus Christ? Is he a prophet or is he a new Elijah, another religious man?” And Peter said, “You are Christ, the Son of the living God.” And in this confession, there are included all the other truths of mysteries of the Catholic or Christian faith: The Trinity, the incarnation, grace and the sacraments. All is here included.

Your Eminence, I hear from Protestant pastors, Jewish rabbis every day, about the importance, the way they consider the importance of the Catholic Church, because it is the center. And they said that we we have to pray for the Church, that it holds, because if the Church falls apart, we all fall apart in some ways. I want to show you something: This week, the official Twitter account of the Vatican synod tweeted out the following from Cardinal Grech regarding the synod and the Second Vatican Council. He said: “A correct reception of the council’s ecclesiology is activating such fruitful processes as to open up scenarios that not even the council had imagined, and in which the actions of the Spirit that guides the church is made manifest.” What does that mean to you? 

That is coming from the authority of Cardinal Grech, his own revelation for him. And not only this: It is a theory about so-called processes, which are overcoming Revelation. And everybody knows who studied the first semester of sociology: The Church and the authorities in the Church cannot change the Revelation …to found a new church according to things and then use all the offices speaking about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a way of Presbyterianism, or all these pneumatic movements outside of the Catholic Church … substituting Jesus Christ. It is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit that will introduce us into full truths, but once said forever, revealed in Jesus Christ, and therefore not an impulse only for one process which leads us in the end against the Revelation; and, therefore, we have a clear Apostolic Creed. I am wondering that, as Cardinal Grech here presents himself as a super authority, he is not a recognized theologian, he has no importance in the academic theology, and how he is presenting a new hermeneutic of the Catholic faith only because he is the secretary of the synod, which has no authority about the doctrine of the Church; and all these Synods of Bishops and the process has no authority, in no way an magisterial authority.

I want to show you something from last week, various photos were uploaded to the Vatican synod Facebook page, illustrating the Synod on Synodality. One depicted a female priest prominently featured, along with a young man in a “pride” shirt, made its way all over social media. The illustration reads: “We are the young people of the future. And the future is now animating this blossoming mission that is larger than any one of us. We desire to be on advisory councils and make decisions.” Now, this illustration had the watermark of the Synod of Bishops in the upper corner. What is the message here, Your Eminence, and how is this viewed in Rome?

This is a desire to take over, a power which doesn’t exist, a want to be more intelligent than God himself. It is like the Marxistic form of creating the truth by presenting of his own power. … They have the intention to substitute their own subjective ideas, against a revealed reality of Jesus Christ, as is the [path to the] destruction of the Catholic Church.

Is this a play for Vatican III? Is that what they are attempting here, to kind of create a pop-culture Vatican III?

Yes, it cetainly is. It is very astonishing, that it is allowed under the authority,  in this context, of the Vatican. And it gives the impression that it is really possible that the Church [can change] … [that the synod organizers] are authorized to be the audience of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is only a function for them. … It has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit, who reveals himself as the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit … and this is a way to undermine the Catholic faith and Catholic Church.

You were disturbed that, at this consistory, there was no mention of Cardinal Joseph Zen, who is undergoing trial right now, arrested under false charges by the Chinese Communists. His name was not evoked at the consistory. There was no prayer initiative. In fact, the Pope has said, when asked if he thought it was a violation of religious freedom, to arrest Cardinal Zen, he said the following: “To characterize China as anti-democratic, I don’t feel like it. Because it’s such a complex country with its own rhythms. Yes, it’s true that there are things that seem to us not to be democratic. That is true. Cardinal Zen, who is elderly, will go to trial in a few days, I believe. He says what he feels; one feels that there are limitations there.” Your reaction: Why is the Vatican so determined?

China is not a democratic system; they don’t respect the basic human rights of life and freedom. And the other side: Nobody needs 100 years for understanding China, this culture, because all the Chinese are human beings like us. And we are convinced that all human beings are equal in dignity. And everybody is called by God, to become a son and daughter of God. … The Church is a universal Church everywhere in the world. We have to defend the basic human rights and our absolute right to preach the Gospel to everybody; and therefore, we think all are brothers and sisters, and in Jesus Christ, and especially we have to defend, also, our own brothers and sisters in Christ, especially high representatives of the Church. Cardinal Zen is not only a representative of the Church, but also a representative of the freedom and the liberty of the Chinese people and the dignity of the human being. … And we cannot expect these politicians, from Peking to Moscow to Brussels, and to Washington, they cannot redeem the world [to fix things]; these politicians are responsible for the situation in which we are now … for a possible atomic war. And therefore, our Redeemer, our helper, is God, and these politicians are responsible for the chaos in which we are in.

• Keywords: 
• cardinal gerhard müller
• synod on synodality
• cardinal zen
• vatican ii

Raymond Arroyo Raymond Arroyo is host of EWTN’s The World Over with Raymond Arroyo.  An internationally known, award-winning journalist, producer and best-selling author, his interviews have included Presidents Bush and Trump, Pope Benedict XVI, Mother Teresa, Mel Gibson, famed tenor Placido Domingo and comic legend Jerry Lewis.

Whistleblower Says FBI Is Taking Agents Off Of Child Predator Cases

Republican Congressman Jim Jordan sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray last week citing a whistleblower who claimed that the FBI has been reassigning agents from child sexual abuse cases to the more politically-motivated January 6 investigations.

The whistleblower reported that the FBI is reassigning resources to pursue the ongoing January 6 investigations because child sexual abuse cases are “no longer an FBI priority” and should be referred to local law enforcement.

In his letter to Director Wray, Jordan, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, demanded to know why the FBI would be shifting resources away from child sexual abuse cases.

Doctor Shocked: Solution To Macular Degeneration Discovered

Jordan described the alleged decision as “derelictions of the FBI’s mission to investigate violations of federal laws.” He said downgrading child sexual abuse cases is “a grave disservice to the victims” and accused Wray of downplaying crimes “that do not advance the FBI leadership’s political agenda.”

Jordan also cited reports from other whistleblowers who have described the culture within the FBI’s top leadership as “rotted,” and he reminded Wray that the bureau “is not immune to oversight or accountability.”

Well, the bureau is immune to oversight so long as the Democrats control Congress.

Congressman Jordan previously sent a letter to Director Wray citing whistleblowers who claimed that FBI officials have been “pressuring agents to reclassify cases as ‘domestic violent extremism’” regardless of whether the cases meet the necessary criteria.

In his previous letter, Jordan accused the FBI of “artificially padding” the data to help advance the Biden administration’s narrative that “domestic violent extremism is the ‘greatest threat’ facing our country.”