What is Truth? This is a fundamental question, perhaps ‘the’ fundamental question. If we get the answer to this question wrong, then we will live our lives according to lies and untruths. When Pontius Pilate asks this question, Truth is standing before him in the person of Jesus Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity.
“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no man comes to the Father, but by me” (John 14:6)
In St Matthew’s Gospel we read how Jesus commissioned the first apostles, of whom our bishops are the successors, to go out and spread the Truth.
“And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Go therefore, teach ye all nations; baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.” (Matthew 28:18-20)
So once again let us pray for our Irish bishops who, sadly, are failing in the mission entrusted to them by God. It is interesting to note that baptisms have been suspended during the unnecessary lock-downs despite the fact the God commanded our bishops to baptise in the name of the Holy Trinity.
Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.
I have noted in my articles how the persecution that we are currently going through is very deceptive in that the doctrines of our faith are not being attacked. That changed recently but the attack on our doctrines is still very subtle and will not be noticed by many Catholics because it is so subtle and because it is being promoted with a false declaration of ‘caring for people’.
Indeed the retired Archbishop of Dublin, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, has quoted quite extensively from the very document which indirectly attacks the doctrine of the Real Presence. On the 7th December, the Irish government, through the offices of the HPSC (Health Protection Surveillance Centre) attacked the doctrine of transubstantiation. In their document ‘COVID-19 Guidance for Religious Services’ they state:
“The elements of Communion can also be placed in individual disposable cups or containers and left separated on a tray or table for collection. Communicants could then approach and pick up an individual container for themselves while making sure not to touch any other hosts. The disposable cups or containers should be placed in a designated receptacle afterwards.”
To speak of the Holy Eucharist in such a profane way and to promote this profanation of the Most Holy Eucharist is a grave insult to Jesus Christ and a grave insult to Catholics.
That the Irish government now claims the authority to determine how the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass can be celebrated and how Holy Communion is to be distributed, is only possible because of the silence, the lack of resistance, and indeed, the acquiescence of the Irish bishops who have been commissioned by Jesus Christ through His Catholic Church to feed His flock.
Catholics are being denied access to the life giving sacraments instituted by Christ because our bishops have shown no resistance and very little courage in upholding the teachings of the Catholic Church in the face of the subtle, (yet no less diabolical on account of that subtlety), persecution that the Catholic Church is currently undergoing.
Our bishops do not seem to have learned the lessons of history which teach us that compromise with tyrants never brings about peace but always leads to further encroachment on and the trampling of man’s duty to worship Almighty God.
Since when does the Irish government have the authority to dictate how Holy Communion shall be distributed at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? The answer is that the Irish government has no authority over Catholic Worship. So why do our bishops comply and why do they elevate the temporal laws of Ireland above the law of God?
These are serious questions and our Irish bishops need to re-visit Pontius Pilate’s initial question and ask themselves ‘What is Truth?’
When Christ’s Catholic Church teaches that Catholics always have the right to receive Holy Communion on the tongue whilst kneeling, (see Redemptionis Sacramentum 91-92), why do our bishops deny us this right? Which do they believe is true; Catholic Church teaching regarding the reception of Holy Communion; or an Irish government directive on the reception of Holy Communion? It cannot be both and Christ tells us that we cannot serve two masters and that it is by men’s deeds that we shall know them.
Compromise
We are getting a similar compromise when it comes to the Irish bishop’s position on covid-19 vaccines. Our bishops seem eager to follow government directives and they have issued a public statement in support of the government’s position on vaccines with the implication that those of us who will not accept these vaccines are acting immorally.
“Refusal to accept a vaccine could contribute to significant loss of life in the community and especially among those who are most vulnerable. This reality must inform any judgement of conscience.” (Irish Bishops Conference Statement 09/12/20)
The saying ‘words are cheap’ affirms Christ’s teaching that it is by their deeds that we shall know men. Our bishops are great at making public statements but when it comes to actions and to having boots on the ground they are largely absent.
To understand what I am saying let us take a look at two recent events in Ireland; the abortion referendum and covid-19.
Since 2019, abortion claims the lives of more than 7,000 nascent Irish human beings annually. Globally, the number of victims of abortion is over 50 million nascent human beings annually. In contrast, and let us not for the moment raise questions as to the accuracy or otherwise of government statistics, covid-19, in 2020 claimed the lives of almost 2,000 people in Ireland and around 2 million people globally.
It is crystal clear that abortion is the greater killer. A human being in Ireland is three times more likely to die from abortion than from covid-19 and globally, a human being is twenty five times more likely to die from abortion than from covid-19. If we care about the lives and health of human beings then we should focus a far greater effort on protecting human beings from abortion than we do on protecting them from covid-19 because abortion is the greater killer and therefore the greater risk.
But where are the Irish bishops’ plans and what actions are they promoting and conducting to protect human beings from the plague of abortion. The Irish bishops closed CURA, their pregnancy counselling service which sought to help women in crisis pregnancy. These are the women who are most likely to opt for abortion and yet there is no official support for them from the Irish bishops.
When we look at the lesser threat of covid-19, the Irish bishops have spent significant sums of money and have taken wide and varied actions including denying the faithful access to the sacraments, in the name of combating what amounts to a seasonal flu.
The disproportionality of the Irish bishops’ actions in combating what, on the one hand is a disease with a relatively low death rate, whilst on the other hand we have the grave and manifest evil of abortion which kills far more than covid-19, is quite startling. By their deeds you shall know them.
The Irish laity have effectively been abandoned by their shepherds and are being encouraged by these shepherds to go along with the totalitarian propaganda and the unjust laws being enacted by our totalitarian government.
In the case of the vaccines, our bishops use theologically sound arguments in a questionable context. When they speak of vaccines which use cell lines derived from aborted human beings, they only speak of remote and incidental material co-operation in abortion, correctly noting that those who avail of these vaccines are not consenting to abortion. But this alone does not justify the use of such vaccines.
Abortion is not the only grave matter that is involved in these vaccines. Abortion is always a grave moral evil, but taking and using the cells of a baby who has been murdered is another grave evil, the desecration of a human corpse, which is a separate matter from the abortion. This matter has not been dealt with by the Irish bishops. The Catholic Church teaches that the bodies of the dead must be treated with respect and charity.
Supposing that you come across a man who has been murdered and you decide to take his wallet, or his watch, or his shoes. This does not make you complicit in the murder of the man, but what you are doing is still wrong.
Are there cases where to take these things from the dead man would not be wrong? St Thomas Aquinas tells us in his Summa Theologia II-II Question 66:7:
“In cases of need all things are common property, so that there would seem to be no sin in taking another’s property, for need has made it common.”
If the above case were to happen in a time of war and the man who finds the body of the murdered man needs the shoes, the wallet and the watch to satisfy his own grave needs or those of his family or neighbours, then he does not sin in taking from the murdered man.
Similarly in the case of the vaccine, if it can be proved that the vaccine is necessary to avoid a grave evil, then it may not be sinful to take the vaccine. However, it is never licit to use the cells of an aborted baby for medical research purposes because there are alternatives available.
The Catholic Church notes that there are nine ways to co-operate in the sin of another and given that the use of foetal cells from aborted babies is sinful, we should carefully take a note of these nine ways.
By counsel, By command, By consent, By provocation, By praise or flattery, By concealment, By partaking, By silence, By defense of the ill done.
When the Irish bishops state that “Catholics should continue to advocate for the availability of ethically-developed vaccines”, they fail to point out that the single most effective way to advocate for the development of ethical vaccines which do not use cell lines developed from the cells of aborted babies is to refuse to accept any such vaccines. This would destroy the market for what are after all ‘products’ that are offered for sale thereby forcing the producers to come up with other methods of producing their products.
Do not be deceived into thinking that the vaccine manufacturers’ primary concern is for the health and well being of the population. These are highly profitable companies, many of whom have dubious records when it comes to health and safety. Take the Pfizer company whose vaccine is the only one available in Ireland at the moment and which the Irish bishops seem to be supporting.
Back in 1996, Pfizer used an experimental drug called Trovan, in tests on poor children from the state of Kano in Nigeria. The tests were unethical and resulted in the deaths of 11 children and left dozens of other children disabled.
Reporting on this case in the British Medical Journal in 2001, Jacqui Wise noted:
“The letter granting ethical approval for the Pfizer trial was submitted to the US Food and Drug Administration in 1997 to support a licence application for trovafloxacin. However, Sadiq Wali, the medical director of the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, told the Washington Post that the letter was false and the hospital had no ethics committee at the time of the study. Abdulhamid Isa Dutse, the doctor who oversaw the trial at the hospital, told the newspaper that it was “possible” that the approval letter was drafted up to a year after the trial.”
A December 2010 article published by The Guardian newspaper after wikileaks released a leaked cable from the US Embassy was titled “Pfizer ‘used dirty tricks to avoid clinical trial payout’”
This article states that “The world’s biggest pharmaceutical company hired investigators to unearth evidence of corruption against the Nigerian attorney general in order to persuade him to drop legal action over a controversial drug trial involving children with meningitis” (source The Guardian website www.theguardian.com)
Also of note regarding Pfizer is a 2009 American Department of Justice notice which states “Justice Department Announces Largest Health Care Fraud Settlement in Its History — Pfizer to Pay $2.3 Billion for Fraudulent Marketing” (source: The United States Department of Justice website)
This case involved Pfizer fraudulently misbranding its drug Bextra and the Department of Justice noted; “Pfizer promoted the sale of Bextra for several uses and dosages that the FDA specifically declined to approve due to safety concerns.”
In other words, Pfizer ignored safety concerns in order to be able to sell a product which it knew had been declined approval on account of safety issues.
This is the company we are now trusting to protect us from covid-19! Perhaps Pfizer has managed to clean up it’s act, however, those who are considering taking the Pfizer vaccine should note that whilst the vaccine has received emergency authorisation for use in the USA, this does not mean that the vaccine is approved. The FDA fact-sheet published in December 2020 for recipients and caregivers in relation to the Pfizer covid-19 mRNA vaccine states:
“The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine is an unapproved vaccine that may prevent COVID-19. There is no FDA-approved vaccine to prevent COVID-19.”
I am not opposed to vaccines but I personally will not be taking the Pfizer vaccine due to concerns over its safety and the fact that these mRNA vaccines are relatively new.
I also believe, and the Irish HPSC and HSE figures confirm this, that we do not have a pandemic in Ireland.
On Friday 1st January 2021, there were 71 people on hospital trolleys in Ireland. On January 1st 2020, the same day last year, there were 351 people on hospital trolleys. In other words there are less people waiting for treatment during an alleged pandemic than before the pandemic. This does not make sense.
On the 3rd of January it was reported that 70 people were in ICU with covid-19. We do not know why any of these people were admitted to the ICU or if they have any symptoms of covid-19, only that they have tested positive for covid-19 and they are in the ICU. Whilst their condition is serious, 70 out of a population of almost 5 million is hardly a pandemic.
May God bless you
