February 9, 2021

February 9, 2021 By

Apparently now it is liberal dogma that no one can possibly decide to not receive a particular vaccine. To not do so is to automatically be a wild-eyed conspiratorialist; perhaps even a “domestic terrorist”! Facebook Big Fascist Brother, in its infinite wisdom, deemed that a post of mine from five days ago, entitled, “Two Separate Thoughts About COVID Vaccines” didn’t “follow” their “community standards.” Presumably, my warning had to do their notice on the [leftist] “Standards” page:

COVID-19: Community Standards Updates and Protections
As people around the world confront this unprecedented public health emergency, we want to make sure that our Community Standards protect people from harmful content and new types of abuse related to COVID-19. We’re working to remove content that has the potential to contribute to real-world harm, including through our policies prohibiting coordination of harm, sale of medical masks and related goods, hate speech, bullying and harassment and misinformation that contributes to the risk of imminent violence or physical harm.
As the situation evolves, we continue to look at content on the platform, assess speech trends, and engage with experts, and will provide additional policy guidance when appropriate to keep the members of our community safe during this crisis. [italics added]
Facebook Big Fascist Brother got a little more specific as I jumped through the hoops explaining my ominous “warning”:
We encourage free expression, but don’t allow false information about COVID-19 that could contribute to physical harm.
Right. So now if a person chooses in their own conscience to not receive a COVID vaccine, somehow this is “false information” about the virus? How so? I didn’t say a word about the virus: its nature, etc. I haven’t questioned anything about it. I simply explained briefly (originally in a PM) why I will not be receiving the vaccine. Moreover, in the combox (now lost for posterity), I didn’t knock the vaccine in and of itself. I didn’t tell anyone else not to take it (I was neither legalistic nor conspiratorial), and I said it would have a good overall result as a result of people taking it.
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Perhaps my real cardinal sin (the “unspoken abomination”), and one that couldn’t possibly be allowed to pollute the hallowed environs of Facebook, was daring to mention “dead baby parts” used in the development of most of the vaccines. That’s a naughty no-no. Facebook is highly concerned about everyone under the sun (and rightly so) while making a glaring exception for human beings who happen to inhabit their mother’s wombs — statistically the most dangerous place for anyone to ever be: only about a 67% chance for survival (and even less in liberal, “progressive” cities).
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Never mind that His Eminence Lord Anthony Fauci, is on public record, stating the following:

You don’t want to mandate and try and force anyone to take a vaccine. We’ve never done that. You can mandate for certain groups of people like health workers, but for the general population you can’t.  [added in context, from another similar article: We don’t want to be mandating from the federal government to the general population.] It would be unenforceable and not appropriate. (“COVID-19 vaccine won’t be mandatory in US, says Fauci”, MedicalXPress, 8-19-20)

As noted in a WebMD article (a standard medical site), Lord Fauci was even more definite:
I don’t think you’ll ever see a mandating of vaccine, particularly for the general public. . . . [I’d be] pretty surprised if you mandated it for any element of the general public. . . . [people] have the right to refuse a vaccine. If someone refuses the vaccine in the general public, then there’s nothing you can do about that. You cannot force someone to take a vaccine. (“COVID-19 Vaccine Likely Won’t Be Mandatory”, Carolyn Crist, 8-20-20)
So what would Lord Fauci have to say about my Facebook post? Would he censor it, too, like Facebook Big Fascist Brother, or would he allow it, since it’s perfectly in harmony with his own clear statements about the non-compulsory nature of the vaccine? It sure looks like he would allow it. If refusal is allowed, and given the okay by one as hallowed and utterly unquestionable as Lord Fauci, then how in the world can it violate the “standards” of Facebook Big Fascist Brother? Aren’t they with the program? Don’t they know that Liberal Lord Fauci is infallible? How can their groupthink policies clash with his expressed and unassailable opinion?
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There is growing evidence that at least some people who receive the vaccine, die shortly afterwards: possibly because of the vaccine itself. I’m not saying it is “many” or a “lot”; just (undeniably) “some”. Lest anyone conclude that this is “right wing conspiracist garbage” don’t just believe me (who detests false conspiracy theories as much as any liberal), take it from “mainstream” media news outlets:
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Note what has happened, as a result of Facebook Big Fascist Brother censoring a short editorial by myself on my own Facebook page:
1) It was originally intended only for Facebook (which means not many viewers, since Facebook sees to it that hardly any of my 5,000 friends and 2,800 followers — by their own report — ever see my posts in their feed). Now, as a direct and defiant reaction to their strong-arm / know-nothing tactics, I have moved it to a much wider audience on my popular blog.
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2) My original post also had a lot of interaction with those who disagreed with me, including some friends in real life. That’s exchange of ideas, critical thinking, free speech, listening to two sides of an argument, and making up your own mind: all apparently anathema to Facebook. That’s all wiped out now and I can’t even see it. So even a view that agrees with them was eliminated through their stupid anti-free speech “policy.” Great move there, guys!
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3) As a result of the fascist “shut up!” tactics, I have not only posted the original article here, but have also expanded it to about three times longer than it originally was, and greatly strengthened it by citing Dr. Fauci (the closest to revelation that the influential radically secularist wing of liberal fascists ever get) and articles about death seemingly caused by the vaccine.
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[therefore, the fascist mentality — like Roman persecution of early Christians — only promotes and encourages that which it is trying to stamp out. I will not be shut up]. I can’t post what I did on Fascist Facebook, but I can here on my own blog, since Patheos — for all its faults, and there are many — actually follows a free speech philosophy]
Moreover, the idiot-fascists who monitor Facebook are blissfully unaware — and I savor the precious irony — that I  have been very vocal regarding mindless conspiratorial theories about the virus from the ecclesiological and political right:
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I also wrote about leftist hysteria and conspiracy theories regarding the pandemic, too (because I oppose all fact-challenged conspiratorialism and fanaticism and extremism, whether from the left or right):
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Both sets of critiques were cross-posted on Facebook and never censored.
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This is what thinkers do. It’s vastly different from the Know-Nothing Fascist Censoring idiots at Facebook who sit around and deem what is true and false (and/or “dangerous”) — of course, allowing any outrage concerning abortion whatsoever — and disallow the latter: which just by coincidence inevitably lines up with a left-wing worldview every time; and paint anyone who disagrees as a “conspiratorialist” and “domestic terrorist” (wants, of course, to attack the Capitol building) and an extremist who is dangerous to society.
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Now you, dear reader, will have the ability to read my original piece below and decide for yourself a whether it is fit for public consumption, or whether it  “could contribute to physical harm.”
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And we can discuss it in the combox if you like. Isn’t free speech great?
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Two Separate Thoughts About COVID Vaccines
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[just expressed in answering a PM]
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1) Vaccines and Dead Baby Parts
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What both the pope and Church leaders are teaching concerning it is that Christians are not responsible if in the past any portion of these vaccines was drawn from aborted babies.
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It’s a question of “how remote a thing can be before we are not personally responsible for it.”
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As an example, we all buy many things made in China because so much is! Does it follow that in purchasing a shirt or a video game from China, that we therefore are supported slave labor, prison re-education camps or forced abortion that occur there? No.
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We’re not required to not buy things from China. On the other hand, it might be good to further reflect on cutting down, based on these same reasons.
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Personally, as a committed pro-life activist these past 39 years, I don’t like this aspect at all, and it would be one reason why I don’t want a vaccine. But that view can’t be imposed onto everyone else. The Church has allowed it and she is our authority.
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2) Moral or Charitable “Requirement” to Take the Vaccine / Being Forced
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Moreover, on the question of being “required” to take them or not, I don’t think even a pope can demand that we do so. It’s a question of each individual’s conscience and state of knowledge.
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In my own case, I have many questions about vaccines based on my holistic approach to medicine and health issues, and I don’t plan on getting the vaccine. I haven’t contacted COVID yet, and I think it’s because I am healthy, with a strong immune system, from years of practicing holistic philosophy in food and medicine (not that I am at all against conventional medicine).
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Nor do I get a flu shot every year. My immune system is so strong I rarely ever get the flu (maybe every three years). I rarely get even a cold.
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So I have done my best to ensure that a) I am healthy overall, and b) I don’t contract the virus, based on the usual masking and social distancing efforts and limiting interaction with large crowds.
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That’s being socially responsible and it is part of the reason that I need not get the vaccine. I don’t have the virus and so can’t pass it on to anyone else.
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Photo credit: Prettysleepy (4-10-18) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]
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October 22, 2020

October 22, 2020 By

I’ve seen this process take place over and over, in my seven-and-a-half years of defending Pope Francis: now literally 176 times:

1) Pope Francis says something (for some people, virtually anything).

2) At first glance (and usually filtered through an increasingly untrustworthy and unbalanced Catholic media; and forget the secular media!), it sounds (especially to jaded cynical “ears”) like it is anti-traditional or downright subversive to the traditional Catholic faith. This accusation quickly becomes the norm in social media discourse, people compete to see who can be the most critical and conspiratorial and ridiculous, and it’s off to the dog races once again.

There is a reason that both G. K. Chesterton (“All that anybody ever really meant as the evil of gossip is much more characteristic of established journalism”) and C. S. Lewis (“I never read the papers. Why does anyone? They’re nearly all lies”) were scathingly critical of the media / press (some things never change).

3) But invariably what the Holy Father said or wrote is either A) taken out of context or B) wrongly or at least dubiously translated, or C) both.

4) Or it is sufficiently “shocking” (or nuanced) within development of doctrine and the hermeneutic of continuity, so that many ears simply can’t “receive” it, which is no scandal to me, knowing that the teachings of Our Lord Jesus and St. Paul were often of this very same nature, and wrongly perceived in much the same way:

John 7:16-24 (RSV) So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me; [17] if any man’s will is to do his will, he shall know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. [18] He who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but he who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood. [19] Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?” [20] The people answered, “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?” [21] Jesus answered them, “I did one deed, and you all marvel at it. [22] Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man upon the sabbath. [23] If on the sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the sabbath I made a man’s whole body well? [24] Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” (cf. 8:48-49, 52; 10:20-21)

Mark 3:22 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Be-el’zebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.”

An example would be Pope Francis’ recent reiteration of the “inadmissibility” (which is not the intrinsic immorality of) capital punishment. That was the previous Big Controversy. Now we have another. We can’t stop Catholics from trying to imitate the demeanor and outlook of the corrupt portion of the Pharisees. It’s sad, but what can one do about it, except to attempt to teach and correct?

5) So folks find Pope Francis “confusing” and “hard to understand”? Sounds like Jesus and the Apostle Paul again:

John 6:60, 66-67 Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” . . . [66] After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him. [67] Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?”

Matthew 13:13-15 This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. [14] With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which says: `You shall indeed hear but never understand, and you shall indeed see but never perceive. [15] For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are heavy of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn for me to heal them.’

Matthew 15:16  And he [Jesus] said, “Are you also still without understanding?”

Mark 8:17 And being aware of it, Jesus said to them, “Why do you discuss the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened?

John 3:10 Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand this?”

1 Timothy 1:7 desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make assertions.

2 Timothy 3:7 who will listen to anybody and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

2 Peter 3:16 . . . There are some things in them [Paul’s epistles] hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures.

Jude 10 But these men revile whatever they do not understand, and by those things that they know by instinct as irrational animals do, they are destroyed.

6) At length when it is examined closely by those who haven’t jumped on the ultra-popular, fashionable, chic pope-bashing bandwagon, it turns out to be a “tempest in a teapot” and “much ado about nothing.”

We’ve seen it all erupt again, folks. Catholics are soiling themselves en masse and going bananas.  I have defriended about 14 people because I have less than zero tolerance for the irrational, hysterical pope-bashing, and I have for some time now. I am just sick and tired of seeing pseudo-Protestantism and warmed-over, half-baked liberal dissident and quasi-schismatic attitudes come across my feed. One can only take so much of that. It’s not good for the soul. It’s not edifying (to put it very mildly).

Many others among my Facebook friends have simply asked me to clarify things and have not joined in on the nonsense and fanaticism. That’s fine. I respect that, and am happy to respond as an apologist: whose job it is to defend the Holy Father and the holy Catholic faith and to bring reason into the equation, even though we move in two days and the last thing I should be doing right now is tackling a major controversy. In fact, I am here typing at 3:18 AM [finished at around 5:30] because I was thinking about all this stuff and couldn’t sleep.

Dr. Scott Hahn wrote on Facebook:

Holy Father, respectfully and humbly, I beg to differ… if that is indeed what you said. In any case, please clarify and rectify your statement, especially in view of the official teaching of our Lord through the magisterium of His Church

After 14 hours, this has garnered 7400 likes and 2400 comments. Thank God that Scott added the saving qualifier: “if that is indeed what you said”. A-ha! There’s the rub! Scott Hahn’s word (for better or ill) is right up there next to God in the eyes of millions of orthodox Catholics.  It doesn’t help things at all for him to make a quick observation like this.

He’s an apologist (like myself) and a theologian and academic (unlike myself). He could take it upon himself to actually do the hard work of understanding what was said and clarifying and defending it. But instead he gives us the quick soundbite, gets a billion comments and likes, and it is left to folks like myself, Dr. Pedro Gabriel and the other good folks at the Where Peter Is website, Catholic theologian Dr. Robert Fastiggi, Jimmy Akin, and Tim Staples (folks who actually defend the pope) to deal with the resulting mess and “scandal” and do that work.

I’m happy to do it (don’t get me wrong), but our job is made a hundred times more difficult because of the hysteria and din already created, and the noise that drowns out actual detailed analysis. I’ll get more than a few page views in writing about this, but I guarantee it won’t be anywhere near 7400 likes in 14 hours. That’s what the skeptical soundbite gets: simply because it comes from Scott Hahn.

So even if we present a plausible positive interpretation of what Pope Francis says and teaches, relatively few read it, because it goes against the zeitgeist. And so the Francis-bashing mania and hysteria continues to grow in this way. It’s sad and tragic. The devil’s very clever, and he knows how to exploit any weakness he can find among Catholics (and there are many).

Dr. Pedro Gabriel: the voice of reason and factuality, as always, has chimed in with an initial reaction on Facebook:

Social media has exploded with a CNA piece quoting Francis in a documentary saying that he favors homosexual unions.
At this moment we are waiting to see the full quote in context. It seems like, when he was bishop of Buenos Aires, he opposed a homosexual marriage bill and proposed, as an alternative, a civil unions law that would give gays some benefits (as for example, hospital visits and the like) without being considered a marriage. Francis’ remarks are probably to be read in light of that, and probably come in the sequence of discussing that. But we should wait to see the quote in context. CNA is not reliable and they have manufactured controversies like this before (the whole pachamama kerfuffle started with their careless reporting).
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Whatever it is, Francis has been consistent in condemning homosexuality and gender ideology, just like he has been consistent in treating LGBT people humanely. So any prudential proposal of his in matters of politics needs to be read in light of that.
So I will await to watch the whole documentary in all its context, as well as read the CDF document and all relevant information I may gather before forming a judgment. I advise people to do the same. We don’t need to jump on the bandwagon.
He has gotten 43 likes in 11 hours and 14 comments. See the difference there? That’s 172 times less likes and 171 tines less comments than Scott Hahn gets with his two sentences. This is what the papal defender is up against. But we do what we can. No one listened to the prophet Jeremiah, either, but he did the right thing in proclaiming the truth to the Israelites. “Success” in God;s eyes is not determined by numbers, and that is the ad populum fallacy, anyway, in logic.
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Carl E. Olson, Catholic author and editor of The Catholic World Report and Ignatius Insight waxed  indignant on Michael Liccione’s Facebook page, in a way that is now (sadly) rather typical among orthodox Catholic papal critics and/or bashers:
Cannot agree, although I understand (and feel deeply) the Francis Fatigue. Countless people now think the Church is changing her teaching on homosexuality and marriage They are incorrect, of course, but there it is. And Francis, I’m convinced, certainly knows how his comments are going to be taken. This sort of weaponized ambiguity has been his pattern from the start of his pontificate; he feints this way and goes that way, all in the apparent service of a sort of sentimentalized, semi-secularized Catholicism. Meanwhile, those who stand by the Church’s clear teaching on, well, nearly everything are hung out to dry.
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I don’t think he’s “teaching heresy.” He’s doesn’t care enough about doctrine to do so. (And he’s too smart to do so). But he certainly is causing more confusion, at a time when the Catholic faithful need clear, firm leadership.
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In essence, Pope Francis seems obsessed with fighting the battles of the 1970s, often employing a sort of squishy, fuzzy Unitarian-ish lingo that is long on vapid sentimentality and mostly devoid of both theological and practical substance.
The Where Peter Is website has come through, as it always does. Mike Lewis wrote the excellent article, “Pope Francis and Civil Unions: Critical Context” (10-22-20). If you want to see something other than the usual stock, standard, anti-papal hysteria, please read it (twice or more, if necessary) Here are lengthy excerpts:
It’s hard to even know where to begin my response, the reactions have ranged everywhere from a US diocesan bishop stating that the pope’s statement “clearly contradicts what has been the long-standing teaching of the Church about same-sex unions,” to a post on the Archdiocese of New York’s official website by a high-ranking diocesan official saying, “the Holy Father has plainly erred,” to Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who in his latest statement says of the pope, “He who ought to be guiding the Barque of Peter has chosen to side with the Enemy, in order to sink it.”
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From the left, and especially in the secular media, many seem to be treating the pope’s words as an epochal shift in the Church’s teachings. While Pope Francis’s statements didn’t mention same-sex marriage or sexuality, they have been construed as some kind of earthquake in Church doctrine. For example, as reporter Edward Pentin displayed on Twitter, British tabloids and other newspapers are running with this. . . .
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First, I want to be straightforward about the level of importance of these statements, with regard to doctrine and how they relate to Church teaching. Let’s be clear about this (whether you agree with them or not): the hoopla is over two sentences spoken by Pope Francis in an interview. They are not official magisterial teachings, nor do they represent official changes in doctrine or discipline. Others have pointed out that we don’t have the full context, but (at least in my opinion) we can fairly easily glean Francis’s meaning based on his previous statements on these topics. . . .
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The Church approaches plenty of people and groups differently than it did in prior centuries: women, non-Catholics, non-Christians, prisoners, the disabled, the divorced, and many others. . . .

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That said, let’s take a look at what Pope Francis actually says. The first of the two statements that set off the firestorm was, “Homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family. They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it.” The second statement was, “What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered. I stood up for that.”

It is difficult to imagine that the first of the two statements—that LGBT people “have a right to be part of a family”—would be all that controversial, except to perhaps the most extreme and least pastoral of today’s Catholics. . . .

We have a right to a family. Francis is trying to teach us that shunning our children is not the Christian way. As a general principle, as parents our doors and our hearts should always be open for our children, even if they are different than we’d like them to be. Our Father in heaven is our model for this; he loves us as we are—unconditionally. He forgives us our trespasses, he welcomes us with open arms when we ask him for forgiveness, and he remains present to us even when we try to run from him.

Once again, the issue of how we should treat family members who are not perfectly living out the Catholic faith falls under what is frequently described as a “prudential” matter, not a doctrinal question. . . .

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For Francis, there is a clear distinction between treating someone with dignity (or, dare I say, with fraternal love), and embracing an idea that contradicts Catholic doctrine. The types of rights that accompany civil unions (things such as health insurance, rights of inheritance, tax laws, the ability to visit a loved one in a hospital or nursing home), should not be contingent on whether that person lives a life in total conformity to Catholic moral doctrine. . . .

Cardinal Bergoglio was not the first prominent archbishop to indicate tolerance for this type of openness to civil unions. In 1997, Archbishop William Levada penned a column in First Things defending what was dubbed the “San Francisco Solution.” As archbishop of San Francisco, Levada (who later went on to become the cardinal prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), explained how he decided to respond to an ordinance in San Francisco allowing same-sex civil unions. As a result, employers were compelled to provide benefits to the same-sex partners of their employees, just as they would for a spouse.

As a “compromise,” Levada proposed that rather than providing benefits to someone on the contingency that they were either a spouse or same-sex partner, he would provide benefits to a second person in the household, regardless of relationship. . . .

[D]espite his reputation as a strident traditionalist—the current Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, provided one of the stronger defenses of Pope Francis’s words from the US episcopate. In an official statement, he explained the Church’s approach:

“In our bishops region’s audience with Pope Francis last January during our ad limina visit (the visit diocesan bishops make every five years to the Vatican), the topic of civil unions came up in conversation. The Holy Father clearly differentiated between a civil arrangement which accords mutual benefits to two people, and marriage. The former, he said, can in no way be equated to marriage, which remains unique.

“I would add that a civil union of this type (one which is not equated to marriage) should be as inclusive as possible, and not be restricted to two people of the same sex in a presumed sexual relationship. There is no reason, for example, why a brother and a sister, both of whom are unmarried and support each other, should not have access to these kinds of benefits. Marriage is unique because it is the only institution that connects children to their mothers and fathers, and therefore is presumed to be a sexual relationship. Indeed, the sexual relationship that marriage is presumed to involve is the only kind by which children are naturally made. The nature of marriage, the place of sex within a virtuous life, these great teachings of the Church come to us from God, are illuminated by reason, and do not change.”

I must admit I was surprised by the overwhelming reaction to this story today. As someone who has followed Francis closely since the beginning of his papacy and has become familiar with his thought and outlook, nothing struck me as unusual or remarkable about his comments. The words Francis spoke were neither unprecedented nor inconsistent with what he has said in the past. Those who were hoping that this was a watershed moment or change in Church teaching on human sexuality will be disappointed. Those who imagined that these words somehow meant that Pope Francis had crossed an integral doctrinal line are also terribly mistaken.

Fr. Agustino Torres, in an Instagram video, (“The Pope Was Misquoted AGAIN!”, expresses his belief that the Holy Father has once again been poorly served by an English translation. I’m so shocked I think I will faint! I’ve seen that so many times I have lost count. It’s about as common as water being next to a fish.

It’s heartening to see that Catholic News Agency: after playing a big role in the initial controversy, has seen fit to clarify in much greater depth. JD Flynn has written the article, “What did Pope Francis say about civil unions? A CNA Explainer” (10-21-20). I again quote at length, for the sake of my readers:

While the pope did not elaborate on the meaning of those remarks in the video, Pope Francis has spoken before to encourage parents and relatives not to ostracize or shun children who have identified as LGBT. This seems to be the sense in which the pope spoke about the right of people to be a part of the family.

Some have suggested that when Pope Francis spoke about a “right to a family,” the pope was offering a kind of tacit endorsement of adoption by same-sex couples. But the pope has previously spoken against such adoptions, saying that through them children are “deprived of their human development given by a father and a mother and willed by God,” and saying that “every person needs a male father and a female mother that can help them shape their identity.” . . .

What did Pope Francis say about gay marriage?

Nothing. The topic of gay marriage was not discussed in the documentary. In his ministry, Pope Francis has frequently affirmed the doctrinal teaching of the Catholic Church that marriage is a lifelong partnership between one man and one woman.

While Pope Francis has frequently encouraged a welcoming disposition to Catholics who identify as LGBT, the pope has also said that “marriage is between a man and a woman,” and said that “the family is threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage,” and that efforts to redefine marriage “threaten to disfigure God’s plan for creation.” . . .

Some people have said what the pope taught is heresy. Is that true?

No. The pope’s remarks did not deny or call into question any doctrinal truth that Catholics must hold or believe. In fact, the pope has frequently affirmed the Church’s doctrinal teaching regarding marriage. . . .

What does the Church teach about homosexuality?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that those who identify as LGBT “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.”

The Catechism elaborates that homosexual inclinations are “objectively disordered,” homosexual acts are “contrary to the natural law,” and those who identify as lesbian and gay, like all people, are called to the virtue of chastity.

Now [I discovered in the morning when I got up], Dr. Pedro Gabriel has contributed his own very helpful article: “Those Pope Francis quotes: Video editing and media controversy” (Where Peter Is, 10-22-20). I quote it at length:

What the Pope says in a documentary in his private capacity does not constitute an official “Vatican stance”, nor is it magisterial.

Still, a cacophony ensued, in which the usual voices used this proof—yet again—that Pope Francis is heterodox.

Fortunately, in the midst of this cacophony, some people on social media were apparently able to get ahold of the incendiary clip. We see it here . . .

After a bit of research, I discovered that these clips are actually not original to the documentary, but are from a 2019 interview that the Pope granted to Mexican journalist Valentina Alazraki. The video of the full interview can be watched here: [link posted]

The part where Pope Francis mentions that homosexuals have a right to a family appears after the 56-minute mark. Please note that the words, the background, the tone of voice, and the gestures of the Pope match the documentary videoclip, so it’s quite clear that this is the primary source.

Here is my translation of what the Pope said in full context. In red, we can see the parts that were quoted.

“Once I was asked a question on a flight—it made me angry afterwards, it made me angry because of how the media reported it—about the family integration of people with homosexual orientation, and I said: homosexual people have a right be a part of a family, people with homosexual orientation have a right to be in a family and the parents have the right to recognize this son as homosexual, this daughter as homosexual. Nobody should be thrown out or be miserable because of it.

Another thing—I said—when we see some sign in children that are growing, and then you send them… I should have said to a ‘professional’, but I said ‘psychiatrist’. I wanted to say a professional, because sometimes there are signs in adolescence or pre-adolescence where they don’t know if it is a homosexual tendency or if the thymus gland atrophied with time—I don’t know, a thousand things, no? So, a professional. The headline of the newspaper: ‘The Pope sends homosexuals to the psychiatrist’. It is not true! They asked me a question and I repeated again: ‘They are sons of God, they have a right to a family, and so forth’. Another thing is… and I explained: I was wrong in using that word, but wanted to say this: ‘When you notice something str’… “Ah, it’s strange…”. No, it’s not strange. It’s something out of the ordinary. In other words, they took a small word to nullify the context. There, what I said was: ‘they have a right to a family’. And that does not mean approving homosexual acts, not in the least.”

I find it interesting how the Pope spoke here about the media taking his words out of context. I also find it interesting that the Pope specifically said that none of this means approving homosexual acts. This completely alters the implication of the quote that was presented to us. Of course, if you read the entire interview, you will see the Pope railing against abortion and saying, explicitly: “I am a conservative.”

What is even more interesting is that the quotes in the clip from the documentary were scrambled. Additionally, there is absolutely no mention of homosexual unions in the interview—or at least the official transcript. . . .

[T]he way the video preview rearranges the order in which his words actually appear in the interview should give us pause. Maybe after we see the interview in its full context, we will have a different impression of his words altogether, especially since the Holy Father uses the Spanish term “convivencia civil,” which can be either “civil union” or “civil coexistence.” If he means the latter, he may well be referring to laws that protect the human rights of homosexuals. . . .

We have already seen, from what we know of the videoclip, that he has been quoted wildly out of context, with separate sentences being cherrypicked and creatively stitched together, giving the impression that he  meant something he really didn’t. The part where he mentions that homosexuals should have a family refers to not marginalizing homosexual people within the family, most especially gay children. But the way it was presented, it induced us to think he was talking about homosexual unions because they had a right to a family. So who knows if he was misquoted again when talking about civil unions?

Lastly, we hear choruses from the pope bashers and even many “papal nitpickers” today: “why do Pope Francis’ words always have to be explained at length by apologists? It wasn’t this way with Pope Benedict and Pope St. John Paul II.” To which I reply:

I spent many hours defending Pope St. John Paul II over the “kissing the Koran” incident and the Assisi ecumenical conferences. By the time of his death, reactionaries regarded him a liberal loose cannon. He was also constantly accused of writing too-long, Byzantine encyclicals.
*
And of course Jesus was vastly more misunderstood than Pope Francis ever has been: accused of being demon-possessed and out of His mind, and murdered . . .
*
The Bible and orthodox Catholic doctrine and Jesus still need apologists to defend them against nonsense and misinterpretation every day. And they are inspired and infallible and perfect. So this is about as surprising as the sun coming up.

Related Reading

Lawler vs. Pope Francis #2: Homosexuality & “Judging” [Dave Armstrong, 1-2-18]

Pope Francis on Homosexual Unions (Jimmy Akin, National Catholic Register, 3-21-13)

7 things you need to know about what Pope Francis said about gays (Jimmy Akin, National Catholic Register, 7-29-13)

Pope Francis’s new letter to homosexual Catholics (9 things to know and share)  (Jimmy Akin, National Catholic Register, 10-11-13)

What did Pope Francis say about the children of homosexual couples? 8 things to know and share (Jimmy Akin, National Catholic Register, 1-5-14)

Pope Francis on Apologizing to Gays (And More): 6 things to know and share (Jimmy Akin, National Catholic Register, 6-28-16)

On the Pope’s Remarks about Homosexuality (Scott P. Richert, Crisis, 8-1-13)

What Did the Pope Really Say about Gays in the Priesthood?  (Fr. Regis Scanlon, O.F.M. Cap., Crisis, 8-5-13)

Report: Pope Excommunicates Priest for Supporting Gay Marriage, Female Priest (Dr. Susan Berry, Breitbart, 9-24-13)

Judge Not (Tim Staples, Catholic Answers, 2-14-14) [Same-sex couples and homosexuality]

Is Pope Francis Duping Liberals on Marriage? (Paul Kengor, American Spectator, 11-21-14)

Pope Francis Shocks Liberals on Same-Sex “Marriage” (Paul Kengor, Crisis Magazine, 1-23-15)

Pope Affirms Traditional Marriage (Bill Donohue, Newsmax, 4-8-16)

Not heretical: Pope Francis’ approval of the Argentine bishops’ policy on invalid marriages (Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture, 9-15-16)

Pope Francis explains why he celebrated the airborne marriage of two flight attendants [+ Facebook discussion] (Nicole Winfield, America, 1-22-18)

Pope Francis’s Words on Civil Unions Distorted by Editing (Fr. Matthew Schneider, Through Catholic Lenses, 10-22-20)

Has Pope Francis changed Church teaching on same-sex civil unions? (Dawn Eden Goldstein & Robert Fastiggi, Where Peter Is, 10-22-20)

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Practical Matters: Perhaps some of my 3,900+ free online articles (the most comprehensive “one-stop” Catholic apologetics site) or fifty books have helped you (by God’s grace) to decide to become Catholic or to return to the Church, or better understand some doctrines and why we believe them.
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Or you may believe my work is worthy to support for the purpose of apologetics and evangelism in general. If so, please seriously consider a much-needed financial contribution. I’m always in need of more funds: especially monthly support. “The laborer is worthy of his wages” (1 Tim 5:18, NKJV). 1 December 2021 was my 20th anniversary as a full-time Catholic apologist, and February 2022 marked the 25th anniversary of my blog.
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PayPal donations are the easiest: just send to my email address: apologistdave@gmail.com. You’ll see the term “Catholic Used Book Service”, which is my old side-business. To learn about the different methods of contributing, including 100% tax deduction, etc., see my page: About Catholic Apologist Dave Armstrong / Donation Information. Thanks a million from the bottom of my heart!*
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Photo credit: damonj74 (11-26-05): Chicken Little [Flickr / CC BY-NC 2.0 license]

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July 16, 2020

July 16, 2020 By

[note: the title of this paper is a generalization; not meant to imply that there are no exceptions, but rather, to express a strong correlation]

 

As I’ve been saying for many years now, the endless lies about Pope Francis are almost always accompanied by “anti-Vatican II, anti-Ordinary Form Mass, and anti-ecumenism”: the four hallmarks of radical Catholic reactionaries.
 
I wrote eight months ago: “as always in these matters, ‘it ain’t just about Pope Francis.’ These people have had a dangerous, quasi-schismatic mentality and agenda for many years before anyone had ever heard of Pope Francis.”
 
And so I have been pointing out for over twenty years that these four things go together. The “Francis is a heretic” mantra is just a front and a subterfuge: as if that is all these radicals oppose, much as “Black Lives Matter” is a mere front for far-left revolutionary activism.
 
This worthless reactionary garbage we hear now can be directly traced to Chris Ferrara (of The Remnant) and his gossipy, destructive book, The Great Facade in 2002 (2nd edition: 2015). Note that that was eleven years before Pope Francis, and even three before Pope Benedict XVI. It’s the reactionary Bible. Taylor Marshall simply took that ball and ran with it further (“upped the ante”), into additional mindless conspiracy theories and outrageously scandalous, slanderous charges like, for example, that Pope St. Paul VI had an ongoing sodomite lover (an Italian actor).
 
“Nothing new under the sun,” as Ecclesiastes noted some 3000 years ago. Ferrara offered the slop of warmed-over Lefebvrism, and today’s radical quasi-schismatics like Dr. Marshall and Abp. Vigano offer warmed-over “Ferrarism.”
*
I’ve been trying to educate and warn people that the continual group statements against the pope are basically the same set of disenchanted reactionaries, who believe in the defectibility of the Church or at least — typical of reactionary equivocation and game-playing with words and dogmas — a quasi-defectibility (Church dogma tells us that the Church is indefectible). Here are my papers documenting this phenomenon of a small group of reactionaries trying to make themselves appear much larger and more important and influential than they actually are:
*
Radical Reactionary Affinities in “Filial Correction” Signatories [9-28-17]
*Reactionary Influence: Correctio & June 2016 Criticism of the Pope [1-24-18]*
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Ecclesiological Errors of “Easter Letter” Reactionaries Summed Up (That is, Ones Not Specifically Related to Pope Francis: Especially Vatican II as the Big Bad Wolf) [5-9-19]

Now the latest “joint statement” is the Open Letter to Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò and Bishop Athanasius Schneider (July 9, 2020): a wholesale attack on the sublime magisterial authority of Vatican II. It was signed by 50 people. With just a cursory glance at the signatories, I found 19 or so that were familiar to me as having signed one or more of the documents above. And they include (not surprisingly) Christopher Ferrara.

The saddest one (to me) is Dr. Janet Smith: an excellent moral theologian (specializing in defense of Humanae Vitae) who has recently descended into reactionaryism, to the extent that she is now in favor of improper and quasi-schismatic criticism of an ecumenical council. How very sad. It’s a case study of a person who is far better than some false beliefs she has fallen prey to. I tried to persuade her otherwise, months ago, to no avail:

Viganò, Schneider, Pachamama, & VCII (vs. Janet E. Smith) [11-25-19]

*
*

For my part, I have repeatedly defended Vatican II as fully in line with previous Catholic tradition; particularly in a twelve-part reply to Dr. Paolo Pasqualucci: whose name also appears on this latest farcical document. Many other defenses of it may be found on my Catholic Church web page (word-search for the section: “Ecclesiastical Authority: The Second Vatican Council”).

The ubiquitous Dr. Peter Kwasniewski signed it. I have debated him several times in writing:

Dialogue with a Traditionalist Regarding Deaconesses (vs. Dr. Peter Kwasniewski) [5-13-16]

“Postconciliar” Reply to Peter Kwasniewski & John Lamont [6-10-19]

Taylor Marshall associate Timothy Flanders appears also. I have debated him as well (and he says he wants to continue, time-permitting):
*
Reply to Timothy Flanders’ Defense of Taylor Marshall [7-8-19]

Dialogue w Ally of Taylor Marshall, Timothy Flanders [7-17-19]

Dialogue w 1P5 Writer Timothy Flanders: Introduction [2-1-20]

Dialogue w Timothy Flanders #2: State of Emergency? [2-25-20]

Alexander Tschugguel, Taylor Marshall, & God’s Wrath [3-19-20]

And, of course, I’m probably the biggest orthodox Catholic critic of Taylor Marshall (who banned me from his Twitter page upon my very first critique, after having recommended my books and website for many years). See numerous critiques under his name on my Traditionalist & Reactionaries web page.

Leila Lawler appears: wife of Phil Lawler, whose book Lost Shepherd I have critiqued 21 times (see his section on my Papacy page). I noted how Phil was starting to question — to some extent — Vatican II, himself, almost three years ago now. So here we are, observing his wife signing this document. No surprise to me! It’s part of my job as an apologist to keep track of these aberrations.

Henry Sire is on the list. I critiqued his book, The Dictator Pope.

I’ve had several exchanges with Chris Ferrara (almost always typified by his obnoxious mockery and ad hominem attacks), or regarding The Remnant:

Debate on the Reactionary Group, The Remnant [1-24-00]

Critique of The Remnant [2000]

Critique of Chris Ferrara’s Radical Reactionary Hit-Piece in Opposition to Pope Francis’ Christian Environmentalism [6-20-15]

Chris Ferrara vs. Pope Benedict XVI (New Mass) [12-18-15]

Reactionary Chris Ferrara’s Lies Re Pope Francis & Hell [3-31-18]

Coronavirus: Chris Ferrara vs. Science & Historical Precedent (Social Distancing Was Used in the 1918 Flu Pandemic and Has Been Shown Again and Again to be Highly Effective) [4-7-20]

And I have severely criticized Abp. Viganò and Bp. Schneider many times.

And so on and on it goes. I called all this and predicted it: basically 20 years ago. Remember, these four things are almost always found together:

1) Pope-Bashing (and not just of Francis, but from Pope st. John XXIII onward).

2) Vatican II-bashing.

3) Ordinary Form / Pauline / “New” Mass-bashing.

4) Ecumenism-bashing (falsely making out that all ecumenism is indifferentist relativism).

And a word to the wise: if you see these things, avoid them like the plague. It’ll do you no spiritual or theological good. And it won’t because these things run counter to the teaching of Holy Mother Church: whom God appointed as the Guardian of your souls. Don’t do it! I’m here as an apologist to warn you against error and to help you on your spiritual journey.

I’m not rich; I have no monetary or any other personal interest in saying these things (in fact, I have had to suffer loss for saying them). I do solely because they are true and good and because I care about people, and have observed what has happened to many good people through the years who have fallen into these grave errors. It’s part of my job.

2 Timothy 4:1-8 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: [2] preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. [3] For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, [4] and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths. [5] As for you, always be steady, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry. [6] For I am already on the point of being sacrificed; the time of my departure has come. [7] I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. [8] Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.
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2 Timothy 3:1-9 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of stress. [2] For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, [3] inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good, [4] treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, [5] holding the form of religion but denying the power of it. Avoid such people. [6] For among them are those who make their way into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and swayed by various impulses, [7] who will listen to anybody and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth. [8] As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith; [9] but they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.
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Photo credit: image from the book’s Amazon page (original edition from 2002).
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July 13, 2020

July 13, 2020 By

Summary from August 2019 Until July 2020 (Alarming, Increasingly Quasi-Schismatic Spirit)

For background, see my previous related articles and those of my friend, 100% orthodox Catholic theologian Dr. Robert Fastiggi:

Bishops Viganò & Schneider Reject Authority of Vatican II [11-22-19]

Viganò, Schneider, Pachamama, & VCII (vs. Janet E. Smith) [11-25-19]

Abp. Viganò Descends into Fanatical Reactionary Nuthood (. . . Declares Pope Francis a Heretical Narcissist Who “Desacralized” & “Impugned” & “Attack[ed]” Mary) [12-20-19]

Dr. Fastiggi: Open Letter Re Abp. Viganò, Pope Francis, & Mary [2-22-20]

Abp. Viganò, the Pope, & the “Vicar of Christ” Nothingburger (with Catholic Theologian Dr. Robert Fastiggi and Apologist Karl Keating) [4-6-20]

Is Archbishop Viganò in Schism? [Dr. Robert Fastiggi, Where Peter Is, 6-13-20]

Archbishop Viganò On the Brink of Schism. The Unheeded Lesson of Benedict XVI (Sandro Magister, L’Espresso, 6-29-20)

All words following will be Archbishop Viganò’s own (linked to the documents where they are found, so context can be consulted), with the exception of my headings and links to related material in brackets, and the occasional textual clarification, also in brackets:

*****

Church, Catholic: Apostasy / Defectibility of

In fact, the figure of Christ is absent. The [Amazon] Synod working document testifies to the emergence of a post-Christian Catholic theology, now, in this moment. (8-2-19)

Pope Bergoglio thus proceeds to further implement the apostasy of Abu Dhabi, . . . (Letter #62, November 2019)

For more than six years now we have been poisoned by a false magisterium . . . Thus, over these last decades, the Mystical Body has been slowly drained of its lifeblood through unstoppable bleeding: the Sacred Deposit of Faith has gradually been squandered, dogmas denatured, . . . Now the Church is lifeless, covered with metastases and devastated. The people of God are groping, illiterate and robbed of their Faith, in the darkness of chaos and division. In these last decades, the enemies of God have progressively made scorched earth of two thousand years of Tradition. With unprecedented acceleration, thanks to the subversive drive of this pontificate, supported by the powerful Jesuit apparatus, a deadly coup de grace is being delivered to the Church. . . . The result of this abuse is what we now have before our eyes: a Catholic Church that is no longer Catholic; a container emptied of its authentic content and filled with borrowed goods. . . . The Church is shrouded in the darkness of modernism . . . (12-20-19)

. . . the darkening of the faith that has struck the heights of the Church.  (3-14-20)

The Pope, the Hierarchy, and all Bishops, Priests and Religious must immediately and absolutely convert. This is something the laity are calling for, as they suffer because they have no firm and faithful guides. We cannot allow the flock which Our Divine Lord has entrusted to our care be scattered by faithless mercenaries. (3-29-20)

It is disconcerting that few people are aware of this race towards the abyss, and that few realize the responsibility of the highest levels of the Church in supporting these anti-Christian ideologies, . . .

It is no accident: what these men affirm with impunity, scandalizing moderates, is what Catholics also believe, namely: that despite all the efforts of the hermeneutic of continuity which shipwrecked miserably at the first confrontation with the reality of the present crisis, it is undeniable that from Vatican II onwards a parallel church was built, superimposed over and diametrically opposed to the true Church of Christ. This parallel church progressively obscured the divine institution founded by Our Lord in order to replace it with a spurious entity, corresponding to the desired universal religion that was first theorized by Masonry. (6-9-20)

. . . the disastrous situation in which the Church finds herself and the many evils that afflict her, long discourses among “specialists” appear inadequate and inconclusive. There is an urgent need to restore the Bride of Christ to her two-thousand-year Tradition . . . (6-14-20)

No one could have believed that, right under the vaults of the Vatican Basilica, the estates-general could be convoked that would decree the abdication of the Catholic Church and the inauguration of the Revolution. (As I have already mentioned in a previous article, Cardinal Suenens called Vatican II “the 1789 of the Church”).

. . . recognizing the infiltration of the enemy into the heart of the Church, the systematic occupation of key posts in the Roman Curia, seminaries, and ecclesiastical schools, the conspiracy of a group of rebels—including, in the front line, the deviated Society of Jesus—which has succeeded in giving the appearance of legitimacy and legality to a subversive and revolutionary act. . . . It will be for one of his Successors, the Vicar of Christ, in the fullness of his apostolic power, to rejoin the thread of Tradition there where it was cut off. (6-26-20)

. . . the crisis that has afflicted the Church since Vatican II and has now reached the point of devastation. (7-3-20)

[for the refutation, see:

“Could the Catholic Church Go Off the Rails?” (Indefectibility) [1997]

Indefectibility of Holy Mother Church: Believe It Or Not [2002]

Indefectibility: Does God Protect His Church from Doctrinal Error? [11-1-05; abridged and reformulated a bit on 2-14-17]

“The Gates of Hell Shall Not Prevail” Against the Church [11-11-08]

Indefectibility of the One True Church (vs. Calvin #9) [5-16-09]

Indefectibility & Apostolic Succession (vs. Calvin #10) [5-18-09]

Dialogue with a Lutheran on Ecclesiology & Old Testament Indefectibility Analogies [11-22-11]

St. Francis de Sales: Bible vs. Total Depravity (+ Biblical Evidence for the Indefectibility of the Church, from the Psalms)  [11-24-11]

The Bible on the Indefectibility of the Church [2013]

Michael Voris’ Ultra-Pessimistic Views Regarding the Church [7-3-13]

Critique of Three Michael Voris Statements Regarding the State of the Church [7-3-13]

Indefectibility, Fear, & the Synod on the Family [9-30-15]

Salesian Apologetics #1: Indefectibility of the Church [2-4-20] ]

Catholic Church, Conspiracies to Overthrow (Masonic and Otherwise)

What leaves one truly scandalized is seeing how the top levels of the Hierarchy are openly placing themselves at the service of the Prince of this world, adopting the demands made by the United Nations for the globalist agenda, Masonic brotherhood, Malthusian ecologism, immigrationism… What is being created is a single world religion without dogmas or morals, according to the wishes of Freemasonry . . . (5-29-20)

That the Masonic octopus clutches the Catholic Church in its tentacles is neither a rumor nor a secret. Right in the Vatican, the very stronghold of the Catholic Church, Masonry has armed itself with diabolical patience and waited until it reached the levers of power and command. The heart of Catholicity, which by divine mandate must be a beacon, has long been home to a pomp and pretention that decays it. (6-2-20)

What the world wants, at the instigation of Masonry and its infernal tentacles, is to create a universal religion that is humanitarian and ecumenical, from which the jealous God whom we adore is banished. And if this is what the world wants, any step in the same direction by the Church is an unfortunate choice which will turn against those who believe that they can jeer at God. The hopes of the Tower of Babel cannot be brought back to life by a globalist plan that has as its goal the cancellation of the Catholic Church, in order to replace it with a confederation of idolaters and heretics united by environmentalism and universal brotherhood. . . .

[O]n March 13, 2013, the mask fell from the conspirators, who were finally free of the inconvenient presence of Benedict XVI and brazenly proud of having finally succeeded in promoting a Cardinal who embodied their ideals, their way of revolutionizing the Church . . . (6-9-20)

Mass: Ordinary Form Mass (of St. Paul VI) is a Bad Thing

[T]he conciliar disaster of the Novus Ordo Missae is undergoing further modernization . . . This is a further step in the direction of regression towards the naturalization and immanentization of Catholic worship, towards a pantheistic and idolatrous Novissimus Ordo. The “Dew,” an entity present in the “theological place” of the Amazonian tropics — as we learned from the synodal fathers — becomes the new immanent principle of fertilization of the Earth, which “transubstantiates” it into a pantheistically connected Whole to which men are assimilated and subjugated, to the glory of Pachamama. And here we are plunged back into the darkness of a new globalist and eco-tribal paganism, with its demons and perversions. From this latest liturgical upheaval, divine Revelation decays from fullness to archaism; from the hypostatic identity of the Holy Spirit we slide towards the symbolic and metaphorical evanescence proper to dew which masonic gnosis has long made its own. . . . worship secularized and gradually profaned, morality sabotaged, the priesthood vilified, the Eucharistic Sacrifice protestantized and transformed into a convivial Banquet . . . (12-20-19)

If we have a liturgy that is Protestantized and at times even paganized, we owe it to the revolutionary action of Msgr. Annibale Bugnini and to the post-conciliar reforms. (6-9-20)

. . . the Holy Mass – horribly disfigured in the name of ecumenism . . . (7-1-20)

[for the refutation, see:

“New” / Ordinary Form / Pauline Mass: a Traditional Defense (with Massive Historical Documentation, + Summary of Vatican II on Liturgical Reform) [6-18-08]

Reactionary & Traditionalist Reaction to Summorum Pontificum [6-23-08]

Peter Kwasniewski, Fr. Thomas Kocik and a Growing Chorus Disagree with Pope Benedict XVI Regarding the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite Mass (Or, Reports of the Death of the Reform of the Reform are Greatly Exaggerated)  [+ Part Two] [2-26-14]

Who’s Defending Pope Benedict’s  Summorum Pontificum Now? [2-26-14]

You Prefer the Tridentine / EF Mass? Great! You Prefer Novus Ordo / OF (like me)? Great! [8-14-15]

Two Forms of One Rite (Pope Benedict XVI) [11-4-15]

Critique of Criticisms of the New Mass [11-5-15]

Worshiping the TLM vs. Worshiping God Through It [12-16-15]

Traditionalist Misuse of Ratzinger “Banal” Quote [12-17-15]

Chris Ferrara vs. Pope Benedict XVI (New Mass) [12-18-15]

Vs. Pasqualucci Re Vatican II #12: Sacrosanctum Concilium & Liturgical “Creativity” [7-22-19] ]

 

Pope Francis: Deceiver & Liar / Deliberately Ambiguous

His action seeks to violate the Sacred Deposit of Faith and to disfigure the Catholic Face of the Bride of Christ by word and action, through duplicity and lies, through those theatrical gestures of his that flaunt spontaneity but are meticulously conceived and planned . . . His action makes use of magisterial improvisation, of that off the cuff and fluid magisterium that is as insidious as quicksand . . .  that seeming and ostentatious devotion . . . Once again, the Pope’s words have the scent of a colossal lie . . . it is impossible to seek clarity [with Pope Francis], since the distinctive mark of the modernist heresy is dissimulation. Masters of error and experts in the art of deception, . . . And so the lie, obstinately and obsessively repeated, ends up becoming “true” and accepted by the majority. Also typically modernist is the tactic of affirming what you want to destroy, using vague and imprecise terms, and promoting error without ever formulating it clearly. This is exactly what Pope Bergoglio does, with his dissolving amorphism of the Mysteries of the Faith, with his doctrinal approximation . . . (12-20-19)

And it should be said that what the innovators [in Vatican II] succeeded in obtaining by means of deception, cunning and blackmail was the result of a vision that we have found later applied in the maximum degree in the Bergoglian “magisterium” of Amoris Laetitia. (7-3-20)

Pope Francis: Evangelism and Missionary Work (Alleged Antipathy to)

[T]he current Papacy has completely eliminated any form of apostolate, and says the Church must not perform any missionary activity, which it calls proselytism. (3-29-20)

[for the refutation, see:

Did Pope Francis just say that evangelization is “nonsense”? 8 things to know and share  (Jimmy Akin, National Catholic Register, 10-1-13)

Pope Francis on “Proselytism” (Jimmy Akin, Catholic Answers blog, 10-21-13)

Did Pope Francis just diss apologists? 9 things to know and share (Jimmy Akin, National Catholic Register, 3-9-14)

When Pope Francis rips ‘proselytism,’ who’s he talking about? He really may not be talking about, or to, Catholics at all (John L. Allen, Jr., Crux, 1-27-15)

Dialogue: Pope Francis Doesn’t Evangelize? [4-29-16]

Pope Francis Condemns Evangelism? Absolutely Not! [10-17-16]

Is Pope Francis Against Apologetics & Defending the Faith? [11-26-19]

Debate: Pope Francis on Doctrine, Truth, & Evangelizing (vs. Dr. Eduardo Echeverria) [12-16-19]

Francis: Evangelize by Example, not Pushing Your Faith on Others (Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, Through Catholic Lenses, 12-23-19)

Dialogue: Pope Francis vs. Gospel Preaching & Converts? No! (vs. Eric Giunta) [1-3-20]

Abp. Viganò Whopper #289: Pope Forbids All Evangelism (?) [4-8-20]

Pope Francis vs. the Gospel? Outrageous & Absurd Lies! (Anti-Catholic Protestant James White and Catholic Reactionary Steve Skojec Echo Each Other’s Gigantic Whoppers) [5-26-20] ]

Pope Francis: Heretic / Modernist

Christians expect a clear answer from the Pope himself. The thing is too important; it is essential: Yes, I believe that Christ is the Son of God made Man, the only Savior and Lord. . . . All Christians await this clarification from him, not from others, and by virtue of their baptism have the right to have this response. (10-10-19)

[Jimmy Akin refuted this outrageous ludicrosity: Clarity is Next to Godliness (Catholic Answers Magazine, 10-10-19) ]

Pope Bergoglio thus proceeds to further implement the apostasy of Abu Dhabi, the fruit of pantheistic and agnostic neo-modernism that tyrannizes the Roman Church, . . . (Letter #62, November 2019)

The tragic story of this failed pontificate advances with a pressing succession of twists and turns. Not a day passes: from the most exalted throne the Supreme Pontiff proceeds to dismantle the See of Peter, using and abusing its supreme authority, not to confess but to deny; not to confirm but to mislead; not to unite but to divide; not to build but to demolish. Material heresies, formal heresies, idolatry, superficiality of every kind . . . “demythologizing” the papacy . . . With Pope Bergoglio — as with all modernists . . . he . . . demolishes the most sacred dogmas, . . . (12-20-19)

In his Abu Dhabi declaration, Pope Francis said that God wants all religions. Not only is this a blatant heresy, it is also a very serious apostasy and a terrible blasphemy. Saying that God wants to be worshipped as something other than how He revealed Himself means that the Incarnation, Passion, Death and Resurrection of our Savior are completely meaningless. It means that the reason for founding the Church, the reason for which millions of holy Martyrs gave their lives, for which the Sacraments were instituted, along with the Priesthood and the Papacy itself, are all meaningless. The Pope, . . .  must immediately and absolutely convert. (3-29-20)

[the pope has clarified (on 4-3-20) that he referred to God’s permissive will (“why does God allow many religions? God wanted to allow this: Scolastica theologians used to refer to God’s voluntas permissiva.“), not perfect will. See further clarification]

[I]t is obvious that Bergoglio, along with those who are behind him and support him, aspires to preside over this infernal parody of the Church of Christ. (5-29-20)

[for the refutation, see:

Documentation: Pope Francis is Orthodox, Pro-Tradition and Against Modernism (Dan Marcum, Catholic Answers Forum, 1-9-15)

Can a Pope Be a Heretic? (Jacob W. Wood,  Crisis Magazine, 3-4-15)

Is Pope Francis a Heretic? (+ Part II) (Tim Staples, Catholic Answers blog, October 3-4, 2016)

Is Pope Francis a Heretic?: Options and Respectful Speculations on the Synod on the Family, Amoris Laetitia and Practical Applications [12-13-16]

The Heretical Pope Fallacy (Emmet O’Regan, La Stampa / Vatican Insider, 11-12-17)

Pope Francis On . . . [31 different issues] (Mark Mallett, The Now Word, 4-24-18)

Papal Critics Concede: No Proof of Canonical Papal Heresy [5-10-19] ]

Pope Francis: Idolater (So-Called “Pachamama”)

The enthronement of that Amazonian idol, even at the altar of the confession in St. Peter’s Basilica, . . . the synodal event, which marked the investiture of pachamama in the heart of Catholicity . . . idolatrous statues of rare ugliness, . . . (12-20-19)

They have even committed acts of unprecedented gravity, such as we saw with the adoration of the pachamama idol in the Vatican itself. . . . What we must do is ask forgiveness for the sacrilege perpetrated in the Basilica of Saint Peter’s, and reconsecrate it before the Holy Sacrifice of Mass can be said there. . . . he himself brought off a terrible sacrilege before the eyes and ears of the whole world, before the very Altar of the Confession of Saint Peter, a real profanation, an act of pure apostasy, with those filthy and satanic images of pachamama. (3-29-20)

. . . Bishops carrying the unclean idol of the pachamama on their shoulders, sacrilegiously concealed under the pretext of being a representation of sacred motherhood. . . . the image of an infernal divinity was able to enter into Saint Peter’s . . . we see an idol of wood adored by religious sisters and brothers, . . . If the pachamama could be adored in a church, we owe it to Dignitatis Humanae. (6-9-20)

[for the refutation, see:

Biblical Idolatry: Authentic & Counterfeit Conceptions (2015)

Our Lady of the Amazon – 2018 Video Footage Emerges (Dr. Pedro Gabriel, Where Peter Is, 10-17-19)

“Pachamama” [?] Statues: Marian Veneration or Blasphemous Idolatry? [11-5-19]

“Pachamama” Fiasco: Hysterical Reactionaryism, as Usual [11-8-19]

Pachamama – the missing piece of the puzzle (Dr. Pedro Gabriel, Where Peter Is, 11-10-19)

“Pachamama” Confusion: Fault of Vatican or Catholic Media? [11-12-19]

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It was clearly idolatry! [“Pachamama” controversy] (Dr. Pedro Gabriel, Where Peter Is, 12-1-19)
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Fr. Pacwa and divine signs [“Pachamama” controversy] (Dr. Pedro Gabriel, Where Peter Is, 12-16-19)
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Is “Mother Earth” a Catholic Concept (Church Fathers)? (Rosemarie Scott, hosted at Biblical Evidence for Catholicism, 12-17-19)
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Dr. Fastiggi Defends Pope Francis Re “Pachamama Idolatry” (hosted at Biblical Evidence for Catholicism, 3-3-20) ]
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Pope Francis: Mary & Catholic Mariology (Alleged Antipathy to)

Pope Bergoglio once again gave vent to his evident Marian intolerance . . . The Pontiff’s intolerance is a manifest aggression . . . After having downgraded her to the “next door neighbor” or a runaway migrant, or a simple lay woman with the defects and crises of any woman marked by sin, or a disciple who obviously has nothing to teach us; after having trivialized and desacralized her, like those feminists who are gaining ground in Germany with their “Mary 2.0” movement which seeks to modernize Our Lady and make her a simulacrum in their image and likeness, Pope Bergoglio has further impugned the August Queen and Immaculate Mother of God, who “became mestiza with humanity… and made God mestizo.” With a couple of jokes, he struck at the heart of the Marian dogma and the Christological dogma connected to it. . . .

To attack Mary is to venture against Christ himself; to attack the Mother is to rise up against her Son and to rebel against the very mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. . . . Pope Bergoglio no longer seems to contain his impatience with the Immaculate . . . [he] deserts the solemn celebration of the Assumption and the recitation of the Rosary with the faithful . . . nothing less than a declaration of war on the Lady and Patroness of all the Americas, . . .  he . . . demolishes the most sacred dogmas, as he did with the Marian dogmas of the Ever-Virgin Mother of God. (12-20-19)

[He makes] doctrine malleable, morals adaptable, liturgy adulterable, and discipline disposable. (6-9-20)

[for the refutation, see:

Is Pope Francis Guilty of Blasphemy and Departure from All Catholic Mariological Tradition in His Comments on the Possible Momentary Temptation of Mary at the Cross? [1-19-14]

Yes, Virginia, the Pope Believes Mary is Immaculate [12-29-18]

Pope Francis vs. the Marian Title “Co-Redemptrix”? (+ Documentation of Pope Francis’ and Other Popes’ Use of the Mariological Title of Veneration: “Mother of All”) [12-16-19]

Abp. Viganò Descends into Fanatical Reactionary Nuthood (. . . Declares Pope Francis a Heretical Narcissist Who “Desacralized” & “Impugned” & “Attack[ed]” Mary) [12-20-19]

Pope Francis’ Deep Devotion to Mary (Esp. Mary Mediatrix) [12-23-19]

Pope Francis and Mary Co-Redemptrix (Robert Fastiggi, Where Peter Is, 12-27-19)

Pope Francis and the coredemptive role of Mary, the “Woman of salvation” (Mark Miravalle & Robert Fastiggi, La Stampa, 1-8-20)

Dr. Fastiggi: Open Letter Re Abp. Viganò, Pope Francis, & Mary [2-22-20] ]

Pope Francis: Mentally Ill / Delusions of Grandeur

. . . in those ethereal spaces that can highlight a pathological delirium of illusory omnipotence, . . . (12-20-19)

Pope Francis: Narcissist

. . . through which he exalts himself in a continuous narcissistic self-celebration, while the figure of the Roman Pontiff is humiliated and the Sweet Christ on earth is obscured. . . . always in the spotlight of the cameras . . . (12-20-19)

. . . in his umpteenth interview. (3-29-20)

Pope Francis: Pantheist

Pope Bergoglio thus proceeds to further implement the apostasy of Abu Dhabi, the fruit of pantheistic and agnostic neo-modernism that tyrannizes the Roman Church, . . . (Letter #62, November 2019)

Vatican II: Heretical / Modernist / Apostate

. . . pantheistic and agnostic neo-modernism that tyrannizes the Roman Church, germinated by the conciliar document Nostra Aetate. We are compelled to recognize it: the poisoned fruits of the “Conciliar springtime” are before the eyes of anyone . . . the teachings that preceded Vatican II have been thrown to the winds, as intolerant and obsolete. The comparison between the pre-conciliar Magisterium and the new teachings of Nostra aetate and Dignitatis humanae — to mention only those — manifest a terrible discontinuity, . . . (Letter #62, November 2019)

. . . a sort of extreme synthesis of all the conciliar misconceptions and post-conciliar errors that have been relentlessly propagated, without most of us noticing. Yes, because the Second Vatican Council opened not only Pandora’s Box but also Overton’s Window, and so gradually that we did not realize the upheavals that had been carried out, the real nature of the reforms and their dramatic consequences, nor did we suspect who was really at the helm of that gigantic subversive operation, which the modernist Cardinal Suenens called “the 1789 of the Catholic Church.” (12-20-19)

The religious relativism which was brought in with Vatican II led many people to believe that the Catholic Faith was no longer the only means to salvation, or that the Blessed Trinity was the Only True God. (3-29-20)

I believe that the essential point for effectively conducting a spiritual, doctrinal and moral battle against the enemies of the Church is the persuasion that the present crisis is the metastasis of the conciliar cancer: If we have not understood the causal relationship between Vatican II and its logical and necessary consequences over the course of the last sixty years, it will not be possible to steer the rudder of the Church back to the direction given it by her Divine Helmsman, the course that it maintained for two thousand years. (5-29-20)

. . . the presumed legitimacy of the exercise of religious freedom that the Second Vatican Council theorized, contradicting the testimony of Sacred Scripture and the voice of Tradition, as well as the Catholic Magisterium which is the faithful guardian of both. . . . causal link between the principles enunciated or implied by Vatican II and their logical consequent effect in the doctrinal, moral, liturgical, and disciplinary deviations that have arisen and progressively developed to the present day. . . . Attempts to correct the conciliar excesses – invoking the hermeneutic of continuity – have proven unsuccessful: . . . from the moment it was theorized in the conciliar commissions, ecumenism was configured in a way that was in direct opposition to the doctrine previously expressed by the Magisterium. . . . the progressives and modernists astutely knew how to hide equivocal expressions in the conciliar texts, which at the time appeared harmless to most but that today are revealed in their subversive value. It is the method employed in the use of the phrase subsistit in: saying a half-truth not so much as not to offend the interlocutor (assuming that is licit to silence the truth of God out of respect for His creature), but with the intention of being able to use the half-error that would be instantly dispelled if the entire truth were proclaimed. . . . And it is surprising that people persist in not wanting to investigate the root causes of the present crisis, limiting themselves to deploring the present excesses as if they were not the logical and inevitable consequence of a plan orchestrated decades ago. If the pachamama could be adored in a church, we owe it to Dignitatis Humanae. . . .

The Council was used to legitimize the most aberrant doctrinal deviations, the most daring liturgical innovations, and the most unscrupulous abuses, all while Authority remained silent. This Council was so exalted that it was presented as the only legitimate reference for Catholics, clergy, and bishops, obscuring and connoting with a sense of contempt the doctrine that the Church had always authoritatively taught, and prohibiting the perennial liturgy that for millennia had nourished the faith of an uninterrupted line of faithful, martyrs, and saints. Among other things, this Council has proven to be the only one that has caused so many interpretative problems and so many contradictions with respect to the preceding Magisterium, while there is not one other council – from the Council of Jerusalem to Vatican I – that does not harmonize perfectly with the entire Magisterium or that needs so much interpretation.

. . . a form of pan-ecumenism that reduces the Truth of the One Triune God to the level of idolatries and the most infernal superstitions; the acceptance of an interreligious dialogue that presupposes religious relativism and excludes missionary proclamation; the demythologization of the Papacy, pursued by Bergoglio as a theme of his pontificate; the progressive legitimization of all that is politically correct: gender theory, sodomy, homosexual marriage, Malthusian doctrines, ecologism, immigrationism… If we do not recognize that the roots of these deviations are found in the principles laid down by the Council, it will be impossible to find a cure: if our diagnosis persists, against all the evidence, in excluding the initial pathology, we cannot prescribe a suitable therapy. (6-9-20)

Regarding the possibility of making a correction to the acts of the Second Vatican Council, I think that we can agree: the heretical propositions or those which favor heresy should be condemned, and we can only hope that this will happen as soon as possible. . . . From a legal point of view, the most suitable solution may perhaps be found; but from the pastoral point of view – that is, as regards the Council’s usefulness for the edification of the faithful – it is preferable to let the whole thing drop and be forgotten. . . . The mere fact that Vatican II is susceptible to correction ought to be sufficient to declare its oblivion as soon as its most obvious errors are seen with clarity. (6-14-20)

I do not think that it is necessary to demonstrate that the Council represents a problem: the simple fact that we are raising this question about Vatican II and not about Trent or Vatican I seems to me to confirm a fact that is obvious and recognized by everyone. In reality, even those who defend the Council with swords drawn find themselves doing so apart from all the other previous ecumenical councils, . . . It is painful to recognize that the practice of having recourse to an equivocal lexicon, using Catholic terms understood in an improper way, invaded the Church starting with Vatican II, . . .

[W]hen we commonly speak of the spirit of an event, we mean precisely that it constitutes the soul, the essence of that event. We can thus affirm that the spirit of the Council is the Council itself, that the errors of the post-conciliar period were contained in nuce in the Conciliar Acts . . . And again: if Vatican II truly did not represent a point of rupture, what is the reason for speaking of a pre-conciliar Church and a post-conciliar church, as if these were two different entities, defined in their essence by the Council itself? (6-26-20)

I have never thought and even less have I affirmed that Vatican II was an invalid Ecumenical Council: in fact it was convoked by the supreme authority, by the Supreme Pontiff, and all of the Bishops of the world took part in it. Vatican II is a valid Council, supported by the same authority as Vatican I and Trent. However, as I have already written, from its origin it was made the object of a grave manipulation by a fifth column that penetrated into the very heart of the Church that perverted its purposes, as confirmed by the disastrous results that are before everyone’s eyes. Let us remember that in the French Revolution, the fact that the Estates-General were legitimately convoked on May 5, 1789, by Louis XVI did not prevent things from escalating into the Revolution and the Terror (the comparison is not out of place, since Cardinal Suenens called the conciliar event “the 1789 of the Church”). . . .

As I pointed out in the analogous case of the Synod of Pistoia, the presence of orthodox content does not exclude the presence of other heretical propositions nor does it mitigate their gravity, nor can the truth be used to hide even only one single error. On the contrary, the numerous citations of other Councils, of magisterial acts or of the Fathers of the Church can precisely serve to conceal, with a malicious intent, the controversial points. . . . we can no longer deny the evidence and pretend that Vatican II was not something qualitatively different from Vatican I, despite the numerous heroic and documented efforts, even by the highest authority, to interpret it by force as a normal Ecumenical Council. (7-1-20)

I am aware that having dared to express an opinion strongly critical of the Council is sufficient to awaken the inquisitorial spirit that in other cases is the object of execration by right-thinking people.  . . .

I do not find anything reprehensible in suggesting that we should forget Vatican II: its proponents knew how to confidently exercise this damnatio memoriae not just with a Council but with everything, even to the point of affirming that their council was the first of the new church, and that beginning with their council the old religion and the old Mass was finished. You will say to me that these are the positions of extremists, and that virtue stands in the middle, that is, among those who consider that Vatican II is only the latest of an uninterrupted series of events in which the Holy Spirit speaks through the mouth of the one and only infallible Magisterium. If so, it should be explained why the conciliar church was given a new liturgy and a new calendar, and consequently a new doctrine – nova lex orandi, nova lex credendi – distancing itself from its own past with disdain.

The mere idea of setting the Council aside causes scandal even in those, like you, who recognize the crisis of recent years, but who persist in not wanting to recognize the causal link between Vatican II and its logical and inevitable effects. . . . I do not hesitate to say that that assembly should be forgotten “as such and en bloc,” and I claim the right to say it without thereby making myself guilty of the delict of schism for having attacked the unity of the Church. (7-3-20)

[for the refutation, see:

Dialogue: Vatican II & Other Religions (Nostra Aetate) [8-1-99]

Cdl Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI): Vatican II Authority = Trent [5-20-05]

Dialogue on Vatican II: Its Relative Worth, Interpretation, and Application (with Patti Sheffield vs. Traditionalist David Palm) [9-15-13]
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Photo credit: Ordercrazy (12-28-13) [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication]

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May 29, 2020

May 29, 2020 By

Does anyone still think that, for example, Lifesite News: the reactionary Canadian junksite, is irrelevant and ought to be ignored? They just announced that they received over 100 million page views in 2019: a traffic growth of over 50%.

With no advertising or promotion money whatever and being a sole proprietor (relying only on hopefully good placement in Google searches and links and shares and advertisement at Patheos), I have received 625,881 page views this year on my blog, which is 1 / 160th of what they get (or 0.63% if my math is correct).

And (just for the record), I’ve been grinding away for now 18 years as a full-time Catholic apologist, have 50 published books (21 with other publishers, and four of them, bestsellers), a website continuously online now for almost 23 years, with over 2900 posts, innumerable published articles on reputable Catholic websites and 25 or so radio appearances and all kinds of recommendations from important Catholic folks.

I’m not trying to toot my own horn (believe me). I’m simply making the point that I have worked very hard in my field, too, yet can get only 1 / 160th of the page views that these pitiful reactionary clowns get, with their constant trashing of the Church and popes and ecumenical councils alike. This is the way things are these days.

And what are their most popular topics? “Pope Francis, Bishop Schneider, Pachamama.”

A few of us out here attempt to refute the errors of these naysaying, conspiratorial quasi-schismatic reactionaries (with little thanks and a constant stream of insults for our efforts). But it’s like trying to oppose a hurricane with one breath.

Nevertheless, truth is truth, no matter how many read it, and it is worthwhile fighting for. The results are up to God, as always. Sites like Lifesite (by no means the only such site) grow because many people want it and others to grow. They have itching ears, as St. Paul warned about.

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Lifesite News is simply announcing (to its readers) that “business is flourishing.” I’m not against that per se, I’m against the damnable nature of their message and content.

Someone noted that they also do good conservative and pro-life stories, and perform a helpful role in Canadian media in that regard. I certainly understand why conservative / traditional Canadians would need and seek for an alternative media outlet, just as we now have in the US. It’s perfectly possible to be great in one area and atrocious in another. If Lifesite News didn’t mix in a lot of truth, they wouldn’t be getting these numbers. Lying sites ironically exponentially grow by doing just that. But the lies are also going out . . .

A venue can have great stuff alongside garbage. When they cover the Church and the pope, it is largely garbage and reprehensible. The general outlook is reactionary. A reactionary can be correct on any number of political views. It doesn’t make their pope-bashing and quasi-schismatic arguments true.

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(originally 12-30-19 on Facebook)

Photo credit: GDJ (2-16-17) [Pixabay / Pixabay License]

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April 13, 2020

April 13, 2020 By

This is one of the new conspiracy theories that people are foolishly sopping up like a sponge. But does it line up with the Bible? No. The Bible teaches that worship and reverence are matters of the heart, the spirit, and one’s interior disposition, not posture. I’ve shown this again and again. And communion in the hand massively took place in the first thousand years of the Church.

So could God be judging the world because of it? Again: No! How can I say that? It’s because St. Paul specifically discusses this very thing:

1 Corinthians 11:27-30 (RSV) Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. [28] Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. [29] For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. [30] That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.

Therefore, any such judgment already has been occurring individually with those who partake irreverently — “in an unworthy manner . . . without discerning the body [i.e., substantial Real Presence of Our Lord]” — for almost 2000 years, as opposed to the blasphemous scenario that would have God randomly judging people in the entire world, in which the ones most severely judged (were this true) would be the elderly with existing medical conditions, and anyone who is already ill and catches the virus.

That’s simply not the pattern that we know from God’s revelation of Himself in Holy Scripture, of how He judges. I’ve written four papers about judgment and a supposed connection with coronavirus already.

When we have plain, clear Scripture on a topic and the guidance of Church teaching, we ought not speculate; and all the more, not in blasphemous ways that cast aspersions on God’s nature and His love and mercy.

Someone who knows the Bible a bit may still object: “wait! Didn’t God judge Israel for false-hearted, hypocritical worship and idolatry?” The answer is yes, but it looks nothing like what the virus is doing. Someone thinks the virus looks like how God judged idolatry? He was judging things like literally worshiping small idols of stone and wood, and offering incense and sacrifice to them (in the worst cases: burning their own children in sacrifice: see Ezekiel 20:31). I think even the most rabid opponent of communion in the hand wouldn’t be so silly as to compare it to those things. Take a look at what true divine wrath really looks like:

Ezekiel 6:1-14 (complete chapter) The word of the LORD came to me: [2] “Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them, [3] and say, You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD! Thus says the Lord GOD to the mountains and the hills, to the ravines and the valleys: Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places. [4] Your altars shall become desolate, and your incense altars shall be broken; and I will cast down your slain before your idols. [5] And I will lay the dead bodies of the people of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars. [6] Wherever you dwell your cities shall be waste and your high places ruined, so that your altars will be waste and ruined, your idols broken and destroyed, your incense altars cut down, and your works wiped out. [7] And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and you shall know that I am the LORD. [8] “Yet I will leave some of you alive. When you have among the nations some who escape the sword, and when you are scattered through the countries, [9] then those of you who escape will remember me among the nations where they are carried captive, when I have broken their wanton heart which has departed from me, and blinded their eyes which turn wantonly after their idols; and they will be loathsome in their own sight for the evils which they have committed, for all their abominations. [10] And they shall know that I am the LORD; I have not said in vain that I would do this evil to them.” [11] Thus says the Lord GOD: “Clap your hands, and stamp your foot, and say, Alas! because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel; for they shall fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.[12] He that is far off shall die of pestilence; and he that is near shall fall by the sword; and he that is left and is preserved shall die of famine. Thus I will spend my fury upon them.[13] And you shall know that I am the LORD, when their slain lie among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, on all the mountain tops, under every green tree, and under every leafy oak, wherever they offered pleasing odor to all their idols. [14] And I will stretch out my hand against them, and make the land desolate and waste, throughout all their habitations, from the wilderness to Riblah. Then they will know that I am the LORD.”

I think a plausible argument can be made that abortion constitutes such idolatry and is the literal equivalent of offering our children to the fire, or Ba’al, or Moloch, or what not, and that would be more than adequate for judgment (I have made the argument myself, many times in the past). But that’s not what’s being said. The reactionaries aren’t claiming that God is judging the world for abortion, but rather, for the myth of the supposed idolatry of “Pachamama” in the Vatican, for how the pope dealt with Chinese Christians, and/or for communion in the hand.

If God truly judged the world for abortion, I think it would likely be the end of the world: so serious and abominable is that sin. He has chosen not to do so, for His own inscrutable reasons, and due to His extraordinary mercy (that we never deserve or earn). In any event, none of the “judgment conspiracy theories” of today (and more will surely be coming) look anything like judgment and divine wrath, as we know it from Holy Scripture.

Related Reading

“The Bible on Germs, Sanitation, & Infectious Diseases” [10-30-17]

“Does God Ever Judge People by Sending Disease?” [3-16-20]

Taylor Marshall: Pachamama “Idolatry” Judged by Coronavirus (Yet “Antichrist” Pope Francis Walks the Streets of Pandemic-Ravaged Rome Free of the Virus . . .) [3-17-20]

Alexander Tschugguel, Taylor Marshall, & God’s Wrath [3-19-20]

Coronavirus: Chris Ferrara vs. Science & Historical Precedent (Social Distancing Was Used in the 1918 Flu Pandemic and Has Been Shown Again and Again to be Highly Effective) [4-7-20]

Priest Blasphemes God (Coronavirus = Judgment?) [4-10-20]

Dialogue: Is Coronavirus the Way that God Judges? [4-13-20]

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Photo credit: The Punishment of Korah [detail; in the Sistine Chapel], by Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]
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April 13, 2020

April 13, 2020 By

This was a stimulating, challenging follow-up discussion of my post, Priest Blasphemes God (Coronavirus = Judgment?) “Heinz” commented underneath the post on my blog. His words will be in blue. Then, Stephen Howe offered a critique. His words will be in green.

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Ah, I totally agree with you that these conspiracy theories are neither edifying nor true. But I am also willing to see a glimmer of truth in this misled man.

Some of your counterarguments, Dave, rest on how “sensible” it is and how “the God you know” is not like that. I don’t think we can say that. And the argument, if it were good, could be used harmfully in many cases. At least I am frequently surprised how God plans and works, so I am definitely not a man to see something and know what God intended with or without it.

I find it hard to stick to a 100% extreme absolute “God never wills evil” in the human sense and then read the old testament in which rather rough ways (i.e. killing nations) are described as God’s way to make a point.

Now this whole thing is much more complicated than can be expressed with few words, but to say that a global phenomenon that kills and brings many people to ponder what God wants, is definitely not a chastisement from God is more than I can guarantee. Does the same count for WWII and robberies? We can say that God does not create them out of anger, but we cannot deny that He uses them in His plan, once we have caused them.

Just like you I do not believe that the Amazon Synod is the trigger or that the pandemic is first and foremost a chastisement. But not because I can think of a more “sensible” way how God would have done it, or because “the God I know” would not do that; but because there are plenty of infractions which are arguably worse and plenty of catastrophes that are worse. To pick two and put them into relation is as arbitrary as choosing a dark day (there are several) an earthquake (there are many) and a flood (there are plenty) and deduce that it’s the second coming of Christ (as the Bahai do) according to biblical prophecies.

Unfortunately in this case there is insult paired with the arbitrary judgement. This ranting only shows that the priest has bigger issues of dissatisfaction and he chose an ignorant and harmful way to talk about it. But as for the general “we are doing bad things” and “as a result bad things happen” message, I’m afraid that is true.

Thanks for your articulate comment and mild criticism. I love to have the opportunity to clarify and further develop my thinking.

These are huge issues. It gets into the problem of evil (the thorniest problem in apologetics and one of the biggest in theology and philosophy), and the theology of judgment. As I noted, I have written some fifteen or so lengthy papers analyzing God’s judgment in Scripture. I was referring mostly to what the Bible reveals as to how God judges. So I noted that it was usually a specific target people or person, or else an entire country. I can’t find in the Bible some passage that says that God would judge in the way that coronavirus is in effect “judging”: going after the weak and elderly, and black people and Latinos.

What I definitely do know from Scripture and personal experience is that God is loving, good, and merciful. And so, yes, I can say, based on that (with a very high degree of certitude, within the parameters of Christian faith), that it’s not in God’s nature to “judge” in the manner that this virus is killing people. That’s simply not judgment; it’s how nature acts: preying after the weak.

You also bring up complex issues of Old Testament judgments (what is always brought up). “Killing nations” is, precisely, one way in which He judges, and it’s perfectly just: these nations (as a whole; not every individual) deserved it. As an apologist, I have dealt with those kinds of things many times: usually in response to atheists who want to trash the Bible and God because of them. It took some work and effort, but I have never found their arguments insurmountable. They only sounded impressive at first (i.e., before they are analyzed and scrutinized). That’s how it often goes in apologetics.

I was not claiming here to know everything about God, or everything about any particular thing He does. Obviously not; that would be absurd and foolishly presumptuous. It was more of a “negative” argument: “I think we can know that He would not (according to how He has revealed Himself) judge in the particular way that is being claimed with regard to this virus.” That’s why I claim that this argument I have critiqued is blasphemous. It turns God into a moral monster: a sort of evil, scheming sadist. And we know that He is not that: if we accept His inspired revelation, the Bible (as I do), and the entire history of trinitarian Christian theology proper (Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant alike).

Thanks for the reply and yes, we are definitely on the same page. But I still find that your argumentation is specific where you need it and stays vague where you need it.

You say “it’s how nature acts: preying after the weak” – and that is admittedly the way God has created nature. Some judgements in the Old Testament are:

* famine (Gen 41), not directly attributed as God’s judgement, but not humanly created either
* the plagues in Egypt (Ex 7 pp)
* a fire (Num 11)
* snakes (Num 21)
* a plague (Num 25, 8b, 9, 18e)

Now it is not specifically said, that the weak and old suffered more, but that’s how plagues and natural catastrophes work. Covid-19 is a plague probably not unlike the one that hit the Israelites until that one guy killed the other with his Midianite woman in bed.

Again, I’m not saying that Covid-19 is first and foremost a judgement and thus I’m even further away from speculating if there is a specific trigger. But from biblical examples we cannot say: ‘God would not chose a chastisement under which the weak and old suffer most’, because the weak and old – by nature – always suffer most.

But maybe you have a good argument why we can differentiate such:

We can look at a catastrophe and check if naturally weak and old are hit hardest. If so, it’s not a chastisement from God. If they are not hit, then it might be a chastisement (and we can assume – without written basis – that the biblical events were such).

Then we could classify Covid-19 as not-chastisement and the Spanish flu as a possible chastisement. But what would be such an argument? And does God really want us to argue this way?

And finally: What then is this not-chastisement in God’s plan? Is it not from God at all?

Another thought-provoking and interesting comment. Thanks! But I continue to stand by my differentiation — based on the Bible — of target-specific judgments and judgments of entire nations or regions. I have made a fairly strong argument about this, I think, in other papers of mine about judgment: including the two about judgment and coronavirus.

Other things are simply natural, and involve what we call “natural evil” (C. S. Lewis discusses it at length in his book, The Problem of Pain.) Now, indeed, that is a difficult concept in relation to God, but it falls under the category of “problem of evil” rather than aspects of God’s judgment. Natural laws are the way they are and sometimes they lead to any number of natural catastrophes. Right now, for example, we have a volcano, locusts in Africa, and coronavirus all over the world.

The biblical examples you bring up as examples of judgment simply support the case I have laid out, in my humble opinion.

1) You concede that the famine in Genesis 41 is “not directly attributed as God’s judgement.” But this is the whole point! It doesn’t have to be human-caused; it simply is, based on various cycles (such as, for example, the Dust Bowl in more recent times; though that had significant man-caused components). But it clearly was not a judgment of Egypt at all, precisely because God gave both the pharaoh (a dream) and Joseph (its interpretation) foreknowledge that allowed the Egyptians to store up and avoid the negative consequences:

Genesis 41:34-36 (RSV, as throughout) “Let Pharaoh proceed to appoint overseers over the land, and take the fifth part of the produce of the land of Egypt during the seven plenteous years. [35] And let them gather all the food of these good years that are coming, and lay up grain under the authority of Pharaoh for food in the cities, and let them keep it. [36] That food shall be a reserve for the land against the seven years of famine which are to befall the land of Egypt, so that the land may not perish through the famine.”

That can hardly be considered a judgment. So it is irrelevant to our discussion. It’s a natural disaster.

2) The plagues in Egypt are perhaps the most plain biblical examples of targeted judgment: they were completely towards the Egyptians as a people, and not the Jews at all (Passover being the prime example of that within the plagues). That is as far as imaginable from the current pandemic, which shows no discrimination at all (geographically) as to where it attacks. Nor can we reasonably say it is a judgment of the whole world because the vast majority are untouched by it.There is no conceivable purpose that I can see for God to supposedly overwhelmingly judge elderly people with diabetes or high blood pressure or a heart condition, or, disproportionately, blacks and Latinos, as in New York. That makes no sense whatsoever, and is not in accord with what we know about God’s character.

It’s true that nature does go after the weak, and God created it that way, but again, that is a separate topic, not having to do with God’s judgment. When God judges an entire country, of course, as part of that, the weak and elderly will be particularly hard-hit. And many relatively innocent people die, too, because judgment of a nation is different from judgment of individuals. But in such cases, it would be clear (at least from the biblical model) that the nation was being judged.

3) Numbers 11:1-3 is clearly a judgment of the Israelites only because they “complained”: leading to the anthropomorphic “anger” of God, Who then sent a “fire of the LORD.” Then Moses prayed “and the fire abated.” That can happen, too, as when Abraham tried to intercede for Sodom and Gomorrah (but they were too wicked to be saved). Moses atoned for many sins of the Israelites, because God wanted to reveal His mercy as well as His wrath. They were again judged later in the chapter for not appreciating God’s provision of them for food (manna), and their constant craving for meat and other foods grumbling about that (11:4-6, 10, 13), so God judged them for it (11:33-34).

4) The snakes in Numbers 21 are the same thing again: the Jews complained about being freed from slavery (!) and especially about food, and so God judged them with serpents. Then He had mercy on them after they repented, by providing the bronze serpent (21:4-9). So this proves my point again: the judgment was very specifically targeted, and (most importantly, and utterly unlike this virus), targeted towards those who richly deserved it.

5) Numbers 25 is about Israel being judged for rank idolatry of the worst kind (other “gods”: 25:1-3). God was very specific even within the Israelite camp: hang the chiefs (25:4) and anyone “who have yoked themselves to Ba’al” (25:5). God again showed mercy after the righteous Israelites showed a resolve to follow His commands. This is the usual pattern throughout the Old Testament: justice and mercy both.The Midianites were judged (25:17-18, etc.) for the reasons why these other nations were always judged: they had become wicked and were corrupting Israel, particularly by means of false gods and idolatry. It’s not an unjust judgment. They deserved it: just as Israel herself was continually judged by God for disobedience and spiritual adultery.

Thus, all five of your examples strongly support my original argument, which I see no reason to modify. Thanks! I can provide many more examples (already present in my two earlier recent papers about coronavirus not being “judgment”) where God singles out sinful individuals and groups in particular for judgment. That’s particular judgment. The other kind revealed in the Bible is when nations become incorrigibly wicked and God judges them:

Isaiah 14:22-23 “I will rise up against them,” says the LORD of hosts, “and will cut off from Babylon name and remnant, offspring and posterity, says the LORD. [23] And I will make it a possession of the hedgehog, and pools of water, and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction, says the LORD of hosts.”

Isaiah 19:17 And the land of Judah will become a terror to the Egyptians; every one to whom it is mentioned will fear because of the purpose which the LORD of hosts has purposed against them.

Isaiah 30:31 The Assyrians will be terror-stricken at the voice of the LORD, when he smites with his rod.

Isaiah 34:5, 9 For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens; behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom, upon the people I have doomed. . . . [9] And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into brimstone; her land shall become burning pitch.

Jeremiah 47:1, 4 The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the Philistines, before Pharaoh smote Gaza.. . . [4] because of the day that is coming to destroy all the Philistines, to cut off from Tyre and Sidon every helper that remains. For the LORD is destroying the Philistines, the remnant of the coastland of Caphtor.

Ezekiel 25:2-3 “Son of man, set your face toward the Ammonites, and prophesy against them. [3] Say to the Ammonites, Hear the word of the Lord GOD: Thus says the Lord GOD, Because you said, `Aha!’ over my sanctuary when it was profaned, and over the land of Israel when it was made desolate, and over the house of Judah when it went into exile;

God judged Sodom and Gomorrah because it didn’t even have ten righteous people in it (Abraham’s intercessions with God: Gen 18:32).

God judged the entire world in Noah’s time because “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5), and “the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. . . . all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth” (6:11-12). Only Noah and his family were righteous.

See the pattern? God judges due to sin, not due to something like being old and having diabetes, or being unfortunate enough to be in an area like New York City, where the mayor and Governor acted foolishly and were very late to implement social distancing, thus causing many hundreds of deaths that could easily have been prevented.

God was going to judge Nineveh, but the people repented after Jonah preached to them, so He didn’t. That’s all God asks!

So, in summary, this was my argument: the coronavirus doesn’t fit at all into either of these biblical revelations of how God judges: either the specific scenario or wicked country / world scenario. So I maintain that it can’t reasonably be classified as a judgment from God, and if it is, that this casts such aspersions upon the nature of God that it is blasphemy. We have plenty enough biblical data about God’s judgment to know when and how He does it. It’s not just speculation.

I also wrote an entire paper entitled, “Does God Ever Judge People by Sending Disease?”

My own answer was “yes.” But again, when and how does He do that? Does it fit into the scenario now of this pandemic we are suffering under? No! Once again, it is specific targeting that is not the case at all with the current virus:

1) God sent boils (among the many other plagues) to the Egyptians because of holding the Hebrews in slavery (Ex 9:8-11).

2) God sent disease to the Jews when they disobeyed His commandments (Ex 15:26; Lev 26:21; 2 Chr 21:12-14), and He didn’t when they obeyed (Dt 7:15).

3) God smote wicked King Jehoram “in his bowels with an incurable disease” (2 Chr 21:18-19).

4) God judged wicked King Jeroboam “so that he was a leper to the day of his death” (2 Ki 15:5; cf. 2 Chr 13:20).

5) And wicked King Herod, who “was eaten by worms and died” (Acts 12:23).

6) And wicked Antiochus, who was “was seized with a pain in his bowels for which there was no relief and with sharp internal tortures” (2 Macc 9:4-6).

For more individual judgment passages (not necessarily disease-related), see: Jezebel (2 Ki 9:33-37), King Ahab (Jer 29:21-22), Ananias and his wife Sapphira (Acts 5:1-10) and the church in Pergamum (Rev 2:12-16).

In many other instances, disease is simply treated as natural events: unfortunate but natural. See my paper, “The Bible on Germs, Sanitation, & Infectious Diseases”.

St. Paul tells Timothy to take some wine for his stomach ailments, and has his “thorn in the flesh” (widely thought to be an eye disease), which is not due to his sin, but to prevent him from becoming prideful. Job is afflicted (with illness and maladies) even though he was “blameless” (it was a higher purpose of God, as in the following passage):

John 9:1-3 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth. [2] And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” [3] Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him.

There are still more nuances and complexities to the whole discussion, but this is my case, and I think it is biblically a very strong one, whereas the absurd case laid out, of coronavirus supposedly being God’s judgment is bald (and self-serving reactionary) speculation, with very little Bible brought to bear, while ignoring many other Scriptures that go against the created fiction.

***

I’m not denying the points you make (I really haven’t investigated the whole Pachamama thing) but one point in particular I do question. It is regarding your assertion that if he wanted to punish the sins of a leader God would punish the corrupt leader and not his/ her followers. Don’t we see an illustration of the people suffering for the leader’s sins while the leader is unscathed, in 1 Chronicles 21:14? King David had sinned and chose plague as his punishment: “so the Lord sent a plague upon Israel, and 70,000 people died as a result.”

David himself argues as you have that God should be punishing him, not his people: “I am the one who has sinned and done wrong! But these people are as innocent as sheep—what have they done? O Lord my God, let your anger fall against me and my family, but do not destroy your people.” But that is not the way God acted in this case. Indeed we see often in Scripture that we are all interconnected as human beings and sometimes punishments for sins seem to fall upon the innocent. Leaders bear a very great responsibility for their subjects for good or ill. (We see the ‘for good’ side of the coin in the effects of Christ’s victory applied undeservedly to those who follow him)

Another example of the ‘for ill’ with King David again would be his first son with Bathsheba who dies because of his sin of adultery. Perhaps the best example of all of this influence and responsibility of a leader in a way that could seem unjust to us is with the transmission of original sin to Adam’s descendants.

My point is that I think we have to be very cautious in saying “A loving God would not do this” simply because his ways are so far above our ways that we can’t expect to always be able to predict exactly what he would do, especially in this area of whom gets punished for the sins of a leader who represents his people.

Excellent comment and a challenge. It seemed to me that you had a counter-point to my overall argument about God’s judgment that I couldn’t answer, but then I did some digging (in fellow apologists and Bible Dictionaries), and I think I have an answer that makes sense of the seeming oddities or mysteries regarding God’s judgment that you highlight. The answer is arrived at particularly by examining the cross reference to the passage: 2 Samuel, chapter 24.

2 Samuel 24:1 (RSV) Again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go, number Israel and Judah.”

Why was God angry; why did He want to judge Israel? Well, it was actually only one tribe of Israel that deserved His wrath:

2 Samuel 24:15 So the LORD sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning until the appointed time; and there died of the people from Dan to Beer-sheba seventy thousand men. (in 1 Chronicles 21 it doesn’t specify the tribe of Dan).

So what sins did this tribe commit? Well, we know several things from Scripture. Dan abandoned God and turned to idolatry before the time of David:

Judges 18:30-31 And the Danites set up the graven image for themselves; and Jonathan the son of Gershom, son of Moses, and his sons were priests to the tribe of the Danites until the day of the captivity of the land. [31] So they set up Micah’s graven image which he made, as long as the house of God was at Shiloh.

Their downfall was predicted far earlier, in fact:

Genesis 49:17 Dan shall be a serpent in the way, a viper by the path, that bites the horse’s heels so that his rider falls backward.

The tribe of Dan is not listed among the tribes names in Revelation 7:4-8. The reasonable explanation, from what we know in Scripture, is that it was due to this described idolatry. Their captivity under the Assyrians took place in 722 B.C. (1 Ki 12:28-30; 2 Ki 10:29). That was some 240 years after King David, but Judges 18:30 tells us that they were in bondage to idolatry the entire time. Hence, it is perfectly plausible to posit that this is why they were judged during the time of David (70,000 slain).

And that is perfectly in accord with my entire thesis, which I think is thoroughly grounded in what the Bible reveals about God’s judgment. He judges target groups of people who are particularly evil (or else entire countries that have become evil). Thus, in this instance, it was the tribe of Dan that was His specific target.

And that doesn’t fit at all with the coronavirus scenario.

[note: I went into considerably more depth on this particular matter of the 70,000 being judged, in my article (along the lines of a general “alleged biblical contradictions or difficulties”): “Why Did God Kill 70,000 Israelites for David’s Sin?”]

***

Related Reading

Taylor Marshall: Pachamama “Idolatry” Judged by Coronavirus (Yet “Antichrist” Pope Francis Walks the Streets of Pandemic-Ravaged Rome Free of the Virus . . .) [3-17-20]

Alexander Tschugguel, Taylor Marshall, & God’s Wrath [3-19-20]

Priest Blasphemes God (Coronavirus = Judgment?) [4-10-20]

***

Photo credit: The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, by Pieter Schoubroeck (c. 1570-1607) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

***

April 10, 2020

April 10, 2020 By

Fr. Carlos Martins wrote a blasphemous piece on a public Facebook post, right before Good Friday, on 4-9-20. It’s doubly disgraceful and scandalous, having been written by a Catholic priest. I can’t bring myself to link to it, because then I might be a cause for someone being led astray. I’m sure anyone can find it, anyway, if they insist on doing so. In only two days’ time, it garnered over 1100 Facebook “likes” and 701 comments (mostly rapturous in praise) and over 1200 shares. God help us!

Wouldn’t it be nice if I could spend my time as an apologist, defending Holy Mother Church and the Holy Father (and God Himself in this case) against enemies outside the Church rather than Catholics within it? But alas, these are the times we live in. Words of Fr. Martins will be in blue.

*****

This is a difficult reflection to write.

I imagine it would be very difficult for a Catholic priest to write such an article.

I apologize in advance for the length. But I think that every word is necessary.

What is necessary is to tell the truth and to exercise charity and apply wisdom and knowledge. Sadly, I submit that none of those things are emphasized here.

My hope is to give the people of God, and especially the clergy, some understanding as to why I believe the COVID-19 pandemic is happening.

And we will examine his “case” to see if it stands up to Holy Scripture, facts, and reason.

In a word, we are experiencing a divine chastisement for idolatries. I fear more is to come.

He does not substantiate or prove this in the least, as I will show as we go along. Note, for example, that Fr. Martins does not provide one single Bible passage in order to bolster his contentions. It’s simply his own bald, unsubstantiated opinion, based on false premises. Sorry, that’s not good enough.

Consider the following:

FACT 1:

It’s not a “fact” at all, as I will demonstrate. One can’t build a supposedly good “argument” by starting with a false premise. That’s like the house built on a foundation of sand.

We all know that during the Amazon Synod last fall, the Pope permitted pagan ceremonies in the Vatican Gardens with a Pachamama statue. Pachamama is an idol within the pagan Amazonian mythology … specifically, a fertility goddess who (allegedly) sustains all life on earth (I’m not kidding … just Google it).

This is four lies (and “lie” can mean simply a “falsehood”: not necessarily deliberate; look it up) in rapid succession, packed into two sentences, with the claim that we “all know“ what is erroneously asserted:

1) It was not a “pagan ceremony.”

2) The figures in question were not “Pachamama” statues.

3) These figures were not idols (neither in essence nor in the intentions and hearts of those in the ceremony).

4) Nor is Pachamama (which was not present here, but falsely assumed to be) even part of “pagan Amazonian mythology”. Pachamama [just “Wikipedia it”] comes, rather, from Inca mythology, and the Andes Mountains in South America, near the Pacific Ocean. In fact, in the Wikipedia article, the word “Amazon” never even appears.

The basic error here is “going by appearances” alone. But even the premises of the appearances that critics of this ceremony assume are themselves quite questionable. A bunch of radical Catholic reactionaries and non-extremist legitimate traditionalist Catholics saw some small statues (portraying some sort of woman: all agree), and they immediately concluded that they were “idols.” But this is almost identical to iconoclastic Calvinist reasoning in the 16th century.

Are they unfamiliar with Catholic images, like statues and icons and paintings? We fully allow those things. They are (rightly understood) entirely biblical, as I have proven from Scripture time and again. And they are usually for the purpose of veneration, not worship and adoration (a statue of Christ could include the latter).

The early Calvinists (like many of them still today) were iconoclasts, and went around smashing statues in Catholic Churches (including statues of Christ and crucifixes; even bare crosses!). They didn’t like stained glass windows, either, and even took an ax to church organs. It was all “idolatry” to them, you see. Why? Well, because they were images, and the Bible (dontcha know) is against all “graven images”.

Really? Funny, then, that the temple itself (whose design was expressly revealed by God) was filled with images, as was the ark of the covenant, which had figures of cherubim (angels) on its lid. There was also Moses’ bronze serpent, etc. Even God the Father was sometimes worshiped directly via an image (pillar of fire and of cloud).

Moreover, Calvinists and other anti-Catholic Protestants were convinced that the Mass itself was idolatrous blasphemy, including the climax of supposed idolatrous worship of a piece of bread. They just don’t get it. So how is it that today we have Catholics who see some image and go nuts: immediately concluding that idols are in play, because some folks from the Amazon dress a little differently and have some (Catholic) ceremonies that look exotic and “foreign” to us in more developed countries? It simply doesn’t follow. Idolatry has to be determined by what is in a person’s heart and intentions. That’s what the Bible repeatedly teaches.

How — you may ask — do I back up my contentions? Well, it can’t be briefly done. Unfortunately, falsehoods and propagandistic slogans may be very short, but it takes a lot more ink to refute them (I know from long apologetics experience). I have written no less than eleven blog papers this issue and false assertion, covering just about every angle and interacting with the proponents of this Huge Myth, that thousands of Catholics have accepted uncritically:

“Pachamama” [?] Statues: Marian Veneration or Blasphemous Idolatry? [11-5-19]

“Pachamama” Fiasco: Hysterical Reactionaryism, as Usual [11-8-19]

“Pachamama” Confusion: Fault of Vatican or Catholic Media? [11-12-19]

Anti-“Pachamama” Doc: “Usual Suspect” Reactionaries Sign [11-14-19]

Vatican II –> Alleged “Pachamama” Idolatry, Sez Fanatics [11-15-19]

Bishops Viganò & Schneider Reject Authority of Vatican II [11-22-19]

Viganò, Schneider, Pachamama, & VCII (vs. Janet E. Smith) [11-25-19]

Pope St. John Paul II Respectfully Referred to Pachamama (+ Orthodox Catholic References to “Mother Earth” and Similar Biblical Motifs) [12-13-19]

“Pachamama” Redux (vs. Peter Kwasniewski & Janet Smith) [12-17-19]

Dialogue: “Pachamama” (?) Statues & Marian Iconography [12-24-19]

Dr. Fastiggi Defends Pope Francis Re “Pachamama Idolatry” [3-3-20]

However, at the Mass to close the Amazon Synod (Oct. 27, 2019) the Pope received a bowl with soil and plants during the offertory from an indigenous woman. In the Amazon, such bowls are synonymous with the Pachamama deity, symbolizing her status as Mother Earth (again, just Google “Pachamama” and “bowl”).

All of this must be interpreted and proven to be idolatrous in intent, which is never done. It’s merely assumed (starting with the false premises briefly described above). But assumptions are not arguments, and hence, carry no persuasive force.

The Pope instructed his Master of Ceremonies (Monsignor Guido Marini) to place the bowl on the high altar within the Basilica of St. Peter. Neither plants, nor any other object, save what is needed to celebrate Mass, is EVER PERMITTED TO BE PLACED ON AN ALTAR. This has been the constant practice of the Church for 2,000 years, and is the Vatican’s own directive.

Well, I’m no expert on either liturgical rubrics or canon law, so I’ll do what I always do when hindered by such limitations: I go to someone who is an expert on those things: in this instance, canon lawyer Cathy Caridi, who runs the Canon Law Made Easy site. She draws the distinction between ecclesiastical laws, which are man-made and can as a result be changed or occasionally dispensed, and divine laws, which come from God and therefore can’t change.

Hence, she states: “He is perfectly free to dispense himself from following the [ecclesiastical] law when he wishes — just as he may change the law entirely, if he wishes.” What is permitted on an altar has to do with ecclesiastical law. Of course, if the said objects were in fact idols, then it would go against divine law, but since they aren’t in the first place, they don’t.

AFTERWARDS:

That venerable altar—the most recognizable in the world—had no congregation around it tonight for the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. As well, for the first time in its storied history, it will have no congregation present for the Easter Vigil Mass (the Mass the Church calls “the Mother of all Liturgies”), nor for the Easter Sunday Masses.

This is a rare actual undisputed fact in the piece (though there have been times in the past when some churches were closed due to epidemics). A breath of fresh air . . .

FACT 2:
The Pachamama idol was placed on the altars of various churches throughout Rome during the Synod.

AFTERWARDS:
Catholic Churches world-wide are now closed to the Faithful. No altar throughout the world had the People of God present for the Mass of the Lord’s Supper this evening, nor will they for any of the Easter liturgies this weekend. The priest(s) will celebrate alone. In fact, certain dioceses, such as that of Hamilton (Canada), have forbidden the Celebration of the Sacred Triduum in ANY parish even by the priests alone. (Who in God’s name would get sick by a priest offering Mass alone in his parish church? No one. Thus, preventing the spread of sickness cannot be the motive of such bishops.)

I don’t know, but I imagine that would be because the virus is known to be able to stick to surfaces for a period of time; therefore, places where a lot of people were, could transmit it for some period of time, even with no people present.

It is as if the Italian altars acted as proxies for every other altar, transferring their “sin” onto them. Neither the Roman Emperors, nor Attila the Hun, nor the Ottomans, nor the French Revolution, nor the World Wars, nor Hitler and Stalin were ever successful at emptying parishes of their congregations. And now every Catholic parish worldwide is empty during the holiest days of the year.

This, of course, is the famous post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy (“after this, therefore because of this” or, “Since event Y followed event X, event Y must have been caused by event X.”). It’s no proof at all, almost needless to say. But this is how conspiratorialists think. It’s not logical thought, and creates mythical connections where there are demonstrably none, or none that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. And, as we have shown, in this instance, it was based upon an entirely false starting premise, too. The Wikipedia article on the fallacy further explains:

Post hoc is a particularly tempting error because correlation appears to suggest causality. The fallacy lies in a conclusion based solely on the order of events, rather than taking into account other factors potentially responsible for the result that might rule out the connection.

A simple example is “the rooster crows immediately before sunrise; therefore the rooster causes the sun to rise.”

I used to have fun with my kids when they were real little, by  twisting my ear, which “made” my tongue come out. In their little minds, perhaps they thought it actually was a causal connection. That’s about how silly the present “argumentation” is.

It’s an epidemic: all you conspiratorialists out there. It’s known to be wildly contagious. Therefore, when it is already out of hand, it can only be (relatively) stopped by people getting away from each other. It jumps from people to people based on what we do, and there are ways we can at least greatly slow its spread. This saves lives: mostly of elderly people already sick: who are the overwhelming victims of the pandemic. And it includes churches, because thousands of people congregate in them.

To argue that it is okay to have a Mass: knowing full well that many could contract the virus as a result, and a certain number of them die (and a horrible death at that), is downright immoral and unconscionable. The Mass (like the Sabbath) was made for man, not man for the Mass. We can survive a temporary suspension of public Masses. But many will not survive the virus, if empty conspiratorialism rules the day.

FACT 3:
The Italian Bishops Conference published an official prayer to Pachamama. I am not kidding. An official prayer to a pagan idol [link]. The note in brackets at end of the prayer even reads “Prayer to Mother Earth from the Incas”!

1) This was, as I understand it, from a 1988 publication, and so had nothing to do with the disputed / lied-about ceremony.

2) The Incas are not the Amazonians, nor “Pachamama” one of the latter’s religious figures, as already explained.

3) The bishops were not endorsing it. It was presented merely as a specimen of indigenous South American religion. My friend James Scott explained in a comment on my blog on 3-3-20:

All they are doing here is citing this prayer as “testimony” from the Indigenous peoples as to the damage the west is supposedly doing to their environment, or as to their suffering or plight. But nowhere does this say Catholics should pray this prayer or incorporate it into their liturgy or let pagan converts to the Faith continue to pray it. To hear these reactionaries you would think the Italian bishops have issued prayer books or missals instructing us to pray to Pachamama. But that is not what we see here. This is just a missionary magazine like Catholic Near East or whatever showcasing some local culture: nothing more. At this point I must question the moral integrity of the people posting this drivel. It is slander and a mortal sin!

AFTERWARDS: Italy became the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic hotspot, and its hospitals were completely overwhelmed with the sick. Medical staff had to choose who to put on a ventilator, and who to simply let die. In other words, they had to play God. As of this evening (April 9, 2020), the virus has killed over 100 Italian priests, far more than in another other country.

More post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, minus any shred of argumentation that might lead a reasonable, open-minded person to accept all of these fanciful conspiracies. The prevalence of the virus in Italy is due to many established, quite reasonable causes, which I laid out in an extensive paper on the topic.

The argument is profoundly incoherent, because if Italy was truly being judged for alleged [in fact, imaginary] sins, certainly, one of the prime targets would be the allegedly wicked, evil, heretical Pope Francis and his close circle of cardinals, bishops, and other aides (who are always in on every conspiracy-of-the-week bandied about by these folks). As I wrote in my first article about coronavirus supposedly being God’s judgment, over three weeks ago:

[T]he arch-enemy “bad guy” and antichrist, Pope Francis, [is] walking the streets of Rome virus-free thus far.

After all, God struck down kings; He (the same God Who did all that stuff as revealed in the inspired revelation of the Old Testament) can dispose of a supposedly wicked, evil pope just as easily. If Pope Francis were one-tenth as bad as the mountain of lies and calumnies and scurrilous slander about him would have it, arguably he should have [biblically] been devastated by God and eaten by worms (or some similar such horrible fate) no later than five years ago.

Instead, we’re told that God is going after Italians, as particularly wicked. The fact, of course, is that this is a worldwide pandemic, that knows no boundaries of any kind. Now, who are the people suffering from this supposed “judgment” or “wrath” from God in Italy (as of 3-18-20)?:

More than 99% of Italy’s coronavirus fatalities were people who suffered from previous medical conditions, according to a study by the country’s national health authority. . . .

The Rome-based institute has examined medical records of about 18% of the country’s coronavirus fatalities, finding that just three victims, or 0.8% of the total, had no previous pathology. Almost half of the victims suffered from at least three prior illnesses and about a fourth had either one or two previous conditions.

More than 75% had high blood pressure, about 35% had diabetes and a third suffered from heart disease.

The median age of the infected is 63 but most of those who die are older . . . The average age of those who’ve died from the virus in Italy is 79.5. As of March 17, 17 people under 50 had died from the disease. All of Italy’s victims under 40 have been males with serious existing medical conditions.

Please note very carefully what this entails: we’re told that God is judging via the coronavirus. The biggest sin and alleged precipitating cause for this occurred in Italy. But did God go after the very ones who allegedly committed it (the pope, cardinals, bishops, and those who agreed with their acts?).

No, not at all. Instead, we’re to believe an absurd, amoral scenario whereby God looked around for elderly people (average age of the dead: 79.5 years), and particularly those who already had two or three other diseases (high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease), and killed them. These are the people God in His omnipotence and providence decided to judge and kill by His wrath. That is supposedly just and loving.

My friend, Margie Prox Sindelar rendered her opinion of this kind of “reasoning” on my Facebook page today:

But if He did [judge the world, what about], abortion? fornication? homosexuality? sex trafficking, child abuse scandals, all of that is okay? No chastisements . . .  But our Holy Father allows others to come and express the faith ways foreign to most and He chastises the world for that?

My friend, Fr. Angel Sotelo added:

Exactly. “God is mad at us because of the synod, so He’s going to kill some people who had nothing to do with the Amazon Synod.”

Today Our Lord suffered His bitter agony for love of sinners, and this is how we preach the message of redemption?

How pathetic that COVID-19 has to be enlisted in the anti-Francis campaign of Church politics. Next thing, they’ll be blaming heart disease and autism on Pope Francis!

Some folks here are holding a nasty grudge against the people they think that God hates, and need God to be their hit man. . . .

Whipping up the “groupies” to think that God is punishing the world because of Pope Francis–that is just thrusting the spear into the side of Christ.

I can’t believe how many people jumped on the bandwagon to say that COVID-19 is God’s way of getting even for the Amazon Synod. Reading that post made me livid, and then very sad.

I think there are over 12,000 dead from the virus [it’s now 18,122 in the US and 101,732 worldwide]. What must their loved ones think when Catholics call this a punishment from God? If Catholics think that God would kill innocent people for the problems in the Church, I wonder which God they are praying to?

So God specifically targets for judgment elderly people (we’re talking usually 80 or above), almost always with serious underlying conditions. These are the poor souls dying like flies from the virus. All the research verifies it. That is God’s judgment, so we’re told, and it has to be because of this fiction about supposed “Pachamama” idolatry. That’s not the God I have served and loved for 43 years now. It’s blasphemy to think so.

It’s two outrageous lies in one: one goes after God Himself and logically entails (i.e., actually thought through, which probably never happened) that He is a moral monster; the second asserts that the pope is a rank heretic and idolater (because truly sanctioning and worshiping an idol would entail both).

Whatever theology of judgment the people saying these outrages have, has to be laid out and explained, but they don’t do that. They simply assert that it’s because of Pachamama. I’ve already written twice at length about it [one / two], providing lots of Scripture regarding judgment, and I’ve written much about God’s judgments elsewhere, again including copious citation of Scripture, as is my usual custom.

When God judged in Scripture, almost always He targeted a specific group of sinners or judged an entire country (or the whole world, in the case of Noah), with roughly equal suffering for all involved. Neither scenario is the case with this. It is simply acting like a virus acts: and the weakest are taken out. It’s nature; not God’s nature . . .

FACT 4:
Two years ago, in a deal brokered by disgraced (and now former) Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the Vatican agreed to allow the evil and murderous Chinese Communist government to select the bishops for China. This, in effect, threw the always faithful “underground and unofficial” Catholic Church under the bus; it entailed that the Vatican would no longer partner with it, but with the murderous State instead. In fact, the faithful were told by the Vatican to abandon their bishops and parishes and join the Official State Church.

AFTERWARDS:
Where did COVID-19 come from? China.

First of all, regarding Pope Francis and China, there is more than merely one reactionary, anti-Francis opinion about that. See:

On the Church in China (Mike Lewis, Where Peter Is, 2-13-18)
*
Perspective on the China/Vatican deal (Mike Lewis, Where Peter Is, 9-30-18)
*
China’s “other” cardinal (Mike Lewis, Where Peter Is, 3-18-19)
*

Secondly, this is yet another blasphemous lie: that God is also judging because (so the theory goes) the pope and McCarrick abandoned Chinese Christians. So who does God go after in retribution for that? Not Pope Francis, the alleged perpetrator, or Sex Pervert McCarrick (who rests safely in isolation) but . . . the Chinese (!): most of whom, no doubt (i.e., among the victims), are not even Christians: 3,340 deaths there. That’s God’s judgment and wrath, you see!

Does that make any sense? No! It’s certainly not consistent with the God revealed in the inspired revelation of the Bible and is literally blasphemous (how ironic, in the midst of a false charge that the pope and bishops were supposedly committing sacrilegious idolatry). If this is the nature of the God Whom Christians serve, count me out. I’m gone yesterday.

Thankfully, it is not the God I know and the true God revealed in the Bible. He is fair and just in His judgments: terrible though they may sometimes seem from our perspective. If He judges a nation, it’s because most of the entire nation has gone astray, and are ripe for judgment, as part of the collective.

God judges wicked nations (including His own chosen people, several times). When virtually the whole world became wicked in the time of Noah, He judged it, too. What He doesn’t do, on the other hand, is judge people who had nothing to do with one alleged sin, for that sin. He judges individuals or relatively smaller groups for their own sins.

But what we see from the statistics of coronavirus fatalities, is that, according to this tin foil hat myth, the wickedest people who are being judged far disproportionately compared to others, are elderly people over 80 with existing serious medical conditions, like diabetes or high blood pressure or kidney problems or heart disease.

These are the folks God is looking to kill for the sins of the world. He wants them to die in despair, even apart from loved ones, gasping for air and in a delirious state of mind. They must be wiped out for others’ sins, so we can get back to normal and our own idols of money and worship of our own foolish pride and divisiveness and endless rumormongering. Yeah, makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? This is flat-out blasphemy, to believe such a thing about the God of the Bible.

There are plenty of very widespread sins that God might conceivably judge (and on a very wide scale): abortion, homosexual acts, economic exploitation, making riches or power into an idol, pornography, sexual trafficking, drug dealing, sexual abuse, terrorism, racial and ethnic prejudice, sexism, on and on and on.

He could incinerate the United States to ashes in the next hour and we could say nothing in our defense: due to abortion alone; not even getting into many other serious sins we commit and even sanction by unjust, immoral laws. It would be perfectly just for Him to do so.

But none of that is mentioned when today’s would-be / wannabe prophets talk about God’s wrath; rather, only one ceremony which they never understood in the first place; which was a Catholic ceremony, without any idolatry at all.

FACT 5:
In January of 2019, the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, signed a law that made abortion legal until the day of birth in the 9th month. In other words, he legalized infanticide.

AFTERWARDS:
The United States became the world-wide epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, and New York is ground zero.

It’s the same fallacies repeated again and applied to New York. If the Governor and the legion of pro-abort liberals in New York are to blame for the supposed judgment, then why aren’t they being specifically taken out by God? As I explained, when God judges, according to the Bible, not my arbitrary speculations, it is either an entire nation (or state, in this case), indiscriminately, or it is a specifically targeted group of people.

The Governor isn’t on his sick bed, dying. Why? He signed these abominable, heartless bills. So why isn’t he judged (according to the theory that Fr. Martins posits)? Instead, over 7,600 New Yorkers have been “judged” by God. And who is it that God particularly focused on? Well, it’s the same as everywhere else, as regards the elderly and those already very ill. But it’s also true that Latinos and African-Americans are dying at a greatly disproportionate rate (that fits in great with the KKK view: God takes out “inferior” minorities more than others):

The death rate from Covid-19 for black and Latino New Yorkers is roughly twice that of white New Yorkers, according to the latest city data. The death rate among Latino New Yorkers is 22.8 for every 100,000 people. Among African Americans, it is 19.8. In contrast, 10.2 of every 100,000 white New Yorkers has died from the new coronavirus.

The numbers, which were released on Wednesday, are based on 63 percent of confirmed Covid-19 deaths in New York City. They are consistent with reporting from Louisiana, Illinois, Milwaukee, and Michigan, as well as preliminary national data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which show that black people are dying in greater numbers from the virus.

To both the people of God and my brother priests: we need to make reparation for the sins of the Church. . . . Blasphemy in the Bible was a crime whose punishment was always death.

Fr. Martins ought to start with himself (with all due respect). He neither teaches nor edifies anyone with this conspiratorial nonsense. He blasphemes God with groundless speculation about His alleged judgment and wrath, that has no biblical basis whatsoever (hence he didn’t seek to prove it with a single Bible verse), and he blasphemes the pope as well (the word blasphemy includes wrong attitudes towards holy things and holy people as well as God).

Bearing false witness is in the Ten Commandments and is mortal sin. There is plenty in this regrettable Facebook post that Fr. Martins ought to repent for in dust and ashes. I pray that God will open his eyes and correct his multitude of errors soon, because we see how many people he is leading astray.

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For follow-up discussion, see: Dialogue: Is Coronavirus the Way that God Judges? [4-13-20].

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Photo credit: Kildare Cathedral, Ireland, before its reconstruction in the late 1800s [Wikimedia Commons / no known copyright restrictions]

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April 7, 2020

April 7, 2020 By

Dr. Anthony Fauci has been saying all along that models regarding coronavirus and epidemics in general are only as good as the starting assumptions they begin with. Nevertheless, he has been following the prominent ones (especially the Imperial College / Neil Ferguson model) and they formed the basis for his statements of estimated total casualties.  The Imperial College model predicted (on whatever basis it established) 2.2 million deaths in the US, and 500,000 in the UK.

Ferguson later downgraded the UK figure to 20,000 or lower, if proper social distancing continues, which means that the original prediction was off by a factor of 25 times too high. The current death toll in the UK is 6,171 and the peak is likely to occur soon, as in the US. I haven’t heard what Ferguson thinks the final toll in the US might be.

Now, granted, the predictions in the model are self-consciously dependent or contingent upon the actual behavior of a population, and it turns out that people (in the US, certainly) have been remarkably observant of the social distancing and quarantine guidelines. I understand that, and have explained it to critics who don’t get that.

But I still maintain that the original figures thrown out to the public were grotesquely excessive and irresponsible and had the effect of creating mass hysteria (often on the left of the political spectrum) and also conspiratorialism (which is usually on the far right). Anyone readily surveying their Facebook feeds will readily see much of both extremes.

Dr. Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx keep downgrading their predictions. They have to, because the data increasingly do not support the original fantastically inflated models. At what point, however, does this continual revising deserve any legitimate [scientific / logical, not personal]  criticism? Last week Dr. Fauci was talking about 100,000-200,000 in the US alone (right now we stand at 12,021 deaths, with the peak before the descent on the famous graph curve thought to be within a week).

Now (latest update) they say it may be as low as 40,000, according to the models being analyzed by Dr. Birx (with the average of all of them being 93,000). I think that’s much more like it, but that even the lowest figure will more likely than not be too high for the US.

Director of the Centers for Disease Control, Robert Redfield, thinks a lot more like how I have been thinking about this whole thing (as of an article yesterday at ABC News):

One of the nation’s top public health officials suggested Monday that because Americans are taking social distancing recommendations “to heart,” the death toll from the novel coronavirus will be “much, much, much lower” than models have projected.

“If we just social distance, we will see this virus and this outbreak basically decline, decline, decline. And I think that’s what you’re seeing,” . . .

“I think you’re going to see the numbers are, in fact, going to be much less than what would have been predicted by the models,” he said. . . .

“Models are only as good as their assumptions, obviously there are a lot of unknowns about the virus” he said. “A model should never be used to assume that we have a number.”

I basically called it eleven days ago in an article of mine, dated 3-27-20:

This is precisely the problem in many of the “apocalyptic” models and predictions: they assume we will sit on our butts and do nothing whatever, which is utterly naive and unrealistic. Of course, we will do all kinds of things to oppose the spread of a deadly virus: as we observe all over the place.

Lots of folks are working on vaccines and treatments and masks and ventilators and ways to get by in quarantine; four hospitals are being built in New York City; Congress passed a $2 trillion bill to help folks survive during this emergency period [see an article and a follow-up on the many positive things that are happening in response to the virus]. But predictive “warning” models seem to so often assume a “static” non-response: as if human action and intervention are not even factors in outcomes and reasonable predictions.

I recognize the importance of worst-case scenarios. They have their place to make people realize real possibilities of what could actually happen. But then the media and the leftish doom-and-gloom outlook take that and present it as if no one could possibly disagree with it (i.e., have any alternate predictive model), in turn creating public hysteria and a fertile breeding-ground for all kinds of conspiracy theories right and left. . . .

I appear to have much more faith in human ingenuity and resolve and the power of science and reason to proactively fight against coronavirus and conquer it: including a big dose of good old “can do” American pragmatism.

There will still be great tragedy and human cost, but (I submit) far less than the left has imagined and set forth, in its pessimistic apocalypticism.

Robert Redfield essentially stated the same notion on 6 April 2020, as reported in his Wikipedia entry:

[T]hose models that were done, they assume only about 50 percent of the American public would pay attention to the recommendations. In fact, what we’re seeing is a large majority of the American public are taking the social distancing recommendations to heart. And I think that’s the direct consequence of why you’re seeing the numbers are going to be much, much, much lower than would have been predicted by the models.

The day before I had written about the hysteria among several leftish Patheos Catholic writers (the same place which hosts my blog):

Mary P. wrote on 3-23-20:, about New York state alone:

[T]hree hundred ninety-two thousand are predicted to die. 342,000 of those people marked for death might be saved if the whole state remains sheltering in place and if we’re very fortunate.

Really? The current death toll in New York (unarguably the worst place in the country right now, for infection) is 366. But Mary thinks up to 392,000 may die there alone? That’s 17.67 times the number for the entire world right now. She lives in an alternate universe.

I think we can say (now, 15 days later) with an extremely high level of certainty that there will not be 392,000 deaths in New York state alone, when the toll for the whole country now stands at 12,021, and with the peak of the graph likely coming very soon. But this is the sort of hysteria that was rampant on March 23rd. I exposed it for what it was, and I think I have identified why the scientific models (that, sadly, promoted reactions like this) were so wildly wrong; again, as I wrote on 3-27-20:  “[T]hey assume we will sit on our butts and do nothing whatever.”

That assumption is doubly naive, I would contend, in light of the historical fact, that Americans have been quite willing to do social distancing in order to combat a virus, as was shown during the terrible flu pandemic of 1918 (as I documented in my other article today). If the scientists (and historians of such things) have come to realize that, then it seems to me that they should have been more realistic in their models, about how human reaction and compliance would be a huge factor in how deadly this virus would eventually be.

I have been an “equal opportunity” critic in my articles about coronavirus, having written three concerning the errors of the far theological / political right (#1, 2, and 8 below), and five (including this one), about errors generally on the theological / political left (#3-5, 7 below), along with a sociological / historical survey of the situation in Italy (#6), that didn’t get into these left /right discussions, and also condemned anti-Chinese prejudice, which the left usually emphasizes relatively more than the right.

Related Reading

  1. Taylor Marshall: Pachamama “Idolatry” Judged by Coronavirus (Yet “Antichrist” Pope Francis Walks the Streets of Pandemic-Ravaged Rome Free of the Virus . . .) [3-17-20]

2. Alexander Tschugguel, Taylor Marshall, & God’s Wrath [3-19-20]

3. “Black Death” Mentality On Display at Patheos Catholic [3-26-20]

4. Dialogue: [Irrational?] Leftish Reactions to Coronavirus [3-27-20]

5. Dialogue on Leftish Reactions to Coronavirus, Part II [3-27-20]

6. Why Has Italy Suffered the Most from Coronavirus? (+ Reflections on the Propriety of Using the Term, “Chinese Flu” / Condemnation of Anti-Chinese Prejudice) [3-28-20]

7. Reply to Unfair Criticisms of Trump Re Coronavirus [4-4-20]

8. Coronavirus: Chris Ferrara vs. Science & Historical Precedent (Social Distancing Was Used in the 1918 Flu Pandemic and Has Been Shown Again and Again to be Highly Effective) [4-7-20]

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Photo credit: [public domain / Wallpaper Flare)

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April 7, 2020

April 7, 2020 By

Social Distancing Was Used in the 1918 Flu Pandemic and Has Been Shown Again and Again to be Highly Effective

Chris Ferrara writes for the radical Catholic reactionary site, The Remnant. Predictable as the sunrise, the current coronavirus crisis has immediately brought out the incipient wacko conspiratorialist paranoia that this group of quasi-schismatics has been specializing in for over fifty years. Writing on 4-6-20, Ferrara pulls out all the stops in characterizing the crisis and the prescribed societal treatment as a manufactured left-wing hoax:

. . . unprovable, non-falsifiable,  junk science  claim that “mitigation worked.”

. . . pseudo-scientific prophecies of doom . . .

[I]t is time to call this fiasco what it is: Coronagate. In my view, Coronagate will go down as the single biggest fraud in the fraud-ridden history of American politics . . .

. . . the credo of panic that is the only way to keep this whole scam going.

. . . massive con job.

. . .  this absolutely incredible farce . . .

Chris (a lawyer, not a scientist, by the way) is not one to mince words . . . I’d like to concentrate on one claim in particular that he makes:

[T]his ongoing National Quarantine Theatre of the Absurd, of which he [Dr. Fauci] is one of the principal directors, has no precedent in epidemiological history. And with good reason. This kind of “mitigation” was never deemed necessary or conceivable during even the worst pandemics of previous years. And it should not have been attempted in this case either, . . .

This is manifestly and simply untrue. It’s a falsehood. Abundant proof of that exists in the article, “How some cities ‘flattened the curve’ during the 1918 flu pandemic” (Nina Strochlic & Riley D. Champline, National Geographic, 3-27-20). Sub-title: “Social distancing isn’t a new idea—it saved thousands of American lives during the last great pandemic. Here’s how it worked.” It is a goldmine of fascinating historical information about the catastrophic flu pandemic of 1918-1920: complete with lots of easily understood graphs. I now cite it at length:

The 1918 flu, also known as the Spanish Flu, lasted until 1920 and is considered the deadliest pandemic in modern history. Today, as the world grinds to a halt in response to the coronavirus, scientists and historians are studying the 1918 outbreak for clues to the most effective way to stop a global pandemic. . . .

From its first known U.S. case, at a Kansas military base in March 1918, the flu spread across the country. Shortly after health measures were put in place in Philadelphia, a case popped up in St. Louis. Two days later, the city shut down most public gatherings and quarantined victims in their homes. The cases slowed. By the end of the pandemic, between 50 and 100 million people were dead worldwide, including more than 500,000 Americans—but the death rate in St. Louis was less than half of the rate in Philadelphia. The deaths due to the virus were estimated to be about 358 people per 100,000 in St Louis, compared to 807 per 100,000 in Philadelphia during the first six months—the deadliest period—of the pandemic. . . .

After implementing a multitude of strict closures and controls on public gatherings, St. Louis, San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Kansas City responded fastest and most effectively: Interventions there were credited with cutting transmission rates by 30 to 50 percent. New York City, which reacted earliest to the crisis with mandatory quarantines and staggered business hours, experienced the lowest death rate on the Eastern seaboard.

In 2007, a study in the Journal of the American Medial Association analyzed health data from the U.S. census that experienced the 1918 pandemic, and charted the death rates of 43 U.S. cities. That same year, two studies published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences sought to understand how responses influenced the disease’s spread in different cities. By comparing fatality rates, timing, and public health interventions, they found death rates were around 50 percent lower in cities that implemented preventative measures early on, versus those that did so late or not at all. The most effective efforts had simultaneously closed schools, churches, and theaters, and banned public gatherings. This would allow time for vaccine development (though a flu vaccine was not used until the 1940s) and lessened the strain on health care systems.

The studies reached another important conclusion: That relaxing intervention measures too early could cause an otherwise stabilized city to relapse. St. Louis, for example, was so emboldened by its low death rate that the city lifted restrictions on public gatherings less than two months after the outbreak began. A rash of new cases soon followed. Of the cities that kept interventions in place, none experienced a second wave of high death rates.

These findings exactly confirm why New York has the biggest problem right now. It was very late to implement social distancing, as I have copiously documented elsewhere. Places like Washington and California have done much better in that regard, and the effect is plainly evident in a much flatter graph curve. Internationally, we also know that much stricter quarantine measures (perhaps not practically or culturally possible in America) stopped the virus in its tracks in places like South Korea and Singapore.

There are other historical examples as well: from Wikipedia: “Social Distancing” (see further specific bibliographic references there, by following the footnotes provided below):

During the 1916 New York City polio epidemic, when there were more than 27000 cases and more than 6000 deaths due to polio in the United States, with more than 2000 deaths in New York City alone, movie theatres were closed, meetings were cancelled, public gatherings were almost non-existent, and children were warned not to drink from water fountains, and told to avoid amusement parks, swimming pools and beaches. [56][57] . . .

School closures were shown to reduce morbidity from the Asian flu by 90% during the 1957–1958 outbreak,[63] and up to 50% in controlling influenza in the U.S., 2004–2008.[64] Similarly, mandatory school closures and other social distancing measures were associated with a 29% to 37% reduction in influenza transmission rates during the 2009 flu epidemic in Mexico.

During the swine flu outbreak in 2009 in the UK, in an article titled “Closure of schools during an influenza pandemic” published in the The Lancet Infectious Diseases, a group of epidemiologists endorsed the closure of schools in order to interrupt the course of the infection, slow further spread and buy time to research and produce a vaccine.[66] Having studied previous influenza pandemics including the 1918 flu pandemic, the influenza pandemic of 1957 and the 1968 flu pandemic, they reported on the economic and workforce effect school closure would have, particularly with a large percentage of doctors and nurses being women, of whom half had children under the age of 16. They also looked at the dynamics of the spread of influenza in France during French school holidays and noted that cases of flu dropped when schools closed and re-emerged when they re-opened. They noted that when teachers in Israel went on strike during the flu season of 1999–2000, visits to doctors and the number of respiratory infections dropped by more than a fifth and more than two fifths respectively.

Michael J. Coren, in an article at Quartz (3-11-20) provides further corroborating data:

Social distancing interventions were not always trusted, . . . they were widely ignored during flu pandemics in 1957 and 1968. But in the 2000s, several papers . . . reanalyzed Spanish flu data to show the efficacy of distancing measures—and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention later incorporated them into their outbreak guidance. . . .

“You can compare the outcomes in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, which used such interventions aggressively from the very start, with what happened in Wuhan and what is happening now in Iran and Italy,” wrote Hatchett. “There is no reason to expect the virus to behave differently in Europe and the US than it has in Asia.” . . .

But social distancing doesn’t have to be draconian. South Korea has adopted a modern version of the St. Louis [1918] model; the country never locked its citizens down or quarantined entire cities, but has still managed to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. In recent days, new infections have leveled off thanks in part to thousands of free daily tests and a coordinated government effort that closed schools, canceled public events, and supported flexible working arrangements.

So for Ferrara to make blanket claims that social distancing and mitigation haven’t been done before, do not work, and are unwarranted at present (let alone his view that the present US policy is a deliberate fraud and a scam) is ignorant and clueless, both scientifically and in light of past and recent history. I guess he feels safe in making such ridiculous statements because he knows most of his readers are as conspiratorial and paranoid in their mentality (and gullible) as he is himself, and so won’t bother to check and verify his claims: as I was able to do by spending five minutes in a Google Search.

***

Note: I let Chris Ferrara know in the comments under his article [link] that I have responded, and I provided the link: at 2:17 PM ET, 4-7-20. The comments are moderated, so I’ll let you know if it is allowed or not. I predict that it won’t be.

Indeed, by 2:25 it was already removed. The Comment Guidelines for the site do not forbid posting a URL. Very well. He has been informed. Will he defend his position? Again, I predict not. Or he might come back with a post containing merely mockery and slander and no substantive reply (which he has done in the past). His choice . . .

***

Related Reading

US Coronavirus Deaths: Elderly with Preconditions [3-13-20]

Taylor Marshall: Pachamama “Idolatry” Judged by Coronavirus (Yet “Antichrist” Pope Francis Walks the Streets of Pandemic-Ravaged Rome Free of the Virus . . .) [3-17-20]

Alexander Tschugguel, Taylor Marshall, & God’s Wrath [3-19-20]

My Outlook & Goals During This Coronavirus Crisis [3-24-20]

Explanation of Coronavirus Statistics (Dr. JD Donovan) [3-26-20]

“Black Death” Mentality On Display at Patheos Catholic [3-26-20]

Dialogue: [Irrational?] Leftish Reactions to Coronavirus [3-27-20]

Dialogue on Leftish Reactions to Coronavirus, Part II [3-27-20]

Why Has Italy Suffered the Most from Coronavirus? (+ Reflections on the Propriety of Using the Term, “Chinese Flu” / Condemnation of Anti-Chinese Prejudice) [3-28-20]

Reply to Unfair Criticisms of Trump Re Coronavirus [4-4-20]

 

Will US Coronavirus Deaths Be Far Less than Predicted? [4-7-20]

***

Photo credit: Precautions taken in Seattle, Washington during the “Spanish Influenza” pandemic would not permit anyone to ride on the street cars without wearing a mask. 1918. [source] [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

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