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| St. John Fisher's Prayer for Good and Holy Bishops |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-28-2022, 11:59 AM - Forum: Prayers and Devotionals
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St. John Fisher was a Catholic bishop during the 16th century who was martyred by King Henry VIII.
In a sermon from 1508, St. John Fisher prayed for good and holy bishops, asking God to send the Church true shepherds.
Quote:Lord, according to Your promise that the Gospel should be preached throughout the whole world, raise up men fit for such work. The Apostles were but soft and yielding clay till they were baked hard by the fire of the Holy Ghost.
So, good Lord, do now in like manner again with Thy Church militant; change and make the soft and slippery earth into hard stone; set in Thy Church strong and mighty pillars that may suffer and endure great labors, watching, poverty, thirst, hunger, cold and heat; which also shall not fear the threatening of princes, persecution, neither death but always persuade and think with themselves to suffer with a good will, slanders, shame, and all kinds of torments, for the glory and laud of Thy Holy Name. By this manner, good Lord, the truth of Thy Gospel shall be preached throughout all the world.
Therefore, merciful Lord, exercise Thy mercy, show it indeed upon Thy Church.
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| Hungarian Archbishop: “The German Church Is Anti-Christ” |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-28-2022, 06:38 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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Hungarian Archbishop: “The German Church Is Anti-Christ”
![[Image: wcicknxlx4qs5u13ox3znf7b4726deu2cgr5pss....ormat=webp]](https://assistant.gloria.tv/1z94gyaCTBei3D8MsGrYwjE6j/wcicknxlx4qs5u13ox3znf7b4726deu2cgr5pss.webp?format=webp)
gloria.tv | December 28, 2022
Retired Veszprém Archbishop Gyula Márfi, 79, Hungary, had to relocate from Veszprém to Szombathely in August because he had criticised plans for the "renovation" of his former cathedral that include the removal of a glass window of St Michael, put in by Bishop Bertalan Badalik OP (+1965) who was exiled by the communists. Márfi spoke to MagyarJelen.hu (December 25). Highlights
• “One of the most striking signs of the EU's anti-Christian ideology is the fact that its constitution speaks about Europe's Greco-Roman traditions and the [so called] Enlightenment but makes no mentioning of Christianity."
• Márfi believes that "Freemasons and Muslims" are joining forces to make Christianity disappear from Europe.
• He confirms that Christians also love homosexualists but "to make a cult of them is a mortal sin which is also against the laws of nature.“
• “The situation of the German Church is really disastrous."
• According to the German bishops it is not important whether Jesus was born or rose from the dead but whether he is born and rises "in you." Márfi calls this "absurd."
• "A significant number of German priests bless homosex pseudo-marriages, as well as cohabitation and life partnerships. This is no longer Christianity, it is anti-Christ."
• In a mixed society, individual loses their identity, culture, faith, language, they "become easily manipulated, which is ideal for the world's big business."
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| 12 States Allow Home Equity 'Theft' Over Homeowners' Tax Payment Shortfalls |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-28-2022, 06:34 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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12 States Allow Home Equity 'Theft' Over Homeowners' Tax Payment Shortfalls, Study Says
ZH | DEC 27, 2022
Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Twelve states and the District of Columbia allow local governments and private investors to seize dramatically more than what is owed from homeowners who fall behind on property tax payments, according to a new report.
The practice, which Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) calls “home equity theft,” is documented in what the organization bills as the first national study aimed at exposing “the injustice of home equity theft through tax foreclosure.”
“Our findings are alarming,” PLF’s strategic research director, Angela Erickson, said in a statement.
“Home equity theft is robbing thousands of people of their homes and all the equity they’ve built. A system that allows governments and private investors to take more than what is owed creates a perverse incentive to work against the homeowner—not with the homeowner—to get the tax debt paid.”
Homeowners lost more than $777 million in life savings on more than 5,600 homes, based on their market value, in transactions that took place from 2014 to 2021. The true total is probably higher because statistics from New York state and some statistics from the other states studied were not available. On average, homeowners lost 86 percent of their equity, the study found.
Government entities, which often unload properties for a fraction of their market value, collected an estimated $26 million more than they were owed on about 1,300 homes. At the same time, private investors, who purchase tax liens, took in about $250 million more than what they were owed on about 2,600 homes.
Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, South Dakota, and the District of Columbia have laws on the books that let local governments and private investors “steal” substantial amounts of home equity from homeowners who are late on their property taxes, according to PLF.
Nine other states—Alaska, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, and Wisconsin—safeguard home equity in the foreclosure process but provide loopholes that permit governments or private entities to capture excess equity value that PLF says should belong to the homeowner.
These laws allow government officials and investors to take homes that have been in families for generations and leave some people homeless over tax debts that, in some cases, work out to less than 1 percent of their property’s value, according to PLF.
In one case, a county in Michigan seized a man’s house over an $8.41 underpayment, leaving him with nothing. The report notes that in the end, the homeowner prevailed when the Michigan Supreme Court determined that the county had acted unconstitutionally.
PLF takes the position that these so-called tax-and-take transactions violate the Fifth Amendment, which prevents the government from taking property without just compensation, and the Eighth Amendment, which bans excessive penalties.
Some government treasurers’ organizations, counties, and tax lien investors who “personally profit off the system in some of these states” are in favor of laws that lead to home equity theft, Christina Martin, a senior attorney at PLF, told The Epoch Times.
“Everybody else seems to be against it—groups on the left, right, [and] center,” she said.
“The vast majority of people seem to be against this. And most people actually have no idea this is even happening.”
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an alliance of conservative lawmakers, is opposed to home equity theft. Laws should be changed to require surplus profits to be returned to a home’s prior owner after a “tax lien investor or county collects what it is due and any other debts or levies on the property are paid,” ALEC says.
The Epoch Times reached out to the Government Finance Officers Association, the National Governors Association, and the National Conference of State Legislatures for comment but had not received a reply from any of the three organizations as of press time.
PLF currently has three home equity theft-related petitions from homeowners pending before the Supreme Court, all of which are scheduled to be considered by the justices on Jan. 6, 2023.
Two are from Nebraska. One petition (pdf) is Fair v. Continental Resources, court file 22-160, and the other (pdf) is Nieveen v. Tax 106, court file 22-237. A petition (pdf), Tyler v. Hennepin County, court file 22-166, is from Minnesota.
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| Pope Francis says ex-pope Benedict is 'very sick', asks for prayers |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-28-2022, 06:08 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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Pope Francis says ex-pope Benedict is 'very sick', asks for prayers
![[Image: 4ETUJ3QKZNMCFB5GH6F743YJRE.jpg]](https://www.reuters.com/resizer/0oq6ifxtGzXITNYzncCVsLu74xM=/960x0/filters:quality(80)/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/4ETUJ3QKZNMCFB5GH6F743YJRE.jpg)
Former pope Benedict ® is greeted by Pope Francis during a ceremony to mark his 65th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood at the Vatican June 28, 2016. Osservatore Romano/Handout via Reuters
VATICAN CITY, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Pope Francis asked for prayers for former pope Benedict on Wednesday, saying he is "very sick".
Francis made the surprise appeal at the end of his general audience, giving no details.
Benedict, 95, in 2013 became the first pope in some 600 years to resign. He has been living in the Vatican since then.
"I would like to ask all of you for a special prayer for Pope Emeritus Benedict, who, in silence, is sustaining the Church. Let us remember him. He is very sick, asking the Lord to console and sustain him in this witness of love for the Church, until the end," Francis said, speaking in Italian.
There was no immediate comment from the Vatican on the state of Benedict's health, and phone calls to his residence in the Vatican were not answered.
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| Geoengineering startup has begun releasing climate-tweaking particles into atmosphere |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-27-2022, 05:44 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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A startup says it’s begun releasing particles into the atmosphere, in an effort to tweak the climate
Make Sunsets is already attempting to earn revenue for geoengineering, a move likely to provoke widespread criticism.
MIT Technology Review | December 24, 2022
A startup claims it has launched weather balloons that may have released reflective sulfur particles in the stratosphere, potentially crossing a controversial barrier in the field of solar geoengineering.
Geoengineering refers to deliberate efforts to manipulate the climate by reflecting more sunlight back into space, mimicking a natural process that occurs in the aftermath of large volcanic eruptions. In theory, spraying sulfur and similar particles in sufficient quantities could potentially ease global warming.
It’s not technically difficult to release such compounds into the stratosphere. But scientists have mostly (though not entirely) refrained from carrying out even small-scale outdoor experiments. And it’s not clear that any have yet injected materials into that specific layer of the atmosphere in the context of geoengineering-related research.
That’s in part because it’s highly controversial. Little is known about the real-world effect of such deliberate interventions at large scales, but they could have dangerous side effects. The impacts could also be worse in some regions than others, which could provoke geopolitical conflicts.
Some researchers who have long studied the technology are deeply troubled that the company, Make Sunsets, appears to have moved forward with launches from a site in Mexico without any public engagement or scientific scrutiny. It’s already attempting to sell “cooling credits” for future balloon flights that could carry larger payloads.
Several researchers MIT Technology Review spoke with condemned the effort to commercialize geoengineering at this early stage. Some potential investors and customers who have reviewed the company’s proposals say that it’s not a serious scientific effort or a credible business but more of an attention grab designed to stir up controversy in the field.
Luke Iseman, the cofounder and CEO of Make Sunsets, acknowledges that the effort is part entrepreneurial and part provocation, an act of geoengineering activism.
He hopes that by moving ahead in the controversial space, the startup will help drive the public debate and push forward a scientific field that has faced great difficulty carrying out small-scale field experiments amid criticism.
“We joke slash not joke that this is partly a company and partly a cult,” he says.
Iseman, previously a director of hardware at Y Combinator, says he expects to be pilloried by both geoengineering critics and researchers in the field for taking such a step, and he recognizes that “making me look like the Bond villain is going to be helpful to certain groups.” But he says climate change is such a grave threat, and the world has moved so slowly to address the underlying problem, that more radical interventions are now required.
“It’s morally wrong, in my opinion, for us not to be doing this,” he says. What’s important is “to do this as quickly and safely as we can.”
Wildly premature
But dedicated experts in the field think such efforts are wildly premature and could have the opposite effect from what Iseman expects.
“The current state of science is not good enough … to either reject, or to accept, let alone implement” solar geoengineering, wrote Janos Pasztor, executive director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative, in an email. The initiative is calling for oversight of geoengineering and other climate-altering technologies, whether by governments, international accords or scientific bodies. “To go ahead with implementation at this stage is a very bad idea,” he added, comparing it to Chinese scientist He Jiankui’s decision to use CRISPR to edit the DNA of embryos while the scientific community was still debating the safety and ethics of such a step.
Shuchi Talati, a scholar in residence at American University who is forming a nonprofit focused on governance and justice in solar geoengineering, says Make Sunset’s actions could set back the scientific field, reducing funding, dampening government support for trusted research, and accelerating calls to restrict studies.
The company’s behavior plays into long-held fears that a “rogue” actor with no particular knowledge of atmospheric science or the implications of the technology could unilaterally choose to geoengineer the climate, without any kind of consensus around whether it’s okay to do so—or what the appropriate global average temperature should be. That’s because it’s relatively cheap and technically simple to do, at least in a crude way.
David Victor, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, warned of such a scenario more than a decade ago. A “Greenfinger, self-appointed protector of the planet … could force a lot of geoengineering on his own,” he said, invoking the Goldfinger character from a 1964 James Bond movie, best remembered for murdering a woman by painting her gold.
Some observers were quick to draw parallels between Make Sunsets and a decade-old incident in which an American entrepreneur reportedly poured a hundred tons of iron sulfate into the ocean, in an effort to spawn a plankton bloom that could aid salmon populations and suck down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Critics say it violated international restrictions on what’s known as iron fertilization, which were in part inspired by a growing number of commercial proposals to sell carbon credits for such work. Some believe it subsequently stunted research efforts in field.
Pasztor and others stressed that Make Sunset’s efforts underscore the urgent need to establish broad-based oversight and clear rules for responsible research in geoengineering and help determine whether or under what conditions there should be a social license to move forward with experiments or beyond. As MIT Technology Review first reported, the Biden administration is developing a federal research plan that would guide how scientists proceed with geoengineering studies.
Balloon launches
By Iseman’s own description, the first two balloon launches were very rudimentary. He says they occurred in April somewhere in the state of Baja California, months before Make Sunsets was incorporated in October. Iseman says he pumped a few grams of sulfur dioxide into weather balloons and added what he estimated would be the right amount of helium to carry them into the stratosphere.
He expected they would burst under pressure at that altitude and release the particles. But it’s not clear whether that happened, where the balloons ended up, or what impact the particles had, because there was no monitoring equipment on board the balloons. Iseman also acknowledges that they did not seek any approvals from government authorities or scientific agencies, in Mexico or elsewhere, before the first two launches.
“This was firmly in science project territory,” he says, adding: “Basically, it was to confirm that I could do it.”
A 2018 white paper raised the possibility that an environmental, humanitarian, or other type of group could use this simple balloon approach to carry out a distributed, do-it-yourself geoengineering scheme.
In future work, Make Sunsets hopes to increase the sulfur payloads, add telemetry equipment and other sensors, eventually move to reusable balloons, and publish data following the launches.
The company is already attempting to earn revenue from the cooling effects of future flights. It is offering to sell $10 “cooling credits” for releasing one gram of particles in the stratosphere—enough, it asserts, to offset the warming effect of one ton of carbon for one year.
“What I want to do is create as much cooling as quickly as I responsibly can, over the rest of my life, frankly,” Iseman says, adding later that they will deploy as much sulfur in 2023 as “we can get customers to pay us” for.
The company says it has raised $750,000 in funding from Boost VC and Pioneer Fund, among others, and that its early investors have also been purchasing cooling credits. The venture firms didn’t respond to inquiries from MIT Technology Review before press time.
'A terrible idea'
Talati was highly critical of the company’s scientific claims, stressing that no one can credibly sell credits that purport to represent such a specific per gram outcome, given vast uncertainty at this stage of research.
“What they’re claiming to actually accomplish with such a credit is the entirety of what’s uncertain right now about geoengineering,” she says.
Kelly Wanser, executive director of SilverLining, a nonprofit that supports research efforts on climate risks and potential interventions like geoengineering, agreed.
“From a business perspective, reflective cooling effects and risks cannot currently be quantified in any meaningful way, making the offering a speculative form of ‘junk credit’ that is unlikely to have value to climate credit markets,” she wrote in an email.
Talati adds that it’s hypocritical for Make Sunsets to assert they’re acting on humanitarian grounds, while moving ahead without meaningfully engaging with the public, including with those who could be affected by their actions.
“They’re violating the rights of communities to dictate their own future,” she says.
David Keith, one of the world’s leading experts on solar geoengineering, says that the amount of material in question—less than 10 grams of sulfur per flight—doesn’t represent any real environmental danger; a commercial flight can emit about 100 grams per minute, he points out. Keith and his colleagues at Harvard University have worked for years to move forward on a small-scale stratospheric experiment known as SCoPEx, which has been repeatedly delayed.
But he says he’s troubled by any effort to privatize core geoengineering technologies, including patenting them or selling credits for the releases, because “commercial development cannot produce the level of transparency and trust the world needs to make sensible decisions about deployment,” as he wrote in an earlier blog post.
Keith says a private company would have financial motives to oversell the benefits, to downplay the risks, and to continue selling its services even as the planet cools to lower than preindustrial temperatures.
“Doing it as a startup is a terrible idea,” he says.
For its part, the company says it’s operating on the best modeling research available today, and that it will adjust its practices as it learns more and hopes to collaborate with nations and experts to guide these efforts as it scales up.
“We are convinced solar [geoengineeering] is the only feasible path to staying below 2 ˚C [of warming over preindustrial levels], and we will work with the scientific community to deploy this life-saving tool as safely and quickly as possible,” Iseman said in an email.
But critics stress that the time to engage with experts and the public would have been before the company began injecting material into the stratosphere and trying to sell cooling credits—and that it’s likely to face an icy reception from many of those parties now.
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| Four substations attacked in Washington state, leaving thousands without power |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-27-2022, 05:36 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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Four substations attacked in Washington state, leaving thousands without power
Power appears to have been restored to many of those left in the dark after electricity infrastructure in the Tacoma area was vandalized.
NBC News | Dec. 25, 2022, 8:32 PM EST / Updated Dec. 26, 2022, 5:19 PM EST
Four electricity substations in the Tacoma, Washington, area were attacked Sunday, affecting thousands of customers, authorities said.
The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department described the early morning attacks on two Tacoma Public Utilities substations and a Puget Sound Energy facility as acts of vandalism, with those responsible unidentified.
"It is unknown if there are any motives or if this was a coordinated attack on the power systems," the sheriff’s department said in a statement.
The agency estimated that the number of affected homes and businesses was 14,000 at one point Sunday, when three substations were affected.
The sheriff's department described a fourth incident Sunday about 7:21 p.m. at another Puget Sound Energy substation.
"The suspect(s) gained access to the fenced area and vandalized the equipment which caused the fire," the sheriff’s office said in a statement. "There are no suspects in custody at this time."
The fourth incident at a utility substation in South Pierce County on Christmas Day prompted stepped-up security.
"All law enforcement agencies in the county have been notified of the incidents and will be monitoring power substations in their area," the statement said.
Power was restored to most of the affected homes, the sheriff's department said.
Puget Sound Energy confirmed in a statement Monday that two of its substations were attacked.
"We are coordinating with authorities on suspected acts of vandalism at two of our substations. Both incidents are under investigation and no further details are available. PSE has extensive measures to monitor, protect and minimize the risk to our equipment and infrastructure," the statement said.
Puget Sound Energy said on its website Sunday that more than 1,200 customers were without power — with the vast majority having been reconnected — but it wasn't clear whether that was connected to the attack.
Tacoma Public Utilities said that more than 7,000 of its customers in the communities of Graham and Elk Plain were without power Sunday and that it continued to work on restoration.
It appears that electricity for many of those TPU customers has been restored — the national blackout tracker PowerOutage.us reported late Sunday afternoon that fewer than 5,000 customers remained in the dark across the state.
In a statement, TPU said, "Two of our substations were deliberately targeted by physical attacks."
The sheriff's department said a person or people broke into facilities and vandalized equipment in each of those attacks, the first of which was reported at 2:39 a.m.
TPU said federal law enforcement alerted it this month to the possibility of attacks and recommended a security assessment. It wouldn't say what measures, if any, it took.
At the same time, Oregon Public Broadcasting and KUOW public radio of Seattle reported that separate attacks on six substations operated by Portland General Electric, the Bonneville Power Administration, the Cowlitz County Public Utility District and Puget Sound Energy in Washington and Oregon had taken place mid-November. The incidents are alleged to have included breaches of utility properties, the outlets said.
On Dec. 3, vandals attacked two Duke Energy substations in Moore County, North Carolina, leaving 45,000 customers in the dark for more than three days, officials said. People with guns opened fire and, in one case, breached a facility, they said, and they remained outstanding nearly a month later.
As electricity was restored to the last of the North Carolina customers Dec. 7, someone opened fire near a Duke Energy hydro facility in Ridgeway, South Carolina, about 130 miles south of Moore County. Federal investigators were comparing ballistics evidence in both attacks to determine whether they were connected.
Investigators probing the North Carolina attacks were looking at online conspiracy theories to determine whether any played a role, two senior law enforcement officials briefed on the matter said this month.
A prevailing theory was that the outages were intended to shut down a drag performance, "Downtown Divas," at Sunrise Theater in Southern Pines, North Carolina. Anti-LGBTQ demonstrators targeted the location in the days leading up to the Saturday night event, which continued in the dark before it ended early.
Power infrastructure has long been on the attack wish list of white supremacists and other right-wing extremists who seek American "destabilization," Brian Levin, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, said in February.
Early this year, three men pleaded guilty in connection with a plot to disrupt the electricity grid, sow civil unrest and economic uncertainty, and ultimately trigger a race war, federal prosecutors said at the time.
There's no indication the Washington, Oregon and Carolinas attacks shared similar motives. Sunday's Tacoma-area attacks remained under investigation.
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| Scientists Develop Gelatinous Robots To Crawl Through Human Body To Deliver Medical Payloads |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-27-2022, 05:31 AM - Forum: Health
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Scientists Develop Gelatinous Robots To Crawl Through Human Body To Deliver Medical Payloads, Diagnose Illnesses
![[Image: The-Johns-Hopkins-University-700x420.jpg?itok=bJxM8njB]](https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/The-Johns-Hopkins-University-700x420.jpg?itok=bJxM8njB)
ZH | DEC 23, 2022
Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times,
Scientists have developed miniature gelatinous robots that can crawl through the human body to deliver medicine or diagnose illnesses.
The “gelbot” is powered by little more than temperature changes, and its innovative design, which resembles an inchworm, is one of the most promising concepts in the field of soft robotics, according to Jill Rosen of John Hopkins University.
Quote:“It seems very simplistic, but this is an object moving without batteries, without wiring, without an external power supply of any kind—just on the swelling and shrinking of gel,” said David Gracias, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Johns Hopkins University and a senior project leader.
“Our study shows how the manipulation of shape, dimensions, and patterning of gels can tune morphology to embody a kind of intelligence for locomotion.”
The 3D-printed robot, which is made out of gelatin, is intended to replace pills or intravenous injections, which could cause problematic side effects.
The prototype was announced in the journal Science Robotics, on Dec. 14.
Gelbot May Revolutionize Medicine in the 21st Century
Compared to most robots that are made out of hard materials like metals or plastics, the revolutionary “gelbot” consists an innovative water-based gel which feels like a gummy bear, making it more suitable for its task.
The team at John Hopkins said that the gels can “swell or shrink” in response to temperature, in order to be used to “create smart structures,” and they were able to demonstrate how they could move the jelly-like robots forward and backward on flat surfaces and maneuver them in certain directions, with an undulating, wave-like motion.
Gracias envisions the medical devices crawling through a patient’s body to deliver medication to a tumor, blood clot, or an infection directly, while not disturbing healthy tissue.
Unlike swallowed tablets or injected liquids, which have a time delayed effect, the tiny robot could hold back a dose of medicine and then immediately inject it when it reaches its target.
The researchers foresee the “gelbot” revolutionizing how doctors examine their patients by working as minimally invasive devices to assist with diagnoses and treatments.
Gracias is also planning to program the robots to crawl in response to variations in human biomarkers and biochemicals and test other worm and marine organism-inspired designs, along with the addition of cameras and sensors to their bodies.
He further plans to use the “gelbot” for other purposes such as marine exploration, or to patrol and monitor the ocean’s surface to fight maritime pollution.
Other Research Teams Are Working on Similar Robotic Designs
The team at John Hopkins are not the only ones looking to come up with a miniature medical robot device.
Two and a half years ago, researchers at Cornell University announced a project to develop tiny microscopic machines with legs that could move inside a patient to deliver drugs or assist with diagnoses like the “gelbot.”
This design, utilizing a mini-computer, was able to move via laser impulses and was small enough to live next to microorganisms that already lived inside a human body.
Quote:“The new robots are about 5 microns thick (a micron is one-millionth of a meter), 40 microns wide, and range from 40 to 70 microns in length,” said the Cornell report.
“Each bot consists of a simple circuit made from silicon photovoltaics—which essentially functions as the torso and brain—and four electrochemical actuators that function as legs.”
Meanwhile, another team at Stanford University earlier this year revealed a “Transformers-style robot” inspired by Japanese origami, the New York Post reported.
The “millibot,”much like the “gelbot,” is designed to carry medical payloads directly to a tumor, blood clot, or infection to dispense drugs or investigate a patient’s inner workings, said Dr. Ruike Zhao, one of the project’s co-leaders.
Zhao claims that the “spinning-enabled wireless amphibious origami millirobot” is “the most robust and multifunctional robot we have ever developed,” and that it “has broad potential application in the biomedical field.”
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| The Christmas Sword |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-26-2022, 07:57 AM - Forum: Resources Online
- Replies (1)
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The Christmas Sword
![[Image: unnamed.jpg]](https://thecatholicstate.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/unnamed.jpg)
The Catholic State | December 24, 2022
The masculine equivalent of the “Golden Rose” is the Sword blessed by the Pope at Christmas, and, from time to time, presented to the most valiant princes.
Commonly bestowed during the 15th/ 16th centuries in gratitude for saving Europa from Mohammedan invaders, the Holy Father charged the recipient: “You are a fortification and bulwark to protect the holy Roman Church against the enemies of the Faith. Therefore, may your hand remain firm against the enemies of the Holy See and of the name of Christ, and may your right hand be lifted up, intrepid warrior, as you remove them from the earth.”
Clothed in surplice and cope, the prince would then chant the 5th lesson at Matins, a Christmas sermon of Leo the Great: “When our Lord entered the field of battle against the devil, He did so with a great and wonderful fairness. Being Himself the Almighty, He laid aside His uncreated Majesty to fight with our cruel enemy in our weak flesh…”
Before chanting this lesson, the prince unsheathed the sword, struck it against the ground three times, then brandished it in the air, again three times, and replaced it in the scabbard.
The first blessed sword was given to Charlemagne’s father in AD 758. The most recent one was presented to the last Dauphin of France in 1823. The next one (Deo volente) will be presented to the Great Monarch when the Invaders & the Perfidious are finally purged from Europa and the Earth itself.
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| A Christmas Message from Archbishop Viganò |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-25-2022, 11:11 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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A Christmas Message from Archbishop Viganò
[Taken from here.]
Rex pacificus magnificatus est, cujus vultum desiderat universa terra.[1]
The whole earth desires to contemplate the blessed face of the King of peace, who deigned to be born according to the flesh, two thousand twenty-two years ago, to redeem us from the yoke of Satan and acquire us for the glory of heaven with His most holy Passion.
For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this (Is 9: 6-7). These solemn words, referring to the coming Redeemer, spur us on to recognize the sign of sovereignty and to cooperate so that peace, which is stability of order, founded on law and justice, may triumph.
In this world that is rebellious and indocile to the Child King; in this world that deludes itself that it can build peace without the One who is its eternal foundation, may each of you bear witness to Faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ with courage and coherence of life, offering Him your heart as a mystical manger in which He can rest, as a throne in which He sits and reigns first and foremost over you, your families, and your community.
In this world that is rebellious and indocile to the Child King; in this world that deludes itself that it can build peace without the One who is its eternal foundation, may each of you bear witness to Faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ with courage and coherence of life, offering Him your heart as a mystical manger in which He can rest, as a throne in which He sits and reigns first and foremost over you, your families, and your community. May your actions and your words make the blessed Face of the Lord shine forth, so that all the peoples of the earth may convert to Him, bend their knees to Him in adoration, and restore to Him the royal crown that the Revolution snatched from Him.
And so may it be.
+ Carlo Maria, Archbishop
Most Holy Christmas MMXXII
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| Cardinal Ratzinger: "...the salvation-granting presence of the Lord in a Lutheran Lord’s Supper" |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-24-2022, 08:00 AM - Forum: The Architects of Vatican II
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Excerpt: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation on the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote in 1993 to Bavarian Lutheran bishop Johannes Hanselmann:
“I count among the most important results of the ecumenical dialogues the insight that the issue of the eucharist cannot be narrowed to the problem of ‘validity.’ Even a theology oriented to the concept of succession, such as that which holds in the Catholic and in the Orthodox church, need not in any way deny the salvation-granting presence of the Lord in a Lutheran Lord’s Supper.” [Briefwechsel von Landesbischof Johannes Hanselmann und Joseph Kardinal Ratzinger über das Communio-Schreiben der Römischen Glaubenskongregation, Una Sancta, 48 (1993): 348.]
Notice this is simply a continuation of Vatican II's Unitatis Redintegratio §3:
Quote:Moreover, some and even very many of the significant elements and endowments which together go to build up and give life to the Church itself, can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church: the written word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, and visible elements too. All of these, which come from Christ and lead back to Christ, belong by right to the one Church of Christ. The brethren divided from us also use many liturgical actions of the Christian religion. These most certainly can truly engender a life of grace in ways that vary according to the condition of each Church or Community. These liturgical actions must be regarded as capable of giving access to the community of salvation.
Yet, the true teaching of the Catholic Church states the opposite, reaffirmed by Pope Pius XII in Mystici Corporis:
Quote:Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. (Mystici Corporis, §22)
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| 420 church attacks in 4 years, but most Americans unaware |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-24-2022, 07:45 AM - Forum: Anti-Catholic Violence
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420 church attacks in 4 years, but most Americans unaware
![[Image: shutterstock_1713932794-e1671644644466.jpg?w=640&crop=1]](https://wp.en.aleteia.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/shutterstock_1713932794-e1671644644466.jpg?w=640&crop=1)
Aleteia [adapted] | 12/22/22
Reports find that while attacks on churches and pro-life institutions surge, only 37% of the US is aware of the crisis.
A new report from the Family Research Council (FRC) has documented some 420 instances of attacks on churches in the United States between 2018 and 2022. While the crisis of violence against both Catholic and Christian churches is disheartening, so too is a new report from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which recently found that only 37% of Americans have heard about the crisis at all.
The FRC has been tracking attacks on churches within the US since January 2018 and their records continue until September 2022. In that time-frame, the organization has noted an overwhelming amount of attacks on churches, in the form of vandalism, arson, bomb threats, and more. It should be noted that the 420 recorded attacks were only on churches, but the figure rises to nearly 500 when taking pro-life pregnancy centers into consideration.
The report stated that “Americans seem increasingly comfortable lashing out at church buildings,” and suggests that Christians’ pro-life beliefs are being marginalized. Furthermore, they consider the abundance of attacks to be a symptom of “a collapse in societal reverence.”
According to CBN, the Department of Homeland Security’s National Terrorism Advisement System has warned that the Christmas season, as well as the upcoming anniversary of January 6, could present threat actors with more opportunities for violence. The DHS has warned that potential targets include faith-based institutions, LGBT communities, and minority groups.
While the FRC is drawing attention to the growing plight of church attacks within the US, the Becket Fund for Religious Freedom is highlighting the scant levels of awareness of them. Becket recently released a survey which found that only 37% of Americans have even heard about the crisis. Becket points to low levels of media coverage on the topic, as well as a lack of decisive action and prosecution from the Justice Department.
While the lack of awareness of these attacks on churches across the nation is troubling, Becket did note that the vast majority of respondents were opposed to such actions. According to the Daily Signal, 94% of those surveyed said they were opposed to violence against churches or places of worship. Furthermore, 92% said they were opposed to violence against pro-life pregnancy centers and 93% said they were against protesters harassing worshipers outside their parish.
It would seem that the US public is firmly against the violence committed against churches and faith-based institutions.
The Daily Signal noted that the Justice Department has not responded to multiple inquiries into the department’s intentions to prosecute the perpetrators of the attacks on US churches. However, they have charged 26 pro-life individuals with FACE act violations in 2022.
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| The Anti-Liturgical Heresy |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-24-2022, 06:27 AM - Forum: In Defense of Tradition
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Dom Prosper-Louis-Pascal Gueranger, founder of the Benedictine Congregation of France and first abbot of Solesmes after the French revolution, wrote in 1840 his Liturgical Institutions in order to restore among the clergy the knowledge and the love for the Roman Liturgy.
Here we present to our readers a fragment of the Liturgical Institutions, where Dom Gueranger summarizes what he calls the anti-liturgical heresy, a summary of the doctrine and liturgical practice of the Protestant sect, from the XIVth to the XVIIIth century. As it can easily be seen, many of these principles have a striking similitude with the post-Conciliar liturgical reform . . .
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The first characteristic of the anti-liturgical heresy is HATRED OF TRADITION AS FOUND IN THE FORMULAS USED IN DIVINE WORSHIP. One cannot fail to note this special characteristic in all heretics, from Vigilantus to Calvin, and the reason for it is easy to explain.
Every sectarian who wishes to introduce a new doctrine finds himself, unfailingly, face to face with the Liturgy, which is Tradition at its strongest and best, and he cannot rest until he has silenced this voice, until he has torn up these pages which recall the faith of past centuries.
As a matter of fact, how could Lutheranism, Calvinism, Anglicanism establish themselves and maintain their influence over the masses? All they had to do was substitute new books and new formulas in place of the ancient books and formulas, and their work was done. There was nothing that still bothered the new teachers; they could just go on preaching as they wished: the faith of the people was henceforth without defense.
Luther understood this doctrine with a shrewdness worthy of the Jansenists, since he, at the beginning of his innovations, at the time he still felt he should maintain a part of the external form of the Latin cult, gave the following rule for the reformed Mass:
Quote:“We approve and preserve the Introits of Sundays and of the feasts of Our Lord, that is to say Easter, Pentecost and Christmas. We should much prefer that the entire Psalms from the Introits should be taken, as was done in former times; but we will gladly conform to the present usage. We do not blame even those who would wish to keep even the Introits of the Apostles, of the Blessed Virgin and other Saints, since these three Introits are taken from the psalms and other places in Scripture.”
He hated too much the sacred songs composed by the Church herself as the public expression for her faith. He felt too much in them the vigor of Tradition, which he wanted to ban. If he granted to the Church the right to mix her voice with the oracles of the Scripture in the holy assemblies, he would expose himself thereby to have to listen to millions of mouth anathematizing his new dogmas. Therefore, his hatred for everything in Liturgy which does not exclusively derive from Holy Scripture.
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This, as matter of fact, is the second principle of the anti-liturgical sect: TO SUBSTITUTE FOR THE FORMULAS OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL TEACHINGS READINGS FROM THE HOLY SCRIPTURE.
This involves two advantages: first, to silence the voice of Tradition of which sectarians are always afraid. Then, there is the advantage of propagating and supporting their dogmas by means of affirmation and negation. By way of negation, in passing over in silence, through cunning, the texts which express doctrine opposed to errors they wish to propagate; by way of affirmation, by emphasizing truncated passages which show only one side of the truth, hide the other the eyes of the unlearned.
Since many centuries we know that the preferences given by all heretics to holy Scripture, over Church definitions, has no other reason than to facilitate making the word of God say all they want it to say, and manipulating it at will.
( . . . ) Protestants . . . have nearly reduced the whole Liturgy to the reading of Scripture, accompanied by speeches in which one interprets by means of reason. As to the choice and determination of the canonical books, these have ended by falling under the caprice of the reformer, who, in final analysis, decides the meaning of the word itself.
Thus Luther finds that in his system of pantheism, the ideas of the uselessness of good works and faith alone sufficing should be established as dogmas, and so, from now on, he will declare that the Epistle of St. James is a “straw epistle” and not canonical, for the simple reason that it teaches the necessity of good works for salvation.
In every age, and under all forms of sectarianism, it will be the same: No ecclesiastical formulas, only Holy Scripture, but interpreted, selected, presented by the person or persons who are seeking to profit from innovation.
The trap is dangerous for the simple, and only a long time afterwards one becomes aware of having been deceived and that the word of God, “a two-edged sword”, as the Apostles calls it, has caused great wounds, because it has been manipulated by the sons of perdition.
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The third principle of the heretics concerning the reform of the Liturgy is, having eliminated the ecclesiastical formulas and proclaimed the absolute necessity of making use only of the words of Scripture in divine worship and having seen that Holy Scripture does not always yield itself to all their purposes as they would like, their third principle, we say, is to fabricate and introduce various formulas, filled with perfidy, by which the people are more surely ensnared in error, and thus the whole structure of the impious reform will become consolidated for the coming centuries.
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One will not be astonished at the contradictions which heresy shows in its works, when one knows that the fourth principle, or, if you will, the fourth necessity imposed on the sectarians by the very nature of their rebellious state is an habitual contradiction of their own principles.
It must be this way for their confusion on that great day, which will come sooner or later, when God will reveal their nakedness to the view of the people whom they have seduced; moreover, it is not in the nature of man to be consistent. Truth alone can be consistent.
Thus, all the sectarians without exceptions begin with THE VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF ANTIQUITY. They want to cut Christianity off from all that the errors and passions of man have mixed in; from whatever is “false” and “unworthy of God”. ALL THEY WANT IS THE PRIMITIVE, AND THEY PRETEND TO GO BACK TO THE CRADLE OF CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS.
To this end, they prune, they efface, they cut away; everything falls under their blows, and while one is waiting to see the original purity of the divine cult reappear, one finds himself encumbered with new formulas dating only from the night before, and which are incontestably human, since the one who created them is still alive.
Every sect undergoes this necessity. We saw this with the Monophysites and the Nestorians; we find the same in every branch of Protestantism. Their preference for preaching antiquity led only to cutting them off from the entire past. Then they placed themselves before their seduced people and they swore to them that now all was fine, that the papist accretions had disappeared, that the divine cult was restored to its primitive form . . .
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Since the liturgical reform is being undertaken by the sectarians with the same goal as the reform of dogma, of which it is the consequence, it follows that as Protestants separated from unity in order to believe less, they found themselves led to cut away in the Liturgy ALL THE CEREMONIES, ALL THE FORMULAS WHICH EXPRESS MYSTERIES.
They called it superstition, idolatry, everything that did not seem to be merely rational, thus, limiting the expression of faith, obscuring by doubt and even negation all the views, which open on the supernatural world.
Thus, no more Sacraments, except Baptism, preparing the way for Socialism, which freed its followers even from Baptism. No more sacramentals, blessings, images, relics of Saints, processions, pilgrimages, etc. No more altar, only a table, no more sacrifice as in every religion, but only a meal. No more church but only a temple, as with the Greeks and Romans. No more religious architecture, since there is no more mystery. No more Christian paintings and sculpture, since there is no more sensible religion. Finally no more poetry in a cult which is no longer impregnated by love or faith.
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The suppression of the mystical element in the Protestant liturgy was bound to produce, infallibly, the total extinction of that spirit of prayer, which in Catholicism, we call unction.
A heart in revolt can no longer love, a heart without love will be all the more able to produce passable expression of respect or fear, with the cold pride of the Pharisee. Such is Protestant liturgy.
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Pretending to treat nobly with God, Protestant liturgy has no need of intermediaries. To invoke the help of the Blessed Virgin, or the protection of Saints, would be, for them, a lack of respect due to the Supreme Being.
Their liturgy excludes that entire “papist idolatry” which asks from a creature what only should be asked from God. It purges the calendar of all those names of men, which the Roman Church so boldly inscribes next to the name of God. It has a special horror for those names of monks and other persons of later times who one can find figuring next to the names of the Apostles, whom Jesus Christ had chosen, and by whom was founded this primitive Church which alone was pure in faith and free from all superstition in cult and from every relaxation in morals.
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Since the liturgical reform had for one of its principal aims the abolition of actions and formulas of mystical signification, it is a logical consequence that its authors had to vindicate the use of the vernacular in divine worship.
This is in the eyes of sectarians a most important item. Cult is no secret matter. The people, they say, must understand what they sing. Hatred for the Latin language is inborn in the hearts of all the enemies of Rome. They recognize it as the bond among Catholics throughout the universe, as the arsenal of orthodoxy against all the subtleties of the sectarian spirit. ( . . .)
The spirit of rebellion which drives them to confide the universal prayer to the idiom of each people, of each province, of each century, has for the rest produced its fruits, and the reformed themselves constantly perceive that the Catholic people, in spite of their Latin prayers, relish better and accomplish with more zeal the duties of the cult than most do the Protestant people. At every hour of the day, divine worship takes place in Catholic churches. The faithful Catholic, who assists, leaves his mother tongue at the door. Apart form the sermons, he hears nothing but mysterious words which, even so, are not heard in the most solemn moment of the Canon of the Mass. Nevertheless, this mystery charms him in such a way that he is not jealous of the lot of the Protestant, even though the ear of the latter doesn’t hear a single sound without perceiving its meaning.(...)
. . . We must admit it is a master blow of Protestantism to have declared war on the sacred language. If it should ever succeed in ever destroying it, it would be well on the way to victory. Exposed to profane gaze, like a virgin who has been violated, from that moment on the Liturgy has lost much of its sacred character, and very soon people find that it is not worthwhile putting aside one’s work or pleasure in order to go and listen to what is being said in the way one speaks on the marketplace. ( . . .)
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In taking away from the Liturgy the mystery which humbles reason, Protestantism took care not to forget the practical consequence, that is to say, liberation from the fatigue and the burden of the body imposed by the rules of the papist Liturgy.
First of all, no more fasting, no more abstinence, no more genuflections in prayer. For the ministers of the temple, no more daily functions to carry out, no more canonical prayers to recite in the name of the Church.
Such is one of the principal forms of the great Protestant emancipation: to diminish the sum of public and private prayers.
The course of events has quickly shown that faith and charity, which are nourished by prayers, were extinguished in the reform, whereas among Catholics both still nourish all the acts of devotion to God and men, since they are impregnated by the ineffable resources of liturgical prayer as accomplished by the secular and regular clergy, and in which the community of the faithful participate.
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Since Protestantism had to establish a rule in order to distinguish among the papist institutions those which could be the most hostile to its principle, it had to rummage around in the foundations of the Catholic structure to find the corner stone on which everything rests. Its instinct caused it to discover first of all that dogma which is irreconcilable with every innovation: Papal authority. When Luther wrote on his flag: “Hatred for Rome and its laws”, he only promulgated once more the underlying principle of every branch of the anti-liturgical sect. From then on he had to abrogate, ‘en masse’ both cult and ceremonies as the idolatries of Rome. The Latin language, the Divine Office, the calendar, the breviary: all were abominations of the great Harlot of Babylon. The Roman Pontiff weighs down reason by his dogmas and the sense by his ritual practices. Therefore, it must be proclaimed that his dogmas are only blasphemy and error, and his liturgical observances nothing but a means of establishing more firmly a usurped and tyrannical domination. (. . .)
One should here bring to mind the marvelous reflections of Joseph de Maistre in his book The Pope, where he demonstrates with so much wisdom and depth that, in spite of the disagreement which should isolate the diay aent sects, there is one thing in which they are all alike, namely, they are non-Roman.
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The anti-liturgical heresy needed, in order to establish its reign for good, the destruction in fact and in principle of all priesthood in Christianity. For it felt that where there is a Pontiff, there is an Altar, and where there is an Altar there is a sacrifice and the carrying on of a mysterious ceremonial.
Having abolished the office of Supreme Pontiff, they had to annihilate the character of the bishopric, from which emanates the mystical imposition of hands, which perpetuates the sacred hierarchy. From this derives a great presbyterianism, which is nothing other than the immediate consequence of the suppression of the Supreme Pontiff. From now on there is no longer a priest, properly speaking. How could simple election without consecration make a man sacred? Luther’s and Calvin’s reforms only know of ministers of God, or of men, as you prefer. But this is not enough. Chosen and established by laymen, bringing into the temple the robe of a certain bastard ministry, the minister is nothing but a layman clothed with accidental functions. In Protestantism there exit only laymen, and this necessarily so, since there is no longer a Liturgy. (. . .)
Such are the principal maxims of the anti-liturgical sect. We certainly did not exaggerate in any way. All we did was to reveal the hundred times professed doctrines of the writings of Luther, Calvin, the One Hundred Signers of Magdeburg, of Hospinien, Kemnitz, etc. These books are easy to consult. That is to say that what comes out of them is under the eyes of all the world. We thought it useful to throw light on the principal features of sectarianism. It is always profitable to know error.
It is now up to the Catholic logician to draw the conclusions.
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