Quote:The chairmen of the British and Australian foreign affairs and intelligence committees, Tom ­Tugendhat and James Paterson, say the document raises major concerns about China’s lack of transparency over the origins of COVID-19.

The Chinese-language paper, titled The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons, outlines China’s progress in the research field of biowarfare.

“Following developments in other scientific fields, there have been major advances in the delivery of biological agents,” it states.

“For example, the new-found ability to freeze-dry micro-organisms has made it possible to store biological agents and aerosolise them during attacks.”

Ten of the authors are scientists and weapons experts affiliated with the Air Force Medical ­University in Xi’an, ranked “very high-risk” for its level of defence research, including its work on medical and psychological sciences, according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s ­Defence Universities Tracker.

Quote:The study also examines the optimum conditions under which to release a bioweapon. “Bioweapon attacks are best conducted during dawn, dusk, night or cloudy weather because intense sunlight can damage the pathogens,” it states. “Biological agents should be released during dry weather. Rain or snow can cause the aerosol particles to precipitate.

“A stable wind direction is ­desirable so that the aerosol can float into the target area.”

Among the most bizarre claims by the military scientists is their theory that SARS-CoV-1, the virus that caused the SARS epidemic of 2003, was a man-made bioweapon, deliberately unleashed on China by “terrorists”. -The Australian

Quote:Nereus and Achilleus, brothers, were in the service of Flavia Domitilla, and were baptized, together with her and her mother Plautilla, by St. Peter. They persuaded Domitilla to consecrate her virginity to God; in consequence of which, they were accused of being Christians, by Aurelian to whom she was betrothed. They made an admirable confession of their Faith, and were banished to the Isle of Pontia. There they were once again examined, and were condemned to be flogged. They were, shortly afterwards, taken to Terracina; and, by orders of Minucius Rufus, were hoisted on the rack and tormented with burning torches. On their resolutely declaring that, having been baptized by blessed Peter the Apostle, no tortures should ever induce them to offer sacrifice to idols, they were beheaded. Their bodies were taken to Rome, by their disciple Auspicius, Domitilla’s tutor, and were buried on the Ardeantine Way.

Flavia Domitilla, a Roman lady, and niece of the Emperors Titus and Domitian, received the holy veil of virginity from the blessed Pope Clement. She was accused of being a Christian, by Aurelian, to whom she was promised in marriage, and who was a son of the Consul Titus Aurelius. The Emperor Domitian banished her to the Isle of Pontia, where she suffered a long martyrdom in prison. She was finally taken to Terracina, where she again confessed Christ. Finding that her constancy was not to be shaken, the judge ordered the house where she lodged to be set on fire; and thus she, together with two virgins, her foster-sisters, Theodora and Euphrosyna, completed her glorious martyrdom, on the ninth of the nones of May (May 7th), during the reign of the Emperor Trajan. Their bodies were found entire, and were buried by a Deacon, named Cæsarius. But this is the day on which the bodies of the two brothers and that of Domitilla were translated from the Diaconia of Saint Adrian to the Basilica, called Fasciola.

• Stronger – a new national campaign formed by an “ever-growing number of public and private sector partners” including PGP, Google and BIO. “Whether it’s vaccine misinformation or climate change denial, we’re seeing a dangerous strain of anti-science rhetoric growing online,” its website says. “Our aim is to cut through the noise and normalize the truth.”
  

• BIO – Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), the world’s largest biotech advocacy association representing member companies including vaccine manufacturers Pfizer Inc., Moderna Therapeutics Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Janssen Biotech, and GlaxoSmithKline as well as big agriculture companies like Monsanto along with academic institutions and “related organizations.”
  

• Project RCAID – created by PGP for “Rapid Collection Analysis Interpretation and Dissemination” – provides “real-time media monitoring with daily analyses from public health experts.”
  

• Zignal Labs – a “media intelligence platform” to “craft messages” and “take control of threatening narratives before they emerge.”
  

• Family Health International or FHI 360 – an organization that uses “social psychology, anthropology, behavioral economics, social marketing, and other behavioral sciences” to effect behavior change. It has received tens of millions from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to “create demand for long-acting contraceptives” in poor countries. Its donors also include the CDC, the World Bank, and vaccine-maker Johnson & Johnson. It’s now in the business of creating COVID-19 vaccine demand, too.
  

• “Effective campaigning against vaccine misinformation should focus on the dangers of the disease” and “draw on the powerful motivator of fear of loss along with the possibility of gain of positive health”
  

• “Appeal to emotions since data alone will not be enough.”
  

• Do not put adverse events at the center of  “demand creation efforts” but “be sure to contextualize them” and help audiences understand that “most will be rare and of limited duration.”
  

• “Any media management and engagement strategy that is developed will need to include proactive, rolling media briefings, story generation, editorial feeds…and will also need to include 24/7 media monitoring and rebuttal/correction systems.”
  

• Authorities should have “agreements in place” about “how and when misleading information and advocates of such information should be removed and flagged as being problematic on social media.”
  

• Repeat “positive messaging that emphasizes the protective (individual, family, and community) benefits of the vaccine and the loss associated with not being vaccinated (death, poor health, loss of freedom and social solidarity, inability to travel” etc.)
  

• “Partner” with the pharmaceutical industry, other for-profits, and NGOs to promote vaccines.
  

• “Seek interventions” with key leaders in the anti-vaccination community and “seek to turn such informants into advocates for vaccination.”
  

• “Continue to promote other protective behaviors such as handwashing and physical distancing.”
  

• “Integrate financial and non-financial incentives… along with penalties for non-compliance by imposing restrictions on travel, education, or employment.”
  

• “Governments will need to deliver and communicate what mix of incentives and penalty interventions will be used to promote demand.”
  

• “Leverage anticipated regret in communications.” For example, by “asking people how they would feel if they do not get vaccinated and end up contracting COVID-19 or transmitting it to loved ones.”
  

• “Emphasize the social benefits.” Tell people that “vaccination not only benefits the individual” but builds “herd” or “population immunity”
  

• “Putting emphasis on the economic benefits, such as being able to stay in the workforce and provide for one’s family, might also encourage vaccination”
  

• “Manage expectations.” Since vaccine uptake may be “undermined by COVID-19 vaccines being not fully effective, meaning that people will have to continue to engage in preventive behaviour (e.g. maskwearing and physical distancing) even if and after they have been vaccinated.” 
  

• Emphasize danger of disease. “If people perceive that they are at low risk of contracting COVID-19, or that the consequences of becoming infected will not be severe, they will be less willing to get vaccinated.”
  

• Downplay dangers of vaccination and adverse events. “Some people may try to compare the risk of getting infected with that of taking a new vaccine, and determine that between the two, the risk of COVID-19 is lower.” Adverse events are “often inevitable when large numbers of people get vaccinated in a short period of time.” Neutralize the blow by “communicating proactively about uncertainty” and risk of vaccine-associated disability and death.
  

Quote:Antoninus was born at Florence of respectable parents. He gave great promise, even when quite a child, of his after sanctity. Having at the age of sixteen, entered the Religious Order of Friars Preachers, he at once became an object of admiration, by the practice of the highest virtues. He declared ceaseless war against idleness. After taking a short sleep at night, he was the first at the Office of Matins; which over, he spent the remainder of the night in prayer, or reading, or writing. If at times, he felt himself oppressed with unwelcome sleep, owing to fatigue, he would lean his head, for a while, against the wall, and then, shaking off the drowsiness, he resumed his holy vigils with renewed earnestness.

Being a most rigid observer of Religious discipline, he never ate flesh-meat, save in the case of severe illness. His bed was the ground, or a naked board. He always wore a hair shirt, and sometimes an iron girdle next to his skin. He observed the strictest chastity during his whole life. Such was his prudence in giving counsel, that he went under the name of Antoninus the Counsellor. He so excelled in humility, that, even when Prior and Provincial, he used to fulfill, with the utmost self-abjection, the lowest duties of the Monastery. He was made Archbishop of Florence by Pope Eugenius the Fourth. Great was his reluctance to accept such a dignity; nor would he have consented, had it not been out of fear of incurring the spiritual penalties wherewith he was threatened by the Pope.

It would be difficult to describe the prudence, piety, charity, meekness and apostolic zeal, wherewith he discharged his episcopal office. He learned almost all the sciences to perfection, and, what is surprising, he accomplished this by his own extraordinary talent, without having any master to teach him. Finally, after many labors, and after having published several learned books, he fell sick. Having received the Holy Eucharist and Extreme Unction, embracing the Crucifix, he joyfully welcomed death, on the sixth of the Nones of May (May 10th), in the year 1459. He was illustrious for the miracles which he wrought during his life, as also for those which followed after his death. He was canonized by Adrian the Sixth, in the year of our Lord 1523.

Quote:Again it is the Apostle St. James the Less, who speaks to us in today’s Epistle; and could any words be more appropriate? One of the motives for the institution of the Rogation Days is the obtaining from God the blessing of weather favourable to the fruits of the earth; and St. James here adduces the example of Elias, to show us that prayer can stay or bring down the rain of heaven. Let us imitate the faith of this Prophet, and beg of our heavenly Father to give and preserve what we require for our nourishment. Another object of the Rogations is the obtaining the forgiveness of sin. If we pray with fervour for our brethren who are gone astray, we shall obtain for them the graces they stand in need of. We shall perhaps never know, during this life, them whom our prayer, united with the prayer of the Church, shall have converted from the horror of their way; but the Apostle assures us, that our charity will receive a rich reward,—the mercy of God upon ourselves.

Quote:Could anything show us the all-powerfulness of Prayer more clearly than do these words of our Gospel? By thus putting them before us, holy Church shows us the importance of the Rogation Days, since it is during them that she shows us the efficacy of supplication, which triumps over the refusal of God himself. The reader, who has followed us thus far in our Work, must have observed how the passages of Holy Writ, selected by the Liturgy, form a continued series of instruction appropriate to each day. During these three days, we are labouring to appease the anger of heaven; could there be a more fitting occasion for our being told that God cannot resist persevering prayer? The Litanies we have been chanting in Process are a model of this holy obstinancy, or, as our Gospel terms it, this importunity, of Prayer. How often did we not repeat the same words! Lord, have mercy on us!—Deliver us, O Lord!—We beseech thee, hear us! The divine Paschal Lamb, who is about to be offered on our Altar, will mediate for us; a few moments hence, and he will unite and join his ever efficacious intercession with our poor prayers. With such a pledge as this, we shall leave the holy place, feeling sure that these prayers have not been made in vain. Let us, therefore, make a resolution to keep aloof no longer from the holy practices of the Church; let us always prefer to pray with her, than to pray by ourselves; she is the Spouse of Jesus, she is our common Mother,—and she always wishes us to take part with her in the prayers she offers up. Besides, is it not for us that she makes these prayers?

Quote:Gregory, a Cappadocian nobleman, surnamed the Theologian, on account of his extraordinary learning in the sacred sciences, was born at Nazianzum in Cappadocia. He, together with St. Basil, went through a complete course of studies at Athens; after which, he applied himself to the study of the Sacred Scriptures. The two friends retired to a monastery, where they spent several years over the Scripture, interpreting it not according to their own views, but by the sense and authority of the earlier Fathers. Owing to their reputation for learning and virtue, they were called to the ministry of preaching the Gospel, and became the spiritual Fathers of many souls.

After Gregory had returned home, he was made Bishop of Sasima, and afterwards administered the Church of Nazianzum. Being called, later on, to govern the Church of Constantinople, which was infected with heresy, he converted it to the Catholic Faith. This success, far from gaining him everyone’s love, excited the envy of a great many. This caused a great division among the Bishops, which led the Saint to resign his See. He said to them those words of the Prophet: “If this tempest be stirred up on my account, cast me into the sea, that you may cease to be tossed.” Whereupon he returned to Nazianzum; and, having got Eulalius made Bishop of that Church, he devoted his whole time to the contemplation of divine things, and to the writing treatises upon them.

He wrote much, both in prose and verse; and in all, there is admirable piety and eloquence. In the opinion of learned and holy men, there is nothing to be found in his writings which is not conformable to true piety and Catholic truth, or which anyone could reasonably call in question. He was a most vigorous defender of the Consubstantiality of the Son of God. No one ever led a more saintly life than he; no one was to be compared to him for eloquence. He led the life of a monk, spending his whole time in solitude, occupied in writing and reading. Having reached a venerable old age, he died during the reign of the emperor Theodosius, and entered into the blessed life of heaven.