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| D.C. Passes Bill to Immunize Children Without Parental Knowledge, Consent |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-30-2020, 06:48 AM - Forum: Against the Children
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D.C. Passes Bill to Immunize Children Without Parental Knowledge, Consent
Conservative Brief | December 29, 2020
Last month, the District of Columbia passed B23-017, a bill that allows children to be vaccinated without the knowledge or consent of their parents, the Washington Post noted.
The “Minor Consent for Vaccinations Amendment Act” permits a child aged 11 years or older “to consent to receive a vaccine where the vaccination is recommended by the United States Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. It also establishes that if a minor is able to comprehend the need for, the nature of, and any significant risks inherent in the medical care then informed consent is established.”
The Post noted: “A bill passed by the D.C. Council on Tuesday would allow children as young as age 11 to obtain vaccinations without their parents’ consent. Under the legislation, if a doctor determines that a minor is capable of informed consent, they would be able to seek government-recommended vaccinations their parents object to on religious grounds. They also could get vaccinated against the human papillomavirus — which is recommended for older children but opposed by some parents because the virus is sexually transmitted and they object to their teenagers having sex.”
The bill not only permits children of this age to provide consent to doctors and other vaccine administrators without a parent’s knowledge or consent, but also requires insurance companies, school administrators, and medical personnel to conceal from parents that their child has been vaccinated.
The legislation mandates (in lines 37–38) that “[p]roviders who administer immunizations under the authority of this subsection shall seek reimbursement, without parental consent, directly from the insurer” rather than involving a parent in this process.
Secondly, it mandates that insurance companies are not to notify parents of such payouts in the standard way. “Insurers shall not send an Explanation of Benefits (EOB) [to the child’s parents] for services provided,” the bill states (line 40).
Finally, B23-017 requires a health care provider to leave part of the immunization record “blank” in order to conceal from parents that their own child has been vaccinated (lines 48–52).
More fundamentally, if this bill becomes law, The Vaccine Reaction warns, “it is clear that minor children will be at risk of being pressured and coerced into getting a COVID-19 vaccine behind their parents’ back.”
V.R. also demonstrates how B23-0171 violates the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 (NCVIA), which requires health care providers to supply parents or guardians with vaccine information from the CDC prior to administering the vaccine to their minor child.
The CDC itself affirms this to be a legal requirement on its website.
According to an “FAQ” question, “Is there a requirement to verify that parents/legal representatives have actually received and reviewed the VIS (Vaccine Information Statement)?,” the answer is “Yes.”
Obviously, V.R. argues, children are “far less likely than an adult parent to understand personal and family medical history, including vaccine reactions,” nor do they “have the same kind of critical thinking skills or emotional maturity required to make a well-informed vaccine benefit-risk decision compared to an adult.”
[Emphasis mine.]
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| The world must prepare for “something that may even be more severe the future.” |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-30-2020, 06:39 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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WHO Official's Latest Comment About COVID-19 Has People Wondering If It's a 'Warning or a Threat'
Townhall | Dec 29, 2020
The Wuhan coronavirus has killed more than a million people worldwide, wreaked havoc on global economies, and upended daily life on a profound level. And yet, the World Health Organization said COVID-19 is “not necessarily the big one.”
“This is a wakeup call,” WHO emergencies chief Michael Ryan said on Monday during a press conference, reports the New York Post. “This pandemic has been very severe.”
He continued: “It has spread around the world extremely quickly and it has affected every corner of this planet, but this is not necessarily the big one.”
Ryan noted that while COVID-19 is “very transmissible, and it kills people… its current case fatality (rate) is reasonably low in comparison to other emerging diseases.”
He added: “The likely scenario is the virus will become another endemic virus that will remain somewhat of a threat, but a very low-level threat in the context of an effective global vaccination program.
“It remains to be seen how well the vaccines are taken up, how close we get to a coverage level that might allow us the opportunity to go for elimination,” he continued. “The existence of a vaccine, even at high efficacy, is no guarantee of eliminating or eradicating an infectious disease. That is a very high bar for us to be able to get over.”
The world must prepare for “something that may even be more severe the future,” he said.
According to Johns Hopkins University, there have been more than 81 million global cases of COVID-19 and over 1.7 million people have died from the novel coronavirus. In the United States, 335,208 deaths have been reported as of Dec. 29.
WHO senior advisor Bruce Aylward said that while progress has been made on the scientific front related to COVID-19, the agency is not fully prepared to fend off another pandemic.
“We are into second and third waves of this virus and we are still not prepared to deal with and mange those,” he said. “So while we are better prepared…we are not fully prepared for this one, let alone the next one.”
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged it is “time now to be really serious.”
Though there has been more awareness, he said “more ambition will be necessary.”
Tedros also praised cooperation on a global level among scientists to help bring the pandemic to an end, citing the two new strains of the virus that Britain and South Africa are now dealing with.
“We are working with scientists in the UK and South Africa who are carrying out epidemiologic and laboratory studies, which will guide next steps,” he said.
“Only if countries are looking and testing effectively will you be able to pick up variants and adjust strategies to cope,” Tedros continued.
And as dozens of countries have now imposed travel restrictions on Britain, Tedros said, “we must ensure that countries are not punished for transparently sharing new scientific findings.”
One Twitter user commented, “It will never end until the people refuse to have it continue.” Others wondered if it meant China has "something bigger planned." Some questioned whether it was a "warning or a threat."
[Emphasis mine]
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| Spain to keep register of those who refuse Covid vaccine |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-30-2020, 06:31 AM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
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Coronavirus: Spain to keep register of those who refuse Covid vaccine
BBC | December 29, 2020
Spain is to set up a register of people who refuse to be vaccinated against coronavirus and share it with other European Union nations, the health minister has said.
Salvador Illa said the list would not be made accessible to the public or to employers.
He said the way to defeat the virus was "to vaccinate all of us - the more the better".
Spain has been one of the countries in Europe worst affected by the virus.
It is currently rolling out the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine which was approved for EU member states last week.
In an interview with La Sexta television on Monday, Mr Illa emphasised that vaccination would not be mandatory.
"What will be done is a register, which will be shared with our European partners... of those people who have been offered it and have simply rejected it," he said.
"It is not a document which will be made public and it will be done with the utmost respect for data protection."
He added: "People who are offered a therapy that they refuse for any reason, it will be noted in the register... that there is no error in the system, not to have given this person the possibility of being vaccinated."
According to a recent poll, the number of Spanish citizens who have said they will not take the vaccine has fallen to 28% from 47% in November.
In other comments on Monday, Mr Illa said people would be contacted by regional authorities when it was their turn to be inoculated.
"People who decide not to get vaccinated, which we think is a mistake, are within their rights," he told reporters. "We are going to try to solve doubts. Getting vaccinated saves lives, it is the way out of this pandemic."
The number of people who have died from Covid-19 in Spain rose above the 50,000 mark on Monday. The country has registered more than 1.8 million infections during the pandemic.
Spain is under a nationwide curfew, between 23:00 and 06:00, until early May. In many places, people are only allowed out in that period to go to work, buy medicine, or to care for elderly people or children.
Regional leaders can modify curfew times and can also close regional borders for travel.
[Emphasis mine.]
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| December 30th - St. Sabinus and his Companions |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 12-29-2020, 02:59 PM - Forum: December
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Saint Sabinus and his Companions
Bishop of Spoleto and his Companions
Martyrs
(† 303)
When the cruel edicts of Diocletian and Maximin Hercules were published against the Christians in the year 303, it required more than ordinary force in the bishops and clergy, to encourage the people to undergo martyrdom rather than apostatize. All were forbidden even to draw water or grind wheat, if they would not first incense idols placed for that purpose in the markets and on street corners.
Saint Sabinus, Bishop of Spoleto, with Marcellus and Exuperantius, his deacons, and several other members of his clergy who were worthy of their sacred mandate, were apprehended in Assisi for revolt and thrown into prison by Venustianus, Governor of Etruria and Umbria. He summoned them before him a few days later and required that they adore his idol of Jupiter, richly adorned with gold. The holy bishop took up the idol and threw it down, breaking it in pieces. The prefect, furious, had his hands cut off and his deacons tortured on the rack and burnt with torches until they expired.
Saint Sabinus was put back into prison for a time. He was aided there by a Christian widow of rank, who brought her blind nephew to him there to be cured. Fifteen prisoners who witnessed this splendid miracle were converted to the Faith. The prefect left the bishop in peace for a month, because he himself was suffering from a painful eye ailment. He heard of the miracle and came to the bishop in prison with his wife and two sons, to ask him for help in his affliction. Saint Sabinus answered that if Venustianus would believe in Jesus Christ and be baptized with his wife and children, he would obtain that grace for him. The officer consented, they were baptized, and he threw into the river the pieces of his broken statue. Soon all the new converts gave their lives for having confessed the Gospel, sentenced by Lucius, whom Maximus Hercules sent to Spoleto after hearing of their decision, to judge and condemn them.
As for Saint Sabinus, he was beaten so cruelly that on December 7, 303, he expired under the blows. The charitable widow, Serena, after seeing to his honorable burial near the city, was also crowned with martyrdom. A basilica was later built at the site of the bishop's tomb, and a number of monasteries in Italy were consecrated under his illustrious name.
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| Soviet Politics, American Style |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-29-2020, 10:18 AM - Forum: Socialism & Communism
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Soviet Politics, American Style
A propagandistic press, the crushing of academic freedom and the shattering of family loyalties.
Young Communists saluting as they pass Lenin’s Tomb in the U.S.S.R., May 1, 1924.
Wall Street Journal | Dec. 22, 2020
[This is clearly a secular article: it summarizes issues in a purely secular context and, as usual, stops short of the true spiritual remedy but it is an interesting summation nonetheless. - The Catacombs]
On Christmas Day 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev, president of the Soviet Union, gave his farewell speech and more than seven decades of Russian revolutionary socialism came to an end. A generation later, the spirit of the Soviet Union has re-emerged with mass support in the U.S.
When I arrived in Moscow in 1976 to begin a six-year stint as a correspondent, I was struck by the red flags flying from government buildings and the somber streets devoid of advertising except for garish posters showing workers with clenched fists demanding an end to the arms race.
When the Soviet Union fell, it seemed the Soviet attempt to impose a deluded version of reality had died with it. Francis Fukuyama, in his 1989 essay “The End of History,” said that Marxism-Leninism was doomed as an alternative to liberal democracy. I argued at the time that the drive to make a religion out of politics had not disappeared.
For the past four years, potted histories have warned about the rise of fascism in the U.S. But the real danger is the transformation of “tolerance” into an ideology with its own courts, informers and punishments, all of them reminiscent of the Soviet Union.
One of the pillars of the Soviet Union was a controlled press in which all coverage was organized to confirm a mendacious ideology.
A friend of mine in Moscow, Vladimir Fyodorov, went to work for the TASS news service, which offered readers not news but a “correct” depiction of events, especially regarding the U.S. and the “ulcers of capitalism”—racism, crime and unemployment.
On his first day at TASS, Vladimir was handed a United Press International story about a U.S. company that was promoting a high-quality tire and offered to replace older tires free of charge. Vladimir wanted to kill the story but his boss rewrote it. The new version read: “In the crafty capitalist market, firms frequently offer low-quality products. This is why a well-known American firm was forced to replace tires that were of inferior quality.” The headline was “Deception of Buyer.”
A few weeks later, Vladimir was given a report that prisons in Fiji were so comfortable that people preferred to stay there than to be at liberty. He produced a report that life in Fiji was so unbearable that people preferred to live in prison. His colleagues congratulated him. He told himself: “I’m going to go out of my mind here.”
Soviet practices would have once been unthinkable in the U.S. media. But in August 2016, Jim Rutenberg, media columnist for the New York Times, wrote that if journalists believed that Mr. Trump was a “demagogue playing to the nation’s worst racist and nationalist tendencies,” it was necessary to “throw out the textbook of American journalism.” The Times started to characterize Mr. Trump’s statements as “lies” in news stories and suppress news that worked to Mr. Trump’s advantage, such as the Hunter Biden story this fall.
The Times also advanced an ideological account of U.S. history, according to which the American Revolution was undertaken to defend slavery, and promoted it over the objections of historians and the paper’s own fact-checkers.
The Soviet system also relied on the complete liquidation of academic freedom. Marxism-Leninism was treated as a perfect science. But the ideology raised obvious questions: In a “classless society,” why were there special stores for officials? If socialism ended war, why did the Soviet Union and China go to war in 1969 over Damansky Island?
If a student tried to raise these questions, he was expelled from the Komsomol, the communist youth league. That ended any hope of a career. I knew a young man in Moscow who refused to be intimidated and continued to ask questions. He was committed to a mental hospital.
The Soviet style has become a reality in the U.S. Speakers are routinely canceled on ideological grounds: In July the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbour, Maine, canceled a virtual talk with Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society because of “the moment of reckoning our society is going through.” At my alma mater, the University of Chicago, the English department announced that it would “only accept applicants interested in working in and with Black Studies.”
The Soviet Union finally counted on the readiness of people to betray even family and friends. The regime held up Pavel Morozov (1918-32) as a martyr. He lived in a village in the Urals when the regime was collectivizing agriculture. When Pavel learned that his father was helping peasants hide grain, he walked 35 miles to the nearest town to report him to the secret police. His father was arrested and Pavel was stabbed to death by relatives.
I thought of Pavel Morozov when I read a June op-ed in the New York Times by Chad Sanders, a black writer. He told his white friends that he didn’t need their “love texts” and suggested that instead they cut off contact with family members until they sent money to Black Lives Matter or joined their protests.
When Mr. Gorbachev began the reforms that destroyed the Soviet Union, he said, referring to the U.S.: “We’re going to do something terrible to you. We’re going to deprive you of an enemy.” Twenty-nine years later, it’s clear he was right. Without the ideological challenge of the Soviet Union, we have become immersed in internal conflicts and have made an ideology out of them.
It is true that Marxism is a more coherent system of thought than “wokeism.” But even an intellectual hodgepodge can engender totalitarian habits if it fulfills an emotional need and becomes a device of interpretation.
The antidote is fidelity to higher values. But that requires a moral seriousness that a world at peace and in thrall to superficialities does not inspire. “The West does not know and does not want to know what shaped it,” writes Cardinal Robert Sarah, a Guinean prelate. “This self-asphyxiation leads to new barbaric civilizations.”
The Soviet Union is dead, but its ghost wanders an unsettled world. Finding a lodestar for society’s moral development is the most important challenge facing the U.S. today.
Mr. Satter is author of “Age of Delirium: the Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union” and a member of the academic advisory board of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
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| Trump: Proclamation on 850th Anniversary of the Martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-29-2020, 08:10 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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Proclamation on 850th Anniversary of the Martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket
Issued on: December 28, 2020
White House.gov
Today is the 850th anniversary of the martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket on December 29, 1170. Thomas Becket was a statesman, a scholar, a chancellor, a priest, an archbishop, and a lion of religious liberty.
Before the Magna Carta was drafted, before the right to free exercise of religion was enshrined as America’s first freedom in our glorious Constitution, Thomas gave his life so that, as he said, “the Church will attain liberty and peace.”
The son of a London sheriff and once described as “a low‑born clerk” by the King who had him killed, Thomas Becket rose to become the leader of the church in England. When the crown attempted to encroach upon the affairs of the house of God through the Constitutions of Clarendon, Thomas refused to sign the offending document. When the furious King Henry II threatened to hold him in contempt of royal authority and questioned why this “poor and humble” priest would dare defy him, Archbishop Becket responded “God is the supreme ruler, above Kings” and “we ought to obey God rather than men.”
Because Thomas would not assent to rendering the church subservient to the state, he was forced to forfeit all his property and flee his own country. Years later, after the intervention of the Pope, Becket was allowed to return — and continued to resist the King’s oppressive interferences into the life of the church. Finally, the King had enough of Thomas Becket’s stalwart defense of religious faith and reportedly exclaimed in consternation: “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”
The King’s knights responded and rode to Canterbury Cathedral to deliver Thomas Becket an ultimatum: give in to the King’s demands or die. Thomas’s reply echoes around the world and across the ages. His last words on this earth were these: “For the name of Jesus and the protection of the Church, I am ready to embrace death.” Dressed in holy robes, Thomas was cut down where he stood inside the walls of his own church.
Thomas Becket’s martyrdom changed the course of history. It eventually brought about numerous constitutional limitations on the power of the state over the Church across the West. In England, Becket’s murder led to the Magna Carta’s declaration 45 years later that: “[T]he English church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished and its liberties unimpaired.”
When the Archbishop refused to allow the King to interfere in the affairs of the Church, Thomas Becket stood at the intersection of church and state. That stand, after centuries of state-sponsored religious oppression and religious wars throughout Europe, eventually led to the establishment of religious liberty in the New World. It is because of great men like Thomas Becket that the first American President George Washington could proclaim more than 600 years later that, in the United States, “All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship” and that “it is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.”
Thomas Becket’s death serves as a powerful and timeless reminder to every American that our freedom from religious persecution is not a mere luxury or accident of history, but rather an essential element of our liberty. It is our priceless treasure and inheritance. And it was bought with the blood of martyrs.
As Americans, we were first united by our belief that “rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God” and that defending liberty is more important than life itself. If we are to continue to be the land of the free, no government official, no governor, no bureaucrat, no judge, and no legislator must be allowed to decree what is orthodox in matters of religion or to require religious believers to violate their consciences. No right is more fundamental to a peaceful, prosperous, and virtuous society than the right to follow one’s religious convictions. As I declared in Krasiński Square in Warsaw, Poland on July 6, 2017, the people of America and the people of the world still cry out: “We want God.”
On this day, we celebrate and revere Thomas Becket’s courageous stand for religious liberty and we reaffirm our call to end religious persecution worldwide. In my historic address to the United Nations last year, I made clear that America stands with believers in every country who ask only for the freedom to live according to the faith that is within their own hearts. I also stated that global bureaucrats have absolutely no business attacking the sovereignty of nations that wish to protect innocent life, reflecting the belief held by the United States and many other countries that every child — born and unborn — is a sacred gift from God. Earlier this year, I signed an Executive Order to prioritize religious freedom as a core dimension of United States foreign policy. We have directed every Ambassador — and the over 13,000 United States Foreign Service officers and specialists — in more than 195 countries to promote, defend, and support religious freedom as a central pillar of American diplomacy.
We pray for religious believers everywhere who suffer persecution for their faith. We especially pray for their brave and inspiring shepherds — like Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong and Pastor Wang Yi of Chengdu — who are tireless witnesses to hope.
To honor Thomas Becket’s memory, the crimes against people of faith must stop, prisoners of conscience must be released, laws restricting freedom of religion and belief must be repealed, and the vulnerable, the defenseless, and the oppressed must be protected. The tyranny and murder that shocked the conscience of the Middle Ages must never be allowed to happen again. As long as America stands, we will always defend religious liberty.
A society without religion cannot prosper. A nation without faith cannot endure — because justice, goodness, and peace cannot prevail without the grace of God.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim December 29, 2020, as the 850th anniversary of the martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket. I invite the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches and customary places of meeting with appropriate ceremonies in commemoration of the life and legacy of Thomas Becket.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-eighth day of December, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.
DONALD J. TRUMP
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| Austrian Lawmaker Tests Coca Cola for COVID Infection: Drink Tests Positive |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-29-2020, 07:47 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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Austrian Lawmaker Tests Coca Cola for COVID Infection Before His Colleagues and Drink Tests Positive
Gateway Pundit | December 28, 2020
Austrian FPO lawmaker Michael Schnedlitz administered a COVID19 PCR test to a glass of Coca-Cola during a session of parliament earlier this month.
The soft drink, unfortunately, tested positive for the coronavirus.
Austrian FPÖ Member of Parliament Michael Schnedlitz administered a COVID-19 PCR test to the beverage Coca Cola in the plenum before his colleagues. The popular drink tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus.
He said he was performing the test live before parliament: “so you can see how worthless and misguided these mass tests are.”
He continued: “The evidence is overwhelming, starting with the absolutely absurd mass tests that are currently being carried out, which are nothing more than a large-scale redistribution of tens of millions of euros in tax money from the population…it can’t go on like this.”
Schnedlitz later wrote on his Facebook page: “The coronavirus mass tests are worthless! This was also shown by a simple experiment in parliament, in which cola got a positive result! But this government spends tens of millions in taxpayers’ money for precisely these tests.”
[Emphasis mine.]
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| December 29th - St. Thomas Becket |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 12-28-2020, 11:14 PM - Forum: December
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Saint Thomas Becket
Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr
(1117-1170)
Saint Thomas, son of an English nobleman, Gilbert Becket, was born on the day consecrated to the memory of Saint Thomas the Apostle, December 21, 1117, in Southwark, England. He was endowed by both nature and grace with gifts recommending him to his fellow men; and his father, certain he would one day be a great servant of Christ, confided his education to a monastery. His first employment was in the government of the London police. There he was obliged to learn the various rights of the Church and of the secular arm, but already he saw so many injustices imposed upon the clergy that he preferred to leave that employment rather than to participate in iniquity. He was perfectly chaste and truthful, and no snares could cause to waver his hatred for any form of covert action.
He was employed then by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who sent him on missions to Rome and permitted him to study civil law at the University of Bologna (Italy) for an entire year. After a few years, witnessing his perfect service, he made him his Archdeacon and endowed him with several benefices. The young cleric's virtue and force soon recommended him also to the king, who made of him his Lord Chancellor. In that high office, while inflexible in the rendition of justice, he was generous and solicitous for the relief of misery. He was severe towards himself, spending the better part of every night in prayer. He often employed a discipline, to be less subject to the revolts of the flesh against the spirit. In a war with France he won the respect of his enemies, including that of the young king Louis VII. To Saint Thomas, his own sovereign, Henry II, confided the education of the crown prince. Of the formation of the future king and the young lords who composed his suite, the Chancellor took extreme care, knowing well that the strength of a State depends largely on the early impressions received by the elite of its youth.
When Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury died, the king insisted on the consecration of Saint Thomas in his stead. Saint Thomas at first declined, warning the king that from that hour their friendship would be threatened by his own obligations to uphold the rights of the Church against infringement by the sovereign, whose tendencies were not different from those of his predecessors. In the end he was obliged by obedience to yield. The inevitable conflict was not long in coming. Saint Thomas resisted when the king's courtiers drew up a list of royal customs at Clarendon, where the parliament of the king was assembled, and Henry obliged all the bishops as well as the lords to sign a promise to uphold these without permitting any restrictions whatsoever. Many of these pretended customs violated the liberties of the Church, and some were even invented for the occasion. Saint Thomas, obliged in conscience to resist, was soon the object of persecution, not only from the irritated king but by all who had sworn loyalty to his nefarious doings.
Saint Thomas took refuge in France under the protection of the generous Louis VII, who resisted successfully the repeated efforts of Henry to turn away his favor from the Archbishop. The Pope at that time was in France, and he, too, was besieged by Henry's emissaries, but knew well how to pacify minds and protect the defender of the Church. Thomas retired to a Benedictine monastery for two years, and when Henry wrote a threatening letter to its abbot, moved to another. After six years, his office restored as the Pope's apostolic legate, a title which Henry had wrested from him for a time, he returned to England, to preach again and enforce order in his see. He knew well that it was to martyrdom that he was destined; it is related that the Mother of God appeared to him in France to foretell it to him, and that She presented him for that intention with a red chasuble. By this time the persecuted Archbishop's case was known to all of Christian Europe, which sympathized with him and elicited from king Henry an appearance of conciliation.
A few words which the capricious Henry spoke to certain courtiers who hated Thomas, sufficed for the latter to decide to do away with the prelate who contravened all their unchristian doings. They violated a monastic cloister and chapel to enter there while he was assisting at Vespers; the Saint himself prevented the monks from resisting the assassins at the door. Refusing to flee the church as the assassins summoned him to do, he was slain before the altar, by cruel and murderous repeated blows on the head. He died, saying: I die willingly, for the name of Jesus and for the defense of the Church.
The actions of the Pope in this conflict make clear what all of history teaches: the lives of the Church's Saints themselves comprise the history of the world. The humility of Thomas had prompted him, after a moment of weakness he had manifested in a difficult situation, to judge himself unfit for his office and offer his resignation as Archbishop. The Pope did not hesitate a moment in refusing his resignation. He judged with apostolic wisdom that if Thomas should be deprived of his rank for having opposed the unjust pretensions of the English royalty, no bishop would ever dare oppose the impingements of iniquity on the Church's rights, and the Spouse of Christ would be no longer sustained by marble columns, but by reeds bending in the wind.
The martyred Archbishop was canonized by Pope Alexander III on Ash Wednesday, 1173, not yet three years after his death on December 29, 1170, to the edification of the entire Church.
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| World Economic Forum proposes app that gives “legal ID” to over 1 billion people |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-28-2020, 07:56 AM - Forum: Great Reset
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World Economic Forum proposes app that gives “legal ID” to over 1 billion people
A global catalog of people.
Source | December 27, 2020
There’s nothing the likes of the World Economic Forum (WEF) likes less than people who are not properly “cataloged” inside the system – and one obvious and easy way to do that is to have them open a bank account.
That pulls in, thanks to the now pretty much a global exchange of banking information, a wealth of personal data, especially if these people want to get a loan – which appears as the “carrot” at the end of this “stick” write up that was published on the WEF website.
Anyone strapped for cash and not minding entering the indentured servitude to legacy fiat money financial institutions, must first make themselves fully visible to their future creditors and “owners.” Another use for having an internationally recognized ID is if you plan on becoming a refugee, or an asylum seeker in another country, and the report touches on that.
But the author laments that “a billion people” on this planet are yet to be issued with an ID that allows them either of these things – “or even vote or get health care.”
But now, apparently, a new app might change all that.
The WEF is citing data from the World Bank – that, despite its name, is an institution that is run by a handful of the world’s most powerful economies, often to the detriment of precisely the “Third World” native economies that the initiatives like the “universal” ID say they now seek to help.
And if you don’t believe the WEF or the World Bank when they tell you something’s good – well, then there’s the authority of the United Nations (UN):
Quote:“Ensuring everyone has a legal identity, including birth registration, by 2030 is one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It prompted the World Bank to launch its Identification for Development (ID4D) initiative in 2014.”
Now the app – referred to as “Thompson’s app” (with no link) – is said to be a blockchain-based thing, thus safe from “identity interference” – while allowing people in “emerging” economies to use their phones for their finances – because most of those people unfortunately cannot afford an actual computer (the choice of the operating system becomes crucial here – as those limited to phones only really have two.)
The WEF report is full of praise for the tech, and even human-interest stories (like “blockchain” babies born in Tanzania… ) – but without actually delving any deeper into what “blockchain (that) preserves the user’s digital identity from interference” means here, or how it works.
What is revealed, is that the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship is supporting the idea.
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| The 'new strain' of COVID propaganda: 'Nothing more than baseless, menacing propaganda' |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-28-2020, 07:49 AM - Forum: Pandemic 2020 [Secular]
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The 'new strain' of COVID propaganda
The unaccountable elite justify their failures to “stop the spread,” while continuing an unabated power grab.
Politicians and “public health experts” around the world are using faulty models on a new variant of the novel coronavirus in order to cover for their failures in stopping its spread, while simultaneously leveraging the issue to demand renewed lockdowns and other punishing restrictions. Not much is known about the so-called “new strain” of the virus, but that hasn’t stopped the ruling class from using it to their advantage.
The latest narrative, which is being used as a vector for endless amounts of COVID-19 panic and fear mongering, is related to the claim that there is a new mutation of the novel coronavirus spreading, which is claimed to be much more contagious — a claimed 70%(!) increase in transmissibility — than the original dominant variant.
Here’s the problem with that claim: it’s based solely on a single model put together by a team of epidemiologists with a track record of failure. There is no actual evidence that the new variant of the coronavirus is any more or less transmissible or deadly than previous strains.
The 70% projection was first brought to our attention by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who, in a panicked address before his nation, appeared to blame the mutation for his government’s failure to “stop the spread” of the coronavirus through brutal draconian restrictions. He used the “new mutation” excuse to justify both his failures, and his doubling down on “tier 4” lockdowns to try to “stop the spread” of the new variant.
BREAKING: New Covid restrictions could be announced as soon as tomorrow after Boris Johnson was handed alarming new evidence of the virulence of a mutant new strain. PM in a meeting now. Telegraph exclusive by @amylouisejones and @gordonrayner nullExclusive: Alarming new evidence on coronavirus mutation could bring tougher restrictionsThe Prime Minister called an unscheduled meeting of senior ministers on Friday night to discuss how to contain the new varianttelegraph.co.uk
Johnson’s panicked address frightened the heads of state in other countries to such an extent that dozens of nations immediately instituted travel bans on the United Kingdom, with the hopes of attempting to stop this new coronavirus variant.
The U.S. does not have plans for U.K. travel ban as a new Covid-19 strain pushes more than 40 countries to halt arrivals from Britain on.forbes.com/6018HRYg0 December 21st 2020
In the United States, the “new strain” presented a golden opportunity for pro-lockdown politicians and “public health experts” to push for further restrictions in the name of curbing a virus.
MSNBC @MSNBC
“New York is not going to wait for the federal government to protect New Yorkers. We made that mistake back in the spring,” New York Gov. Cuomo on a nationwide restriction on flights coming from the UK as a new strain of Covid-19 impacts the country. nullGov. Cuomo: ‘Gross negligence’ for federal government not to restrict flights from U.K.New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for a nationwide restriction on flights coming from the United Kingdom as a new strain of Covid-19 impacts the country. While working with airlines to impose such a restriction for New York, the governor said it was “gross negligence” for the federal government not …on.msnbc.com December 27th 2020
British media has reported Boris Johnson received his 70% more transmissible statistic from a single source, Erik Volz, an epidemiologist in his mid 30s who is currently a member of Imperial College London’s epidemiology department.
ICYMI: Q&A on the new #COVID19 virus variant with WHO, @CovidGenomicsUK & @sangerinstitute experts
If Imperial College sounds familiar, that’s because the British institution is now infamous for its “plague of the century” epidemiological model for COVID-19, which projected that millions of Americans, and hundreds of millions of people worldwide, would die from the coronavirus in a matter of months. The Imperial model (which, again, was a mere projection of potential outcomes, and it used wildly inaccurate fatality and transmission data) was credited by The New York Times and other major publications with “jarring” the world into action and instituting brutal mitigation and suppression measures.
Neil Ferguson, the leader of Imperial College London’s COVID-19 response team, recently resigned from his top COVID-19 advisory role with the British government, following revelations that he was breaking the lockdown to meet up with his married lover. However, Ferguson reportedly played a pivotal role in convincing Boris Johnson to again reinstitute lockdowns over the holiday season. Ferguson has also been in the news for his new series of baseless claims that the new variant has a “higher propensity to infect children.”
In a presentation last week as part of the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium, Volz explained how he was in the “early stages” of his thought process on the new mutation, and has admitted that his information, which was transmitted to the world by Boris Johnson, is not particularly useful.
“We’re still basically in the very early stages. We basically have one month of growth,” Volz stated, adding that “the growth rate” in cases of the new variant “does appear to be quite a bit larger,” before again sowing more doubt about his analysis.
Volz continued, warning that “trends you see early on don’t always pan out.”
“It’s really too early to tell, but this is the current state of our knowledge,” Volz adds, in revealing the 70% number of projected increased transmissibility over a compared variant.
Volz and his Neil Ferguson-led team of academics have long remained major proponents of pushing for economic and societal suicide (via lockdowns) in the name of stopping a virus with a 99.9% recovery rate.
In mid September, Volz and his team published a paper claiming that non pharmaceutical interventions, such as lockdowns, helped to stop transmission of the coronavirus. The paper makes clear that his team at Imperial College used cherry-picked data, showing a decline in cases from winter to spring, that did not at all account for the seasonal dynamics of transmissibility. There is no hard evidence to date that non pharmaceutical interventions, such as lockdowns and curfews, work to stop the spread of a coronavirus.
Many in the scientific community have started to push back at the COVID-19 panic brigade’s push for new restrictions in the name of a more transmissible variant of the coronavirus.
Dr. Eli David @DrEliDavid
"Senior figure in Israeli Ministry of Health: There is no evidence that the British mutation is 70% more contagious. Boris Johnson needed to say that for political reasons, to explain why Covid is spreading there so rapidly." Heh? December 26th 2020
“We are of the opinion that there is nothing in this British type that is more contagious than what we saw in this 'blue virus' this summer. There is nothing dramatic in this virus and if this variant is somewhat more contagious then it is very small.” December 21st 2020
Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the chief medical adviser for the Trump Administration’s Operation Warp Speed, has raised doubts about the evidence-free claims.
"I think, scientifically, to date there is no hard evidence that this virus is actually more transmissible," Slaoui said, adding, "the key point is that there’s no evidence this virus is more pathogenic, creates more problems, more morbidity or mortality than the previous virus."
More uninformed #COVID19 reporting from @nytimesnytimes.com/2020/12/19/wor… there is ZERO evidence that a new variant is more transmissible. The skeptical scientists are correct - the variant was simply introduced and predominates by virtue of the founder effect.
Boris Johnson Tightens U.K. Lockdown, Citing Fast-Spreading Version of VirusThe variant is up to 70 percent more transmissible than earlier versions, officials said. People in southeast England, including London, were told to stay at home.nytimes.com
December 19th 2020
The “new strain” fiasco is nothing more than baseless, menacing propaganda. It presents an excuse — and a golden dual opportunity — for the unaccountable elite to justify their failures to “stop the spread,” while allowing for their power grab to continue unabated.
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| December 28th - The Holy Innocents |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 12-27-2020, 10:39 PM - Forum: December
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The Holy Innocents
Martyrs at the time of the Nativity of Our Lord
(†1 A.D.)
The wily king Herod, who was reigning in Judea at the time of the birth of Our Saviour, learned from three Wise Men from the East that they had come to Jerusalem, advised by a star in the heavens, in search of the newborn King of the Jews. Herod's superstitious fear of losing his throne was awakened, and he grew troubled. He called together the chief priests, questioned them, and learned from them that the awaited Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, the city of David. He said to the strangers: When you have found Him, bring me word, that I too may go and adore Him.
The star which had guided the Magi re-appeared over Bethlehem, and they found the Infant and adored Him, and offered Him their royal gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, recognizing by these His perfect Divinity, His royalty, and His prophesied sufferings. God warned them in a dream afterwards not to go back to Herod, and they returned to their lands, rejoicing, by a different route. Saint Joseph, too, was warned during his sleep by an Angel to take the Child and His Mother and flee into Egypt, for Herod will seek the life of the Infant.
When Herod realized that the Wise Men would not return, he was furious, and in his rage ordered that every male child in Bethlehem and its vicinity, of the age of two years or less, be slain. These innocent victims were the flowers and first-fruits of the Saviour's legions of martyrs; they triumphed over the world without having ever known it or experienced its dangers.
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| Litany of the Dying |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 12-27-2020, 03:30 PM - Forum: Litanies
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Litany for the Dying
Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us, Christ hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.
God the Father of Heaven, have mercy on this soul.
God, the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on this soul.
God, the Holy Ghost, have mercy on this soul.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on this soul.
Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy on him (her).
Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on him (her).
Jesus, Son of the Virgin Mary, have mercy on him (her).
Merciful Jesus, have mercy on him (her).
Holy Mary, pray for him(her).
Holy Mother of God, pray for him(her).
Holy Virgin of virgins, pray for him(her).
Mother of Christ, pray for him(her).
Mother of divine grace, pray for him(her).
Sorrowful Mother, pray for him(her).
Refuge of Sinners, pray for him(her).
Comforter of the Afflicted, pray for him(her).
Help of Christians, pray for him(her).
Gate of Heaven, pray for him(her).
Queen of all Angels and Saints, pray for him(her).
St. Michael, pray for him(her).
St. Gabriel, pray for him(her).
St. Raphael, pray for him(her).
All ye holy Angels and Archangels, pray for him(her).
All ye choirs of blessed spirits, pray for him(her).
St. Joachim, pray for him(her).
St. Joseph, pray for him(her).
St. John the Baptist, pray for him(her).
All ye holy Patriarchs and Prophets, pray for him(her).
St. Peter, pray for him(her).
St. Paul, pray for him(her).
St. John the Evangelist, pray for him(her).
All ye holy Apostles and Evangelists, pray for him(her).
All ye holy Disciples of the Lord, pray for him(her).
All ye holy Innocents, pray for him(her).
St. Stephen, pray for him(her).
St. Lawrence, pray for him(her).
St. Vincent, pray for him(her).
All ye holy Martyrs, pray for him(her).
St. Sylvester, pray for him(her).
St. Gregory, pray for him(her).
St. Augustine, pray for him(her).
All ye holy Bishops and Confessors, pray for him(her).
St. Benedict, pray for him(her).
St. Francis, pray for him(her).
St. Anthony, pray for him(her).
All ye holy Virgins and Widows, pray for him(her).
All ye saints and chosen ones of God, pray for him(her).
Be merciful unto him (her), spare him (her), O Lord.
Be merciful unto him (her), hear him (her), O Lord.
From Thy wrath, O Lord, deliver him (her).
From well deserved punishments, O Lord, deliver him (her).
From all fears and temptations, O Lord, deliver him (her).
From all impatience and dejection, O Lord, deliver him (her).
From all diffidence and despair, O Lord, deliver him (her).
From all sin, O Lord, deliver him (her).
From excessive dread of death, O Lord, deliver him (her).
From all the enemies of his (her) salvation, O Lord, deliver him (her).
By Thy Incarnation and Birth, so full of graces, O Lord, deliver him (her).
By Thy holy life, O Lord, deliver him (her).
By Thy bitter Passion, O Lord, deliver him (her).
By Thy cruel Death, O Lord, deliver him (her).
By Thy glorious Resurrection and Ascension, O Lord, deliver him (her).
By Thy second advent, when Thou shalt come in majesty to judge mankind, O Lord, deliver him (her).
We, poor sinners, We beseech Thee, hear us!
That Thou have mercy on him (her), We beseech Thee, hear us!
That Thou wouldst lovingly assist him (her), We beseech Thee, hear us!
That Thou wouldst confirm him (her) in faith, We beseech Thee, hear us!
That Thou wouldst strengthen him (her) in hope, We beseech Thee, hear us!
That Thou wouldst inflame him (her) in love, We beseech Thee, hear us!
That Thou wouldst grant him (her) a blessed death, We beseech Thee, hear us!
That Thou wouldst remit to him (her) the punishment of purgatory, We beseech Thee, hear us!
That Thou wouldst receive him (her) without delay into heaven, We beseech Thee, hear us!
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
Let us pray.
O Good and merciful God, hear the humble prayer which, with filial confidence, we present to Thee on behalf of this poor soul. Have pity on him (her)! Behold his (her) great need! Hear his (her) sighs! Behold his (her) pains and grievous death-agony! Behold the danger to his (her) eternal salvation! By the inexhaustible merits of Jesus-Christ, by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and of all the saints, have pity on this Thy creature. Deliver him (her) in this his (her) dire necessity. Purify him (her) from every stain; strengthen him (her) with Thy grace; and permit him (her) to appear before Thy holy face in company with all Thy angels. Allow him (her) to take possession of the kingdom Thou hast prepared for Thy elect from the beginning of the world. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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| February 1st - St. Ignatius of Antioch and St. Brigid of Ireland |
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Posted by: Elizabeth - 12-27-2020, 03:26 PM - Forum: February
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Saint Ignatius of Antioch
Bishop and Martyr
(† 107)
Saint Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, was the disciple of Saint John the Evangelist. Believing that the Church on earth should resemble that of the heavenly Jerusalem of which Saint John wrote in his Apocalypse, he established singing in choirs in his church at Antioch, after a vision of the celestial choirs who sang in that manner. When the emperor Domitian persecuted the Church, Saint Ignatius obtained peace for his own flock by fasting and prayer, although for his own part he desired to suffer with Christ, and to prove himself a perfect disciple.
The Roman emperors often visited Antioch, one of the cities of first importance of the empire. In 107, the eighth year of the reign of the emperor Trajan, he came to Antioch and forced the Christians to choose between apostasy and death. Saint Ignatius, who had already governed that church for forty years, continued to fortify it against apostasy, and did not flee. Arrested and brought before the emperor, the latter addressed him: Who are you, poor devil, to set our commands at naught? Call not poor devil, Ignatius answered, one who bears God within him. And when the emperor asked him what he meant by that, Ignatius explained that he bore in his heart Christ, crucified for his sake. Change your ideas, and I will make you a priest of the great Jupiter, and you will be called father' by the Senate. What could such honors matter to me, a priest of Christ, who offer Him every day a sacrifice of praise, and am ready to offer myself to Him also? To whom? To that Jesus who was crucified by Pontius Pilate? Yes, and with whom sin was crucified, and the devil, its author, vanquished.
The questions and the courageous replies continued for a time that day and also on the following one. Saint Ignatius said, I will not sacrifice; I fear neither torments nor death, because I desire to go quickly to God. Thereupon the emperor condemned him to be torn to pieces by wild beasts in Rome. Saint Ignatius blessed God, who had so honored him, binding him in the same chains as Paul, His apostle. When his people wept, he told them to place their hope in the sovereign Pastor, who never abandons His flock. On passing through the city of Smyrna, he exhorted the faithful, who were grieved at his fate, to remain true to Christ until death, and he gave some of them who were going to Rome a letter for the Christians of the capital of the Christian world. This letter is still extant. He writes: I fear your charity, I fear you have an affection too human for me. You might prevent me from dying, but by so doing, you would oppose my happiness. Suffer me to be immolated while the altar is ready; give thanks to God... If when I arrive among you I should have the weakness to seem to have other sentiments, do not believe me; believe only what I am writing to you now. This letter of Saint Ignatius has encouraged all generations of Christians in their combats.
He journeyed to Rome, guarded by soldiers, and with no fear but of losing the martyr's crown. Three of his disciples, who accompanied him and were eyewitnesses of the spectacle, wrote the acts of his martyrdom: His face shining with joy, he reassured them as the lions were released, saying: I am the wheat of Christ, I will be ground by the teeth of the beasts and made into flour to be a good bread for my Lord Jesus Christ! He was devoured by lions in the Roman amphitheater. The wild beasts left nothing of his body except a few bones, which were reverently treasured at Antioch until their removal in the year 637 to the Church of Saint Clement in Rome. After the martyr's death, several Christians saw him in vision, in prayer to Christ, and interceding for them.
Saint Bridgid
Abbess and Patroness of Ireland
(436-523)
Next to the glorious Saint Patrick, Saint Bridgid, whom we may regard as his spiritual daughter in Christ, has ever been held in singular veneration in Ireland. She was born about the year 453, at Fochard in Ulster. During her infancy, her pious father saw in a vision men clothed in white garments pouring a sacred unguent on her head, thus prefiguring her future sanctity. While still very young, Bridgid consecrated her life to God, bestowed everything at her disposal on the poor, and was the edification of all who knew her.
Saint Bridgid was very beautiful, and fearing that efforts might be made to induce her to break the vow by which she had bound herself to God, she prayed that she might become ugly and deformed. Her prayer was heard, for her eye became swollen, and her whole countenance so changed that she was allowed to follow her vocation in peace, and marriage with her was no more thought of. When about twenty years old, our Saint made known to the nephew and disciple of Saint Patrick, Saint Mel, her intention to live only for Jesus Christ, and he consented to receive her sacred vows. On the appointed day, the solemn ceremony of her profession was performed according to the manner introduced by Saint Patrick, the bishop offering up many prayers, and investing Bridgid with a snow-white habit, and a cloak of the same color. While she bowed her head on this occasion to receive the veil, a miracle of a singularly striking and impressive nature occurred: The section of the wooden platform adjoining the altar on which she knelt, recovered its original vitality and put on all its former verdure, retaining it for a long time afterwards. At the same moment Bridgid's eye was healed, and she became beautiful once again.
Encouraged by her example, several other young persons made vows, and in compliance with the wish of the parents of her new associates, the Saint agreed to found a religious residence for all of them in the vicinity. When a site was chosen by the bishop, a convent, the first in Ireland, was erected upon it; and in obedience to the prelate Bridgid assumed the superiority. Her reputation for sanctity became greater every day; and in proportion as it was diffused throughout the country, the candidates for admission into the new monastery increased in number. The bishops of Ireland, soon perceiving the important advantages which their own dioceses would derive from such foundations, persuaded the young and saintly abbess to visit different parts of the kingdom, and, when an opportunity was offered, they introduced branches of her institute everywhere.
While she was in the province of Connaught, a deputation arrived from Leinster to solicit the Saint to take up her residence in that territory; the prospect of the many spiritual advantages which would result induced her to accede to their wishes. Taking with her a number of her spiritual daughters, she journeyed to Leinster, where they were received with many demonstrations of respect and joy. At the site on which Kildare now stands, Saint Bridgid and her companions took up residence. Bridgid contrived out of their small means to relieve the poor of the vicinity very considerably; and when the wants of these indigent persons surpassed her slender finances, she did not hesitate to sacrifice for them the movables of the convent. On one occasion, imitating the burning charity of Saint Ambrose and other great servants of God, she sold some of the sacred vestments in order to procure the means of relieving their necessities. The renown of Bridgid's unbounded charity drew multitudes of the poor to Kildare; the fame of her piety attracted to the region many persons anxious to solicit her prayers or to profit by her holy example.
In time the number of her followers and admirers increased so greatly that it became necessary to provide accommodation for them in the neighborhood of the new monastery, and thus were laid the foundations of the town of Kildare. There an episcopal see was erected, which eventually became the ecclesiastical metropolis of the province to which it belonged.
Saint Bridgid died after seventy years devoted to the practice of the most sublime virtues, during which her holy institute had become widely diffused throughout the Green Isle, and had greatly advanced the cause of religion in the various districts where it was established. Like a river of peace, its progress was steady and silent; it fertilized all the regions fortunate enough to receive its waters, and caused them to put forth spiritual flowers and fruits with all the sweet perfume of evangelical fragrance.
The day on which the holy nun was to terminate her course, February 1, 523, having arrived, she received from the hands of a saintly priest the blessed Body and Blood of her Lord in the divine Eucharist, and passed to the eternal vision of the God she had always adored. Her body was interred in the church adjoining her convent, but later was exhumed and deposited in a splendid shrine near the high altar, afterwards to be moved again and placed in the same grave with the relics of the glorious Saint Patrick. Their holy remains, together with those of Saint Columba, were translated afterwards to the cathedral church of Kildare.
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| Sermons by St. Vincent Ferrer - Christmas Eve |
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Posted by: Hildegard of Bingen - 12-27-2020, 02:55 PM - Forum: Church Doctrine & Teaching
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St. Vincent Ferrer: Sermon for Christmas Eve (Mt 1:18)
Mt: 1:18 Now the generation of Christ was in this wise. When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child, of the Holy Ghost.
"She was found with child, of the Holy Ghost," (Mt 1:18)
Our whole sermon is about the impregnation of the Virgin Mary. But that you may perceive this material in your souls with the sweetness of devotion first we shall salute the pregnant Virgin, etc. [Here all recite the "Hail Mary."]
"She was found," etc. I find a great difference in sacred scripture between the conception of Christ and his birth, especially in this because the birth of Christ was not entirely hidden and secret, rather he wished that it would be announced to the world and published through the angels and through the heavens, through the star in the east, through the animals, through Eastern kings, just as it had already been prophesied. "I will move the heaven and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land. And I will move all nations: and the desired of all nations shall come," (Hag 2:7-8). Note, "the heaven," that is, the holy angels.
But about his conception he wished that it would be hidden. To no one in this world was it revealed, not to the patriarchs, not to the prophets, nor to holy persons, but only to the archangel Gabriel and to the Virgin Mary, as it had been prophesied by Isaiah, "From the ends of the earth we have heard praises, the glory of the just one. And I said: My secret to myself," (Isa 24:16). And the prophet speaks in the person of Gabriel and the Virgin Mary. Note, "from the ends of the earth." The ends of the earth are taken in two ways, either locally or temporally.
With respect to the first by calculating from the center of the earth, that which is most distant from the center is the circumference. The earth is the center, the circumference is the empyreal heaven. Behold the ends locally from which Gabriel and the Virgin Mary heard the praises of the just one, because it is a rule in holy theology that when he is called just, it is understood absolutely, always of the savior.
As for the second, the ends can be taken temporally. There are seven temporal ages of the world. The first was from Adam to Noah. The second from Noah to Abraham. Third from Abraham to Moses. The fourth from Moses to David. The fifth from David to the Babylonian captivity. Sixth from the Babylonian exile to Christ. The seventh and last, from Christ to the end of the world. About which the Apostle [Paul] says: "[We are] upon whom the ends of the world are come," (1Cor 10:11). Behold the temporal limits, about which Gabriel and the Virgin Mary speak. "From the ends of the earth, "that is in the ultimate age of the world "we have heard praises, the glory of the just one," that is, the savior. "Tell us Angel Gabriel about these praises and the glory of the savior. Say something to us." He responds, "My secret to me," supply "I shall keep." See how the conception of Christ was hidden and secret. About which David said: "He shall come down like rain upon the fleece; and as showers falling gently upon the earth," (Ps 71:6). The difference then is clear between the birth of Christ and his conception.
Nevertheless although his conception was so secret at the beginning, nevertheless it gradually became manifest, because a pregnant woman at least in giving birth reveals her pregnancy. So it was of the Virgin whose belly and uterus had swelled, and she could no longer hide her pregnancy. On this account the proposed theme speaks, "She was found with child." The theme is clear.
And since I am concerned with the pregnant Virgin in this sermon, I find that the Virgin was found pregnant by her fiancé Joseph in three ways:
First through sense experience, [per experientiam sensualem]
Second through divine wisdom, [per sapientiam divinalem]
Third through a special excellence. [per excellentiam specialem]
For each of these the theme speaks, "She was found with child," (Mt 1:18) etc.
SENSE EXPERIENCE
I say first, that the Virgin Mary was found pregnant by her espoused Joseph through sense experience. All knowledge is had through some sense perception. Through sight we recognize colors; through hearing, sound; through the sense of smell, odors; through taste, flavors; through touch, hard or soft, hot or cold. If you say to someone "How do you know this?" He replies: "Because I have seen or heard it," etc. It is clear therefore that all our cognition is through the senses. The Philosopher [Aristotle], "Sense is not deceived about the proper object, especially sight unless there is a defect." On account of this honorable judges make a great difference between eyewitnesses and hearsay [de auditu], or belief [credentia]. An eyewitness is greater. And so Christ rebuked the Jews who refused to believe, saying, "We speak what we know, and we testify what we have seen, and you receive not our testimony," (Jn 3:11). Note "what we know" namely, I and the holy prophets, "we speak," in this way, from sight. The Virgin Mary was found by her espoused Joseph to be with child. Imagine how after Mary had conceived, filled with joy she went to visit Elizabeth her cousin [literally, her related sister], who was pregnant with John the Baptist, as the angel had told her. She stayed with her for three months, as Luke says, (cf. Lk 1:56).
Her fiancé Joseph came to Nazareth to visit her, and saw her womb swollen, so he found her pregnant. Think how Joseph should have wondered, because he had not touched her. Moreover, as the holy doctors say, after they had become engaged, the Virgin Mary persuaded her fiancé, who was also a virgin, that they would take a vow of virginity together. So much the more did he wonder when she seemed pregnant. Therefore the beginning of today's gospel says, "When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together," that is, to live together and have relations, "she was found to be with child, of the Holy Ghost. Whereupon Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing publicly to expose her, was minded to put her away privately," (Mt 1:18-19).
Think also when she was found pregnant by her parents, who did not believe that she had sinned, but they wondered what this was. On the one hand they were thinking of her great devotion; on the other hand they saw her pregnancy. Her mother said to her, "Daughter, what is this?" The Virgin Mary replied to her mother, this is that which pleases God, who can do to his creatures whatever he pleases. "O daughter, what will people say, that my daughter got pregnant before she was married."
Think of the distress of the Virgin, who dared not reveal because "my secret to me." Think of the entanglement in which Joseph found himself, who was old and poor, and the Virgin Mary, young and stunningly beautiful. Bernard says that Joseph, on one hand was considering the holiness of the Virgin, and that it could not be that she had sinned, and on the other hand he beheld her pregnant. And since by nature a woman cannot conceive without a man, therefore like an olive, his heart was between two millstones.
SIGNS OF A BAD WOMAN
And because he was prudent and wise he considered all the signs of a bad woman, which are: 1) an irreligious heart, 2) garrulousness in speech, 3) personal untidiness, 4) voraciousness in eating and drinking, 5) laziness toward work, 5) vanity of dress, and 6) contempt for her husband. Each of these signs indicate a woman is bad. But Joseph found none of these signs in the Virgin Mary. Rather, the total opposite; all the signs of a good woman.
1) The first sign of a dishonorable [inhonesta] woman is an irreligious heart toward God, disregarding masses and sermons, because she does not fear God. May God keep her from being inconsiderate, because unless a woman retains a fear of God, no other fear will hold her back from evil. Fear of God and devotion restrained Susanna lest she sin, when she said, "I am straitened on every side: for if I do this thing, it is death to me: and if I do it not, I shall not escape your hands. But it is better for me to fall into your hands without doing it, than to sin in the sight of the Lord," (Dan 13:22-23).
Joseph however was thinking about his fiancée whether she was devout, or irreligious, and he saw that he had never seen such a holy and devout woman, because she always wanted to pray, or read, or contemplate. And on this foundation of devotion a woman should ground herself, otherwise she will fall. "For other foundation no man can lay, but that which is laid," (1Cor 3:10). But Joseph did not find these things in the Blessed Virgin Mary, since she was most devoted and ardent toward God. So scripture says of her in Proverbs, "The woman that fears [God], she shall be praised," (Prov 31:30).
2) The second sign is garrulous talkativeness. [garrulatio oris loquax]. God keep her from the opportunity. Reason, because no devotion remains in the soul from words, just as no scent remains in the nutmeg jar which is left open. Authority: "Where there are many words, there is oftentimes want," namely of goodness (Prov 14:23). And so you should raise your little daughters lest they become talkative. And so, 1 Tim: "Let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection," (1Tim 2:11), otherwise it is a bad sign. But a quiet woman is good.
null Note the signs of taciturnity of the Blessed Virgin, because she is painted with her eyes larger than her mouth, and so she is properly represented to indicate that she had a great eye of the heart for thinking and contemplating, but a mouth small for speaking little. Mary "kept all these words in her heart," (Lk 2:51). Joseph considered for himself if his fiancée was loquacious, or garrulous, and he saw that she was not. Moreover she preferred not to speak. A sign of this, as I said, that the Virgin had large eyes and a small mouth, is clear in the portrait which St. Luke painted, which is in Rome.
3) The third sign is bodily untidiness. When a woman goes about, lascivious, dissolute and vulgar, it seems that she has ants on her feet [formicas in pedibus!]. Ambrose: A man's body is an image of his soul. So Solomon says, "A woman [meets him] in harlot's attire prepared to deceive souls; talkative and wandering, not bearing to be quiet, not able to abide still at home, now abroad, now in the streets, now lying in wait near the corners," (Prov 7:10-12). And she immediately put herself at the windows etc.
But Joseph did not find this sign in the Blessed Virgin, because she never left home, unless when she went to the temple. And thus she went about totally composed. She always had her eyes toward the ground in a gesture of holiness. She never went dancing, but went about with downcast eyes. So scripture says about her, "How beautiful are you, my love, how beautiful are you! your eyes are doves' eyes, besides what is hid within," (Song 4:1). The Holy Spirit says "how beautiful are you" to the Virgin twice, because she is beautiful in body and beautiful in soul. Note, "Your eyes are doves' eyes," he does not say, "falcons' eyes."
4) The fourth sign is stuffing the belly with food and drink. It is a bad sign in a man and in a woman, because of those nearby parts, and stimulate each other. Hence a full belly immediately stimulates its neighbor, and because of this a gluttonous person necessarily is lustful. Holy Scripture says of the gluttons, "They shall eat ... and shall lift up their souls to their iniquity,"
(Hos 4:8).
But the Virgin Mary ate very little, only enough to sustain the body. She was almost always fasting.
5) The fifth sign is laziness, as when some woman says, "I will not work. I have brought so much from my dowry to my husband." Therefore St. Bernard [De consideratione, II, 13,22] writes, "Idleness is the mother of trifles, the stepmother of virtues," so because our body is of the earth, it has the conditions of the earth, which if left uncultivated, brings forth thorns of lust, and weeds of bad thoughts and sins. Also, about the body of the lazy, on this account Sacred Scripture says of the body, "Send him," -- the servant, that is, the body which is like a servant who is to be directed – "to work, that he be not idle: For idleness has taught much evil," (Sir 33:28-29).
But the Virgin was never lazy, rather she was always busy about holy works. Jerome says that she would arise in the middle of the night and pray. Then she spun and wove.
6) Sixth is vanity and excess in dress [ornatus]. Women may dress themselves decently and honestly according to their status and condition, but when they pour all their time and zeal in dressing themselves, or their body and they don't care about their soul, God help them, because such women are vain and have a vain heart. So Scripture says, "Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity," (Eccl 1:2). Note the rule of the Apostle [Paul], "Women also in decent apparel: adorning themselves with modesty and sobriety, not with plaited hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly attire, but as it becomes women professing godliness, with good works," (1Tim 2:9-10). Note "sobriety" in measure, according to the condition of their status and the ability of their husband. But there are many women with no regard, and they should be ashamed at what they wear, like the outfit or jewelry which a prostitute wears. And so scripture says, "Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain: the woman that fears the Lord, she shall be praised," (Prov 31:30).
But the Blessed Virgin did not care about jewelry. She washed her face well with the pure water of tears. St. Anne, her mother was adorning her with much jewelry [dives]. Out of love for her mother she wore it in the house, but not outside the house. But the daughters of today do just the opposite.
7) The seventh sign is contempt of the husband. It is a sign that she has her heart for another, when she argues with her husband about fashion [de genere ?] and about other things, she immediately wants him to get it for her. According to scriptures, a woman ought to honor her husband, and so the Apostle commands, saying, "Let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to use authority over the man: but to be in silence," (1Tim 2:11). We also read in Esther 2, that Assuerus and his people were saying, "Let all wives, as well of the greater as of the lesser, give honor to their husbands...and that the husbands should be rulers and masters in their houses," (Est 2:20,22).
Neither is this sign of contempt found in the glorious Virgin, because although she was young, beautiful, noble and rich, and her spouse old, and poor, nevertheless she honored him more than any woman in the world. All in all, Joseph found no sign of a bad woman in the Virgin Mary, but all the virtues and traits [afflictiones?, perhaps affectiones] of a good woman.
On the other hand he considered whether nature would permit a woman to conceive without a man, and he saw that it seemed not. See how perplexed he was; it was like his heart was pressed between two millstones. On the one hand he was afraid to make her condition public, because she would have immediately been stoned to death, according to the law. On the other hand, since he was a just man, lest he seem to consent, he thought about going away quietly and leaving her. And so the prophecy of David was fulfilled saying, in the person of Joseph, "Fear and trembling are come upon me: and darkness has covered me. And I said: Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly and be at rest?... and I abode in the wilderness," (Ps 54:6-7,8). As for his proposal: note "fear" of consenting in sin if he stayed with her, and "trembling" lest he defame an innocent one. So he proposed to put her away. It is clear, therefore, how the Virgin Mary, "was found with child," (Mt 1:18).
Morally. You should take care, like Joseph, that there be no impediments when you wish to contract marriage, like parental [permission], or affinity, or something else. And so it is an ordination of the church that it be declared. And so scripture says, "Marriage honorable in all, and the bed undefiled," (Heb 13:4). It is honorable when there is no impediment.
DIVINE WISDOM
Second, I say that the Virgin Mary was found to be with child, through divine wisdom. This is based on a rule of theology, says St. Thomas in I Pars that the mysteries of God, that is the secrets, depending on his will alone cannot be known unless through his revelation. None of you can know my heart unless I should reveal and manifest it. How much more so with God.
But that which happens naturally can be known. In this way doctors know the hour of death of a sick person, because although the effect is in the future, nevertheless the cause is already present. Not so with the will of God. And so scripture says, "For who among men is he who can know the counsel of God? or who can think what the will of God is?," (Wis 9:13). It is added, "And who shall know your thought, unless you give wisdom, and send thy Holy Spirit from above," (Wis 9:17). Now Joseph, when he saw that his fiancée was pregnant, could not naturally know the truth, because the conception of Christ had no natural cause. For it did not come through the celestial constellations, nor through angelic processes, nor elemental, or human, therefore it could not have been known unless through divine revelation. Think, therefore how Joseph, who was a holy man, just and good, turned to God in prayer about this, asking the good pleasure of God to reveal [the answer], according to that of James, "But if any of you want wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men abundantly, ... and it shall be given him," (Jas 1:5). So Joseph did, when he wanted at night to retire, he first kneeled down in prayer, saying, "Lord, you have given me a great grace, giving me this damsel as my fiancée, but Lord, I see that she is pregnant. How is it that a woman so holy is pregnant?" and similar words. And he wept much.
I believe also that the Blessed Virgin, on the other hand was praying to God, lovingly compassionate over her predicament, and that her saddened fiancé might be consoled. I believe that even the mother of the Virgin was praying that they not be disgraced, etc. Think how God listened to these devout prayers. The Gospel says, "But while he thought on these things, behold the angel of the Lord appeared to him in his sleep, saying: Joseph, son of David, fear not to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her, is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son: and you shall call his name JESUS. For he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which the Lord spoke by the prophet, saying: Behold a virgin shall be with child, and bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us," (Mt 1:20-23). Think, how the angel spoke to him the prophecy of Isaiah, "Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son," (Isa 7:14), not the Father nor the Holy Spirit. Think what kind of joy Joseph had, when he knew the truth.
From this a question emerges: Why did the Virgin not reveal it to him, when she saw his sadness, and perplexity, because he believed her – although nowadays a fiancé does not believe his fiancée. I respond that a secret entrusted should not be revealed, where the one by whom the secret is entrusted, is good, just and holy. Otherwise it can be revealed. "For it is good to hide the secret of a king," (Tob 12:7). Therefore the Virgin Mary, who had a most delicate conscience, chose not to reveal it, lest she offend the king, especially God.
Note [this is] against many vain persons who, if God gives them some grace or revelation, cannot keep silence. They immediately reveal it, and wrongly, unless about this they expressly know the will of God, especially because sometimes they believe the illusions of the devil to be divine revelations. They are like hens who can not keep quiet until they lay an egg. About such scripture says, "He who discloses the secret of a friend loses his credit, and shall never find an intimate friend," (Sir 27:17). See the reason why the Virgin Mary did not reveal the secret committed to her to Joseph or to her mother, but the Holy Spirit revealed it to Elizabeth.
SPECIAL EXCELLENCE
Third, I say that the Virgin Mary was found to be with child through a special excellence. Generally, when women are pregnant, they are thin, pale, tired and hungry for all kinds of things. But it was not so with the Blessed Virgin. Some holy theologians say that from the fact that the Virgin was pregnant, rays of splendor shone forth from her face, especially when she was close to childbirth. This can be proved in three ways, through philosophy, through theology and through experience.
As for the first, the Philosopher Aristotle says that every natural agent to the extent that it gives of the substantial form, to that extent it also gives the accidents following the form. What gives fire, gives also heat and light. So God the Father, of his substantial form, gave his Son to the Virgin Mary. That the Son of God is called "form," the authority of scriptures: "Who being in the form of God,...emptied himself, taking the form of a servant," (Phil 2:6-7). It is no wonder then that it conveys a radiance in the face etc. And so when pregnant, the Virgin was more beautiful and more glowing.
Second, it is proved theologically. We read in Exodus 34, that because Moses had spoken with God on the mountain, rays of splendor shone forth from his face, so much so that the people could not even gaze on him. Behold the reason. If the face was so splendorous from just a conversation with God, how much more therefore the face of the Virgin Mary from the conception of his Son. The Apostle Paul makes this point saying, "Now if the ministration of death, engraved with letters upon stones, was glorious; so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses, for the glory of his countenance, which is made void: How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather in glory?" (2Cor 3:7-8). The "ministration of death" was the law of Moses which did not confer a life of glory.
Third, it is proved by experience, of a crystal lamp, which is beautiful in itself and bright, but if the lamp within is lighted it shall be more beautiful and even brighter. The same with the Virgin Mary. Think how her body, beautiful and pure like a lamp, and the light inside illuminating the whole world is the Son of God. No wonder therefore if the Virgin was then brighter and more beautiful, inasmuch as the text says that Joseph "knew her not," (Mt 1:25). From these rays of splendor, because eternal light was in her.
Note here how Joseph, having received the divine revelation, humbly sought pardon from the Virgin for his suspicion which he had had of her, saying, "O Blessed, why did you not tell me, because I believed you. And that she comforted him sweetly congratulating him that he would be the groom and companion of the mother of the Son of God, and his parent. O blessed family [societas]. How reverently, then, did they both adore God incarnate in the womb of the Virgin.
And so if you wish to have this association for yourself, you should do like the merchant Valentine did, who every year on Christmas, invited [to his home] one poor old man and one woman having a little child. They represented for him the Virgin with her son, and Joseph. It was revealed about him that at his death the Virgin with her son and Joseph appeared to him, saying, "Because you have received us in your house, so we receive you into our house." About this Christ says, in Matthew 25, "Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me," (v. 40). And so the money which you pay out in gambling, you should for the love of Christ give to the poor. The poor however, who do not have, nor can give money to themselves, can at least present tomorrow [Christmas day] as many "Hail Marys" as days she bore him in the womb, or how many weeks, or months. Forty weeks, nine months, 277 days.
St. Vincent Ferrer: Christmas Sermon (Lk 2:11)
"This day, is born to you a Savior," (Lk 2:11). Our sermon will be about the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Virgin Birth. But that you might sense the spiritual sweetness of this feast, we shall salute the glorious Mother of God. [Vincent now leads his listeners in the "Hail Mary."]
"There is born to us etc." From the beginning of the world up to the birth of Christ there has never been heard such good news, nor so useful for mankind like the news of the proposed theme, "This day, is born to you a Savior," (Lk 2:11) etc. To all who were lost and damned and sentenced to hell. The declaration of this blessed Nativity I deal with in five conclusions.
1. First, that this blessed Nativity was from of old ardently desired by the saints.
2. Second, that this blessed Nativity was cruelly unappreciated by the Jews.
3. Third, that this blessed Nativity was celebrated powerfully by God.
4. Fourth, that this blessed Nativity was humbly hidden by the Virgin Mary.
5. Fifth, that this blessed Nativity was broadcast publicly by the angels saying, "This day, is born to you a Savior," (Lk 2:11).
And anyone who, curiously, might wish to preach all five conclusions, would be excessively prolix. And all are touched in the theme, in which there are five conditions. The first, therefore, is touched by the first saying. The second in the second. The third in the third, and so on for the others.
1. LONG DESIRED
I say first that this blessed Nativity was ardently desired of old by holy persons. And that you might understand better this condition listen to this story:
You should know that there was a certain great and noble city, well populated, which was cruelly under siege by enemies, attacking it with every kind of weapons, to the extent that it was already running low on provisions, the longer the siege went on, nor were the enemies willing to take them alive, or to grant any mercy, moreover they killed them at once. Aware of this, the king and lord of the city secretly sent messengers and letters to the city, telling them that he will come personally to free them when he was able. The citizens were very happy about this and were eagerly expecting his arrival any day.
Rightly so it was of this world. This great and noble city was and is human nature. Who can number how many citizens there were and how many dwelling in her, from Adam up to the birth of Christ -- since according to some teachers more than 5,000 years have passed -- who were besieged daily by cruel enemies, namely by countless demons attacking it with diverse temptations, with catapults, pains and sufferings, since they were lacking the spiritual food, about which Christ said, "Not in bread alone does man live, but in every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.," (Mt 4:4). Although they had the Mosaic law, it did not give eternal life. Nor did they have drink, i.e., the promise of spiritual [gifts] which refresh souls. And when someone went out of the city, through death, immediately without mercy he was captured and imprisoned in the prison of hell. However, God, the Lord of this world, wishing to comfort the citizens, secretly sent messengers to them, the holy patriarchs and prophets, with his letters announcing to them that he himself personally would come to liberate them. Many citizens rejoiced over this and city-dwellers sent him supplications, devout prayers, that he would come and liberate the city.
First came Moses saying to God the Father, "I beseech you, Lord send whom you will send," (Ex 4:13) as you have promised. Second, David on behalf of the whole city says, "[Lord] stir up your might, and come to save us," (Ps 79:3). Third, Solomon saying in the Holy Spirit, "Send her out of your holy heaven, and from the throne of your majesty, that she may be with me, and may labor with me," (Wis 9:10) against your enemies. Note: "Send her," namely, the person of Christ in human flesh, which is sent by the Father and the Holy Spirit, in respect to humanity. Fourth, Isaiah, saying, "Would that you would rend the heavens, and would come down," (Isa 64:1). Others were saying, "Come, O Lord, and tarry not: forgive the sins of your people Israel," etc. (Alleluia Verse from the Advent Liturgy)
.
The King, however, having heard these supplications, sent a messenger secretly to the city who would say on his behalf, " [the vision]... it/he shall appear at the end, and shall not lie: if it/he make any delay, wait for it/him: for it/he shall surely come, and it/he shall not be slack," (Hab 2:3). Behold how ardently he was desired, and according to Augustine they would say, "When shall he come? When shall he be born? When would he appear? Do you think I shall see it? Do you think I shall endure? Do you think his birth will find me here? O, if only my eyes shall behold the one whom the eyes of the heart have revealed. O, if only my eyes shall see what I believe in the writings of God. And the closer he approached, so much the more was he desired.
He begins his path of coming on the day of his conception. So he was most fervently desired by the Blessed Virgin, his mother and St. Joseph who daily checked off the calendar yearning to see the day of his entry into this world. The Virgin carried him nine months and six days, which are 277 days. Thus in the person of Christ Holy Scripture says, "I myself also am a mortal man, like all others, ...and in the womb of my mother I was fashioned," in the figure of man, "to be flesh. In the time of ten months," (Wis 7:1-2) Because of this the Virgin Mary and Joseph knowing his coming was near prepared themselves for receiving him devoutly. The Virgin prepared woolen and linen wrappings, as women do when they are close to childbirth. Joseph purchased an ox so that he could have a great feast on the birth of the child. But in the mean time says Luke, "There went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that the whole world should be enrolled," (Lk 2:1). So Augustus wished to enroll the world because he wanted to know how many provinces there were, how many cities, and how many people. Note the great sadness of Joseph, when he heard the edict of the Emperor, that under penalty of death everyone must proceed to the city of their birth. Joseph, who was of the city of Bethlehem, of the tribe of David, began to weep saying, "O woe, if I go to Bethlehem, I shall not see that blessed birth so long desired by the saints. If I do not go, I will be disobedient and will be killed, and too I shall not see the aforesaid birth." Sadly, he went home.
The Virgin Mary was comforting him, as a wife should do, saying, "O father, what are you worried about? You should rejoice, because the savior is about to be born soon." Then Joseph told the Virgin Mary about the edict of the Emperor and the reason for his sadness. The Virgin replied, "Father, do not weep, because for your comfort, I shall go with you, for I am also of the offspring of David. Joseph, on the one hand rejoiced, that the Virgin would wish to go, but on the other hand he wondered what people would say, that he was taking with him a young pregnant woman so near to childbirth.
Also, what if she gives birth on the way? The Virgin replied to him, "Father, do not worry about what people will say, because your intention is good. It is the will of God that we go to Bethlehem, because the savior is to be born there. According to the prophecy of Micah, "And you, Bethlehem Ephrata, are a little [place] in the kingdom of Judah: out of you shall come forth one who to be the ruler in Israel," (Mic 5:2). The Virgin Mary knew the bible better than the prophet, as Origen said.
They prepared themselves and left the town of Nazareth, the Virgin riding on a donkey, and Joseph leading the ass and ox. Behold the Queen of Paradise, and those she was traveling with. Then was fulfilled the prophecy of Haggai on this event saying, "Yet one moment [modicum], and I will move the heaven and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land. And I will move all nations: and the desired of all nations shall come and I will fill this house with glory: says the Lord of hosts," (Hag 2: 6-7). Note, "one moment," because it was only a moment of time from the prophet Haggai until Christ, "and I will move the heaven," where he speaks of the immovable empyreal heaven. St. Thomas says in the Prima Pars [of the Summa theologica, I, q. 106, a.1] that when some angel receives a revelation from God, immediately he revels it to the others so that nothing there is kept a secret. So the archangel Gabriel in the holy court of the Trinity when he had the revelation of the incarnation and the nativity of the Son of God, about which he was the messenger, immediately revealed it to all the others, and so the heaven was moved out of joy and rejoicing and dancing because of the reparation of the fall. So, "I will move the earth," the Virgin Mary is called the virginal earth, who was to produce the fruit of life who was moved by the angel’s salutation, when, "troubled at his saying, thought within herself what manner of salutation this should be," (Lk 1: 29). Then, "I shall move the sea and dry land," when from the edict of the Emperor the peoples would proceed to their sites, some by sea and some by land. Then "shall come the desired of all the ages," (Hag 2:7). So much for the first conclusion.
2. CRUELLY UNAPPRECIATED
The second conclusion says that this blessed Nativity was cruelly unappreciated by the Jews. History says that when Joseph and the Virgin were in the city of Bethlehem they found no hospitality nor any house nor hospice that was willing to receive them. Three reasons are alleged for this. First because they were the last to arrive and they had to go slowly on the way. So whoever comes late, often seems to be angry. Secondly although the city of Bethlehem was small, it nevertheless teemed with many in military service and citizens and nobles, all who were of the tribe of David who had been born in this city. They had made reservations in advance for their lodgings. A third reason was avarice of the hoteliers. When they got a look at Joseph, the poor man with his pregnant wife, thought that they would fill up a whole room and that there would be little profit from them. Therefore, etc.
Most likely, when Joseph entered through the gate of the city, with the Virgin riding on the donkey, he would head immediately to the first inn lest he would have to pass through the whole city seeking whether they might find a place there. When they asked who and how many were in the party they saw that there were only two, with an ox and ass, thinking, we will earn little, they told them to move on because there is no place here for you. At the next inn, the answer was that there were no vacancies. Imagine Joseph's anxiety here and the shame of the Virgin Mary, thus going from door to door. But the Virgin patiently put up with it and comforted Joseph. Finally they came to another inn where they said that all was full for such a gentleman and for expectant one etc.
Seeing that they couldn’t buy lodging, Joseph searched that out of love of God some private home would take in that pregnant woman near to childbirth, but he did not find one in the whole city, and so they said to him, "Old man, you are indeed concerned about your wife, but why did you put her in this situation, so pregnant?" And the poor man wept. At which the Virgin [said], "Father let us be patient, and we shall find some hospital." So they looked for a hospital seeing if they might be received out of love of God. The nurse replied, "You are healthy, and this house is for the sick. You are not able to be received here, and so spare us."
Since the hour was late and they had not yet found a place Joseph said, "O Lord these are my sins." Then they found a cave [porticulum] along a public road in which there was a manger, where visitors sometimes stabled their animals. The Virgin said, "Father, we shall stay here, because it is not right to go through the village at this hour." Joseph said, "O woe! We shall never find a house." The Virgin Mary said, "Father the whole world is the house of God, so let us stay here."
Then Joseph, with the greatest reverence assisted the Virgin from the donkey and entered the refuge [porticum] and Joseph rolled out a blanket [flatiatam] which he had brought on the donkey as a tent for privacy, and he went to buy some straw and charcoal because of the cold. And from a little straw he made a bed for the Queen of Heaven, saying, "O Lord what will you say to me, that I have placed your mother on such a bed," and in this place they stayed for at least thirteen days. The Gloss on Matthew 2 said that the kings from the east found Christ the King still there in that cave.
Behold the palace of the queen of paradise. Behold how that glorious birth was little appreciated by the Jews. God had revealed this to Jeremiah the prophet who, weeping, said in the person of the Jews, "We have sinned against thee. O expectation of Israel, the Savior thereof in time of trouble: why will you be a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man turning in to lodge? Why will you be as a wandering man, as a mighty man that cannot save?" (Jer 14:7-9) Thus this prophecy was fulfilled. So much for the second conclusion.
MORALITER (a moral aside)
Who of you does not say now in his heart, " Oh, if I had been there then, and had known him, I would have received him into my home," etc. Would that you would not be in the same condemnation or cruelty with the Jews. Have you ever today seen a pregnant young woman in this village with Joseph and never took them in? The consecrated host which the priest brings forth, like Joseph, is the virgin pregnant with the Son of God. Who of you receives him by communicating devoutly? None, I believe. With sincere reflection you should prepare for yourselves the home of your conscience through contrition, confession, and satisfaction. Many excuse themselves like the Bethlehemites saying: I have to welcome a great soldier, namely Sir Chicken, Lord Kid, and Mister Pig. Another says I have to receive a great and noble lady, namely Lady Hen, another Madam Partridge, etc. but they do not receive the Lord Jesus Christ. About which John in the Gospel said, "He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God," (Jn 1).
3. MIGHTY BIRTH
The third conclusion says that this blessed Nativity came about through the celebrated power of God. The Virgin Mary, stayed in that cave, as is said, between the cattle. In the middle of the night the hour for her delivery arrived. The Virgin Mary sensed this, not like other women, who before they feel the onset of childbirth, have pains, miseries and suffering in the body, and their face are distorted. But the Virgin Mary had other signs, special inspirations, consolations and heartfelt sweetness, with exquisite pleasures more than others, and her face was radiant. Joseph seeing this said, "Blessed, what is happening." She replied, "Father, now the hour of my childbirth is at hand."
Joseph got up immediately so that he might send for midwives. But the Virgin stopped him saying, "Father, just as for his conception no creature did anything, so neither for his birth." Joseph then said, "Blessed, neither you or I are expert in this." The Virgin said, "Father, don't worry, because God, the heavenly Father, will provide." And so the Book of the Infancy of the Savior [Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, ch.13] which states that there were women, has been condemned by the decree of Pope Pelagius. (Cf. Jerome: On the perpetual virginity of Mary, 8): "No midwife assisted at His birth; no women's officiousness intervened." But suddenly, like the ray of the sun passes through a glass window without breaking it, so Christ, the sun of justice passed through the gate of her virginal womb without any breaking or corruption, "like a bridegroom...from his chamber," (Ps 18:6).
The Virgin received him into her own hands, on her knees, with great reverence and veneration, adoring him and saying, "O Lord, you indeed have come from heaven to earth for the salvation of men. O Lord, desired by the holy patriarchs and prophets, I adore you, because as God you are my creator, as human you are my son." And she kissed him first on his feet as God, next on his mouth as a son, then on the hands as the creator of all things, and finally on his face as her son, saying, "O Lord you have given me such a grace." And she adored him a hundred times over. And as someone has reported, she said, "You are the Lord my God, you are my redeemer, you are my beloved Son." Ambrose: "O blessed Virgin, who can open the treasures of your heart to us, as here you adore your child as God, and here you kiss him as son?"
Joseph, weeping for joy, said, "Blessed, permit me to adore your son, the long desired Son of God," etc. How he adored him saying, "O Lord you have granted me such a grace. Kings and prophets wished to see you and they did not see, and to me, a sinner, you have given such a grace that I should see you." Then the infant began to cry because of the cold. Joseph immediately warmed the blankets and the Virgin wrapped him.
Then Joseph wanted to call for a wet nurse, but the Virgin again stopped him. Joseph said, "Blessed, what are you doing, for you do not have milk?" Doctors say that from the same root comes milk and children. So a woman who does not know man, does not have milk. The Virgin replied, "Father, God shall provide." Then the Virgin, on her knees prayed God the Father saying, "God the Father you and I have one son in common, so you who provide for all creatures ought to provide some milk for him." Then suddenly her breasts were filled with milk, sent to her from heaven. So the church says, the Virgin, not knowing man, without pain, gives birth to the savior of the ages. The Virgin herself with full breasts nursed the very King of the Angels. So much for the third conclusion.
4. HUMBLE AND HIDDEN
The fourth conclusion states that this blessed Nativity happened to a Virgin, humble and hidden. History says that as soon as Christ was born, his body shone like the rising sun, and the night became as midday, and so it was light. Think how many, who were not sleeping, and wondering about such a brightness, sought to see the source of the light and ran toward such a great spectacle of light. The Virgin sensing the excitement of the people placed the child in the manger. Jews came to see the source of the light. Some of them said prophecy says that when the Messiah will be born, "night shall be light as day," (Ps 138:12). Others asked if this might be he. Some said, be quiet; don't make much of it. If Herod finds out, he will kill us. So that out of fear of Herod they did not dare receive the Messiah King. Of this light the prophet said, " The people that walked in darkness, have seen a great light: to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death," of the sin of ingratitude, "a light has risen for them, You have multiplied the nation," to see the light, "and have not increased the joy," (Is 9:2-3), because no one brought him or the Virgin a gift. Of that light it is said, it is pointed out when it is said, and it follows, " For a child is born to us, and a son is given to us," not the Father, nor the Holy Spirit (v. 6).
Here the question is raised, why did the blessed Virgin place her son in the manger between the beasts? What if the ox with horns, and the donkey with teeth had attacked? St. Luke wishes to excuse the Virgin saying: "She laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn," i.e. in this cave, (Lk 2:7). But one might respond to St. Luke: "Could not the Virgin who gave birth without pain and suffering, place or position him in her arms or on her breast? Why put him between animals?" The response is, for three reasons:
First, to fulfill the scriptural truth.
Second, to alleviate bodily needs,
Third, to teach us a moral lesson.
SCRIPTURAL TRUTH
As for the first, it was prophesied that he would be placed between the animals and humbly be adored. Think what kind of joy the blessed Virgin had when she saw her son adored by an ox and ass. And how sad when she saw him ignored by the Jews. And so was fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah saying, "Hear, O ye heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken. I have brought up children, and exalted them: but they have despised me. The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel has not known me," (Isa 1:2-3).
BODILY NEEDS
As for the second reason you have already seen how cold it could be at that time. Think if the Virgin Mary was cold, because we do not read that they brought lined coats. For this reason she placed her child in the manger so that the animals might warm him with their breath, as it was revealed by Habakkuk the prophet, who said this: "Lord I have heard your voice and I have feared. Lord I have considered your work, in the middle of two animals you shall be known," (Hab 3:2, LXX transl.).
MORAL LESSON
As for the third reason the Virgin does this so that we might be instructed in good morals. - An ox is a great animal having two big horns, which signify the temporal lords and rulers of the community. The donkey which carries burdens, signifies peasants and subjects. And the Virgin places her son in the middle, pointing out that all can indeed be saved by the saving justice of the Lord, and that not by hatred nor by love nor by fear nor by bribes they give unjustly. Vassals too by keeping faith, obedience and reverence for their lords.
- Second, the ox is a clean animal which in olden times was sacrificed to God. So it symbolizes the priests who offer sacrifice to God. The simple ass signifies the laity. The Virgin places her son between them, implying that all can be saved.
- Third, the ox, which doesn't bear burdens, signifies the rich who do not labor with their hands. The ass signifies the workers, if they be patient.
- Fourth, the ox which has horns signifies devout and holy people. Two horns are true prudence or adherence to the faith, and prompt obedience to commandments. The surly ass, signifies sinners, who if they are repentant can be saved.
- Fifth the ox, which chews the cud and has divided hooves, signifies the learned masters and doctors who ruminate by studying; and the divided hooves means they have knowledge of the old and new testament. The ass signifies the ignorant. Christ is placed in the middle etc. And the text of David confirms it: "Men and beasts you will preserve, O Lord: O how you have multiplied your mercy, O God!!" (Ps 35:7-8). Note men, both powerful and powerless, both learned, and rich, and draft animals, i.e. crude sinners and the ignorant, shall be saved by the Lord.
5. OPENLY PROCLAIMED
The fifth conclusion says that this blessed Nativity was openly proclaimed by the angels when they appeared to the shepherds telling the good news: "For, this day is born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David," St. Luke writes (2:11). A little story is told about the angels at the birth of Christ, that God the Father, from heaven, where he was throwing a big party over the birth of Christ, sent them to earth so that there might be a feast here also. This blessed Nativity was revealed to the watching shepherds, not to the sleeping emperor Octavian, nor, in Jerusalem, to the masters and teachers, nor to the priests, but to shepherds singing their songs.
Why this? Bernard says that shepherds have five qualities in which it is shown to which persons God reveals his secrets and gives his glory. - First, the shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks etc. In which it is shown that shepherds both temporal and ecclesiastical ought to watch over the flock committed to them, lest they be devoured by the wolves of especially notorious sin, because the community is not punished for secret sins. To such shepherds God reveals his glory and grace.
- Second, they play their flutes harmoniously, in which is shown that to devout and peaceful persons who play music through their prayers and supplications, God reveals his grace and glory.
- Third, because they were in the desert, in the harshness of penance, etc. where eating and drinking and sleeping was hard, etc. In which it is shown, that to those who live in the rigors of penitence etc., [God reveals his grace and glory].
- Fourth, because they were poor men, etc. So Christ says, "But woe to you that are rich: for you have your consolation," etc. (Lk 6:24).
- Fifth, because they were simple men, they despised no one. To such God gives his grace. Authority of Christ: "I confess to you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to the little ones," (Mt 11:25).
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| The Novus Ordo Ordination Rites similar to the Anglican |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-27-2020, 02:23 PM - Forum: New Rite Sacraments
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The Angelus June 1979
Anglican Orders
by Rev. Michael Clifton
In 1896 Pope Leo XIII declared Anglican Orders invalid with his Bull Apostolicae Curae. The Ecumenical Movement has now gained such momentum that determined efforts are being made to secure a reversal of Pope Leo's decision so that the orders of clergy belonging to the worldwide Anglican Communion, which includes the Episcopal Church in America, will be recognized as equivalent to the orders of Catholic clergy. Father Michael Clifton, an English priest and an authority on recusant history, shows in this article that the teaching of Apostolicae Curae cannot possibly be reversed. He also shows the manner in which the movement to recognize Anglican Orders is linked to the Agreed Statements of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission which have not yet been rejected by the Vatican and that the new Catholic ordination rites have been influenced by ecumenical motives.
In recent years there has been much talk among ecumenically minded Catholics of the possibility of recognizing Anglican Orders despite the clear declaration by Pope Leo XIII in Apostolicae Curae (1896) "that ordinations carried out according to the Anglican rite have been, and are, absolutely null and utterly void." At first sight it may appear astonishing that the matter could be raised again, but when almost every doctrine that Catholics hold sacred is questioned from some quarters within the Church it is not surprising that there are those who would wish to overturn the solemn teaching of the Church on Anglican Orders. This would provide a short cut to so-called "Church-unity" based on a minimum of doctrine.
This article will deal briefly with the entire question of Anglican Orders and attempt to analyze the "new arguments" that are being advanced to circumvent the judgement of Pope Leo XIII. The term "Anglican Orders," as used within the article, includes the Episcopalian Church in the U.S.A. and all the other branches of the world-wide Anglican communion.
The history of the Anglican ordinal dates back to 1550 during the reign of the boy-king, Edward VI. In 1549, Archbishop Cranmer of Canterbury and his supporters had used force to impose Protestant liturgical forms upon the English people by means of his Book of Common Prayer. Although King Henry VIII had broken with Rome, the Church in England retained the Catholic liturgy and even those bishops appointed after the break with Rome were validly (though illicitly) consecrated with the traditional pontifical.
Archbishop Cranmer had become a convinced Protestant during Henry's reign and with the accession of the boy Edward he brought his beliefs into the open. Cranmer put in hand his famous Book of Common Prayer in which the Sacrifice of the Mass was abandoned in favor of a nondescript "communion service." The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England still describes the sacrifices of Masses as "blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits."
Some Protestant churches retained the titles "Bishop" and "Priest" and still do. What is important is the significance they gave to these terms. Was it exactly the same as that of the Catholic Church from which they had broken away? By no means, for we find the key element of the priesthood, the power to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass, is explicitly excluded from the new "ministry." To this end, Cranmer altered the ordination rites drastically and expunged every reference to the sacrificial role of the priesthood. In doing so, he vitiated the form of the sacrament and the so-called bishops and priests ordained with his new ordinal are not bishops or priests at all in the sense the Catholic Church understands these words. That is to say, they have not received valid Catholic orders. Between 1550 and 1554 all new bishops were consecrated with one or other versions of the new ordinal which was revised in an even more anti-Catholic direction in 1552. Those Catholic-minded bishops consecrated during the reign of Henry VIII who made a public stand for their Catholic principles were imprisoned. In 1554 Mary Tudor became queen. She was a Catholic.
Cardinal Reginald Pole was appointed Papal Legate to England and entrusted with the task of reconciling the English people to the Holy See. All bishops consecrated with the Edwardine Ordinal were declared to be deposed. Those consecrated with the traditional ordinal were re-instated if they had not married and were penitent for their activities during the reigns of Henry and Edward. The rest were officially degraded from the status of bishop or priest. Among these were Archbishop Cranmer and Bishops Ridley and Latimer who were eventually burnt at the stake. Episcopal Registers contain records of the re-ordination of sixteen clergy who had previously been ordained using the Edwardine Ordinal, but not a single instance has been produced of a cleric who had received Edwardine Orders only being allowed to continue his ministry without re-ordination.
Mary married Philip of Spain but when it became clear that she could not bear him a son he left England never to return. Mary died broken-hearted in 1559, realizing that her sister Elizabeth would soon make fresh break with Rome.
The Catholic Diocesan Bishops made a better showing in 1559 than they had in 1533, and this time they all were deprived of their sees for refusing to accept Protestantism. This left Elizabeth the problem of creating a new hierarchy. She had designated one Matthew Parker to be the new Archbishop of Canterbury and to consecrate him she prevailed upon Bishop Hodgkin, consecrated validly in 1537, together with two Edwardine bishops consecrated only with Cranmer's Ordinal.
But, although the chief consecrator was himself a validly ordained bishop, they used the Edwardine (Cranmerian) Ordinal and the consecration of Archbishop Parker was, therefore, invalid from defect of form. In all subsequent ordinations, the Edwardine Ordinal was used and thus all succeeding bishops of the Church of England are not bishops as the Catholic Church understands the term. Apostolic succession had been lost.
In 1661, some alteration was made to the Anglican Ordinal. The words "for the office and work of a Priest (or Bishop)" were added. However, these words do not remedy the abiding defect of form or intention in the Anglican ritual. In two cases of the reception of convert clergymen, it was declared that their orders had been null and void from the beginning. 1
THE ACTUAL FORMS
The 1552 ordinal, a slightly revised version of the one produced in 1550, has the following formula of ordination:
Quote:Receive the Holy Ghost, whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained. And be thou a faithful dispenser of the word of God, and of His holy sacraments: in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The word priest does not even occur in this passage. Furthermore, Cranmer modified the entire rite in a sense which excluded the Catholic concept of priesthood (sacerdotium) in favor of the Lutheran position. To this end, all reference to the priestly power of offering sacrifice was removed from the rite, and the "Traditio" (handing over) of the Chalice, still included in the 1550 rite, was eliminated.
Cranmer's Ordinal is derived from a Latin Lutheran rite suggested to him by Martin Bucer, a radical disciple of Luther.2 The traditional (Sarum) pontifical had been drastically revised to accommodate a theology of the priesthood which was heretical. Bishop Bonner, although guilty of the sin of schism, had retained the Catholic faith in all other respects and was imprisoned for his Catholic beliefs during the reign of Edward VI. He wrote the following with regard to those ordained with Cranmer's Ordinal:
Quote:Priests being among other things called to the ministration of the Sacraments and the chiefest and most precious of all sacraments being the Sacrament of the Altar, in ministration whereof the priest ought to both consecrate and to offer. Therefore, the late made ministers in the time of the schism, in their new devised ordination having no authority at all given them to offer in the Mass the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ, but both they so ordered (or rather disordered, and their schismatical orderers) also, utterly despising and impugning not only the oblation or sacrifice of the Mass but also the real presence of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar, therefore I say that all such damnably and presumptuously did offend against Almighty God...you may thereby consider what thanks you owe to Almighty God who hath restored unto you the right use of the Sacraments again and also how much you ought to esteem the right priesthood, now brought home again by which as an ordinary means, God works his graces amongst you.3
Here Bishop Bonner clearly sees that the Edwardine "priests" were in no way Catholic priests.
In 1662 the form was revised as follows.:
Quote:Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest in the Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands. Whose sins thou dost forgive they are forgiven and whose sins thou dost retain they are retained. And be thou a faithful dispenser of the Word of God and of His Holy Sacraments ... In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.4
Even though the words have been amended there is still no suggestion of a sacrificial priesthood and the word committed is not the same as conferring. In the Catholic Priesthood, new powers are transmitted (conferred) on the ordinand. The Church confers Sacraments. In any case, by 1662, the Apostolic Succession had long been lost.
EARLY CONDEMNATIONS OF ANGLICAN ORDERS
Although the Bull of Pope Leo XIII Apostolicae Curae constitutes the final papal condemnation of the validity of Anglican Orders, it is by no means the first. When Cardinal Pole came to England to regularize the religious position after Queen Mary came to the throne, he asked for guidance from Rome. In 1555, Pope Paul IV issued a Bull entitled Praeclara Charissimi which clarifies the powers given to Cardinal Pole. The following passage is relevant here:Quote:Provided always that those who have been promoted to a major as well as minor ecclesiastical orders, by any other person than a bishop or an archbishop duly and rightly ordained shall be bound to receive the said orders anew from their ordinary, and shall not in the meanwhile minister in the said orders.5
Here there is no question of doubtful ordination or conditional re-ordination. It is quite determined....the Edwardine Orders are null and void and re-ordination is required.
Later in the same year, the Pope clarified the matter still further by writing:
Quote:We declare that it is only those Bishops and Archbishops who were not ordained and consecrated in the form of the Church that can not be said to be duly and rightly ordained and therefore the person promoted by them to these orders have not received orders but ought and are bound to receive anew these said orders from the ordinary ....6
THE BULL APOSTOLICAE CURAE
During the 19th century many important Anglicans had been received into the Catholic Church and there was quite a large body of Anglicans usually known as "Anglo-Catholics" who were eager for corporate reunion with Rome. Anglo-Catholics are still to be found in the Church of England. They hold views and positions very close to those of the Catholic Church and in some cases in almost complete opposition to the doctrines of the Church of England as found in the Thirty-Nine Articles.
An influential member of the Anglo-Catholic party at that time was Lord Halifax, and he considered it would help matters along if Rome could be persuaded to accept Anglican Orders as valid. Pope Leo XIII was very anxious to obtain unity with the Anglicans but had been totally misinformed regarding the true situation in England. Cardinal Gasquet relates in his diaries the events of 1895 during the visit to Rome of Cardinal Vaughan of Westminster. Vaughan told Gasquet of his first meeting with the Pope:
Quote:Directly he entered the Pope's room, the Holy Father began at once about his great desire to effect the "re-union of England with the Holy See"....He told me, "You Catholics of England are quite mistaken in the real attitude of those who are outside the Church in England towards re-union. They are really just on the point of coming in, but are being continually repelled by the hostility of Catholics....whereas it only requires some paternal, kind, come now, etc., take courage etc., to bring them back en masse to the fold of the true Church." With regard especially to the question of Anglican Orders the Pope went on to say, If indeed they really seemed to be doubtful, for his part, he was disposed to grant that they (the Anglicans who submitted to the authority of the Church) should be allowed to receive ordination sub conditione as in the case of a doubtful baptism.7
Cardinal Vaughan then spent the rest of the interview trying to explain the real state of affairs in England to the Pope.
All this goes to show that Pope Leo was favorably disposed towards Anglicans and their orders. But at the end of the day after he had appointed a theological commission to look into the question he promulgated his final decision "absolutely null and uttterly void."
In the actual bull Apostolicae Curae, Pope Leo opens by giving an account of the history of Anglican Orders, then analyzes the defects of form and intention. Section 25 reads:
Quote:But the words which until recently were commonly held by Anglicans to constitute the proper form of priestly ordination—namely "Receive the Holy Ghost," certainly do not in the least definitely express the Sacred Order of Priesthood or its grace and power, which is "chiefly the power of consecrating and of offering the true Body and Blood of Our Lord" (Trent, Sess. 23 de Sac. Ord., Canon 1) in that sacrifice which is "no nude commemoration of the sacrifice offered on the Cross" (Trent, de Sac. Missae Can. 3).
This form had indeed, afterwards added to it the words "For the office and work of a priest" etc.; but this rather shows that the Anglicans themselves perceived that the first form was defective and inadequate. But even if this addition could give to the form its due signification, it was introduced too late as a century had elapsed since the adoption of the Edwardine Ordinal.
In paragraphs 30 and 31 the Pope deals with the Edwardine Ordinal:
Quote:In the whole Ordinal, not only is there no clear mention of the sacrifice of consecration, of the priesthood, and of the power of consecrating and offering sacrifice, but every trace of these things which had been in such prayers of the Catholic rite as they had not entirely rejected, was deliberately removed and struck out. In this way the native character or spirit as it is called of the ordinal clearly manifests itself.
His Holiness also deals with defect of intention in the rite:
Quote:The Church does not judge about the mind and intention in so far as it is something by its nature internal, but insofar as it is manifested externally she is bound to judge concerning it. A person who has correctly and seriously used the requisite matter and form to effect and confer a sacrament is presumed for that very reason to have intended to do what the Church does. On this principle rests the doctrine that a Sacrament is truly conferred by the Ministry of one who is a heretic or unbaptized, provided the Catholic rite be employed. On the other hand, if the rite be changed with the manifest intention of introducing another rite not approved by the Church and of rejecting what the Church does, and what by the institution of Christ belongs to the nature of the Sacrament, then it is clear that not only is the necessary intention wanting to the Sacrament but that the intention is adverse to and destructive of the Sacrament.
Finally, in Paragraph 36 comes the final judgement. Quote:"We pronounce and declare that ordinations carried out according to the Anglican rite have been, and are, absolutely null and utterly void."
It might be imagined that this was the end of the matter. But almost immediately the Pope had to make the position crystal clear in a letter to Cardinal Richard of Paris concerning suggestions in an ecumenically orientated journal, the Revue Anglo Romaine, that his Bull had not finally settled the question of Anglican Orders:
Quote:There are some among its writers (Revue Anglo Romaine) who instead of defending and illustrating this constitution, try instead to weaken it by explaining it away....It was our intention thereby to deliver a final judgement and to settle absolutely that most grave question about Anglican Orders which indeed was long since lawfully defined by Our predecessors but by Our indulgence was entirely reheard....All Catholics were bound to receive it with the utmost respect as being finally settled and determined without any possible appeal. 8
The theological status of Apostolicae Curae at very minimum would seem to be that it possesses infallibility from the ordinary magisterium of the Church, re-iterating her constant teaching from the start of the Reformation. It has the nature of a "Dogmatic Fact." The following description of dogmatic facts is taken from Dr. Rahner:
Quote:They are facts which cannot indeed be deduced from the revealed word of God but which the Church must nevertheless recognize and formulate as such with certainty because they are necessary for the preservation of the Deposit of Faith in all its purity.9
Yet in spite of Apostolicae Curae and the clarifying letter, the arguments have continued albeit along slightly different lines. The aim, however, is always the same—to get around the decree at all costs to clear the way for a pseudo-unity.
MORE RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
After the 1st Vatican Council there came into existence a small break-away body known as the "Old Catholics", based mainly in Holland, which rejected Papal Infallibility. They retained nearly everything else of Catholic belief and their bishops possess valid orders as far as one can tell. On certain occasions Old Catholic bishops have participated with Anglicans in "ordaining" ministers. The Catholic Church, however, would not accept these as valid ministers because the formula they used (the Anglican Ordinal) is defective. Father Francis Clarke S.J. writes:
Quote:However orthodox may have been the subjective intention of those Old Catholic prelates, the formula they used, insufficiently determinate in itself, was outwardly and objectively determined to a defective sense by the ritual setting in which it was pronounced. The original anti-sacerdotal significance of the Ordinal...remained decisive . . . .10
It has been strongly rumored that several leading Anglican and Episcopalian bishops have visited Holland especially to receive Catholic Orders at the hands of Old Catholic bishops. Such bishops may, indeed, possess valid Catholic Orders now. But any Anglican ordination in which they participate are still invalid because of the intrinsic invalidity of the Anglican Ordinal.
In more recent times new arguments have been adduced, notably by Fr. Yarnold S.J, in order to get around Apostolicae Curae. The Church has always taught that valid orders can only be conferred by ordination from a bishop who can trace his orders through an unbroken chain of Episcopal Succession back to the time of the Apostles. Now, Fr. Yarnold tells us that this "assumption" is being questioned. It is said that we cannot prove from history that this principle has always been followed, and also that there are "two strands" of succession. The first is by ordination from a bishop in the Apostolic Succession and the second is "a call coming from a community which seeks to be faithful to the teaching commission of Christ handed down through the apostles to the whole Church." Fr. Yarnold suggests that in the absence of the first strand, this absence is not sufficient to invalidate the orders if the second strand holds. The argument goes that although both should be present, the second source might suffice to keep the priesthood and the episcopacy alive.
This view is, of course, a complete novelty. The true position is that to be in total conformity with the teaching of the Apostles it is necessary to be in communion with the successors of the Apostles. Christ founded one Church and those who belong to bodies which were originally constituted in opposition to the one true Church of Christ, cannot be held to be completely in conformity of mind and heart to the life of Christ who willed that there be but one flock and one shepherd.
Father Yarnold appears to be saying that if any small group comes together and states that it is seeking to follow Apostolic teaching then the Catholic Church should recognize the validity of the orders of the ministers of that sect. The theory has its origin in a Lutheran theologian, E. Schlink, but is cautiously suggested by Hans Kiing in his book Structures of the Church.11
However Father Yarnold's main argument for a "revision" of Apostolicae Curae would seem to be that, granted the form is vague, the intention to "do what the Church does" even if falsely understood by the reformers, would in fact validate the orders. Yarnold argues that the words "Holy Sacraments" in the Anglican Ordinal would cover the "Eucharist" even though its sacrificial interpretation was excluded, and that by continuing the basic structure of bishops and priests, the Ordinal expresses the intention to do what the Church does in this regard.
In fact both these points are covered in Apostolicae Curae but on the point of the basic structure, the preface to the Edwardine Ordinal nowhere suggests that ordination, itself, is a Sacrament. The reformers only allowed two Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord's Supper. All the Anglican rite does is to denote the bestowing of authority to exercise an office in the community. The Lutheran position is that while bishops are appropriate persons to ordain, where necessary the local community could ordain its own presbyters and superintendants. So, quite simply, "His Holy Sacraments" do not include the rite which the Anglican ordinand is taking part in nor is his "Eucharistic Ministry" in any way a continuation of the Catholic Church as the essential sacrificial element in it has been denied.
MODERN ATTACK ON THE NATURE OF THE PRIESTHOOD
Behind this attempt by Fr. Yarnold to evade Apostolicae Curae lies a none too subtle attack on the very nature of the Catholic priesthood itself. Hans Küng has already written a book Why Priests? in which he reproduces extreme Lutheran teaching and states that the Catholic Church should accept it. In his view, there is no real distinction between priest and layman. The Church has supposedly got it all wrong since the end of the first century. There was an early clash between the Judaisers and the Hellenisers, and in the end the Judaisers won the day which meant the Church adopted a hierarchical ministry instead of the pure simplicity that Our Lord really intended for His followers.
Küng does not believe the Mass is a Sacrifice in any real sense at all. It is merely a commemoration meal based on the Last Supper. And have we not all heard just about enough about the Mass being merely a "Meal"?
Well, with the Mass reduced in status, and priest reduced in status to a mere layperson, Küng wishes to have "Eucharistic Presidents" elected by their "local communities." They take no vows and can be elected for just as long as their local committee wants them. The blurring of the distinction between priest and laity is, of course, well under way at present. We have Communion in the hand, lay ministers of Communion, priests abandoning their clerical dress, being called by their Christian names, considering themselves more as social workers, demanding release from the vows of celibacy, and rejecting the orders of such bishops as are still disposed to issue any!
Matters have not been helped by the production of the so-called "Agreed Statements" particularly those on the "Ministry" and the "Eucharist." These statements were drawn up after discussions between Catholic and Anglican theologians. They have not been formally approved by either Church and one sincerely hopes they never will be. Readers will not be surprised to learn that one of the Catholic theologians was Father Yarnold S.J. and that in these documents one will look in vain for a definite statement of the Catholic Church's teaching. Rather one will find what may be termed "studied ambiguity." The cause of ecumenism is not helped by attempting to produce an anemic religion based on the lowest common denominator of doctrine.
NEW ORDINALS
A revised Catholic Ordinal was issued in 1968. In 1947 Pope Pius XII had decreed that the essential words in the ordination of a priest were:
Grant we beseech Thee, Almighty Father, to this thy servant, the dignity of the Priesthood; renew the spirit of holiness within him, that he may hold from Thee O God, the second rank in thy service and by the example of his behaviour afford a pattern of Holy living.
This essential formula is found in the new Rite. However, all the prayers and ceremonies of the traditional Catholic rite which gave explicit sacerdotal significance to the indeterminate formula quoted above have been omitted. In Apostolicae Curae we have seen that the Anglican form was part also of a ceremony in which all reference to the sacrificial elements had been removed. The reader might well be tempted to ask then what difference is there between the Anglican Ordinal and the new Catholic ritual. The answer, with regret, is "very little." The reader might then say, "The Catholic Church is making the same mistakes as the reformers did?" Well, not quite. There is an escape route. Although the form is not backed up by any definite reference to the sacrificial function of a priest, one may conclude that the intention of the Catholic Consecrating Bishops is to ordain a sacrificing priest in the sense that the Catholic Church has always maintained. The new ordination rite for a bishop also has a form which, in itself, is rather general; but the admonition given to the priest about to be ordained a bishop is crystal clear:
Quote:By the laying on of hands which confers the sacrament in its fullness, the apostles passed on the gift of the Holy Spirit which they themselves had received from Christ. In that way by a succession of bishops unbroken from one generation to the next the powers conferred in the beginning were handed down and the work of the Saviour lives and grows in our time.
This is certainly very clear, but I understand it is optional in the rite. If this is so, I would humbly request those with authority that it be made a compulsory section of the ceremony. Also, would it be too much to ask if the rite of ordination of a priest could contain one definitive mandatory reference to the priest's sacrificial role?
At the moment the Anglicans are pressing for a Common Ordinal and have produced a Series 3 Ordinal as a starter. This is a study in "ecumenical ambiguity" seeking to please all sides and probably succeeding in pleasing none. In fact, it represents nothing more than the appointment by the community to exercise an office within the Church. Nowhere does it state the person who possesses new powers which the generality of the faithful do not possess. The Catholic concept of the priesthood is nowhere specifically excluded. Everything is simply left in a cloud of unknowing. What hope for priests in the future if this kind of process is allowed to prosper?
NOTES
For a fuller account of all the matters dealt with in this article I recommend a recently published book, The Order of Melchisedech, by Michael Davies. It can be obtained for $7.00, postage paid, from Angelus Press. Among the appendices to the book are the Bull Praeclara Charissimi of Pope Paul IV (1555); his Declaratory Brief of 1555; the Bull Apostolicae Curae of Pope Leo XIII and his letter to Cardinal Richard of Paris (both dated 1896). The paragraph numbers for Apostolicae Curae used in the article are taken from this appendix. The various passages quoted from the successive Anglican Ordinals are also included together with facsimile reproductions of the originals. The book is referred to in the notes as OM.
1. The two convert clergymen were a French Calvinist who had received ordination in the Church of England, and John Gordon, convert Bishop of Galloway in 1704.
2. OM, pp. 107-108.
3. OM, pp. 32-33.
4. Background to this revision, OM, p. 40
5. OM, pp. 154-155.
6. OM, p. 157.
7. Gasquet, Leaves from My Diary, (London, 1911), pp. 7-8.
8. OM, p. 173.
9. Concise Theological Dictionary, p. 134 On the status of Apostolicae Curae as a Dogmatic Fact, see also The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), Vol. I, p. 498 and Clark's Anglican Orders and Defect of Intention, pp. 9-10.
10. Yarnold, Anglican Orders, A Way Forward? (Catholic Truth Society, London, 1977).
11. Ibid, p. 11.
12. Sacramentum Ordinis.
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