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| Joseph Ratzinger and the New Liturgical Movement |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-29-2024, 06:32 AM - Forum: The Architects of Vatican II
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From the liberal and modern publication, Crisis Magazine:
Joseph Ratzinger and the New Liturgical Movement
The struggle to define and to understand active participation is a fruit of two different conceptions of the liturgy. Joseph Ratzinger constantly affirmed the view that the liturgy is the the work of God and not a product of man.
Crisis Magazine [Emphasis mine.] | December 13, 2022
Unfortunately, division characterizes our present culture and, subsequently, the Church. Are you a Vatican II Catholic? A traditionalist Catholic? A Novus Ordo Catholic? Identity politics has influenced and shaped our unhealthy discourses about the sacred liturgy.
We now find ourselves locked into a “new” liturgical war when we need the liturgical wisdom of great theologians such as Joseph Ratzinger to guide us back to appreciating the authentic spirit of the liturgical movement, lest we drown ourselves in the present bitter and acrimonious sea that fills up our social media feeds or inboxes.
Joseph Ratzinger, in his autobiographical reflection Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977, argues for the need for a “new liturgical movement.” The purpose of this movement will call to life the “real heritage of the Second Vatican Council.” In Milestones, Ratzinger calls for a “renewal of liturgical awareness” and a “liturgical reconciliation that again recognizes the unity of the history of the liturgy and that understands Vatican II, not as a breach, but as a stage of development: these things are urgently needed for the life of the Church.”
In order to promote liturgical renewal, the early members of the liturgical movement supported the active and intelligent participation of the faithful in the celebration of the sacred liturgy before they called for changes such as celebrating evening Masses, offering the Mass versus populum, etc. According to one of the early pioneers of the liturgical movement, Dom Lambert Beauduin, liturgical movement promotes active participation “by means of understanding and following the liturgical rites and texts [of the Mass].” [See here on the modernism associated with active participation. - The Catacombs] We need the liturgical wisdom of great theologians such as Joseph Ratzinger to guide us back to appreciating the authentic spirit of the liturgical movement.
The first magisterial use of the phrase “active participation” (participatio actuosa) in a magisterial document comes from Pope St. Pius X’s motu propio on sacred music, Tra le sollecitudini:
Quote:Filled as we are with a most ardent desire to see the true Christian spirit flourish in every respect and be preserved by all the Christian faithful, we deem it necessary to provide before anything else for the sanctity and dignity of the temple, in which the faithful assemble for no other object than that of acquiring this spirit from its foremost and indispensable font, which is the [active] participation in the divine mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church. [See here for an excellent response to those who claim that active participation as it was 'weaponized' at Vatican II, originated with Pope Pius X. - The Catacombs]
The fact that the original use of the phrase “active participation” occurs in a magisterial document on Gregorian chant should disabuse us of the idea that participation should be focused solely on the celebration of the liturgy in the vernacular, the flourishing of liturgical ministries for lay people, liturgy facing the people (versus populum), or merely our outward actions and responses within the sacred liturgy.
The real actio within the liturgy is oratio. In his work Spirit of the Liturgy, Ratzinger argues that participation is not simply our external action during the liturgy, it is our share in God’s action whereby each person prays that they “may be transformed into the Logos, conformed to the Logos, and so be made the true Body of Christ.” Ratzinger is very clear that external actions are secondary to internal prayer:
Doing really must stop when we come to the heart of the matter: the oratio. It must be plainly evident that the oratio is the heart of the matter, but that it is important precisely because it provides a space for the actio of God.
Oratio assists the worshipping member of the Body of Christ to enter into the self-giving love of Christ.
The manner in which the liturgy is celebrated in the average parish suggests that one should be “doing” something to participate fully in the liturgy. Contrary to this notion that would have us focus on the external at the expense of the internal or the visible over and above the invisible. All of the responses, the singing of hymns, the chanting of the Propers of the Mass, and all liturgical gestures should move us into a transcendent silence lifting us into the celebration of the sacrificial and eschatological nuptial banquet of the Lamb, who was once slain.
The struggle to define and to understand active participation is a fruit of two different conceptions of the liturgy. In one of his interviews with the journalist Peter Seewald, Ratzinger notes that we can view the liturgy as “something living and growing” or “something that has been made.” Hence, Ratzinger constantly affirms the view that the liturgy is the “opus Dei” (the “work of God”) and not a product of man as symbolized by the false worship of the Golden Calf in Exodus.[See
The concern of Ratzinger with the implementation of the reformed post-Vatican liturgy and simply the Missal of St. Paul VI is that it has characteristics of something that has been made by a committee of experts and not the fruit of organic development and growth.
The hermeneutic of reform in continuity remains a foundational theme for Ratzinger/Benedict throughout his thought. It is one of the reasons Ratzinger is critical of referring to the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) as the “Tridentine Mass.” It is a misnomer insofar as the Missal of St. Pius V (1570) has been reformed by Clement VIII (1604), Urban VIII (1634), Leo XIII (1884), Benedict XV (1920), and most recently by St. John XXIII (1962). Hence, we can refer to the TLM as Mass celebrated according to the Missal of St. John XXIII.
In their assessment of Benedict XVI’s allowance for the wider celebration of the Missal of St. John XXIII as the “extraordinary form” of the Roman Rite and the Missal of St. Paul VI and St. John Paul’s Missal as the “ordinary form” of the Roman Rite, Fr. Weinandy, et alia, raise this concern: “By reestablishing the extraordinary form, Benedict unwittingly employed a hermeneutic of discontinuity, as if the revised rite were not in continuity with the old.” Benedict’s Summorum Pontificum and the accompanying letter addressed to the bishops, Con Grande Fiducia, articulate a motive of “liturgical reconciliation” intent on preserving the unity between the two forms of the one Roman Rite. In other words, his aim has always been the preservation of the hermeneutic of reform in continuity.
Monsignor Klaus Gamber has been referred to as the “Father of the New Liturgical Movement” by the eminent German theologian Manfred Hauke. Monsignor Gamber argued for allowing the two most recent Roman missals to coexist:
The traditional ritus Romanus [the Missal of St. John XXIII] and the ritus modernus [the Missal of St. Paul VI] should both be accepted as legitimate forms of worship. The two rites are to exist as independent rites and must be kept separate and unique in such a way that the traditional Roman rite and the traditionally used Missale Romanum, together with all other liturgical texts (Rituale and Pontificale), be reinstated or be authorized for use in the form in which they existed prior to the Council.
It is not difficult to see how Gamber influenced Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum. The key distinction between the two is that Benedict maintains the view that there is one rite celebrated in two different forms.
Fr. Weinandy, et alia, have questioned the rationale and the wisdom of Benedict’s Summorum Pontficum because, in their view:
Quote:Benedict’s accommodation of the Tridentine liturgy, while pastorally motivated, undercut the fundamental principle of the liturgical renewal, for the faithful who now attend that liturgy have little opportunity for active participation.
In light of our discussion above of the authentic meaning of “active participation,” I would argue that he did no such thing. One of the key elements necessary to promote active participation is reverential silence, which is often nowhere to be found in the implementation of the reformed liturgy.
One of the fruits of the “mutual enrichment” of allowing the two forms of the Roman Rite to exist is that it may assist the faithful to understand the true nature of “active participation” as envisioned by the liturgical movement. Benedict is trying to bring clarity to active participation that is both interior and exterior within the sacred liturgy. Further, he has tried to recover the notion that worship and participation extend beyond the celebration of the liturgy in the mission of charity toward our neighbor.
Benedict has favored the gift of liturgical pluralism because it can strengthen unity when it is promoted well and given proper pastoral care and accompaniment. I attend a suburban parish that is filled with a diverse body comprised of Nigerians, Hispanics, Latinos, Filipinos, Vietnamese, and Anglos. Mass celebrated according to the Missal of St. John XXIII was offered as one of the main Sunday Masses, and several hundred people attended this Mass regularly. Additionally, you had people who would go back and forth between this Mass and one of the other Masses celebrated according to the Missal of St. Paul VI/John Paul II.
I never encountered any animus toward Vatican II or the “new” Mass. I have and continue to encounter individuals and families in my parish who simply long for reverent liturgy wherein we take beauty and the ars celebrandi seriously. I also participated with regularity in Masses celebrated according to Divine Worship: The Missal (the liturgy of the Personal Ordinariate for former Anglicans/Episcopalians). I have also had the great fortune of participating in varying liturgies of the Eastern Churches (Byzantine, Ruthenian, Syro-Malabar, Maronite, etc.). My participation in liturgical plurality has taught me that we would all benefit from the treasure of rich liturgical and ecclesial diversity.
Benedict, in his pastoral and liturgical wisdom, was not naïve; nor has his vision failed. If anything, the present situation confirms Benedict’s wisdom and the veracity of Christopher Ruddy’s assessment: “A Church that lives from tradition cannot reject its past without mortally wounding itself.”
We need more prayer, fasting, study of the liturgy, greater liturgical formation, and more dia-logos. When the history of this period is written, we will come to appreciate that Joseph Ratzinger was the eldest son of the new liturgical movement, and his theology of liturgy may offer us the hermeneutic we need to appreciate the true heritage of the Second Vatican Council on the sacred liturgy.
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| Pope Francis doubles down on homosexual blessings: ‘Not the union, but the people’ are blessed |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-27-2024, 08:52 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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Pope Francis doubles down on homosexual blessings: ‘Not the union, but the people’ are blessed
Pope Francis emphasized that the extra-liturgical blessings 'do not require moral perfection to be received' and 'that when a couple spontaneously approaches to ask for them, one does not bless the union, but simply the people who together made the request.'
![[Image: pope-fernandez.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/pope-fernandez.jpg)
Pope Francis & Cardinal Fernández, January 26, 2024.
Vatican News
Jan 26, 2024
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis defended the controversial text Fiducia Supplicans today, stating that blessings of same-sex couples do “not bless the union, but simply the people who together make the request.”
The Pontiff made his comments during a January 26 meeting with the plenary assembly of the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). Fiducia Supplicans emerged from that same body of the Roman Curia on December 18, having been written by the new CDF Prefect Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, and approved by the Pope.
Speaking about “evangelization” and the sacraments, Francis closed his address by commenting on the hotly contested text. “The intent of ‘pastoral and spontaneous blessings’ is to show concretely the closeness of the Lord and the Church to all those who, finding themselves in different situations, ask for help to carry on – sometimes to begin – a journey of faith,” he said.
The Pontiff doubled down on the arguments both he and Fernández have respectively made in the document and in their subsequent brief comments on it, stating that the blessing of two people together is not meant to condone the fact of the two people being together:
Quote:I would like to emphasize briefly two things: the first is that these blessings, outside of any liturgical context and form, do not require moral perfection to be received; the second, that when a couple spontaneously approaches to ask for them, one does not bless the union, but simply the people who together made the request.
Not the union, but the people — of course taking into account the context, the sensitivities, the places where people live and the most appropriate ways to do it.
The Pope’s defense of Fiducia Supplicans, and by extension its author Cardinal Fernández, follows widespread opposition to the text from bishops, cardinals, and bishops’ conferences around the world.
Indeed, one of the Pope’s close C9 cardinal advisors – Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo – flew to Rome specifically to discuss with Francis and Fernández the fact that bishops in Africa and Madagascar would not be offering blessings of same-sex couples.
Ambongo’s subsequently published letter was co-written with Fernández and had Francis’ direct approval at each step of its writing. Such a move came less than one week after Fernández had warned bishops that they were not permitted to forbid the implementation of the document in their dioceses.
But despite collaborating with Ambongo to issue a continent-wide rejection of the document that he approved, Pope Francis then proceeded to attack critics of Fiducia Supplicans just a few days later. In an Italian TV appearance Francis said those who oppose the text have jumped to “ugly conclusions” because they do not understand it properly.
“Sometimes decisions are not accepted. In most cases, decisions are not accepted because one does not know things,” said the Pope.
While Francis and Fernández have not shied away from defending the text, a former prefect of the CDF has been repeatedly vocal in his criticism of it. Writing in December 2023, Cardinal Gerhard Müller questioned if a Catholic could accept the document’s teaching.
“Given the unity of deeds and words in the Christian faith, one can only accept that it is good to bless these unions, even in a pastoral way, if one believes that such unions are not objectively contrary to the law of God,” he stated.
Following Fernández’s January 4 press release defending the document, Müller responded again, saying that Fernández’s argument still left elements in the document which were “problematic.”
The German cardinal added how the “worldwide negative reaction from large parts of the world’s episcopate and from leading lay people… should give those responsible in Rome food for thought.”
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| Pope Francis and Anglican Archbishop Lead Ecumenical Vespers in Papal Basilica |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-26-2024, 07:29 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
- Replies (1)
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Pope Francis, Archbishop of Canterbury lead ecumenical Vespers in papal basilica
Archbishop Justin Welby joined Francis on the altar at St. Paul's Outside the Walls and commissioned the assembled Anglican and Catholic prelates in pairings to return to their home nation to promote Christian unity.
![[Image: pope-welby.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/pope-welby.jpg)
Pope Francis & Justin Welby at ecumenical Vespers, January 25, 2024.
Jan 25, 2024
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews [Emphasis mine]) — Pope Francis and the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury concluded an ecumenical ceremony in Rome today with a “commissioning” to the assembled Anglican and Catholic prelates.
In the Basilica of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, Pope Francis and Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby joined forces on the altar to lead ecumenical Vespers and to send out pairings of Anglican and Catholic prelates – both male and female – on ecumenical endeavors.
Hailing from 27 countries, the ecumenical pairing involved a Catholic and Anglican prelate from each country, who then return to their home nation to spread ecumenical efforts in the current style of Christian unity.
During Pope Francis’ homily, he spoke on the manner in which “unity” was to be effected, saying that “only a love that becomes gratuitous service, only the love that Jesus taught and embodied, will bring separated Christians closer to one another.”
![[Image: P1120678-scaled.jpeg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/P1120678-scaled.jpeg)
Pope Francis at ecumenical Vespers, January 25, 2024
![[Image: P1120665-scaled.jpeg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/P1120665-scaled.jpeg)
Pope Francis at ecumenical Vespers, January 25, 2024
“Only that love, which does not appeal to the past in order to remain aloof or to point a finger, only that love which in God’s name puts our brothers and sisters before the ironclad defense of our own religious structures will unite us,” he added.
Stating how “each baptized person is a member of the one Body of Christ,” Francis drew heavily from today’s feast – the Conversion of St. Paul – saying “all efforts to attain full unity are called to follow the same route as Paul, decentralizing our own ideas in order to hear the Lord’s voice and give him the space to take the initiative.”
Addressing the assembled ecumenical clergy and a large body of the Roman Curia, Francis did not highlight the primacy of the Catholic Church but spoke instead of the role of “prayer” in the pursuit of “unity.” Quoting from St. Paul’s dialogue with God in the Scripture passage of his conversion, Francis stated:
“What are we to do Lord? In asking that question, we already have an answer, because the first answer is prayer. Prayer for unity is the primary responsibility in our journey together. And it is a sacred responsibility, because it means being in communion with the Lord, who prayed above all to the Father for unity."
Francis thanked Welby for being present for the joint commissioning of bishops, highlighting that “we can confer on these joint groups of bishops the mandate of continuing to testify to the unity willed by God for his Church in their respective regions, as they move forward together ‘to extend the mercy and peace of God to a world in need.’”
Welby delivered an unplanned homily after Francis’, highlighting the themes of “unity” and “love” and how such aspects must be prioritized over “anger.”
![[Image: P1120693-scaled.jpeg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/P1120693-scaled.jpeg)
Canterbury’s Justin Welby during ecumenical Vespers, January 25, 2024
During the commissioning itself, Francis pointed back to Pope Gregory the Great sending St. Augustine to convert the English people. Meanwhile Welby urged that “your ministry alongside one another as Catholics and Anglicans be for the world[b] a foretaste of the reconciling of all Christians in the unity of the one and only Church of Christ[/b] for which we pray this day.”
At this point, Francis and Welby pronounced together in English a commendation to the bishops before greeting them in their pairs as the prelates approached the altar and shook hands with Francis and Welby.
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you,” Francis and Welby said in unison after greeting the prelates.
![[Image: P1120705-scaled.jpeg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/P1120705-scaled.jpeg)
Pope Francis greets an Anglican female prelate, January 25, 2024
![[Image: P1120735-scaled.jpeg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/P1120735-scaled.jpeg)
Abp. Justin Welby at ecumenical Vespers
Just prior to the close of the Vespers, Cardinal Kurt Koch – prefect of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity – thanked the Pope for his presence, saying it highlighted “how much ecumenical engagement is close to your heart.”
“The ecumenism of charity has enabled us to rediscover the fraternity that, among us Christians and among us Christian communities, exists by reason of the baptism common to all, offering us an effective network of friendly relations,” Koch continued.
![[Image: P1120728-scaled.jpeg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/P1120728-scaled.jpeg)
Cardinal Kurt Koch
The ceremony took place at the conclusion of the week of prayer for Christian unity. Running alongside the week of prayer for Christian unity is the “Growing Together” summit, which is being organized by the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM).
IARCCUM is “an official commission of the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church, established to support ecumenical dialogue between the traditions,” and it was the final event of the Rome section of the IARCCUM summit that Francis joined forces with Welby at Vespers.
IARCCUM described the event as “a significant moment, symbolic for Anglican-Catholic bonds and advancing ecumenical dialogue.”
READ: Archbishop of Canterbury leads ‘Anglican Eucharist’ in Catholic basilica with Pope’s approval
It marks the second time that Francis and Welby have commissioned the pairs of Anglican and Catholic bishops since 2016, a year which saw the first IARCCUM summit.
Over his pontificate, Pope Francis has formed a close relationship with Welby, most recently journeying with him to South Sudan on an ecumenical pilgrimage and inviting the Anglican prelate to take a place of honor at the ecumenical prayer vigil held on the eve of the Synod on Synodality.
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| “Growing your own vegetables is bad for the planet” |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-25-2024, 08:07 AM - Forum: Socialism & Communism
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“Growing your own vegetables is bad for the planet”
Another blatant step in the plan to control our food
OG | January 24, 2024
Have you ever made a prediction and wished you’d recorded it?
Last week, in a phone conversation with a family member, they happened to mention growing their own vegetables, and I said in reply “Enjoy it while you can, they’re gonna start claiming it’s causing climate change soon.”
Literally four days later…
Apparently, a new study from the University of Michigan has found that “urban gardening” is 5 (or maybe 6, they’re not sure) times worse for the environment than “conventional crops”.
I don’t know how they calculated it, and it doesn’t really matter. If you read the bodies of the articles they even say it only applies to some vegetables in some places and it all depends on how the “infrastructure” is put together.
The details aren’t the point. The point is yet another weapon in the war on food. More regulation, more commercialization, less freedom, all in the name of “fighting climate change”.
And if you’re doubting that’s the agenda here, check out the sheer number of government research agencies which the “supported” the research project:
Quote:Support for the project was provided by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, French National Research Agency, U.S. National Science Foundation, Poland’s National Science Centre, and the European Union’s Horizon 202 research and innovation program.
It’s a fairly obvious case of needing a study to support a position, going out and and buying one.
This is one of those stories that exists simply to be a headline, so some pundit can quote it on some political panel on primetime TV and start a conversation about “regulation”.
Since we started with a prediction, let’s end with another one: This is just the first step, and you don’t have to be paying especially close attention to see where it goes from here.
They are never going to make growing your own vegetables illegal, they are just going to make it increasingly difficult.
It will start with licenses, for food safety purposes or something. Maybe an outbreak of a disease will be linked to people sharing food from their allotments.
Licenses will be increasingly expensive, and come with restrictions. You’ll only be allowed to use seeds from specific approved vendors, seeds of GMO plants which “mitigate the impact of climate change”. These seeds will likely be “terminator seeds”, meaning they are sterile in the second generation.
And, in that fashion, growing your own vegetables will no longer be an individual and independent experience, but just another corporate subscription service.
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| Germany steps up crackdown on anti-abortion protests |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-25-2024, 07:47 AM - Forum: Abortion
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Germany steps up crackdown on anti-abortion protests
![[Image: 63522326_1004.webp]](https://static.dw.com/image/63522326_1004.webp)
Christian groups in Munich have long been protesting outside the Pro Familia office thereImage: Sachelle Babbar/ZUMA/picture alliance
DW [slightly adapted] | January 24, 2024
As the abortion debate heats up in Germany, the government is tightening its grip on "pro-life" protests. Reproductive rights advocates say the anti-abortion movement in Europe is influenced by US money and tactics.
Family Minister Lisa Paus (Green Party) announced on January 24 a draft law to prevent demonstrators from approaching or harassing visitors within a 100-meter (320 ft) radius of abortion clinics and family planning centers. Posters or flyers aimed at intimidating women will also be banned. Anyone violating the ban could be punished with a fine of up to €5,000 ($5,445).
Paus said that it was important that women were able to receive good advice in such difficult situations without being confronted with "hatred and agitation." "That's why we are striking a balance between freedom of expression and the right of assembly," Paus told German public broadcaster ZDF.
Protests outside of abortion clinics and family planning centers are common in the United States, where abortion is a highly partisan and dominant political issue. Planned Parenthood, which provides reproductive health care and advice at centers throughout the US, even has guidelines on its website for patients on how to deal with protesters gathered outside of its centers.
Although less widespread and less well-publicized than those in the US, anti-abortion protests outside counseling centers and abortion clinics are not a new phenomenon in Germany.
"We didn't see this phenomenon in Germany before, but it has increased in recent years," said Family Minister Paus.
Read the rest of the article here.
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| EU set to allow draconian use of facial recognition tech, say lawmakers |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-25-2024, 07:41 AM - Forum: Socialism & Communism
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EU set to allow draconian use of facial recognition tech, say lawmakers
Late tweaks to the EU’s artificial intelligence law have caused uproar over loopholes for biometric identification.
JANUARY 16, 2024
BRUSSELS (Politico.eu) — Last-minute tweaks to the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act will allow law enforcement to use facial recognition technology on recorded video footage without a judge’s approval — going further than what was agreed by the three EU institutions, according to European lawmaker Svenja Hahn.
The German member of the European Parliament said the final text of the bloc’s new rules on artificial intelligence, obtained by POLITICO, was “an attack on civil rights” and could enable “irresponsible and disproportionate use of biometric identification technology, as we otherwise only know from authoritarian states such as China.”
The wording also made it to the full legal text, which the Spanish Council presidency put together on December 22. The current presidency of the EU Council, held by Belgium, is working with Parliament to finalize bits of interpretative text known as recitals.
In early December, the EU agreed on a pioneering artificial intelligence rulebook — the world's first — to slap wide-ranging binding rules on the use of the burgeoning technology. But Hahn, a member of the liberal Renew group, said the final wording of the text introduced a loophole for the use of facial recognition technology, which was not in the original agreement.
In a statement to POLITICO, Hahn outlined issues with final language on so-called post facial recognition, where the technology is used on pre-existing footage, distinguishing it from real-time scanning of public spaces with AI-augmented cameras, the use of which would be largely outlawed under the AI Act.
The Spanish presidency of the EU Council — representing member countries' governments — and aides from Parliament agreed the rules on post facial recognition on December 22, two weeks after the two institutions and the European Commission reached a common position on the AI rulebook as a whole.
Hahn argued that the text breached that December 8 agreement. “The oral agreement had foreseen the use of post [facial recognition] only for very serious crimes, under very strict conditions, such as a prior judicial reservation. Little of this remained,” Hahn said.
The German parliamentarian said the rulebook's final text would allow police forces to use post facial recognition after the say-so of an administrative authority, rather than a judge's decision. She also lamented that the technology would be allowed to identify suspects for all types of crimes, regardless of how severe these crimes are. “The most trivial misdemeanors could be prosecuted using facial recognition,” she said.
Hahn's concerns were echoed by European Parliament member Patrick Breyer, a member of the left-leaning German Pirate Party and self-proclaimed "digital freedom fighter," who said in a statement Tuesday that "it appears the EU intends to compete with China not only technologically but also in terms of high-tech repression."
The kerfuffle over facial recognition underlines how European Parliament and Council officials left the 36-hour final negotiation round on December 8 with different understandings of what had been agreed to regarding post facial recognition. That happened despite a version of the text being shown on the negotiating room’s screen, according to a diplomat familiar with the matter, granted anonymity to speak about confidential negotiations. The Spanish presidency of the EU Council did not respond to a request for comment.
Clarion call
“We had heard from both the Commission and the Parliament that post [facial recognition] would be subject to strict safeguards and only allowed in some narrow, exceptional circumstances,” said Daniel Leufer, a senior policy fellow at digital rights NGO Access Now. “The latest text that we’ve seen makes a mockery of those announcements.”
Ella Jakubowska, a senior policy adviser at European Digital Rights, said that the text opened “huge loopholes which allow the wide use of post biometric identification.”
But others, including Parliament's leading negotiators of the deal, defended the final text.
Dragoș Tudorache, one of two lawmakers who steered the AI Act through Parliament — and member of the same political group as Hahn — said the language on facial recognition was "supported by a majority" of leading parliament members and that it "reflects the political agreement reached" in December.
EU governments are slated to receive the AI Act’s final text on January 24, with the aim of green-lighting it on February 2. After that, the Parliament will have to pass the law with a plenary vote. Parliamentary committees, political groups or alliances of over 40 lawmakers will be able to propose amendments — which, if approved, will need further legislative work in Council and Parliament.
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| JPII Academy urges Pope to dismiss Cardinal Fernández over ‘scandalous books’ |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-24-2024, 07:18 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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Too scandalous for even the JPII Academy...
JPII Academy urges Pope to dismiss Cardinal Fernández over ‘scandalous books’
According to the John Paul II Academy, 'These scandalous episodes show that Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández does not have the necessary minimum qualities required to fulfil the role of defender of the faith.'
![[Image: fernandez-e1697559419687.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/fernandez-e1697559419687.jpg)
Cardinal Victor Fernández
Twitter screenshot
Jan 23, 2024
(LifeSiteNews) — The John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family has called on Pope Francis to remove Cardinal Victor Fernández from his position as head of the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF).
The John Paul II Academy, founded in 2017 by former members of the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV) removed by Francis, condemned the “scandalous books” Cardinal Fernandez wrote in the past and asserted that the current head of the DDF “does not have the necessary minimum qualities required to fulfil the role of defender of the faith” and should therefore be removed by the Pope.
In a statement published on January 17, the Academy wrote that it “feels obliged to express its astonishment and perplexity that Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández has accepted the role of Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith despite having in past decades written scandalous books of an erotic nature which border on pornography and which contain passages that clash with the traditional teaching of the Church…”
“n particular his works ‘Sáname con tu boca – El arte de besar’ (‘Heal Me With Your Mouth: The Art of Kissing’) and ‘La Pasión mística – espiritualidad y sensualidad’ (Mystical Passion: spirituality and sensuality). Far from retracting the disgraceful passages that these works contain, Cardinal Fernández has limited himself to stating that he would not have published them today and that he has prohibited their reprinting.”
“The sensual-mystical literature for which the cardinal has a particular propensity is one of the worst evils of our time to the extent that under the pretext of spirituality, it, in reality, does nothing but justify the worst excesses of the sexual revolution that is deeply corrupting our society and leading our youth to the abyss,” the statement continued.
The John Paul II Academy explained that this kind of mystical-sensual literature written by Fernández is dangerous because, even if the author is well-intentioned, it can lead people to sins of lust under the guise of spirituality.
“Although all honest acts performed with good intentions are meritorious before God, sexual relations in our present order of fallen nature are so linked to unruly concupiscence that, generally, they cannot constitute an object that awakens or elevates piety,” the Academy stated.
“Already during the pontificate of Pius XI, the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office published an Instruction entitled [i]De sensuali et de sensuali-mystico litterarum genere explicitly condemning mystical-sensual literature, in particular works of those authors who ‘do not fear to embellish the pasture of a sickly sensuality with sacred things, mixing immodest loves with a certain piety towards God and an entirely false religious mysticism.’”
“The Instruction [by Pius XI] explicitly states that no intention of the author can prevent ‘that readers whose fragility is generally great, as is also great their propensity to lust as a result of the corruption of their nature, gradually caught in nets by the bait of these impure pages, are not perverted in their minds and depraved in their hearts.’”
“It is deplorable that almost a century after this Instruction, lay Catholics should have to remind the Prefect [of the DDF] of the admonition of his own predecessor:
Let these literati learn once and for all that they cannot serve two masters, God and sensuality, religion and impurity. ‘He who is not with me, said the Lord Jesus, is against me’ (Matthew, 12, 30). They are certainly not with Jesus Christ, the writers who, through sordid descriptions, deprave good morals, which are the most authentic foundations of civil and family society.”
According to the John Paul II Academy, “These scandalous episodes show that Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández does not have the necessary minimum qualities required to fulfil the role of defender of the faith.”
“For this reason, this Academy formally asks the Holy Father to dismiss him and appoint in his place a competent theologian faithful to the moral teachings of the Church,” the statement concluded.
Pope Francis’ heterodox re-construction of the PAV
In 1994, Pope John Paul II founded the Pontifical Academy for Life to study and defend human life in all stages, from conception to natural death. However, starting in 2016, Pope Francis dismissed most orthodox members chosen by John Paul II and changed the statutes of the PAV so that new members were no longer required to sign a declaration upholding the Church’s pro-life teachings. Francis has also expanded the PAV mandate to include a focus on the environment.
For this reason, former members of the PAV founded the John Paul II Academy in October 2017 to continue “to unfold the splendor of truth about life and family as taught by Pope St John Paul.”
Since 2017, Francis has made numerous scandalous appointments to the PAV, including members who support euthanasia, abortion, and contraception in blatant contradiction to perennial Church teaching and the original mission of the PAV.
A list of the PAV scandals since its re-vamping by Pope Francis can be found at the bottom of this article. [/i]
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| Brazilian Catholics Miraculously Defeat the Dutch Protestants |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-23-2024, 08:36 AM - Forum: Resources Online
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Brazilian Catholics Miraculously Defeat the Dutch Protestants
TIA [slightly adapted - not all hyperlinks included] | Janaury 22, 2024
This is the story of the beautiful miracle wrought through Our Lady’s intercession during the Pernambucan Insurrection in the Battle of Monte das Tabocas, which was part of the Lusitanian-Dutch War of the 17th century. The battle took place in Monte das Tabocas, in the city of Vitoria de Santo Antão, Pernambuco, Brazil.
The city’s name translates to “Victory of St. Anthony,” for the city took its name from the miraculous appearance in the battle of St. Anthony the Great (also known as St. Anthony of the Desert, who met with St. Paul the Hermit). Local government officials agreed on this name for their city to give homage to the Saint who ensured the Catholic victory at the Battle of Monte das Tabocas (which translates to the Mountain of Tabocas). Taboca is the local name for a type of bamboo plant native to Brazil.
Since that time, there has been a lively devotion to Our Lady of Tabocas.
In the 17th century, after their defeat in an attempt to conquer Bahia, the Dutch set their sights on Pernambuco. In 1630 Recife was dominated by the Dutch Batavians, and for 15 years, the invaders had been advancing through the lands of Pernambuco.
This was not just a dispute between nations, for what most differentiated the Portuguese-Brazilians from the Dutch was their faith. While Portugal had deeply planted the teachings of the Holy Catholic Church in the Brazilian soil, the Dutch, on the contrary, wanted to impose Protestantism in its most odious form against Catholicism. Therefore, wherever the invaders passed, terrible massacres occurred of the Brazilian population of Pernambuco who remained faithful to Holy Mary.
![[Image: A_038_Vie.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/History/HistImages/A_038_Vie.jpg)
Commander João Fernandes Vieira
The battle that marked the beginning of the expulsion of the Dutch troops took place on August 3, 1645. It was a historic battle in several senses, for it is also considered to be the first appearance of a Brazilian national army, which was further consolidated a few years later in the Battle of Guararapes.
A few months earlier, João Fernandes Vieira, commander of the Brazilian troops, had gathered together the men willing to fight in the city of São Lourenço. As the Dutch Batavians approached, João Vieira took his entire contingent to a strategic hill covered with bamboo called taboca, about 30 miles from Recife.
To put a hasty finish to this dangerous insurrection, the Dutch sent a large contingent under the command of Captain Hendrick Van Haus. It was on the 2nd of August that Van Haus reached the edge of the taboca hill where the Catholic soldiers had gathered. For the Dutch, victory seemed certain and simple, for they had 1,500 armed soldiers and numerous allied Indians. Although Vieira had about a thousand men, only 230 of them had firearms.
In an impassioned speech before the battle, Captain Vieira addressed his soldiers recalling that “he who has God on his side cannot doubt the victory." "And we know," he continued, "that we fight against a people who openly offend God. The broken sacred images, the stones of destroyed temples, the bodies of Catholics torn to pieces, the mocking offenses against priests - what is all this but weapons that Heaven gives us to destroy these heretics?”
![[Image: A_038_Bat.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/History/HistImages/A_038_Bat.jpg)
Brazilians fighting the Dutch
The next day, the battle took place. As the fight raged on, sometimes one side, sometimes the other would gain the advantage. However, since the taboca-filled forest offered great protection to those on top of the hill, the Dutch always saw their men falling in greater numbers.
While fighting, Fathers Simon de Figueiredo, João de Araújo and the Benedictine Friar João da Resurreição [John of the Resurrection] fearlessly moved through the Catholic ranks, confessing and blessing the Brazilian soldiers. Father Manuel de Morais held high a banner with an image of Jesus Crucified, and urged the soldiers to fight manfully and to make their promises to Our Lord and the Blessed Virgin.
Everyone felt endowed with a truly supernatural courage, willing to fight to the death in defense of the Catholic Faith. The soldiers promised penance and good works; the commander vowed to build a church in honor of Nossa Senhora do Desterro [Our Lady of Exile] and another in honor of Nossa Senhora de Nazaré [Our Lady of Nazareth].
Unnerved by such ardor, the Dutch reaction had no choice but to intensify the attack, and thus managed to regain the advantage in the battle. Then João Vieira shouted: “Valorous Portuguese, long live the Faith of Christ! Forward! Forward!" His words were followed by those of Father Manuel who urged everyone to pray together a Salve Regina.
![[Image: A_038_Des.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/History/HistImages/A_038_Des.jpg)
Our Lady of the Exile Church built by Commander Vieira in gratitude for her help in the battle
At this very moment when the Virgin was so piously invoked, the heretics were seized with an inexplicable panic and began to flee in great confusion. Many Dutch soldiers later reported that what caused them to withdraw so suddenly was the sight of a very beautiful Woman with a Child in her arms and, next to her, a venerable old man dressed in white; the figures were so splendorous that their eyes were blinded. The luminous figures walked among the Catholics, distributing guns, gunpowder and ammunition.
There is no doubt that this Woman was the Blessed Virgin with her Divine Son. Before this last attack, the Pernambucans' ammunition was already reaching its end. However, after the battle it was found that, despite the unrestricted use of bullets, there miraculously remained still more in their stocks.
As for the hermit, he was none other than St. Anthony the Great, or St. Anthony of the Desert, popularly known as Santo Antão. There had been a chapel dedicated to him nearby, but it had been destroyed and abandoned since the invasion of the Dutch heretics.
In gratitude and to fulfill his promise, João Fernandes Vieira had a church built in honor of the Virgin at the entrance to Olinda.
Our Lady of Tabocas, pray for us!
Original here.
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| Defeating Modernism at the Root Level |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-20-2024, 08:32 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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Defeating Modernism at the Root Level
Mary, Destoyer of All Heresies blog | October 1, 2023
Defeating Modernism requires addressing the root cause. The root cause of Modernism according to St. Pius X is the exaltation of agnostic philosophy over natural and supernatural revelation. Philosophy - the art of reasoning about created things - in this era is based on false ideas about nature. Science is treated today as the faith once was; and where science opposes faith the faith is summarily subjected to it, even within the Church:
Quote:...faith occupies itself solely with something which science declares to be unknowable for it. Hence each has a separate field assigned to it: science is entirely concerned with the reality of phenomena, into which faith does not enter at all...
...but it is quite different with regard to faith, which [in the Modernist system] is subject to science...
How did this displacement of theology, long regarded as the Queen of sciences occur? When did this happen? I would caution the reader to tread carefully over the next few paragraphs as the ideas expressed there may be both unsettling and for some, impossible.
As St. Pius X traces in his analysis of the "compendium of all heresies" (Modernism), it is the doctrine of evolution that underpins the agnosticism of the Modernist. Enough ink has been spilt confuting the heresy of so-called theistic evolution; what I propose here is the examination of the seminal theological event that made the theory of evolution inevitable as the dominant cosmological theory even among churchmen.
Evolution attacks creation. Creation as divine revelation explains it to us simply could not have occurred. Therefore, the Book of Genesis - the sure foundation upon which all Sacred Scripture rests - is either in error or speaks only in poetic and symbolic style.
The first attack on the divinity of Genesis happened long before Darwin. It occurred in the early 17th century when three Roman Pontiffs (Paul V, Urban VIII, and Alexander VII) all condemned Galileo's heliocentric theory as formally heretical. The Church had always held that the earth was at rest in the center of cosmos as the theater of redemption in which God became incarnate of the Virgin Mary. The rest of the heavenly bodies rotated around the earth as Genesis 1,14 reveals. To this, Saint Robert Bellarmine testifies
Quote:"Second. I say that, as you know, the Council [of Trent] prohibits expounding the Scriptures contrary to the common agreement of the holy Fathers. And if Your Reverence would read not only the Fathers but also the commentaries of modern writers on Genesis, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Josue, you would find that all agree in explaining literally (ad litteram) that the sun is in the heavens and moves swiftly around the earth, and that the earth is far from the heavens and stands immobile in the center of the universe. Now consider whether in all prudence the Church could encourage giving to Scripture a sense contrary to the holy Fathers and all the Latin and Greek commentators."
- Letter to Foscarini, 1615
Evolution could not have gotten off the ground - at least as regards the theology of the Church - except first that faith in Genesis had been wounded by the heliocentrists. They - long before the evolutionists - accused the Church of error as regards the interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis. If the Church was wrong about so foundational a matter as the cosmological makeup of the universe, how could she be trusted with the weightier matters of Biblical interpretation?
However, Saint Robert Bellarmine points out a dogmatic hermeneutic here; where there is common agreement by the Church Fathers, there is no freedom to oppose their interpretation. This decree from Trent is renewed at Vatican I:
Quote:"The complete books of the old and the new Testament with all their parts, as they are listed in the decree of the said council [Trent] and as they are found in the old Latin Vulgate edition, are to be received as sacred and canonical.
These books the Church holds to be sacred and canonical not because she subsequently approved them by her authority after they had been composed by unaided human skill, nor simply because they contain revelation without error, but because, being written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their Author, and were as such committed to the Church.
Now since the decree on the interpretation of holy scripture, profitably made by the council of Trent, with the intention of constraining rash speculation, has been wrongly interpreted by some, we renew that decree and declare its meaning to be as follows: that in matters of faith and morals, belonging as they do to the establishing of Christian doctrine, that meaning of holy scripture must be held to be the true one, which Holy Mother Church held and holds, since it is her right to judge of the true meaning and interpretation of holy scripture.
In consequence, it is not permissible for anyone to interpret holy scripture in a sense contrary to this, or indeed against the unanimous consent of the fathers."
- Decree of the Vatican Council, 1869-1870
Here we face an immovable object; the Church formally forbids interpreting the Word of God against the consensus of the Fathers, which St. Robert says were agreed about the geocentric cosmological model. No Fathers ever considered that the earth rotates around the sun, especially as an insignificant and obscure planet in some remote location in the galaxies. The teaching was so firmly established that three Popes condemned the idea that earth rotates around the sun as heresy. In his 1885 book The Pontifical Decrees Against the Doctrine of the Earth’s Movement and the Ultramontane Defence of Them Rev. William W. Roberts argues that the Church exercised her charism of infallibility in the condemnations of heliocentrism. These condemnations occurred prior to Vatican I when Papal infallibility was defined, but the condemnations have never been retracted - nor could they be without destroying the integrity of the ecclesiastical magisterium.
A brief explanation about the science is perhaps helpful. As shocking as it may sound to the reader, there is no proof that the earth rotates the sun, nor is moving at all despite the claims that it is hurtling through space at a rate of 66,000 miles per hour while rotating at a speed of 1,004 miles per hour at the equator. All the experiments conducted to prove the motion of the earth failed. Albert Einstein developed two (opposing) theories of relativity to save the heliocentric system which at the end of the day simply renders the issue a 'tie': all motion is relative according to Einstein, and we cannot know whether the earth moves or the planets and stars do. And now the latest evidence from James Webb's telescope have scientists, astronomers, and cosmologists scrambling for explanations as what they previously held as fact is thrown into chaos.
They simply do not know all that they say they know and most people have blindly accepted what they say as though it were an article of faith.
Back to the roots of Modernism: it was this frontal assault by Galileo (utilizing the system distilled from others by Fr. Nicholas Copernicus) on the Church's authoritative interpretation of Genesis that resulted in his censure. Following Galileo others advanced the heliocentric theory each asserting that he found conclusive evidence for it. Finally the Catholic Church permitted the investigation of the heliocentric model in the late 19th century but never formally retracted the condemnations of Paul V, Urban VIII, and Alexander VII. The enemies of the Church used the Galileo affair as a battering ram against her as they do to this day. They accuse her of being anti-science, a position that is laughable now as the Church is infected with Modernism from head to foot. Just say the name "Galileo" and watch modern churchmen apologize profusely, back peddle with haste, and explain how we have now "repented" for the "unjust treatment" of Galileo Galilee.
This idea prevails to the present moment: the Church was wrong for 18 centuries in her authoritative interpretation of Genesis. The problem with this perception is that it contradicts the twice defined dogma of patristic biblical interpretation; it undermines the authority of previous Supreme Pontiffs who acted uniformly in condemning heliocentrism as heresy; and it opens the door for the Church to be accused on multiple fronts for false teaching based on anti-scientific exegesis.
Modernism wounds divine and Catholic faith with a malignantly inspired skepticism about the truth of revelation. It attacks the first words of Sacred Scripture in order to topple all that follows. It assumes a role above the science of divinity in order to criticize and ridicule it. But Modernism itself is condemned by the Church in the encyclical Pascendi Domenici gregis promulgated by Pope Pius X in 1907. It may surprise the reader to learn that St. Pius X is not quoted even once in the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church promulgated by Pope John Paul II. John Paul II famously apologized for the Galileo affair explaining that "theologians had erred" in concluding that heliocentrism was formal heresy.
It is easy to be intimidated by Modernists today who reign in the Church Militant as the Arians did in the 4th and 5th centuries. They laugh in your face if you suggest the Catholic Church was right to condemn heliocentrism as heresy. They mock and scoff at the very idea that science could be wrong about anything. Yet until the churchmen - you and I - start to stand up for our faith as the martyr-Saints always have in the face of a world that is under the dominion of the devil, the false beliefs of the world will not only dominate profane thinking but continue to wound the faith of the Catholic Church.
Evolution must be confuted in our apologetics; but that is all activity above the ground level. To remove the roots of Modernism, we must believe what the Church has always taught and recover the teaching of the holy Fathers as regards our central place in the cosmos. This task is not for the faint of heart or those who desire the esteem of the world.
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| Archbishop Viganò: Homily for the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter in Rome - January 18, 2024 |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-18-2024, 10:15 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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Deus, qui beato Petro Apostolo tuo,
collatis clavibus regni cælestis,
ligandi atque solvendi pontificium tradidisti:
concede; ut, intercessionis ejus auxilio,
a peccatorum nostrorum nexibus liberemur.
Praised be Jesus Christ.
Today the Church in Rome celebrates the feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, with which the authority that Our Lord conferred on the Prince of the Apostles finds in the Chair its symbol and ecclesial expression. We find traces of this celebration since the third century, but it was in 1588, at the time of the Lutheran heresy, that Paul IV established that the feast of the Chair qua primum Romæ sedit Petrus would take place on January 18, in response to the denial of the presence of the Apostle in the City of Rome. The other feast for the Chair of the first Diocese founded by St. Peter, Antioch, is celebrated by the universal Church on February 22.
Let me point out this important aspect: just as the human body develops antibodies when disease arises, so that it can be defeated when it is infected; so too the ecclesial body defends itself from the contagion of error when it occurs, affirming with greater incisiveness those aspects of dogma threatened by heresy. For this reason, with great wisdom, the Church proclaimed Truths of the Faith at certain times and not before, since those Truths were hitherto believed by the faithful in a less explicit and articulated form and it was not yet necessary to specify them. The sacred Canons of the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea respond to the Arian denial of the divine nature of Our Lord, and are echoed by the splendid compositions of the ancient liturgy; the denial of the sacrificial value of the Mass, transubstantiation, suffrages, and indulgences are answered by the sacred Canons of the Council of Trent, and along with them also the sublime texts of the Liturgy. Today’s feast responds to the anti-papal denial of the foundation of the Diocese of Rome by the Apostle Peter, a feast that was desired by Paul IV precisely in order to reiterate the historical truth contested by Protestants and to strengthen the doctrine that derives from it.
The heretics and their neo-modernist followers, who have infested the Church of Christ for the past sixty years, act in the opposite way. And where they do not brazenly deny the Catholic Magisterium, they attempt to weaken it by being silent about it, omitting it, and formulating it in such a way as to make it equivocal and therefore acceptable even by those who deny it. This is exactly how the heresiarchs of the past also acted; this is how the innovators acted at Vatican II; and this is how those who, in order not to be accused of formal heresy, seek to cancel those “immune defenses” with which the Church had endowed herself, so as to make the faith fall into error and infect those defenses with the plague of heresy. Almost everything that the Mystical Body had wisely developed over the centuries – and particularly during the second millennium of the Christian era – growing harmoniously like a child who becomes an adult and strengthens himself in body and spirit, has now been willfully obscured and censured, with the deceptive excuse of returning to the primordial simplicity of Christian antiquity, and with the unspeakable purpose of adulterating the Catholic Faith in order to please the enemies of the Church.
If you take the Montinian Missal, you will not find explicit heresies in it; but if you compare it with the traditional Missal, you will find that the omission of so many prayers composed in defense of revealed Truth was more than enough to make the Reformed Mass acceptable even to Lutherans, as they themselves admitted after the promulgation of that fatal and equivocal rite. To confirm this, even the feasts of the Chair of St. Peter in Rome and Antioch have been combined into one, in the name of that cancel culture that the modernist sect adopted in the ecclesiastical sphere well before the woke Left appropriated it in the civil sphere.
Today we celebrate the glories of the Papacy, symbolized by the Cathedra Apostolica that the genius of Bernini artistically composed on the altar of the apse of the Vatican Basilica, which is dominated by the alabaster window depicting the Holy Spirit and guarded by four Doctors of the Church: Saint Augustine and Saint Ambrose for the Latin Church, Saint Athanasius and Saint John Chrysostom for the Greek Church. In the original project, which has remained intact through the centuries, the Chair was located above an altar, which the devastating fury of the innovators did not spare, moving it between the apse and the baldacchino of the Confession. Yet it is precisely in the architectural unity of altar and chair – which today has been deliberately erased – that we find the foundation of the doctrine of the Primacy of Peter, which is founded on Christ, He who is the lapis angularis, just as the altar of sacrifice, which is also a symbol of Christ, is made of stone.
We celebrate the Papacy in a historical phase of grave crisis and apostasy, which has risen even to the level of the Throne on which Peter first sat. And while our hearts are broken in contemplating the ruins caused by the devastation of the innovators to the detriment of so many souls and the glory of the divine Majesty; while we implore from Heaven a light that will allow us to understand how to combine Our Lord’s promise Non prævalebunt with the steady stream of heresies and scandals spread by the one whom Providence has inflicted on us at the head of the ecclesial body as punishment for the sins committed by the Hierarchy in these decades; while we see the division between those who deluded themselves that they still had a Pope segregated in the Monastery and the schism in the Dioceses of Northern Europe with their wicked synodal journey strongly desired by Bergoglio, we remember the prophecy of Leo XIII of happy memory, who wanted to insert in the prayer of the Exorcism against Satan and the apostate angels those terrible words that at the time must have sounded almost scandalous, but that today we understand in their supernatural sense:
Ecclesiam, Agni immaculati sponsam, faverrimi hostes repleverunt amaritudinibus, inebriarunt absinthio; Ad omnia desiderabilia ejus impias miserunt manus. Ubi sedes beatissimi Petri et Cathedra veritatis ad lucem gentium constituta est, ibi thronum posuerunt abominationis et impietatis suæ; ut percusso Pastor, et gregem disperse valeant.
Terrible enemies have filled the Church, bride of the immaculate Lamb, with bitterness, they have poisoned her with absinthe; they have laid their wicked hands on all desirable things. There where the See of Blessed Peter and the Chair of Truth was established to enlighten the nations, there they have placed the throne of their abomination and impiety, so that by striking the Shepherd they might also scatter the flock. These are not randomly written words: they were written after Leo XIII, at the end of Mass, had a vision in which the Lord granted Satan a period of time of about a hundred years to test the men of the Church. They echo the message of the Blessed Virgin at La Salette, fifty years earlier: “Rome will lose the Faith and become the seat of the Antichrist,” and precede by little more than a decade that third part of the Secret of Fatima in which, in all likelihood, Our Lady predicted the apostasy of the Hierarchy with the Second Vatican Council and the liturgical reform.
Every believer down the centuries has been able to look to Rome as a beacon of truth. No Pope, not even the most controversial popes in history like Alexander VI, ever dared to usurp his sacred Apostolic Authority in order to demolish the Church, adulterate her Magisterium, corrupt her Morality, and trivialize her Liturgy. In the midst of the most shocking storms, the Chair of Peter has remained unshaken and, despite persecution, it has never failed in the mandate conferred on it by Christ: Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep (Jn 21:15-19). Today, and for ten years now, feeding the lambs and sheep of the Lord’s flock is considered as a “solemn foolishness” by the one who now occupies the Throne of Peter, and the command that the Lord has given to the Apostles – Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (Mt 28:19-20) – is seen as deplorable “proselytism,” as if the divine mission of the Holy Church were comparable to the heretical propaganda of sects. He said so on October 1, 2013; January 6, 2014; September 24, 2016; May 3, 2018; September 30, 2018; June 6, 2019; December 20, 2019; April 25, 2020, and again just a week ago on January 11, 2023. And here collapses the last, gasping vestige of what was Vatican II, which made “mission” [missionarietà] its watchword without understanding that in order to proclaim Christ to a paganized world it is necessary first of all to believe in the supernatural Truths that He taught the Apostles and that the Church has the duty to guard faithfully. Watering down Catholic doctrine, silencing it, and betraying it in order to please the mentality of the age is not the work of Faith, because this virtue is based on God who is the Supreme Truth; it is not a work of Hope, because one cannot hope for the salvation or help of a God whose revealing authority and saving love one rejects; it is not a work of Charity, because one cannot love Him whose very essence is denied.
What is the vulnus that has struck the ecclesial body, making possible this apostasy of the leaders of the Hierarchy, to the point of causing scandal not only in Catholics, but also in the people of the world? It is the abuse of authority. It is believing that the power connected with authority can be exercised for the very opposite purpose of that purpose which legitimizes authority itself. It is taking God’s place, usurping His supreme power to decide what is right and what is not, deciding what can still be said to people and what is to be considered old-fashioned or outdated in the name of progress and evolution. It is to use the power of the Holy Keys to loose what ought to be bound and bind what ought to be loosed. It is not to understand that authority belongs to God and to no one else, and that both the rulers of nations and the prelates of the Church are all hierarchically subjected to Christ the King and High Priest. In short, it is separating the Chair from the altar, the authority of the Vicar and the Regent from that of the One who makes that authority sacred, ratified from above, because He possesses its fullness and is its divine origin.
Among the titles of the Roman Pontiff, there recurs, along with Christi Vicarius, also that of Servus servorum Dei. If the first has been disdainfully rejected by Bergoglio, his choice to retain the second sounds like a provocation, as his words and his works demonstrate. The day will come when the prelates of the Church will be asked to clarify what intrigues and conspiracies may have led to the Throne one who acts as the servant of Satan’s servants, and why they have fearfully assisted his excesses or made themselves accomplices of this proud heretical tyrant. Let those tremble who know and yet are silent out of false sense of prudence: by their silence they do not protect the honor of the Holy Church, nor do they preserve the simple from scandal. On the contrary, they plunge the Bride of the Lamb into ignominy and humiliation, and drive the faithful away from the Ark of Salvation at the very moment of the Flood.
Let us pray that the Lord will deign to grant us a holy Pope and holy rulers. Let us implore Him to put an end to this long period of trial, thanks to which – like every event permitted by God – we are now understanding how fundamental it is instaurare omnia in Christo, to recapitulate everything in Christ; how hellish – literally – is the world that rejects the Lordship of Christ, and how much more infernal is a religion that strips itself with contempt of its royal garments – robes dyed with the Blood of the Lamb on the Cross – to become the servant of the powerful, of the New World Order, of the globalist sect. Tempora bona veniant. Pax Christi veniat. Regnum Christi veniat.
And so may it be.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
January 18, 2023
Cathedra sancti Petri Apostoli, qua primum Romae sedit
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| Full and Active Participation: Capitulation to Modernism |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-18-2024, 06:48 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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Full and Active Participation: Capitulation to Modernism
Mary, Destroyer of All Heresies blog [Emphasis in the original] | January 4, 2022
Why did the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum concilium) promulgated by Pope Paul VI at the Second Vatican Council emphasize "full and active participation" by "all the people" as the number one priority for reforming the liturgy?
Quote:In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy, this full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else; for it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit; and therefore pastors of souls must zealously strive to achieve it, by means of the necessary instruction, in all their pastoral work. (SC #14)
This reference is not without precedent; in fact, St. Pius X promulgated a similar clause in his 1903 motu proprio on sacred music Tra le sollecitudini:
Quote:It being our ardent desire to see the true Christian spirit restored in every respect and preserved by all the faithful, we deem it necessary to provide before everything else for the sanctity and dignity of the temple, in which the faithful assemble for the object of acquiring this spirit from its indispensable fount, which is the active participation in the holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church.
The differences in emphasis are striking; in 1903 it was for the sanctity of the temple. In 1963, it was for "full and active participation of all the people." These differences lay chiefly in the attitude towards the synthesis of all heresies, Modernism, and the reforms inspired by them.
The purpose of the liturgical reform was to focus on subjective experience after some Churchmen conceded to the rationalist-atheists that God could never be the direct object of science or history. This was especially urgent in lands conquered by the communists. Therefore, stripped of the witness of external signs and even nature itself, they were dependent on subjective experience to justify religion. This Pope John Paul II made the crusade and purpose of his entire life, attempting to synthesize St. Thomas and modern philosophy, primarily under the broad heading of personalism.
The particular school of personalism Father Karol Wojtyla subscribed to was the phenomenology of Scheler, Heidegger, and Husserl. He believed that by locating the experience of the divine in man, he could justify the Gospel in a new way not dependent on history, Tradition, or objective authority. Hence, the top priority identified in Sacrosanctum Concilium, “full and active participation” was intended to discretely replace the definition of faith as intellectual assent to that which God has revealed to a subjective experience of the divine. All of this is condemned by St. Pius X in his encyclical On the Doctrines of the Modernists, Pascendi Dominici gregis. A few quotes are provided below:
Quote:Modernists place the foundation of religious philosophy in that doctrine which is usually called Agnosticism. According to this teaching human reason is confined entirely within the field of phenomena, that is to say, to things that are perceptible to the senses, and in the manner in which they are perceptible; it has no right and no power to transgress these limits. Hence it is incapable of lifting itself up to God, and of recognising His existence, even by means of visible things. From this it is inferred that God can never be the direct object of science, and that, as regards history, He must not be considered as an historical subject. (#6)
But when Natural theology has been destroyed, the road to revelation closed through the rejection of the arguments of credibility, and all external revelation absolutely denied, it is clear that this explanation will be sought in vain outside man himself. It must, therefore, be looked for in man; and since religion is a form of life, the explanation must certainly be found in the life of man. (#7)
But let us see how the Modernist conducts his apologetics. The aim he sets before himself is to make the non-believer attain that experience of the Catholic religion which, according to the system, is the basis of faith. (#35)
How far off we are here from Catholic teaching we have already seen in the decree of the [first] Vatican Council. We shall see later how, with such theories, added to the other errors already mentioned, the way is opened wide for atheism. Here it is well to note at once that, given this doctrine of experience united with the other doctrine of symbolism, every religion, even that of paganism, must be held to be true. What is to prevent such experiences from being met within every religion? In fact that they are to be found is asserted by not a few. And with what right will Modernists deny the truth of an experience affirmed by a follower of Islam? With what right can they claim true experiences for Catholics alone? Indeed Modernists do not deny but actually admit, some confusedly, others in the most open manner, that all religions are true. (#14)
If Pope John Paul II did not adopt this very error as the basis for his phenomenology and did not apply these errors in his official doctrinal corpus, how else can we explain quotes like this?
Quote:It must first be kept in mind that every quest of the human spirit for truth and goodness, and in the last analysis for God, is inspired by the Holy Spirit. The various religions arose precisely from this primordial human openness to God. At their origins we often find founders who, with the help of God’s Spirit, achieved a deeper religious experience. Handed on to others, this experience took form in the doctrines, rites and precepts of the various religions.
In every authentic religious experience, the most characteristic expression is prayer. Because of the human spirit’s constitutive openness to God’s action of urging it to self-transcendence, we can hold that “every authentic prayer is called forth by the Holy Spirit, who is mysteriously present in the heart of every person.
- Address to the Members of the Roman Curia, 22 Dec. 1986, n. 11; L’Osservatore Romano English edition, 5 Jan. 1987, p. 7.
Let's summarize. According to the philosophical agnosticism of the Modernists, God could not be the direct object of science, nor of history. This left churchmen with the only option to locate the divine in human experiences. The error here should be obvious: God is the object of the queen and mistress of all sciences, the science of divinity; He is the object of all history as He is its author and chief actor. To capitulate to the Modern error of agnosticism is to surrender to a false paradigm which the Second Vatican Council refers to as "modern man." This modern man rejects the entire supernatural order; places all the miracles of revelation in the category of myths; and sees in the God-man, Jesus Christ our Lord a mere human figure totally beholden to the requirements of his own epoch as a first century Jewish itinerant preacher. Any capitulation to such paradigmatic nonsense is to open the doors wide for atheism, as St. Pius X solemnly condemns in Pascendi gregis.
The old liturgy with its reliance on the objectivity of human and divine knowledge, the transcendence of its heavenward gaze and communion with the Triune God and His Saints was totally unsuited for modern man who rejected what he could not experience subjectively in himself. While these efforts to accommodate so-called modern man with a liturgy better suited to the false paradigm of philosophical agnosticism seemed imbued with a certain human empathy, they were and always will be doomed to fail. God is the primary object of science - all science, the supreme science being theology. God is no less the Lord of all profane sciences as the Creator of the material world; He is no less the object of true history as its originator, consummator and Lord.
This explains the contemporary preoccupation with 'getting everyone involved' in the Novus Ordo liturgy. The incessant noise, activity, and overutilization of laymen in liturgical functions is all required to foster authentic subjective religious experiences - not only as a way to concretize Catholic faith but the only way, seeing all external revelation and natural theology is excluded, or at least made optional.
Hence, we have the current campaign of Pope Francis and his Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments to stamp out the old Mass. The old Mass isn't promoting this anthropocentric religion; it isn't focused on man and subjective experiences, but on the transcendent Divinity. The Mass of All Ages gives absolute credibility to the God Who is the direct object of science and history; it mediates supernatural graces through the offering of the Son to the Father in propitiation for the sins of the living and the dead. It is not difficult to surmise why the partisans of the New Theology wanted to obliterate every vestige of Catholic Tradition, especially in liturgy.
Where does this anthropocentric religion with its focus on human experiences lead us? According to St. Pius X, straight to atheism. And the precipitous and tragic decline in the Western Catholic Church would appear to corroborate this.
Finally, a clarification of the legitimate role of experience in Catholic religious praxis. As we noted from St. Pius X's motu proprio on sacred music above, the words active participation (Latin: participatio actuosa) should be considered without any negative connotation when we use the philosophy of St. Thomas and not the modern agnostic philosophies. This Scholastic philosophy of St. Thomas was in fact recommended by St. Pius X in Pascendi as a sure bulwark against the collection of heresies converging in Modernism. It fully acknowledges that God is the primary object of both science and history and as such places no exaggerated or strained emphasis on human religious experience. But stripped of Scholastic philosophy's sure foundation and left naked with only subjective experience as a guide, the role of active participation takes on a dangerous urgency which leads eventually to a loss of faith, apostasy, and atheism.
These key philosophical differences emerge from different attitudes towards the theories purported by profane science. For St. Thomas, theology is the Queen of sciences; for the modern philosophers, theology is only speculation about subject matter that cannot be finally and certainly known. The first major cleavage between profane science and the Church's magisterium occurred during the novel proposition by Galileo of Copernicus' heliocentric theory. This controversy fatally separated the profane sciences from the science of divinity as the former rejected the latter's conclusions; moreover, this opened wide an entire theater of polemical war against the Church's philosophical moorings which culminated in the super-heresy of Modernism, inasmuch as Modernism is utterly dependent on the theory of evolution. The collection of grotesque errors one may find in the literature of Teilhard de Chardin amply illustrates the bizarre lengths one may extend in order to synthesize Catholic religion with the theories of modern science unmoored from traditional Catholic philosophy.
For liturgy, the object must ever be the Transcendent Divinity; this object must be regarded as absolute, real, concrete, tangible, and accessible through the mediation of the Catholic Church. No amount of condescension to so-called modern man in new theories of liturgy can ever hope to replace the system of worship which came not from men, but from God. The focus on men and their experiences may have been inspired by a well-intended pathos, but in the end, it redirects men away from the Transcendent Good and toward their own weaknesses.
About this, Fr. Johannes Dormann, S.T.D. writes
Quote:A comparison of the principles of knowledge in Cardinal Wojtyla's [Pope John Paul II] New Theology with those of classical theology makes the fundamental differences clearly come to light. In classical theology, God is the material and formal object of theology.
In the New Theology of Cardinal Wojtyla, the object is man. The diametrical opposition is manifest.
Through the confusion of nature and grace in the axiom of universal salvation, the traditional "dualism" is entirely eliminated. The traditional distinctions of the natural and supernatural knowledge of God, of natural and supernatural revelation, of natural reason and supernatural faith, of natural and supernatural theology, no longer apply. The virtue of faith, which is constitutive for the process of justification, is no longer required for salvation...
- Quote taken from Pope John Paul II's Theological Journey to the Prayer Meeting of Religions in Assisi, Part 1, pages 121-123, © 1994 by Angelus Press
The urgency and necessity in preserving the Traditional Roman Rite is not a matter of personal taste, preference, or attachment; it is the divinely provided bulwark against Modernism, as discussed in the Ottaviani Intervention of 25 September 1969:
Quote:...the Novus Ordo represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent. The canons of the rite definitively fixed at that time provided an insurmountable barrier to any heresy directed against the integrity of the Mystery.
The experiment of philosophical personalism applied to liturgy has had a 50 year run; there is ample data to make a judgment on the suitability of such reforms and to weigh their impact on the Church. God is and always will be the highest object of any true science, and sound philosophy will always validate this. Every effort to appeal to men who reject the God of history by directing their attention to their own subjective experiences will end up failing in the Church's divinely appointed mission of saving souls through the preaching of the Gospel, of which the most profound proclamation is the Holy Sacrifice of the [tradtional] Mass.
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| Israel Awards the World’s First Regulatory Approval for Cultivated Beef |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-18-2024, 06:33 AM - Forum: Health
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Aleph Farms: Israel Awards the World’s First Regulatory Approval for Cultivated Beef
greenqueen.com [slightly adapted, not all hyperlinks included] | January 17, 2024
Israeli-cultivated meat producer Aleph Farms has received the world’s first regulatory approval for cell-cultured beef, marking a milestone in the alternative protein sector.
This makes Israel – still in the middle of regional conflict – only the third country to greenlight cultivated meat, paving the way for Aleph Farms to introduce its Black Angus Petit Steak to diners soon.
Israel’s Aleph Farms has become the first company in the world to earn regulatory approval for cultivated beef, after the Israeli Ministry of Health (IMOH) issued a ‘no questions’ letter for its consumer brand Aleph Cuts in December – akin to an FDA ‘No Questions’ letter in the US. It allows the producer to market its products – currently priced similarly to premium conventional beef – in the country, with plans to roll out at restaurants and, eventually, retailers.
With the greenlight, Israel joins a very short list of countries to allow the sale of cultured meat – only Singapore (Eat Just in 2020) and the US (Upside Foods and Eat Just in 2023) have done so. But these approvals were all done for cell-based chicken products, meaning Aleph Farms is the first company permitted to sell cultivated beef.
“This announcement marks a critical leap in the global race to make the meat that people love, that’s also better for our climate, biodiversity, and food security,” said Bruce Friedrich, founder and president of alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute (GFI). “We’re thrilled consumers in Israel will soon join those in the US and Singapore as being among the first to be able to purchase these delicious products.”
Robert E. Jones, president of Cellular Agriculture Europe and co-founder of the Global Cellular Agriculture Alliance shared this statement with Green Queen: “I have sent heartfelt congratulations to our member company, Aleph Farms, on this exciting news. It is great to see more geographies approve cultivated meat and, equally important, to see more types of cultivated animal proteins entering the market. Israel, the Netherlands, Singapore, the United States, and the U.K. have made early investments to build complementary protein ecosystems, and the dividends are now paying off.”
Aleph Farms’ cultured meat costs the same as premium beef
The decision brings an end to a process a year-and-a-half in the making, when Aleph Farms filed its initial submission to the health ministry, following a pre-submission consultation. The company worked closely with the Food Risk Management Department, led by co-founder Dr Ziva Hamama, to ensure “full compliance with safety standards” for these novel proteins.
“This regulatory approval grants us permission to produce and market our product in Israel, subject to specific directions for labelling and marketing provided by the Israeli Ministry of Health, and the completion of Good Manufacturing Practices inspection for our pilot production facility,” explained Yifat Gavriel, the company’s regulatory affairs chief.
The first product to be unveiled is Aleph Farms’ cultivated thin-cut Petit Steak, which was first introduced in April with the Aleph Cuts brand. The hybrid meat product comprises non-modified, non-immortalised cells of a premium Black Angus cow named Lucy, alongside a plant protein matrix made of soy and wheat. Apart from the starter cells derived from one of the cow’s fertilised eggs, there are no other animal-sourced components (such as fetal bovine serum, or FBS) in the cultivation process or final product.
The controlled and traceable process is carried out in an aseptic production environment, which – the company states – increases transparency and significantly reduces contamination risks. Plus, there’s no presence of antibiotics in the process.
Once the requirements mentioned above (labelling and mark-of-facility inspection) are fulfilled, we will introduce Aleph Cuts to diners, offering exclusive tasting experiences curated in collaboration with select partners. “At first, the product will be available in select restaurants,” Yoav Reisler, senior marketing and communications manager at Aleph Farms, told Green Queen. “Afterwards, it will become available at foodservice and retail locations.”
On the cost question, he revealed: “At the time of our soft launch, Aleph Cuts will be priced similarly to premium conventional beef. We are taking various steps to drive economies of scale and achieve price parity with more of the conventional beef market within a few years from launch.”
No doubt, making it a hybrid product helps too, as this is the path some envision cultivated meat to enter the market (Dutch producer Meatable is taking this approach too). “Hybrid products will allow the cultivated market the chance to build and become normalised with consumers, while also – importantly – generating the revenues and business necessary to keep dollars flowing into the space, so scale can be further achieved,” one alt-protein investor told Green Queen in December.
Cultured meat needs to reach production costs of $2.92 per pound to be price-competitive with conventional meat. But while companies have managed to cut manufacturing costs by 99% in less than a decade, McKinsey analysis estimates that it will still take until 2030 for these proteins to reach parity. “Of common animal proteins, beef delivers the highest value in global markets, so by focusing on cultivated beef, we are able to shorten the timeline to price parity,” explained Reisler.
Israel’s need – and support – for cultivated meat
“The entire Aleph team has united in strength and determination to deliver no matter what during these difficult times in Israel. We are excited to carry this resilience forward in the form of innovation in agriculture and food security,” said Aleph Farms co-founder and CEO Didier Toubia.
It’s a milestone for a country that has long been supportive of alternative proteins – and for good measure, given the nation’s battle with food insecurity: government figures show that 16% of Israeli families and 21% of children did not have adequate access to safe, nutritious food in 2021. Among families with children, 19% experienced food insecurity, and 8.5% suffered from severe insecurity.
As cultivated meat doesn’t rely on livestock agriculture, huge swathes of farmland, or vast amounts of water, the benefits are as important for climate change as they are for food security. This is especially true for beef, which emits more greenhouse gas emissions than any other foodstuff. It’s a meat loved by Israelis, who eat 19.6kg of it per year and are expected to consume over 29kg annually by 2029.
But uniquely, Israel is known to be one of the most vegan-friendly countries in the world. According to a 2017 survey (the latest data available), 5% of its citizens identify as vegans and 8% as vegetarians. At the same time, 23% expressed a desire to cut their intake of meat.
This explains Israel’s support for alternative proteins, which “stands out globally”, according to Alla Voldman, VP of strategy and policy at GFI Israel. “Three out of the first eight cultivated meat companies worldwide are Israeli. 15% of global investments in the field are allocated to Israeli-cultivated meat companies,” she noted.
This ecosystem includes the world’s largest cultivated meat consortium, which Aleph Farms is a part of. A three-year project to scale up production and drive down costs of cultivated meat, it received funding to the tune of 66 million NIS ($18M).
“We believe that the robust presence of cultivated meat companies, fermentation, and plant-based, coupled with advanced academic research, entrepreneurship, industry, and unique consumer market, provide Israel with an opportunity to lead the field forward,” Voldman added. “This strengthens our ability to provide value to countries worldwide in an era of climate and food security crises.”
Toubia added: “We believe that addressing joint challenges like food security is the best way to ensure the prosperity of the Middle East and other parts of the world that rely heavily on massive food imports, especially in Asia.”
But the incidence of veganism be a catalyst for the success of a fellow alt-protein pillar in cultivated meat? “I’m not sure it’s one of the most significant markers,” Reisler said. “Aleph Cuts are animal-based products, as the original source of animal cells is a cow. However, many vegetarians and vegans may call Aleph Cuts vegetarian-friendly and vegan-friendly, as the product is not harvested from an animal carcass and there is no slaughter involved in the production.” [As noted above, the starter cells for Aleph Farm’s beef steaks are sourced from the fertilised eggs of a cow, and as such, cultivated meat isn’t usually regarded as vegan-friendly – for an ethical take, this is a good read.]
What’s next for Aleph Farms after regulatory approval?
Aleph Farms’ regulatory approval in Israel is a huge win – but it isn’t stopping there. The company has filed for clearance in Singapore, Switzerland, the UK and the US, and is advancing its applications in other markets too. “Entrance to Asia (via Singapore) and the Middle East (via Israel) is currently our main focus. We expect to receive positive indications from the Singapore Food Agency soon,” confirmed Reisler.
Pressed on the progress with these applications – particularly in the UK, as there is talk about a bilateral deal to fast-track approval for Aleph Farms – he told Green Queen: “We maintain a dynamic, ongoing channel of communication with those regulatory agencies as part of our review process. They have been receptive in regard to our production and process development, and have shown appreciation for our methodological science-based approach to ensuring the safety of our process and product.”
The company is simultaneously pursuing a kosher certificate for its facility from local rabbinate authorities too. This is key for a company based in Israel and catering to a large Jewish population, which eats kosher food as directed by the Torah. There are encouraging signs for Aleph Farms here, with Israel’s chief rabbi David Lau declaring last January that its non-FBS steak could be considered kosher and akin to eating a vegetable (parve).
As it awaits decisions from other regulators globally, its approval in Israel could be a precursor for things to come. “2024 stands to be a landmark year for the advancement of regulatory pathways and commercialisation of cultivated meat,” claimed Gavriel.
Meatable is expecting a green light for its cultivated pork from Singapore this year, and France’s Vital Meat claims it’s the frontrunner to be the first European startup to be approved in the city-state. Meanwhile, Australia’s Vow Food is in the middle of a consultation process after its cultured quail was cleared as safe to eat by the bilateral Food Standards Australia New Zealand in December.
“There’s still work ahead of us to continue to scale up, meet consumer expectations and move toward the mainstream. However, I think on the technology side, the scientific side, in terms of process development, early industrialisation and regulatory compliance, we have made a huge leapfrog, and I’m quite happy to see that,” Toubia told Green Queen founding editor Sonalie Figueiras on the Green Queen in Conversation: Cultivated Meat Pioneers podcast in September. “The industry is really on the verge of going to market and starting initial acceptance.”
Following a $105 Series B round in 2021, Aleph Farms has raised a total of $118M in funding – Toubia has outlined the company’s aim to reach $1B in revenue by 2030. This will be helped by its manufacturing advancements over the last couple of years. In February 2022, it moved to a 65,000 sq ft plant in Rehovot, Israel, which increased its capacity by six times to be able to initially produce 10 tonnes of cultivated steak annually. Last year, it announced the acquisition of another manufacturing facility in Modi’in, Israel, alongside a new manufacturing agreement with ESCO Aster in Singapore (the world’s only approved industrial manufacturer for cultured meat).
“With its global leadership in cellular agriculture, Israel continues to push for greater regional integration and economic collaboration, which will be crucial for stabilising the region,” said Toubia. “We believe that addressing joint challenges like food security is the best way to ensure the prosperity of the Middle East and other parts of the world that rely heavily on massive food imports, especially in Asia.
“Now more than ever, Aleph Farms remains committed to making the world a better place.”
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