(Announcements at Bottom of Post)

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We’ve almost completed our second year of Divine Boot Camp, by way of which God has prepared His faithful for the trials about to descend upon the world. Did you fight to the end and graduate with flying colors, or did you flunk out within the first days? (Or was it the noonday devil that got you?) It’s time for all of us to examine our consciences and ask ourselves precisely these questions. If, upon doing so, we realize that we haven’t exactly made the most of this training course which Providence has allowed, then we should hasten to re-train ourselves now in the very virtues we failed to adequately cultivate during these last two years. 

(The Preaching of the Antichrist. Luca Signorelli, circa 1500)

I’ve already written extensively on how the world’s response to Covid is and was nothing other than a laying down of the Infrastructure of the Antichrist – but, as God’s Will reigns supreme, and even the evil that transpires is contained within His permissive Will, we can just as clearly see the good which God desires to be brought out of the last two years of Covid tyranny which we’ve had to endure: namely, the preparation of the Faithful for what is about to arrive after Covid, and which will be far worse than anything we’ve witnessed yet. 

Moreover, it seems that what is coming next must be truly imminent, as even the mainstream narrative is coming close to admitting that the Covid Pandemic is over. We can therefore rest assured that the powers that be will stop at nothing to ensure they do not lose their death-grip on society. Indeed, they’ll provide for some other catastrophe’s prompt arrival (real or imagined) in order to prolong the supposed justification for the worldwide Communism we are now enduring. (Perhaps by starting a major war.)

Here, therefore, is an Examination of Conscience which we can undertake to assess how we’ve used this opportunity God has given us to train us for the times ahead. If, upon considering it, we realize that we are lacking in any of the virtues in which God is training us in order to prepare our hearts for the Great Chastisements, then right now is the time to acquire those virtues. Warp speed.

1)Did you turn off your discernment and decide to instead blindly “trust the science”?

“The Science”™ has spent the last two years supposedly proving the need for the very lockdowns, mandates, restrictions, and other operations of tyranny that have only wreaked havoc upon society, families, the Church, economies, and individual lives. As the prestigious Johns Hopkins just discovered (and as we all knew already), it was all for nothing. And although I am linking to yet another study here, what’s infinitely more important than even the generation of good studies is for us to recognize that we must stop seeking permission from “studies” and “the science” to do what is clearly right – what is clearly called for by common sense, reason, faith, or traditional wisdom. (see Appendix 3 in Resisting the Diabolical Quantum Leap) 

Pause to ponder this. The decisions to lock down nations were among the most widely destructive decisions ever made in history. And we now know they achieved absolutely nothing. These lockdowns were “justified” by the insistence that they would save millions of lives (they wouldn’t have been justifiable even if those insistences were accurate), but instead they saved no lives at all. Or, if they saved any lives at all, they certainly caused a far greater number of suicides (and other “deaths of despair,” e.g., drug overdoses, alcoholism-related deaths, etc.)

Do not hold your breath waiting for apologies from those who instituted and advocated for the lockdowns and other tyrannical measures. There will be none to speak of. There will only be ever more forceful insistence upon the government’s “right and duty” to be tyrannical, and ever more incessant calls from the mainstream narrative for it to step up the tyranny.

Soon, “the science” will only issue far more evil and false pronouncements. It will insist upon the Diabolical Quantum Leap and all the tenets thereof, and it will seek to completely undermine Christian and Catholic Faith and Morals. So if you have become accustomed to blind acceptance of “the science,” then you ought to waste no time eliminating this bad habit; or, rather, of exorcizing it from your soul like the demon it is. Cling to it much longer, and it will destroy you.

2) Did you stop going to Mass?

Our ancestors in the Faith gladly risked near certain death for the unfathomable privilege of attending Mass and receiving Communion. Did you stop doing so because a flu was going around? 

Soon, it will be much riskier to attend Mass. It won’t be just a bad flu going around and it won’t be just another “group activity” outlawed by mandates restricting gatherings – it will be deemed “hate speech,” and those who attend it will be treated as felons. It will, however, be just as essential as ever, and we will be in dire need of the graces of the Mass and the Eucharist to spiritually survive the times to come. 

If, however, fear of displeasing your local health department prevented you from going to Mass, then fear of imprisonment or execution certainly will. If fear of a flu prevented you from going to Mass, then fear of being bombed during a war certainly will.

Hasten, therefore, to redouble your courage and implore an outpouring of new graces from God into your heart. Remind yourself how utterly fleeting this life is, and how horribly we pervert its purpose when, in the futile effort to prolong its inescapable brevity, we detract from eternity; that blessed state we will have scarcely begun to enjoy after trillions of centuries have passed.

3) Did you unflinchingly criticize or even condemn everyone the mainstream’s inquisitors labeled as “conspiratorial” or “fringe” or “alt” or “a source of misinformation”?

No longer restricted to one nation or to one issue, the character assassination campaigns of the past two years have exhibited greater ferocity and universality than the world has ever known – not only of individuals, but of entire demographics. The very outlets most zealous in their “compassionate” blaming of every evil since The Fall on “systemic racism” and “white privilege” are hypocritically doing their absolute best to stir up as much hatred as possible against, for example, all so-called “conspiracy theorists” or “misinformation” promoters, and above all, these drippingly compassionate pundits insist upon the absolute detestation of the “unvaccinated.” They celebrate and gloat when we die, they openly advocate for our outright persecution, and they increasingly deny us our humanity, even though the unvaccinated are even less likely to transmit Covid than the vaccinated! But they defer to pseudoscientific conjectures, devoid of all reason, that unvaccinated people “cause mutations” in the virus and thus prolong the pandemic – as if history has never seen viral pandemics which ended without mass-vaccination programs with 95%+ inoculation rates. Alas, dwelling on this point would be pointless: the narrative writers will simply craft another pseudoscientific lie to leverage for the persecution of their opponents tomorrow. 

The point, rather, is that scapegoating and stirring up societal hatred against those who oppose the Antichrist will be among this Man of Sin’s most prized goals. As with any leader, he will want those he fights against to be antagonized by his own constituency. 

How quickly and credulously, these last two years, have you gobbled up all the propaganda that demonizes those who fail to immediately fall in line with “the experts”? Those who did so may soon find themselves calling out for the blood of the very Christians who will be revered as martyrs in the Church of the times yet to come. Pious-sounding excuses that this was all “prudent” and “for the common good” will ring hollow on Judgment Day, when those who condoned the persecutions of the martyrs will be found standing shoulder to shoulder with the very Pharisees who cried out for our Blessed Lord’s crucifixion. So judge no one, and condemn no one – and save your strong and public admonishment and rebuke for those who promote that which is destructive to the salvation of souls (heresy, blasphemy, sacrilege, mortal sin, etc.), not those who diverge from some of Pope Francis’ personal opinions, or who disagree with the mainstream narrative’s current anti-dogmas, or who neglect to fall in line with the virtue-signaling expectations of the corporate, academic, and entertainment elite.

4) Did you succumb to regarding the Pope as the incarnation of the Holy Spirit?

Pope Francis’ personal opinions are just as prone to error as anyone’s. While, as Catholics, we must respect the Pope as our spiritual father, and we can (and must) submit to the actual text of his actual Magisterial documents (e.g., Encyclicals), we should not necessarily submit to or agree with his opinions – regardless of how publicly or insistently he repeats them (e.g. in interviews, in books, on social media, in homilies, in impromptu remarks and speeches, and now in TV talk shows). Since the onset of the Pandemic, some of the Pope’s personal opinions have been particularly egregiously mistaken (e.g., his insistence that taking the vaccine is a “moral obligation,” his implicit endorsement of many aspects of Covid-tyranny, his cooperation with global elites pushing explicitly diabolical agendas). One thing God is doing with this Pontificate is training the remnant faithful to be more discerning: to not suppose that “but the Pope said so!” is sufficient to establish the truth of some assertion or the morality of some act.

Soon, however, the false prophet will arise, who will work in tandem with the Antichrist (the Beast). This Biblically-foretold false prophet may even wind up becoming an antipope (which means that many Catholics might just innocently, though erroneously, suppose he actually is truly the Pope). And he will make Pope Francis look like Archbishop Vigano in comparison. The false prophet will superficially respect Christianity and Catholicism, but he will flatly and blasphemously profane dogma after dogma, and he will urge the faithful to undertake many sacrilegious acts and to lend their full support to the Antichrist. 

Whoever is in the habit of uncritically accepting some proposition merely because the Pope agrees with it may soon find himself gobbling up a “gospel” straight from the pit of hell. Therefore, remember: stick with the Bible and The Catechism. Every. Single. Word. Of. Both. No Pope has any right to contradict either. True Magisterium cannot contradict True Magisterium. So as I’ve said many times before: if in doubt, stick with what is clearer. Clarity enjoys superiority to ambiguity in faith and morals, whereas mere recentness enjoys no special status over age.

“But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed.” Galatians 1:8

5) Did you fail to stand up and be counted for fear of reprisals?

It matters not how insignificant you think you are: there are people looking to your example for encouragement. From the perspective of eternity – and as far as the standards of Judgment Day are concerned – it does not matter if you are a social media “influencer” with millions of followers, or an ordinary grandmother whose views are only known by a few other people. We answer only for what we choose to do with the sphere of influence Providence has provided us, not the magnitude of that sphere. If you cannot oppose – and publicly speak out against – the tyranny we have seen these last two years then what, pray tell, can you stand against?

Let me confess: Though I’ve long been critical of them, I’ve nevertheless also long hesitated to openly state that I have chosen to reject these Covid vaccines for myself. Doing so exposes me to all sorts of new attacks and accusations (which I already must endure a steady stream of), so I timidly remained quiet and carefully worded my posts, videos, etc., in such a way that, as much as I cautioned about the Covid vaccines, I never explicitly revealed my own vaccination status. In my last post, that changed, as I finally realized that I cannot keep this quiet any more – people may be struggling themselves and feel the need to know what choice I made for myself as they undertake their own discernment. So after much prayer, I decided to stand up and be counted, and announce for the world to see that I am not “vaccinated” for Covid and that I will not get “vaccinated” for Covid.

If you’ve cowered in your room for the last two years, strategically ensuring that no one can find out what you really believe about important matters, then it is time to man up. It is time to stand up and be counted. Each indeed may be called to do so in a different way, but in case any need some suggestions, I’ll offer some: start a blog, facebook page, twitter account, or youtube channel. Proclaim Christ therein. Proclaim His FULL truth: including those truths of His which are detested by the modern world: that He – Jesus Christ – is the only path to the Father, that He established one and only one Church (the Catholic Church), that any and all sexual activity outside of the valid marriage of one man and one woman is intrinsically and gravely evil, that abortion must be outlawed, etc. Proclaim that Jesus Christ, and all the Sacraments He instituted, are necessary and that you cannot and will not comply with any future mandates that seek to prevent you from receiving them. Proclaim His Kingdom. Be a Divine Will Missionary of Mercy. Pray outside of a Planned Parenthood. Oppose vaccine mandates. Oppose lockdowns. Oppose mask mandates. In a word, oppose Communism. Voting wisely is not enough. One bold witness to the truth – even if he is not a popular one with a following – is worth a thousand votes for the right candidate.

The famous adage, “Evil prevails only when good men are silent” is a quote I have seen being attributed to virtually every wise figure history has graced us with. But  whoever was actually first to say it doesn’t matter: it is clearly true. Silence means consent. Are you implicitly consenting to the present Dictatorship of Relativism and Culture of Death which have dominated the world for so many decades now, but have reached a pinnacle the last couple of years? Withdraw your consent. No more silence. STAND UP AND BE COUNTED. 

6)Did you cower in your room for fear of mandates and restrictions, and the penalties ostensibly affixed to their violation, even when violating them was clearly Willed by God?

Let me be the first to admit that I wish I was bolder in many ways during the last two years. As is so often the case (with this post’s Examination of Conscience and elsewhere), if I give advice, it’s precisely because I need to hear it! But I will share one brief story here of when I did not fail, in order to encourage you to do likewise when similar situations arise. 

In the early months of the Pandemic, my grandmother was in the nursing home, dying of Covid. (She was among the thousands of people that my Godless former governor, Andrew Cuomo, essentially murdered by seeding Coronavirus within the state’s senior care facilities.) At that time, visitors to nursing homes were “strictly prohibited” statewide. There was “no way” I could go visit my dying grandmother. Well, I went anyway. Here is the astoundingly complicated strategy I used: I picked up my keys, got in my car, drove to the nursing home, and walked in the door. Many of my relatives did so, and it was their example that inspired me to do likewise. No one stopped us. I was able to kneel by my grandmother’s bedside and pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet just minutes before she died. See what Jesus told St. Faustina about the enormous graces given to the dying when the Chaplet is recited at their bedsides; and then consider what would have been neglected if– cowering in fear of these evil and unlawful restrictions, abominable in the eyes of God, that dare attempt to deprive a dying soul of her inalienable right to be ministered to in her dying moments– I simply said, “Okay, I comply. I submit. I’ll be a good boy and sit in my room while my grandmother dies, because some incarnate-demon politician says that’s what I must do.”

So enough being a good boy sitting on the lap of mommy and daddy government. You are a child of God. A son or daughter of the King of All. Act like it. We are not in the Era of Peace yet. We are in the Time of War, and each of us is called to be a soldier for Christ the King. Proclaim His Name and do His Will, no matter the cost. Your reward will be great in Heaven.

Now, I am not here attempting to approve– for example – some teenager who, “fighting for his right to party,” decides to violate government restrictions so he can go clubbing. Whether or not prudence is found in policies that close clubs, or cancel concerts, or similarly curtail merely recreational activities, I would not advocate for risking criminal punishment simply so that you can carouse the way you like to. But when the government dares to try to prevent us from doing that which virtue demands, then failing to undertake these deeds is a sin of omission (which is a sin nonetheless), and no government may ever mandate sins of commission or omission.

If only we had the faintest clue of how powerfully God’s grace is present in our works of mercy, our worshiping at the Mass, our gathering with other faithful to pray outside of Mass, etc., then our consciences would be properly formed in accordance with this knowledge. Our consciences would then demand us to accomplish these and other deeds, and would never allow for their cessation merely because the government says so. 

If the relatively puny penalties that we were threatened with stopped us from being the Christians we are called to be these past two years, then the severe persecution that is about to arise will certainly compel us to apostatize. So remind yourself of what the Faith teaches on this point and strengthen your resolve to act accordingly:

“Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12) “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:10) “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ…” (Philippians 3:8,9)

7) Are you a priest who stopped offering Mass?

Of course, almost every priest did stop offering the Mass to the faithful during the Spring 2020 lockdowns (sorry, live-streaming Mass does not count as offering the Mass to the faithful!). While I commend the priests who disobeyed the Godless directives to suspend the Mass – those who instead clandestinely offered it to the Faithful — I recognize that those are very few, and I intend no condemnation here of those priests who complied. Look, Spring 2020 really blindsided us – myself included. But now that we’ve had a chance for introspection, it is time for us to realize how very wrong that was, and to affix our resolve to never let it happen again – to never fail in the vocation God has called us to, no matter who says otherwise. It is especially saying Mass (with giving Communion to the Faithful at Mass) and hearing Confessions that are the absolute and inviolable duty of the priest. Similarly, the procreation and education of children is the absolute and inviolable duty of married Catholics. Imagine if the government – or the Church! – said “as of today, parents must not have more children. Don’t worry, we’re not requiring a specific mortal sin, you can use NFP, you don’t have to use contraception!” That would be diabolical and unlawful. Married Christians would have a duty to reject and disobey this Godless decree, no matter who says otherwise, and regardless of the fact that it doesn’t explicitly require a specific sin of commission. Similarly, priests must reject decrees which obstruct their own sacred and inviolable duties; namely, to administer the Sacraments and preach the Gospel.

There now exists a spiritual black hole that has just recently been torn in the fabric of the Universe itself. It was created in Spring 2020 (and contributed to in various places throughout the world in the two years that followed) by the cessation of the public sacrifice of the Mass. Just as, at the very beginning of these lockdowns, the biggest explosion ever witnessed was observed by scientists as a black hole exploded in another galaxy, so too that “spiritual black hole” will soon explode in the form of Great Chastisements never before seen in the history of the world. That, dear priests, is how utterly essential the Mass and the Sacraments are. As Padre Pio famously said (photo above), the world could sooner exist without the sun than without the Mass.  

In addition to this spiritual black hole, there is an ocean of blood in our world’s soil now (adding to that of aborted babies) which cries out to God for vengeance. It is the blood of those in hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, prisons, etc., who, for the last two years, were forced to die alone, without the Sacraments, because of the Antichristic decrees of health departments that barred visitors. God will avenge that blood, and His wrath will visit upon whoever is responsible for those souls having to die alone — unless they repent. Let us not add to that wrath. To minister to the sick and dying is not optional; it is indispensable to Christianity. Christ made it clear that to neglect doing so is to reject Him. (Matthew 25). So whom do we fear: man, or God?  

8) Has your zeal for the pro-life cause – and, in general, for the principles you had hitherto been convicted of – grown lukewarm? 

St. Jude’s admonition in Sacred Scripture is unambiguous: we must be found “Hating even the garment spotted by the flesh” (Jude 1:23). Now, if anything at all is spotted by the flesh, it is those medical products which, in their own development, benefitted from abortion (as all of the Covid vaccines available in most of the West indisputably did).  

For many years, sincere and zealously pro-life Catholics have long rejected any vaccines which in any way used the HEK cell line in their development. This stance was solidly grounded in not only reason and common sense, but also the Church’s Magisterium, which agreed that any use of the HEK cell line in a vaccine’s development causes it to become abortion-tainted (though it did not condemn the receiving of such a vaccine as formal cooperation in that evil). Did these very concerns suddenly and conveniently vanish for you when the Covid vaccines came around? Consider that in the year 2020, leftists were so diligent in their hatred of Donald Trump that they vowed not to get any Covid vaccine under his presidency. What (utterly misguided) boldness in their (ridiculous) convictions! But shouldn’t we be far more zealous than they in those Godly convictions we harbor as we take a principled stand against anything tainted by abortion? (Even if the Church allows us to not be so bold, as it does in the case of the Covid vaccines)

Here I am reminded of what I discuss each semester with my undergraduate philosophy students: Socrates’ rebuke of Crito, when the latter tried to convince him to unjustly escape from prison instead of nobly accepting the death penalty.

As Socrates said, and as we all must say:

“For I am and always have been one of those natures who must be guided by reason, whatever the reason may be which upon reflection appears to me to be the best; and now that this fortune has come upon me, I cannot put away the reasons which I have before given: the principles which I have hitherto honored and revered I still honor, and unless we can find other and better principles on the instant, I am certain not to agree with you; no, not even if the power of the multitude could inflict many more imprisonments, confiscations, deaths, frightening us like children with hobgoblin terrors… has the argument which was once good now proved to be talk for the sake of talking; in fact an amusement only, and altogether vanity?”

Shortly thereafter in the Platonic dialogue, Crito admits that Socrates is right – that neglecting the very principles (when the going gets tough) which we previously insisted upon (when doing so was less costly) reveals us as cowards and weaklings, and it renders all our prior convictions nothing but vanity. The dialogue ends with Socrates saying, “Then let me follow the intimations of the Will of God.” If this noble pagan could cheerfully approach his own execution simply on account of his own intimations of God’s Will, then how much more should we –  Christians with sanctifying grace and Divine Revelation– be utterly fixated on accomplishing God’s Will, no matter the cost?

That, therefore, is indeed what we must do: even in those cases where we lack a clear certainty of what God Wills for us, we must at least follow our intimations – that is, what indications we have sincerely come upon – of the Divine Will; we must not use a lack of certainty as an ostensible justification for failing to do what is most likely God’s Will.   

9) Did you cave on the vaccine?

As I said in my last post, I have no criticism for one who sincerely insists that his conscience allowed him to be vaccinated for Covid and who insists he has prudentially judged that doing so was called for in his situation (even if I disagree with his assessment). Perhaps, for example, he is an older priest who 1) doesn’t have much pre-Heaven time left anyway and needn’t be too concerned with long-term side effects, 2) would not be allowed to administer last rites to hospital patients without the vaccine, and 3) obviously needn’t be concerned about effects on fertility. That’s just one example, though. More generally, questioning an adult who has made that judgment for himself is not my place. But issuing a few related exhortations here is, I think, my place:

Have you gotten your children vaccinated against Covid?

That choice is one I will criticize. A small child has essentially a zero percent chance of dying from Covid. He or she is indisputably far more likely to be injured or even killed by an experimental mRNA Covid “vaccine.” To thus “vaccinate” a child against Covid under the pretense that doing so will help “end the pandemic” (it won’t – Omicron is what ended the Pandemic) is to use a child as a means for the alleged good of older people but in contradiction to the child’s own actual good. If you’re going to do that, then you should also advocate for a return to the child labor situation we had in the factories of this country in the 18th century. This is not to mention the ethical issues with the vaccines and the fact that we can’t possibly have any idea what its long term effects will be on someone just now starting the journey of life – particularly in terms of fertility. For a parent to nevertheless get his or her small child vaccinated for Covid merely because that’s what the mainstream narrative demands… is a dereliction of duty.

Soon, far graver evils will be “required” of parents with respect to their children. The government will insist that children be taught diabolical lies contrary to Faith and Morals (which is to some degree already happening in most, if not practically all, public schools), that they be subjected to procedures even more degrading of their dignity (even more degrading that is, than the already absurd and evil mandates that require children to wear masks all day in schools), and that they receive even more damaging medical interventions for non existent problems. If you caved to getting your child vaccinated for Covid, making him wear a mask all day, etc., then you better spare no expense in changing your heart now so that you do not wind up pushing your child straight into the arms of the Antichrist in the coming times.

Has your attachment (a great vice – one of the most spiritually destructive, in fact) to your hobbies, the businesses you prefer to patronize, your international travel plans, your job (there are always other ways to pay the bills), or your hometown (yes, moving is an option!), or the expectations of your relatives, caused you to get vaccinated? That is precisely the type of pressure that we should never cave to – especially when it is pressure to do something that we aren’t sure we are comfortable with in conscience. If in doubt, side with conscience, not with what the world demands. That’s a simple norm that should never be put in question. This Covid-mandate tyranny is giving us a great opportunity to grow in that very virtue; an occasion to train our tyranny-resisting muscles. But you’ve seriously weakened those muscles if you’ve caved to getting the vaccine even if you weren’t sure you were comfortable with it in conscience or even if you – in your own prudential judgment – did not deem the harm it allegedly protects against (something the vast majority of people have a 99.99%+ chance of surviving) as grave enough to justify the risks inherent to any experimental injection.

Soon, there will be another alleged threat, and another alleged universal “solution” to that threat – one relentlessly promoted by the powerful, heartily condoned by many of the “professional Catholics,” and duly adorned with a smattering of anti-graces (you’ll be allowed to keep your job, go to your favorite restaurants, travel as you please, etc.)  That solution will be far worse than these Covid vaccines. It will be the Mark of the Beast, or at least an even more immediate precursor to the Mark itself.

10) Did you enforce unjust decrees under the pretense that you were “just following orders” or “just doing your job”?

Two words: Nuremberg Trials.

One can certainly justify doing something pointless, silly, a “waste of time,” etc., if he was told to by his superior at work. I just finished a boatload of pointless paperwork that new regulations just started mandating of SUNY professors. But one can never justify enforcing injustice merely because he was told to do so.

For example: I am convinced that wearing a mask is pointless, ridiculous, harmful if prolonged, and should be avoided whenever possible. But wearing a mask is not in itself a sin, so if it’s the only way I can do what’s necessary for physical or spiritual survival (e.g., going grocery shopping or to Mass somewhere mask mandates are actively and strictly enforced — which isn’t most stores/Churches even here in New York and even with a “mask mandate” in effect in this state), then I’ll do so — though I manage to almost never wear one.

But to enforce mandates that others wear masks is an entirely different matter. That, I will not do, period. And I encourage you to likewise refuse to enforce Godless mandates, no matter your position. Are you a priest, or usher, or police officer, or teacher, or grocery store employee, etc., who has been told by your superior that you must enforce a mask mandate? Smile, nod, say “okay” when your boss tells you this (all that means is you heard what he said!), then simply refuse to enforce it. You are a child of God with a conscience that you must form, listen to, and act in accordance with. You are not a cog in the wheel of your place of employment with which your boss may do as he pleases – including if you are employed by the Church or the government. Do not be ashamed to have your own Holy Spirit-inspired boundaries. Have these boundaries, and refuse to cross them, no matter what. 

Soon, the Antichrist will seek to rally up his own diabolical army of sycophants to enforce his own mandates. Those who willingly (and even eagerly!) acquiesced to becoming mask police, vaccine-passport-checking police, social-distancing police, etc., are simply being prepared to become the Mark of the Beast police in the coming times. What a terrible fate: not only succumbing to the Antichrist, but even promulgating his tyranny. If you so readily enforce unjust mandates today, what makes you think you will have the strength to resist enforcing the Man of Sin’s mandates tomorrow?

11) In general: Did you obey man rather than God?

Obedience is a great virtue, and we must indeed obey when: I) Legitimate authority issues the directives, II) This authority issues directives contained within the confines of its jurisdiction, and III) The directives it gives do not entail sins of commission or omission. If I) or II) are not present, we needn’t obey, and if III) is not present, we mustn’t obey. 

“But Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than men.’” – Acts 5:29

12) And for the last item in this examination of conscience, I’m going to throw a curveball:

On the flipside: Did you become so dogmatic about your “red-pilled” virtues and knowledge during this pandemic that you failed to be flexible in those things that God called you to be flexible about, and thus neglected to do what He was calling you to? Did you stop going to daily Mass because you couldn’t find one that would allow you to go maskless? Did you abandon works of mercy or other apostolates that you know God has called you to, because continuing them would have required being around insufficiently “red-pilled” people? Did you become so paranoid about government surveillance or certain “conspiracy theories” that your life’s overarching theme became preserving your safety and security instead of doing everything you can to pursue salvation and sanctification (for yourself and others)? Did you needlessly burn bridges with friends and family merely because they could not see through the mainstream narrative’s lies as well as you could?[[Do not misunderstand: I would never encourage one to compromise his principles merely to maintain relationships. Even for the closest of human bonds, Jesus does not speak well of that habit in the Gospel (Matthew 10:37), and indeed, any bridge that leads only to sin should be burned. But we should not suppose that the only bridges worth preserving are those solely with other people who are lock-step with us in the choice of which narrative they adhere to. People of good will are going to disagree on a number of points regarding Covid, vaccines, narratives, etc., and the mere existence of that disagreement (so long as it does not amount to another crossing boundaries and seeking to place unjust obligations on your shoulders) should not compel us to abandon those who are mistaken on some point.]] Have you dared to forget – even for one moment – that the essence of our calling as Christians remains unchanged no matter how twisted the times become, and that this call includes ensuring that our every thought, word, and deed, is one of pure love? Or have you erroneously supposed that the gravity of the times justifies adopting a demeanor that is devoid of grace – devoid of the 12 Fruits of the Holy Spirit, without which we cannot ever pretend to be doing God’s Will? Have you forgotten that God is just as absolutely in charge today as He ever has been, and that nothing happens apart from His Will? Remember as well that staying on the razor-thin straight and narrow way of Our Lord is never about choosing one worldly ideology (even if it is a mostly correct one), and simply charging full-speed-ahead in the direction it provides. The Way of the Lord, rather, is always a matter of discernment, it will never line up perfectly with any worldly movement or ideology, and we will fall off of that way if we become dogmatic about issues that do not call for dogmatism. 

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So, in conclusion…

Be on guard.

“Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.” (Luke 12)

If God has just put us through Boot Camp, He only did so because He knew it was necessary; because He knows that war is imminent and, without adequate training, His soldiers – His remnant faithful – would not be ready. Indeed, our training has not been in vain. It is about to be put to use. Waste no time brushing up on your training if you missed any sessions at boot camp.

And above all, remember that although I have in this post given much practical and detailed advice, heeding it will only work with God, and without Him it will fail spectacularly. All is grace, and we will only succeed (and are guaranteed to succeed) if we are living in Him. Therefore, I again conclude with the final page of Thy Will Be Done:

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Some Announcements:

• I was recently interviewed by Christine Watkins at Queen of Peace Media, Dr. Peter Howard at the Fulton Sheen Institute (part two here), and Ken Johnston with the “In His Sign” radio show. More interviews are coming soon, including one with Christine Bacon.
• The good people over at CatholicBridge.com have done what I’ve intended to do for months now: they’ve presented a cliff-notes version of the 33 points of my massive Resisting the Diabolical Quantum Leap post from last May. The more you hear nonsense on the news about “aliens,” “UFOs,” “AI paradigm shifts,” “animal personhood,” the “unification of religions,” etc., the  more important heeding that post becomes. (Note: I removed a few small items from that post which were really just announcements and which are no longer important)

(Note: Thy Will Be Done is now available at Barnes and Noble)

Last week I finished my quarantine after testing positive for Covid (most likely the “Omicron” variant, as I live in New York and came down with Coronavirus right as that variant became predominant here).

My experience with it was exactly what Dr. Robert Malone (the scientist who invented mRNA technology and now speaks against it – and was just deplatformed by Twitter for sharing scientific facts; I wonder when WordPress will deplatform me!) described it as: a Christmas gift from God; an illness so mild that it is more accurately described as a (natural) attenuated-virus-vaccine. The symptoms were only like a common cold for me, my wife, and our four children – and none of us have been “vaccinated” against Covid. Well, there was one difference: I completely lost my sense of smell. This, too, was a great gift, being that I have a one year old still in diapers and older children whose morning breath can sometimes only be described as apocalyptic. (Unfortunately, my sense of smell is now returning!)

In all seriousness, though, it was indeed a gift: we now have natural immunity to Covid – which is far better than what any vaccine would have given us (even aside from the fact that the present vaccines now appear quite ineffective against Omicron) –  without the need for three (oh, wait, four) abortion-tainted experimental gene therapy injections which, at this point, we can’t possibly have any knowledge of the long term consequences of. (See Footnote 1)

Good things come to those who wait.

I’ll say yet again: if you’ve chosen to get a Covid vaccine, I have no criticism for you. That’s up to your conscience to decide and it is truly none of my business. But I do want to share my reasons for my decision to not get vaccinated.

And that brings us to the question of conscience. The Catholic understanding of conscience – that is, the true understanding of conscience – is very simple and very straightforward. There is absolutely no excuse for the rampant confusion now being promoted in relation to it by those who present themselves as teachers in the Faith. 

Six facts must be remembered about conscience:

1. Everybody has a conscience and his right to act in accordance with it must be respected. “Man has the right to act in conscience… He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience…” CCC §1782
2. Conscience includes the simple logical deduction wherein one applies the universal and objective mandatory tenets of the moral law to the concrete particulars of one’s life, but it is not only that. Conscience is, rather, much more: it is the very voice of God speaking directly to the heart (Gaudium et Spes, §16, CCC §1776). It is “a messenger of him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil … Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ” – St. John Henry Newman. CCC §1778
3. Conscience must be obeyed (“In all he says and does, man is obliged to follow faithfully what he knows to be just and right… by the judgment of his conscience…” CCC §1778) “In every temporal affair [Christians] are to be guided by a Christian conscience, since no human activity, even of the temporal order, can be withdrawn from God’s dominion.” (CCC §912)
4. Conscience has no right to dispense one from the requirements of Catholic Faith and Morals; it can only validly operate from the foundation of orthodox Catholic teaching. (CCC §1706, Veritatis Splendor §32-34, etc.)
5. Conscience has every right to require that one follow a more demanding course of action than the one permitted by Catholic teaching (this is an inescapable corollary to point 3 above and point 6 below). “A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience” (CCC §1800), not only in those cases wherein such obedience enjoys the additional dignity of being confirmed by some express Catholic doctrine.
6. We have a duty to form our consciences as best we can (CCC §1783, 1798) – in accordance with the Truth. That is, we must form our conscience under the Holy Spirit’s guiding influence which leads us to all truth (cf. John 16:13); not only those truths explicitly contained within the infallible contents of Catholic Faith and Morals, but also all judgments “according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator.” (CCC§1783). If we culpably neglect this duty for too long, we may find ourselves in a truly horrible position wherein we seem to be following the immediate dictates of conscience, but are still acting unjustly because we’ve essentially chosen to pretend that ignorance is bliss and we have thus neutered our conscience.

In summarizing its teachings on Conscience, the Catechism emphasizes three norms – norms whose relevance to the matter at hand is quite clear:

Point 4 above is what liberal Catholics have, for so long now, heretically rejected – for example, in pretending that “conscience” can justify using artificial contraception, or can allow one to be “pro choice” or support homosexual behavior/”marriage.” In fact, all of these are categorically condemned by infallible Catholic teaching, and it is impossible for any Catholic’s conscience to licitly contradict these condemnations.

As these liberal Catholics are now accustomed to being (rightly!) criticized for this stance by orthodox-minded Catholics, they now predictably levy the charge of hypocrisy against those Catholics today who refuse to get vaccinated on the grounds of conscience. This charge, of course, is pure slander, and it flows from ignorance regarding the nature of conscience, for it consists in the rejection of point 5 above. 

But the problem, unfortunately, runs much deeper. If this were just another example of leftist Catholic fallacy, refuting it would prove easy enough for the “conservative” Catholics; the paragraphs above would suffice. The problem is, some of these very “conservative” Catholics have – for decades now, but in another context – adopted the exact same rejection of point 5 above, therefore they cannot now propose the very assertion they’ve previously dismissed. 

Once you make a pact with error, it follows you everywhere and haunts the rest of your days until you repent.

Now, Catholic apologists in general do excellent work and I thank God for their powerful defenses of Catholic teachings. But due to the efforts of a few of these career lay apologists and their thinly veiled disdain for private revelation, some people in the Church today have succumbed to a slightly Catholicized version of the Protestant sola-fide (Faith Alone) heresy, wherein it is said that as long as something is not a universal, objective, infallibly-defined necessity for all the faithful as a matter of Catholic Faith, they say it cannot ever become any conscience-based obligation of any sort for any Catholic. For these apologists (and I reiterate: I certainly do not mean all of them; I only have a few in mind!) found – in the indeed valid premise that private revelation does not demand belief as a matter of Catholic Faith – an opportunity to draw an utterly fallacious conclusion. Namely, they insist that because private revelation never binds as a matter of Catholic Faith, it is also categorically impossible for any private revelation to ever place any duties of any sort upon the consciences of any Catholics (except perhaps the individual seer who received the revelation). (I address this point in greater detail in Part Three of Thy Will Be Done)

As you can see, this is precisely the same fallacy used today to insist that, because the CDF has said they can be okay, conscience cannot ever validly lead any Catholic to reject the Covid vaccines for himself. As the (erroneous) argument goes: “The Church has said the vaccines are okay and no Catholic can, as a matter of Catholic Faith, reject their use; therefore no Catholic can at all discern in his conscience that they aren’t okay for him, and furthermore requiring these vaccines is, accordingly, no problem.” One need only swap out a few words to generate this lie from the same exact line of reasoning which these few apologists invented decades ago to dismiss any private revelation they dislike. This insistence, in turn, is what is used to justify the very vaccine mandates that are now serving as the precursor to the Mark of the Beast itself.

Seducing as it always is at first in the opportunities it gives to rationalize doing the self-will, error has consequences.

Let me give an example. Suppose a certain person was over for dinner one night and, as the hour grew late, suggested that we watch a new episode of some ridiculous sci-fi TV show about aliens and time travel. Suppose I responded by saying “well, I’m getting quite tired and may just fall asleep soon, but I haven’t yet prayed the Rosary or Divine Mercy Chaplet, so I better do that now instead.” Suppose he then responded “Ah, don’t worry! The Catholic Faith does not require those prayers – each are from private revelations – so you are under no obligation to recite them, skipping them would be fine, and I really want to watch this show.”

He would have entirely missed the point. My conscience tells me that I must pray the Rosary and Divine Mercy Chaplet every day. That these devotions are from private revelations and, accordingly, are not required as matters of Catholic Faith is irrelevant to the fact that I find in my heart a duty related to them. I have read enough about both of these devotions to know of their utterly astonishing is their power, therefore I know what I am neglecting by failing to pray them every day, and this knowledge in my mind has grown sufficiently potent that God has worked through it to direct my conscience to direct my will to pray both each day. Nor would I be doing anything wrong by encouraging others to form their consciences in accordance with the same knowledge that has compelled my own conscience to demand their daily recital. So long as I let their own consciences do the demanding and concern my input with helping to form their consciences, I have not engaged in unjust imposition. 

So it is with avoiding the use of abortion-tainted vaccines. Now, indeed, the CDF has issued a document, the most relevant points of which are summarized below. I submit to the Church’s authority and I therefore grant that Catholics are not universally morally obliged to reject, say, the Pfizer Covid vaccine. This doesn’t mean that I have no right or grounds in conscience to reject it for myself.

The CDF Document’s Key Points:

1. If you cannot obtain a morally irreproachable vaccine, then it can be morally acceptable to receive an abortion-tainted one because although this entails material cooperation with abortion, it is remote, and therefore avoiding it is not obligatory “if there is a grave danger” (and it goes on to offer a statement – perhaps outside, we should note, of the purview of the CDF’s competence– that Covid is such an example; though I leave settling the scope of that jurisdiction to smarter people than myself). Note that this point itself refutes many of the vaccine pushers, who insist that there isn’t cooperation with abortion at all by using these vaccines.
2. In the case of grave danger, abortion-tainted vaccines may be “used in good conscience with the certain knowledge that the use of such vaccines does not constitute formal cooperation with the abortion…” (§3) No one that I know of denies this. Of course getting an abortion-tainted vaccine isn’t, in and of itself, formal cooperation in abortion; but only material. 
3. The use of aborted fetal cell lines is still wrong (§4)
4. Vaccination must not be made mandatory. (§5)
5. Duty to the common good “may recommend” vaccination (but the document does not say that such duty ever requires it). The same paragraph implicitly admits that a Catholics’ conscience can indeed compel him to reject these vaccines, by saying: “Those who, however, for reasons of conscience, refuse vaccines produced with cell lines from aborted fetuses…” (§5)

Now Pope Francis, of course, has repeatedly stated that he views the vaccines as “acts of love,” as in no way problematic, and as even “morally obligatory.” He has never Magisterially taught this, but has only stated it (albeit repeatedly!) in entirely non-Magisterial contexts. Every Catholic is free to disagree with his insistence that receiving these vaccines is a moral obligation. For many years now I have been begging my readers to realize that a number of Pope Francis’ personal opinions are clearly mistaken, and to – for the sake of the good of their souls – not hesitate to disagree with them when called for. This is just another example of the same dynamic, and its existence in the present context shouldn’t surprise us.

Pope Francis knows that, with only a few minutes of time, he could promulgate a brief Encyclical, Papal Bull, Decree, Apostolic Letter, or anything of the sort, in which he Magisterially teaches that these vaccines are entirely morally unproblematic, that no Catholic can have grounds for rejecting them in conscience, and/or that every Catholic has a moral obligation to receive them. For over a year now, he has deliberately refrained from doing so. Obviously, it is not for lack of concern (just see his repeated non-Magisterial comments!) – it is because he knows that it would be entirely impossible for him to teach these things Magisterially.

Rampant Bad Arguments

As for me, I do not claim any certain knowledge on this issue, and there are plenty of better Catholics than myself on both sides of it who know much more about it than I do. But I will say that I find entirely unconvincing all the arguments I’ve read so far which seek to assuage the consciences of all Catholics in using these vaccines. 

For when I see otherwise intelligent people repeatedly proffering only logically bankrupt analogies to make their points, I cannot help but suspect that they do so because the conclusion they seek to bolster with these analogies is itself fallacious.

One particularly famous career lay apologist argues that the abortion-tainted Covid vaccines are fine because using them is like paying a pizza-delivery guy for your pizza, even if he might be a drug addict who will then go and use the money to buy cocaine. How absurd. The abuse of cocaine was not necessary for the cooking (or delivery!) of that pizza, and there is no argument that you are unjustly cooperating with his drug abuse by paying him for the pizza.

Another more serious thinker – a Catholic philosopher by the name of Ed Feser whose work I generally greatly admire – has used a better analogy (perhaps the best one I’ve found so far proffered by those who defend the use of abortion-tainted vaccines), but it still completely fails in assuaging my conscience. He posits a scenario wherein someone is murdered, and his fingernails are then clipped off by another who stumbled upon the corpse. This strange fellow then clones these fingernail clippings (somehow) and sells them on eBay. Decades later, a nail clipper designer comes along and uses these very cloned fingernails to design an amazing nail clipper which soon becomes the only readily available one. Feser then says: “Are we obliged to refrain from purchasing this nail clipper? Obviously not.” But I do not understand why Feser chose to construct his analogy with such a glaring lack of parallelism to the very matter he is seeking to illustrate with it. His analogy would only work if the murder victim were deliberately murdered for his fingernails, and the removal of these fingernails was the motivation for the murder, and the fingernail clipper designer – knowing full well all these facts – nevertheless chose to use these cloned fingernails to work on his prototype. If that were how Feser phrased the analogy, then, I think Feser would admit, buying those fancy new fingernail clippers suddenly becomes much more disquieting. 

On Tylenol, etc. 

Stepping outside of the realm of analogies, the most commonly employed attempt at a comparable example – the favorite of the Covid vaccine pushers – is Tylenol (and a smattering of other similar over-the-counter products, such as Tums). Since McNeil Consumer Healthcare (which owns Tylenol) does experiments using the same aborted fetal cell line (HEK 293), the Covid vaccine pushers say that it too must be rejected by anyone who would reject the Covid vaccines on the ground of conscience. But this is fallacious. Tylenol (that is, acetaminophen or paracetamol) was invented in the 1800s, developed in its present form during the early 1900s, and hit the market in the U.S. in the year 1950. All of this, of course, was long before abortion was even legal in America, and no aborted fetal cell lines had anything to do with its development. No one is cooperating with abortion by taking acetaminophen. If McNeil Consumer Healthcare currently undertakes tests using the HEK 293 cell line, then that is lamentable, but it cannot magically bend the laws of logic and retroactively impose its own moral evil upon a medicine that was developed long before these tests ever happened. If you want to stick it to McNeil (or Johnson and Johnson, who owns it), then by all means, buy generic “tylenol” (generic acetaminophen, which is all I buy) – it is the exact same thing and costs half as much. The same applies to Tums and the other cases these vaccine pushers use. For example, calcium carbonate (Tums’ active ingredient) was used to treat heartburn at least as early as 1930. Developing this treatment in no way involved abortion.

We know, in Catholic moral philosophy/theology, that remote material cooperation in evil can sometimes be justified (depending upon circumstances/intent)– as in, for example, paying your taxes even though your government does evil things – but so many who present themselves as teachers in the Faith today are ignoring that, although taking (let’s say the Pfizer) Covid vaccine is indeed only remote material cooperation in abortion, that does not describe the situation we have here; that is only a small part of the picture. The other– and much more significant– part of the picture is summarized below.

The relevant considerations:

1. The HEK 293 cell lines were part and parcel to the development process of these vaccines (whether, as in Pfizer/Moderna, pre-release testing – also a requisite part of development. See just this one paper from Pfizer/Biontech, et. al., which alone makes several references to their use of HEK in developing their mRNA vaccine…or whether, as in J&J, the vaccine was – even more problematically – actually cultured on the HEK line ) More on this point below.
2. Abortion was part and parcel to the generation of the HEK cell line – a healthy, normal preborn girl was murdered in the Netherlands in the 1970s for it. She was likely extracted – alive via a C-section abortion – from her mother’s womb, and dissected – alive – in order to most “successfully” remove cells from her kidney; only perfectly fresh organs (taken from a living baby, that is) would have worked in culturing a fetal cell line as “successful” as HEK293. It is an oft-repeated lie that it was either a miscarriage or that some abortionist murdered a baby, then a scientist came in and said “Oh, what a shame that you did that. But now that you did, let me extract some cells.” No, the abortion was almost certainly undertaken with the intention of extracting the cells; for the cell line to work, these cells had to be extracted within minutes of the baby’s extraction (and pray tell – how exactly could that have happened if it wasn’t intentionally planned beforehand?) and in a way that would make Hitler proud – from a “fresh,” that is, living, baby’s body. Moreover, the cell line is called HEK 293 (Human Embryonic Kidney 293) because it took 293 experiments to create it – experiments that required many, many abortions before the one that ultimately generated the cell line. Now, people debate about the details of this point and I am not well versed in that debate. But so long as the account I have provided here is even possible, it is what I will assume is the case. Only in light of overwhelming evidence would I be willing to operate under the premise that HEK was derived from a miscarried baby.
3. Abortion – as well as unborn-child-murdering “scientific research” – is an ongoing genocide. It is, therefore, far worse to participate in any way in it than it would be to benefit from, say, atrocities undertaken in medical research in Auschwitz during a genocide that has since ended.  
4. Unborn-child-murdering “scientific research” (for example, embryonic stem cell research) continues to this day precisely because the diabolical forces behind it know full well that Christians today – by and large – are too cowardly to take a strong stand against it, and will readily gobble up any remedy to their physical ills that involves cooperation with it. 
5. Pfizer, Moderna, J&J, etc., are still using the HEK cell lines which were necessary for the development of their Covid vaccines, and every such vaccine taken increases their profits and emboldens them to continue this evil practice. 
6. Material cooperation in evil must only be justified in proportion to the importance of what is pursued by that cooperation. But the vast majority of people have an over 99.9% chance of surviving Covid without vaccination. With Omicron, which will likely soon account for all Covid cases, that survival rate will likely rise to over 99.99%. Overall deaths from Covid are not the relevant statistic here. Survival rate is the relevant statistic. By the logic of appealing to overall deaths in a situation that applies to the whole world of almost 8 billion people, any risk of death, even the most utterly minimal one, will wrongly seem to justify extraordinary means in order to avoid it. Consider speed limits: if all speed limits were reduced to 5 mph, this would save over a million lives every year. Doing so would still be absurd, however. Your survival rate proportional increase from everyone driving only 5 mph does not merit such a change. With speed limits as they are, you have about a 99.99% chance of surviving all of your year 2022 driving. Bumping that up to a survival rate of 99.999% would be nice, but no one in his right mind would consider that a moral obligation for you if it required extraordinary measures, and even less so is it an obligation if doing so involved material cooperation in evil!  (See Footnote 2)

Certain Catholics have gone into overdrive for the last year, relentlessly presenting example after example of things that we all do which allegedly consist in more proximate cooperation in evil than one would be engaging in by receiving, for example, the Pfizer Covid vaccine. Not only are each of the arguments presented flawed in their own right (though going through each would be too long), they are also nothing but straw men. The question here is not “exactly how remote/proximate are we talking about here?” The question, rather, is: “How can we justify even remote material cooperation in consideration of the 6 points above?” It is those 6 points which these vaccine pushers systematically ignore.

When some consideration is irrelevant to the matter at hand – irrelevant to the determination of whether a given course of action is just or unjust – then it must not be allowed to even factor into the analysis. This is why judges instruct juries to not merely be careful in weighing certain things, but even to dismiss certain things in their deliberations, and it is why certain things are likewise simply inadmissible in court. Here, too, there are points which – and we must stop pretending otherwise – bear absolutely no weight.

The irrelevant considerations:

1. That the vaccines do not actually contain aborted fetal cells themselves (So what? HEK293 was used in developing the vaccines, and HEK293 is an aborted fetal cell line. That is its substantial nature, not an accidental quality. The HEK line is the subject of the moral evil here; not merely the same exact physical cells extracted from the murdered baby. The HEK line’s morally evil nature is, moreover, carried through its genetic replication to the present day. Similarly, you yourself are the same person you were when you were two years old, even though you share no physical cells in common with your two year old body [all of the body’s cells are replaced, on average, each 7 years]. If you don’t like that example, try another one: child pornography. As with all pornography, it is intrinsically evil. If someone makes a copy of a pornographic photograph of a child, and then a copy of that copy, and so on a thousand times for decades, the ten-thousandth copy is just as absolutely evil as the original photograph. All of them must immediately be destroyed, and any product developed using the pornographic nature of any of these photographs should likewise be rejected.)  
2. The children murdered to create the HEK fetal cell line were murdered decades ago. (It should go without saying to any spiritually alive person that this has no morally mitigating effect on anything)
3. That Pfizer/Moderna vaccines were tested on HEK, and not developed on HEK. For even if the Pfizer/Moderna vaccines were not developed on HEK (as J&J was), they were still developed with HEK. Now, this would be relevant if that test were done after the development, (and ideally even without Pfizer/Moderna’s direction or at least without their consent). But that’s not what happened. The testing of the Pfizer/Moderna mRNA vaccines on HEK was not part of an ongoing process of safety-checking after the vaccine development (not that even this would be okay!), but rather HEK293’s use was part and parcel to the initial vaccine development process itself. Accordingly, these vaccines cannot escape the charge of being abortion-tainted, and any attempt to claim otherwise is nothing but sophistry. Again, see just one of Pfizer’s own scientific papers here, where we see just how important HEK was in the development of that vaccine.

So,  am I now taking back what I said at the top of this article, when I insisted that I have no criticism of those who have chosen to get vaccinated for Covid? Not at all. I acknowledge that the cooperation with abortion is only material (not formal), and only remote (not proximate). I recognize that the other considerations I have presented are not demonstrative that it is illicit to get a Covid vaccine, and I recognize that the CDF has said the abortion-tainted Covid vaccines can be licitly used in grave cases. So if you have discerned that the risk of Covid is grave enough for you to justify that cooperation, then I do not question your conscience’s direction.

My Point

My point is merely to explain why my conscience now gives me a very simple answer: No.

My point is furthermore that those of us who have consciences which have said “no” must not have our fundamental human rights violated by vaccine mandates that attempt to force us to contradict our consciences. 

And I say this especially to priests and Bishops. I am terrified by the mere thought of the degree of wrath that a shepherd is laying up for himself on the Day of Judgment by requiring his sheep to violate their consciences in order to be allowed at Mass. Our forefathers in the Faith never would have been able to imagine this, and it is utterly apocalyptic for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. I can think of no clearer example of one to whom Our Lord was speaking when he said: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” Matthew 18:6

Now more than ever we must stay close to the true shepherds. I emphasized this in my last post, but today I want to draw attention to one especially: Bishop Joseph Strickland. He has long been one of the boldest defenders of the truth in the Church’s hierarchy. As such, he has become one of the liberal media’s (whether secular or “Catholic”) favorite Bishops to persecute. Attack pieces against him can be found on most of the outlets today which will soon become vocal supporters of the Diabolical Quantum Leap, and accordingly he is relentlessly harassed by their minions. If you have a Twitter account, I encourage you to follow him there and show your support for him via comments/likes/retweets/etc., so as to drown out evil with good. His posts are bold, edifying, and grounded in truth; please peruse them. You’ll quickly discover that he is no ideologue; he loves Christ, plain and simple, and accordingly he loves Christ’s truth. Let us pray that God sends us many more shepherds like him.

In conclusion,

Let’s suppose I’m completely wrong in some of the arguments I’ve presented above, and the best use of Catholic philosophy and theology actually does completely exonerate the use of all these Covid vaccines. Even then, when we zoom out and consider this issue from the eschatological, apocalyptic perspective (which, these days, we absolutely must), it matters little. For what is obviously true is that the debate is sufficiently muddled and confusing that, at the very minimum, millions of sincere Catholics across the world do in fact find their consciences violated by these vaccine mandates. These mandates, in turn, are becoming more and more universal, to the point of even being required to survive both spiritually (sacraments) and physically (work, shopping for groceries, etc.). If this isn’t a laying down of the Infrastructure of the Antichrist and a proximate preparation for the Mark of the Beast, then nothing is.

Footnote 1: On the experimental, potentially untrustworthy nature of mRNA:

Yes, widespread general public use of mRNA injections is brand new and experimental, despite some incorrect claims to the contrary now floating about the Catholic blogosophere – the mere fact that mRNA injections were studied and relatively minimally used even some decades ago says nothing. Pfizer’s Covid injection, for example, despite being “FDA approved,” is still in clinical experimental trials until at least May 15, 2023.  Now, I neither believe nor disbelieve many of the so-called “conspiracy theories” out there now about the mRNA jabs, but I certainly don’t trust brand new (injected, no less!) medical technologies, no matter how many scientists or scientific groups tell me they are safe. As an engineer, I know to not even trust motor vehicle technologies until they’ve proven themselves in mass-manufactured cars for at least a decade – I held off until this year to buy a car with a CVT [Continuously Variable Transmission]. Why, then, would I trust brand new medical technologies, considering how vastly more complex the human body is than a car? The mere fact that, throughout the history of vaccination, adverse consequences have always been discovered within the first few months of widespread administration means nothing – that is comparing apples and oranges. This “vaccination” drive is not comparable to anything in the history of vaccination, since none of the previous drives used mRNA injections.

Footnote 2: On a societal precursor to vaccine mandates

The example used in point 6 above reminds us of yet another societal foundation, laid down decades ago, which prepared the way for these vaccine mandates: seat belt laws. Now I’m a big fan of seat belts and I strongly encourage their use. I myself always wear my seat belt. But seat belt laws are absurd. To pass a law making an adult into a criminal just because he doesn’t buckle a piece of nylon over his body when in a moving vehicle – because by failing to do so, he fails to raise his chance of surviving a given drive from 99.99999% to 99.999999% – is utterly ridiculous. But how were these laws justified? By appealing to hypothetical absolute nation-wide numbers and neglecting individual freedom. “This will save thousands of lives a year!” the social justice warriors breathlessly proclaimed to the legislative assemblies. Conveniently ignored was the fact that we – who are over the age of 17 – are not children, and the government is not supposed to be our mommy and daddy. It is not the government’s job to require adults, under pain of fines or jail, to incrementally increase their “safety.” The government has no right to violate the principle of subsidiarity on account of the number of lives allegedly saved each year by doing so. Yet, decades ago, we rolled over to it doing precisely that. Now, we are reaping what we have sown by our apathy. Today, collectivism and utilitarianism are sovereign philosophies in political discourse, and no one who questions them is even allowed into the discussion. 

Readers have asked me to clarify my point on the Eucharist from the last post, so that is what I will now do. First, I’ll note that I always hesitate before clicking “publish” on any post, like the last one, which summarizes prophetically relevant developments in the Church and the world, as I know that within mere minutes of doing so, more such things will transpire. Never was that truer than with my last post. Since publishing it just 48 hours ago:

1. News just came out that Sweden has developed an implantable vaccine passport microchip. Aside from the beast himself assuming power, nothing would be a clearer indication that the Mark of the Beast is imminent than such a chip becoming common. (Note: France24, the news site there linked, is entirely mainstream; according to them, 6,000 people have already received the chip implanted in their hands so that they can do what is required of them in relation to their ability to “buy and sell” certain goods/services. Ring any bells? Hint Revelation 13:16-17. “And [the Beast] causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”
2. Putin just stepped up the ante in the war-foreboding saber-rattling. Just yesterday, His defense minister made the (likely fabricated) claim that the U.S. is preparing a “chemical attack.” Of course, it is probably Russia itself planning this attack, and once it happens, they’ll blame it on the U.S./NATO, and thereby justify a Ukrainian invasion. As the (excellent and level-headed) National Review wrote just today, “evidence is piling up that Vladimir Putin really does intend to invade Ukraine later this winter.”
3. Pope Francis, just today, met with Metropolitan Hilarion (the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate). The two “discussed specific dates and venues” for the Pope’s trip to Moscow, making it clear that this is actually going to happen.
4. The elite’s Omicron fear-mongering has drastically stepped up. Bill Gates just announced that he expects at least three months more Communist Covid Tyranny due to Omicron, and the politicians around the globe who are desperately clamoring for his campaign contributions will diligently submit. (Indeed, “Democracy” has now proven far more effective in enslaving the masses than Dictatorship ever did!) But someone like Gates would never put an implicit deadline on one Tyranny without already having another one in mind, though we can only speculate about what the elite have in store for us for late Winter/Spring 2022 as they put the finishing touches on the Infrastructure of the Antichrist.

In the arena of prophecy and signs of the times, everything is falling into place, just as foretold by Heaven’s messages, with an accuracy that is stunning to watch even for those who have carefully observed these things for many years. The long prophesied events are at hand. Repent. While you still can. Live in the Divine Will. Proclaim His Mercy. Trust Him and have no fear. He’s coming. This is incredibly exciting; therefore, do as Our Lord commands upon hearing such news! That is:

“Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Luke 21:28

Let’s pause to consider how extraordinary point 3 above is. In 1965, when Conchita stated that a Papal trip to Moscow would immediately precede the Warning, the assertion itself was considered outlandish. No Pope has ever gone to Russia, much less its capital, Moscow. It just doesn’t happen. One would have considered himself practically safe, on that count alone (of supposing a Papal Moscow trip must precede the Warning), in concluding that the Warning would never happen! Now we have such a trip not only finally possible, but nearly certain to happen very soon. This is incredible. This alone should give all of the Warning scoffers great pause!

Now, on to the subject of the present post. A number of readers reached out to me requesting clarification, regarding my last post’s assertion, that if the words of consecration were changed to “this is Christ’s body,” that would render the Consecration (and thus the Mass and the Eucharist) invalid in such cases.

The Church (/the Pope) certainly has the right to make modifications to the Liturgy without these modifications being tantamount to invalidity. Whether or not these modifications are a good idea is another matter, but the Church/the Pope can certainly, for example, change the language of the Liturgy, the number of readings, who can do the readings, how old one must be to receive Communion, how long one must fast before receiving Communion, what collects/antiphons/prefaces are said, what vestments the priest wears, etc. But the Church has absolutely no authority to substantially change what Christ Himself has set down regarding the number, matter, and form of the Seven Sacraments.  Should anyone in the Church – even the Pope himself – attempt to do so, he would only render the Sacrament invalid. Both the matter and the form of each Sacrament are set in ontological stone, and will remain as they are until the end of time.

Let us examine some Magisterium from the Catechism of the 16th-Century Council of Trent (the “Roman Catechism”), which is just as binding in its doctrinal teachings now as it ever has been (Obviously, however, some Church disciplines have changed since its promulgation). I of course submit to and love the new Catechism also, but Trent deals with these matters with even more directness, which is why I’m using that Catechism here.

The Catechism goes on to insist “there are neither more nor less [than 7 Sacraments]…”  To claim there are any more, or fewer, than precisely 7 Sacraments would be heresy. To contradict either the “matter” or the “form” of any Sacrament would be heresy.

Every heresy is not true, never has been true, and never can be true, no matter who says otherwise. Now, our very salvation demands doctrinal orthodoxy regarding the Sacraments, but the supreme importance here regards the one sacrament we rightly call Blessed: the Eucharist. The same Catechism continues:

The Antichrist’s supreme attack, therefore, will be directed at this “eminently superior” Sacrament.

Before getting to the Eucharist, let us take a few other examples of the same dynamic:

First, the Sacrament of Penance (Confession). The form of this Sacrament are the words pronounced by the priest, “I absolve you…” and the matter of the Sacrament is the penitence (sorrow for his sins) of the one being absolved (Trent defines this as “quasi materia,” not to imply it isn’t truly the matter of the Sacrament, but only to point out that, in the case of this Sacrament, we aren’t dealing with physical matter). If either is absent, it is impossible for the absolution to be considered valid. Powerful as it is, Confession has no ability to effect the forgiveness of one who isn’t in any way sorry for his sins (hence the extreme importance of rejecting the heretical interpretation of Amoris Laetitia — the interpretation which is leading souls to hell by pretending that unrepentant adulterers may be validly absolved — as I explained in great length here in 2017  and here in 2018), and one has not actually received Absolution if all the priest says is “I pray that Christ forgives you of your sins…” (God, of course, is always free to directly forgive whomever He pleases; the point is merely that that particular absolution itself wouldn’t be a valid one.)

Second, the Sacrament of Holy Orders (Priesthood). The Form of the sacrament is the Bishop’s consecratory prayer, and the matter of the Sacrament is the Bishop’s laying on of hands upon a baptized male. This is why any ordination attempted by one who is not a valid Bishop is impossible, and why women’s ordination is also utterly impossible: as Pope St. John Paul II infallibly declared in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, the Church does not merely “refuse” to ordain women; rather, it is that the Church “has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and … this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.” This is the key to understanding the present matter; we are dealing with something that the Church has no authority or ability to do.

Third, the Sacrament of Matrimony. The Form of this Sacrament is the exchange of vows, and the matter of the Sacrament is one man and one woman each promising permanent faithfulness to the other (along with consummation). This is why forced marriage is impossible (marriages not made in freedom do not truly entail the exchange of vows and thus are invalid); the form is absent. This is also why marriage between two people of the same sex is impossible; the matter is absent.

Fourth, Baptism. The matter is water and the form is the words “I baptize you…” This is why the Vatican decided that Fr. Matthew Hood had to be “re” baptized: it was discovered that the Deacon invalidly baptized him as a baby, since he said “we” baptize you, instead of “I.”

Now, the Sacrament of the Eucharist also has a matter and form, and – as with any Sacrament – each is absolutely required for its validity. There is less ambiguity here than anywhere else: Christ laid it down with utter clarity in the Gospel. The priest must use wheat bread and wine, and he must say, “This is my body” (Matthew 26:26) just as Christ did at the Last Supper (which was the first Mass.) If the priest deliberately says anything that is not the words “This is my body,” then the Consecration is invalid, and therefore the Mass too is invalid. (I say “deliberately” because intention is key here – if, for example, the priest has a bit of a slip of the tongue and the word “body” sounds more like “boly,” we should not regard that as invalidating the consecration.)

In my last post, I speculated that a decree may soon come from the Vatican, changing the words of consecration – in the name of “Ecumenism” or “dialogue” – to “This is Christ’s body,” which would invalidate the Eucharist (and thus the Mass). But the Mass would be equally invalidated if, perhaps in deference to the “gluten free” phenomenon spreading across the globe, there was a decree mandating that corn flour be used for the host, or in deference to “fighting alcoholism,” mere grape juice were mandated to be used for the chalice. But I think a diabolical decree directed against the form (the words) is more likely, as it is precisely the type of thing that Modernists would love to do in the name of a false Ecumenism.

As the Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches:

As we can see, there is absolutely no leeway here.

The matter and form of the Eucharist are permanent and unchangeable. Any attempt at substantial changes made to either would invalidate the Sacrament. Be on guard against such a change, as it is may be coming soon. If and when it does, seek out Masses said by those faithful priests who refuse to change the words of Consecration to another form which would be invalid.

It is both wise and prophetic that, for over a year and a half now, Cardinal Sarah’s pinned “tweet” has been one reminding us to disregard unjust decrees:

In the times to come, which will only grow more confusing by the day, stick with those shepherds you can trust. I’ll give here a list of trustworthy Bishops, as I did back in February (though, obviously, I am not claiming that these are the only trustworthy ones! This is just a sampling.)

• Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI
• Cardinal Robert Sarah
• Bishop Joseph Strickland
• Cardinal Gerhard Muller
• Cardinal Raymond Burke
• Archbishop Charles Chaput
• Archbishop Salvatore Corileone
• Bishop Ramon Arguelles
• Bishop Marc Aillet
• Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins
• Cardinal Rainer Woelki
• Bishop THOMAS Tobin
• Bishop Athanasius Schneider
• Cardinal Walter Brandmuller
• Bishop Thomas Paprocki