When hysteria is in the saddle bad things happen. A good way to behave during such a time is to regard anyone who is telling you to stop thinking and obey as an enemy.
Evil During the Plague Year
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Very few clerics – Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant – ever challenged the COVID-19 propaganda. But at least one did, a virulently anti-Catholic, John MacArthur, who is now deceased. He was a famous expository preacher for decades at Grace Community Church in California, and he opposed Governor Newsom’s draconian lock down rules. He took a lot of flak from the government and the news media for that, but he stood his ground. Now yes, I disagree vehemently with his sotierology, his eschatology, and his anti-Catholic rantings and ravings. But he did when no Catholic cleric did: he stood up to the Government and said, “NO!” Pope Francis of heretical memory did just the opposite, ingratiating himself with the great halls of secular power, and his successor, Pope Leo XIV, is imitating him. I can disagree with MacArthur, but I do hope that he is in heaven or will get to heaven after his stay in purgatory and discover that everything he said about the Blessed Virgin Mary was completely wrong.
… And Purell remains a permanent fixture in the sanctuary.
“Be not afraid”! … Except for germs
By June of 2020, it was understood that the mode of transmission was indoor air. Parishes all over the diocese should have had rented event tents filled with wooden folding chairs at that point. It was understood from the beginning that it was of risk to the old and by about June of 2020 that all the ‘co-morbidities’ were correlates of age and excess weight. It was understood by September of 2020 that COVID infections (during the most virulent phase of the epidemic) accounted for 1% of the deaths of those under 25, 3% of those between 25 and 35, 6% of those between 35 and 45. It accounted for 10% of those over age 45.
Fear is the most virile contagion.
Here in Chicago, our dear Cardinal put out a statement that his highest priority was the health and safety of the Faithful. I always assumed his priority would be the salvation of souls.
“Charity begins at home”. People are generous for the first collection. The second collections not so much. The bishops kowtowed to the awful Governor Northam. Church goers still remember that when writing their check to the Bishop’s Lenten Appeal which starts in January. A wealthy friend wrote her BLA check for $15. The amount was her way of sending a message to the diocese. She is not the only one. Forget the Campaign for Human Development.
CAM:
The Campaign for Human Development got Obama elected.
AD, we were in the parking lot. Heat, cold, wind, rain, our priest kept us together and we persevered. First time we were back inside, I cried. (I did have a small nagging concern that, if we kept going in the parking lot, it might somehow become a minor sacramental of sorts, and we could never park there again.)