BREAKING: Vaccine mandate halted in New York for religious exemptions

 

Oregon Students Can Now Graduate WITHOUT Being Able To READ

 

See Deacon Mike’s Wanderer column August 24 on this subject: "Academic Racism" https://faithontrialradio.blogspot.com/2021/08/academic-racism.html

This week on Faith On Trial (9-16)

This week’s guest, Dr. Roger Klein, MD & JD, says the Biden vaccine mandates are unconstitutional and unnecessary. Dr. Klein’s resume includes:  He is a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Law, Science & Innovation at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. He is also the Chief Medical Officer of Omniseq and Principal at Roger D. Klein, MD JD Consulting and Klein & Klein Co., L.P.A. Previously, Roger was the Medical Director at the Molecular Oncology division at the Cleveland Clinic. He was also the Chair of the Professional Relations Committee at the Association for Molecular Pathology. Prior to joining the Cleveland Clinic, he served as Medical Director of Molecular Oncology at the Blood Center of Wisconsin where he led the center’s Diagnostic Laboratories’ initiative focused on DNA- and RNA-based testing for evaluation of cancer patients.

Join Gina and Deacon Mike as they visit with Dr. Klein this Thursday, Sept. 9, at 10 a.m. CT on Faith On Trial on Iowa Catholic Radio: 1150 AM; 88.5; 94.5, and 90.9; and streaming on IowaCatholicRadio.com.

Probe Of Fetal Research At Pitt Launched

From the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights:

The University of Pittsburgh has agreed to have its fetal tissue research practices independently reviewed by the Washington, D.C. law firm of Hyman, Phelps & McNamara.

Last month, the Catholic League called upon the Pennsylvania Auditor General to launch such an investigation.

We are delighted that Pitt got the message.

Over the summer, we learned that Judicial Watch was representing the Center for Medical Progress in a quest to obtain documentation of alleged human organ harvesting at Pitt. According to their probe, organs have been harvested while the baby's heart is still beating. The University has steadfastly denied wrongdoing.

On August 17, Bill Donohue wrote to Pennsylvania Auditor General, Timothy L. DeFoor, asking him to determine whether state and federal funds are being used by Pitt for arguably criminal activity. He sent a copy of the letter to Pitt's chancellor, the dean of the medical school and a press official at the University.

As important as anything, in our news release that same day, we printed the email address of the Auditor General, asking our subscribers to contact him. Thousands did, and their effort paid dividends.

Is Pitt involved in a fetal organ "chop shop"? We do not know. But we need to find out without delay.

"If it is true," Donohue said in his letter to the Auditor General, "as some doctors have said, that in order to perform some of these procedures, 'The baby's going to have to be either born alive or be killed immediately prior to delivery,' then justice demands that a thorough investigation take place. I urge you to do so."

In February, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities issued an excellent statement on the propriety of human fetal tissue research. It implored the government, which allows abortion, not to "add injury to insult by treating the innocent abortion victim as a convenient laboratory animal for research protocols deemed unethical when applied to other members of the human family."

If Pitt has nothing to hide, then so be it. But if some of the horrible accusations are true, then it must cease and desist and be held accountable.

We are pleased to have played an important role in getting to the bottom of this issue. Many thanks to those who let their voice be heard.

[See also our earlier post of Deacon Mike’s Wanderer column on the subject: “Behind the Grisly Pitt Panther,” August 16, 2021.]

Accept Or Tolerate?

By Deacon Mike Manno

(The Wanderer) – Several years ago one of my students, opining on the rising LGBT movement, suggested a live and let live philosophy and argued that it was our responsibility to accept their lifestyles. My response was that acceptance implied approval, while what she was suggesting implied only toleration.

Tolerate differences, I suggested to her, but don’t let your tolerance be interpreted as approval of a lifestyle with which you disagree.

I don’t know how wise those words were, but they came to mind while trying to make sense out of the sharp polarization we find in America today. If you follow this column you know that I’ve been a student of history and politics since well before I could vote and, except for the Civil War, I know of no other similar polarization, especially during my lifetime, notwithstanding the upheavals during the fight for civil rights and over our involvement in Vietnam.

Oh there were political differences all right, there were serious conflicts over civil rights and Vietnam that sometimes appeared to pull the nation apart, but they did not last and our leaders, Martin Luther King, Lyndon Johnson, and even Richard Nixon were able to look into the future and move us forward without the severe polarization that we see now.

So what happened? I think I know. It happened when one side turned its attention to social issues and demanded conformity from those on the other side, denying to their political foes the right to dissent, and, most important, the right to follow their own conscience. In short, they demanded approval not just toleration.

Social activists and their lawyers have found success using the courts to impose policies on society that majorities reject. They have used social media to condemn those with whom they disagree, and ultimately are rewarded by seeing their opponents silenced by the cancel culture to which they hold allegiance. One only needs to look at Facebook and Twitter where Donald Trump is absent, but not the Taliban, ISIS, nor the mullahs from Iran.

You must conform, is the message, or be eliminated. And the reason is that they are right, they hold the moral high ground, and as a result can impose their will on others who must be, after all, deplorable.

And it goes well past that. Armed with their self-righteous moral superiority, the social justice warriors of the left have now not only taken over two of the three branches of government, much of the media and academia have found common ground with their fellow travelers in big business, especially the international variety.

So what are these leftists doing with their newfound authority as the moral arbiters of the nation?

First, they have decreed that no one has a right to a conscientious objection to their dictates; like it or not you must comply even if they run counter to your religious beliefs or the dictates of your conscience. Holy Mother Church is not in Rome, but in the halls of Congress, the offices of petty bureaucrats, municipal health officials, and others whose moral superiority surpasses yours.

Take, for example, conscience rights in medicine. We’ve noted just a few weeks ago the case of a pro-life nurse who was forced to assist with an abortion. After an investigation by the Trump administration, which found similar problems at the facility in question, a federal lawsuit was filed against the hospital.

Roger Severino, who was the director of the Office of Civil Rights for the Trump Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services and who conducted the investigation, told my radio audience that it was an open-and-shut case which would have set a polestar for conscience rights. Instead, the new Biden administration simply dismissed the lawsuit out of hand. Of course the poor nurse, being a deplorable, has no standing to assert her conscience or religious rights.

Of course, that’s just small potatoes compared to the larger picture they envision. They have already passed the “Equality Act” in the House which elevates sexual orientation and gender identity to the same protected category as race, which will ultimately force employers, including religious employers and churches, to comply with forced same-sex wedding ceremonies, the hiring of teachers and others who do not support the church’s teachings or mission.

It will also force the opening of restrooms and locker rooms to be open to all, and allow men to force their way into shared housing intended for single gender accommodations. And if parents refuse to provide sex-change surgeries and hormone treatments for their minor children they can be charged with child abuse, and those children can be removed from their homes and public funding can be used to provide those services.

You see, there will be no conscience rights for people who think for themselves. You must accept or the state can discipline you if you hold to traditional Christian values.

And to take a particular example: HHS has promulgated a rule that reinterprets the Affordable Care Act’s definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity. Thus it requires doctors to perform gender transition procedures on any patient, or child, even if it violates the doctor’s medical judgment or religious beliefs.

Why? They know better. They are, after all, superior moral agents and they are allowed to force their beliefs on anyone who might disagree. Oh, and did I mention, you are not allowed to disagree. Polarization on steroids.

Of course none of this is new. You might remember a few years ago when Catholic Charities was forced to close several locations when it refused to place children in same-sex households.

And don’t forget “the jab,” the constant pressure to vaccinate all with an abortion-tainted vaccine. As you’ve read here before, natural immunity that one has after surviving COVID is of no note, neither is any religious exception. Now not only are cities and businesses demanding proof of the jab before entry, schools and workplaces also require vax proof, many with no exceptions, even medical ones. Of course, we must realize that the petty bureaucrats who administer such things are our moral superiors and if we object our social media account can be deleted, just as you were told that if un-vaxed you should not travel anywhere over the recent Labor Day weekend.

Your immediate obedience is requested, otherwise. . . .

And what is as troubling as anything else is that there is no escape from the jab for those who think the law provides them with a religious right to refuse. I was called the other day from a woman who works for a large local firm who was told she had to take the vaccine. When she applied for a religious exemption she was denied because the company’s HR department made the theological determination that since the Pope recommends the vaccine a Catholic is not allowed to object.

Even a CNN host has suggested that those who refuse the vaccine should be refused care by hospitals! All the while other employers are assessing non-vaxed insurance premiums against their workers.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kans., and chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities, issued a recent statement that, while reaffirming his belief in the vaccination, states that people “could reasonably choose” to reject the jab to give “prophetic witness” against abortion and condemned those who would require vaccination as a predicate for holding or keeping their jobs.

“A society that fails to respect the rights of conscience lacks a key element of the common good,” the archbishop wrote. “The most charitable and just posture is to seek to accommodate the consciences of all persons,” he continued.

Of course that makes no difference to our morally superior power predators who think otherwise. We know better than you, so shut up and obey…or else. There is only one side that can stand on conscience, and it’s not us.

Yup, that’s polarization all right. And it appears that it is oh so deliberate.

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday at 10 a.m. Central Time, on Faith On Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)

Discrimination Doesn’t Fly: First Liberty Puts Alaska Airlines On Notice

 

This Revolution Started Decades Ago, and We've Been Blind To It | The Stream

This Revolution Started Decades Ago, and We've Been Blind To It | The Stream: Black Lives Matter, the sexual revolution, rising socialism — it's been coming at us for decades. We've just been blind to it.

Faith On Trial – Thursday September 9, 2021

Paul Jonna, special counsel for the Thomas More Society and a partner in the LiMandri & Jonna LLP law firm in Los Angeles, joined us to discuss the $800,000 settlement in favor of Grace Community Church and its pastor after the state failed in its efforts to close the church.

This week on Faith On Trial (9-9)

Once in a while we like to look at some good news and this week we have some for you. Paul Jonna, special counsel with the Thomas More Society will join us to recount the story of Pastor John MacArthur and Grace Community Church who had their religious rights violated after the State of California banned in-person church services during the pandemic. Their suit against Los Angeles and the state has resulted in a settlement of $800,000 in favor of Pastor MacArthur and his church.

Join Deacon Mike and Gina this Thursday at 10 a.m. Central for Faith On Trial on Iowa Catholic Radio 1150 AM; 88.5, 94.5, or 90.5 FM, and streaming live on IowaCatholicRadio.com.

Poof! And just like that, natural Covid antibodies don't exist in the mainstream narrative

In the wake of the FDA giving full approval to a not-yet-on-the-market COVID injection

named Comirnaty on August 23, the floodgates of “vaccine” mandates nationwide have been opened. From private enterprise to educational institutions and even the military, the message is clear: Take the jab or lose your job. Or your enrollment. Or your honorable discharge. States, including New York and Colorado, are requiring all health care workers to be vaccinated stat, with no exceptions, medical or religious. But for critical thinkers, the most obvious exception is being unilaterally ignored—people who possess active natural antibodies, having already recovered from the SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Let’s review what’s really going on with literally millions of people worldwide: Person A gets infected with SARS-CoV-2. Person A’s body elicits an immune response that attacks the foreign antigen and disables it by creating virus-neutralizing antibodies, enabling the person to recover. Person A now harbors antibodies that protect the body in case of future attack. These antibodies, by definition, are “any of numerous Y-shaped protein molecules produced by B cells as a primary immune defense, each molecule and its clones having a unique binding site that can combine with the complementary site of a foreign antigen, as on a virus or bacterium, thereby disabling the antigen and signaling other immune defenses.” Now-healthy-again Person A goes back out into the world only to be bombarded with widespread and subliminal messaging, including that of Anthony Fauci, purporting that his newly generated antibodies are somehow inferior, insufficient, incompetent or even unable to defend him against future encounters with the virus and/or one of its future variants. Put your mask back on. Get the jab anyway. This is gaslighting at its finest!

No doubt many scientists wish they could ignore a large Israeli study that indicates that “newly-released data show people who once had a SARS-CoV-2 infection were much less likely than never-infected, vaccinated people to get Delta, develop symptoms from it, or become hospitalized with serious COVID-19.” The study goes so far as to question the validity of the injections against the Delta variant given that the vaccinated were 13x more likely to be infected than those who naturally recovered from the infection, and 27x more likely to be symptomatic.  According to another published scientific study evaluating 254 COVID-19 patients up to eight months, cumulative results “suggest that broad and effective immunity may persist long-term in recovered COVID-19 patients.” And the proof doesn’t stop there. In fact, there are over 15 studies—including New York University, The University of California, Emory University and Cornell, among others—all coming to the same conclusion: Natural immunity from prior infection is more robust than the immunity generated from the COVID injections.

So, as of Sept. 1, 2021, where does this leave the almost 196 million recovered cases worldwide or the over 31 million antibody-touting Americans in the United States alone? Why is this science being ignored even as millions of recovered Americans are being coerced into taking the shot even though antibodies are present? It goes without saying, given the relatively new nature of fully understanding the virus and its effects, that more research needs to be completed. It is imperative that decision-makers gather more verifiable information before unequivocally mandating a knee-jerk, one-size-fits-all supposed remedy that even now has been proven to wane over time and has become downright dangerous to many people. The presence of long-lasting robust antibodies in millions of recovered COVID patients worldwide is reason enough to pause and reevaluate the necessity of forced vaccinations. 

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To Vax Or Not To Vax?

By Deacon Mike Manno

(The Wanderer) – The question of the hour: Do we vaccinate or not? And if not, what to expect?

The answer to the second question is: Expect plenty, you will be treated like an outcast, accused of spreading the virus, and, in some quarters, called a murderer. And those are just the nice things they will say.

That’s the state of things today. And it starts from a political calculation which is derived from critical theory: set the public against one another by accusing one side of suppressing the other. In this case it is the minority non-vaxers that are the threat to the now oppressed vaxed class.

We’ve seen it with race (critical race theory), and now it might be called critical vax theory. And you can be canceled over it.

Many cities run by the child-killing side now have rules that unless you can prove your vax status you cannot enjoy the benefits of living there. You are not welcome in restaurants, movie theaters, retail shops, and a host of other facilities most of us patronize every day. No vax, no entry.

And more and more private domains are imposing their vaccine wokeness on customers and employees as well. Same is now happening in medical offices and hospitals. If you are not vaxed, you are not welcome. In fact, even though the vaccine may be detrimental to your health, no vax, no transplant list for you either. The jab is king — no exceptions.

Now, the follow-up question: Is this a political thing, or a science thing? Well, the answer is kind of complex and probably one of the reasons why so many folks are having a hard time sorting everything out. Problem is, whether our public officials are on a power trip or just looking for easy answers, vaccination has become a one-size-fits-all solution.

So let’s take a look at a couple of issues that have passed under the radar:

The first is natural immunity.

While medical experts differ on whether or not the vaccine provides more immunity than natural immunity, there is a growing body of commentary that natural immunity — “earned” by those who have recovered from COVID-19 — is at least as effective as the artificial immunity the vaccine provides.

Unfortunately, the question of natural immunity has been regularly ignored. This means that we are on course for a major economic dislocation of those who have successfully survived the virus and have been counseled by their personal physicians that they don’t need to risk taking a vaccine that will, at best, only duplicate the immunity they already naturally have. Sadly, too many business owners, local politicians — including Chicago’s Cardinal Cupich — will only accept the jab, disregarding those with natural immunity.

You would think that those interested in public health would be seeking any immunity; yet most are only looking for the jab, a lazy man’s answer.

One expert, Dr. Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, says those formally infected by COVID are seven times more likely than vaccinated people to resist the disease. “It appears that natural immunity is better against the Delta variant. When you get infected with COVID, your body’s immune system develops antibodies to the entire surface of the virus,” he said. “Not just the slight protein that the vaccines give you, but the entire surface. And so you get a more diverse antibody portfolio in your system.”

A study by the Cleveland Clinic of over 50,000 employees over five months reported that those who had recovered from COVID-19 did not benefit from vaccination. Researchers found that no one who had recovered from the disease — those with natural immunity — became ill.

The downplaying (or ignoring natural immunity) will ultimately cause those with it to be denied employment, travel, education, and normal commercial activity. It will also allow local bureaucrats to continue use of their emergency powers not really knowing if we have reached “herd immunity,” which, apparently defies definition.

For example, the top health care guru, Dr. Anthony Fauci, had opined that herd immunity would be at 60 to 70 percent immunity. But then changed that to 75 to 80 percent. Now its 80 to 85 percent. Sounds more like herd immunity is what is convenient to our medical overlords, and not necessarily science.

If our public health community wants to play fair, that is to avoid playing a political game, they should insist on the recognition of natural immunity. As I suggested above, they should be more interested in immunity, not simply vaccination.

The second issue that must be recognized involves religious exemptions.

Religious exemptions for the vaccine are raised mainly by right-to-lifers. The objections center around the use of liver cells from a baby aborted in the Netherlands nearly half a century ago. From the cells from that baby’s liver scientists were able to create cells that could divide which allowed them to reproduce.

Those reproduced liver cells were used only for the testing and development of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines but were never an ingredient of the medicine. Yet many still have concerns over the vaccinations due to their involvement with an aborted cell line. Pro-lifers ask, “If abortion is truly the evil the Church claims that it is, how can you ethically use such medication knowing that part of its history begins with the abortion of a child?”

We know those cells must have been taken from either a live fetus or one that had just been aborted, since cells from a dead infant would die and could not divide and reproduce as would be needed to provide the material for further use. Thus we know the fetus involved was not miscarried since the time involved to “harvest” the live cells would have prohibited the taking of live cells.

Many Catholic theologians and bioethicists, as well as many, if not most bishops, however, have concluded that it is morally licit to take such a vaccine since there is a “remoteness” between the abortion and the drug. Two documents from the Vatican, one from the Pontifical Academy for Life, and one from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith have also approved the use of the vaccines since the pandemic is an “exceptional case” and the use of these cells is only “remote, passive, material cooperation with evil.”

Some insist that it is still an unacceptable cooperation with evil, no matter how remote.
And it must be recognized that despite the theological arguments in favor of the vaccine, there is a growing hard-core group of faithful people who, for religious and conscience reasons, will not take the vaccine.

As to the AstraZeneca vaccine there is a more serious moral question. In this case the manufacturer not only used an aborted cell line to test the vaccine, but also to develop it.

Of course there are many other concerns honest people have about vaxing, such as how it will affect those with serious medical problems that could be compromised by the vaccine.

This is not a simple vax or no-vax question. Unfortunately in a rush of political correctness to fight the disease, reasonable objections and medical opinions are being suppressed by those who should know better. Including the application of COVID therapeutics, such as hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir, and regeneron that were condemned because Mr. Trump once mentioned them as a possible treatment.

Why are we focused on only vaccination and why do we ignore these other issues?

So who are the real killers?

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday at 10 a.m. Central Time on Faith On Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com.) 

Religion Clause: Virginia Supreme Court Sides With Teacher Who Spok...

Religion Clause: Virginia Supreme Court Sides With Teacher Who Spok...: In Louden County School Board v. Cross , (VA Sup. Ct., Aug. 30, 2021), the Virginia Supreme Court upheld a preliminary injunction issued by ...

This week on Faith On Trial (9-2)

Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Julie Blake on the new requirement by the Biden HHS requiring doctors to perform gender transition procedures even if that violates the physician’s medical judgment or religious beliefs.

Thought Control In Schools Must End

By Catholic League president Bill Donohue  

The Virginia Supreme Court made a wise decision when it said it would not accept a challenge to a lower court ruling that required Loudoun County Public Schools to reinstate a teacher who was punished for not acknowledging that boys can be girls, and vice versa. 

The victim in this case, Tanner Cross, argued that his Christian convictions did not permit him to lie about sex transitioning. He knows it is child abuse. So does every honest person who knows anything about the subject, which unfortunately excludes many in the healthcare profession and education. 

The school district violated this teacher's freedom of speech as well as freedom of religion. It had the gall to maintain that Cross was suspended not for his speech but for the "disruption" he caused at a school board meeting in May.  

He was being sanctioned because of what civil libertarian Harvey Kalven once called the "heckler's veto." In short, this means that those who are upset about someone's speech can effectively veto his First Amendment right by holding him responsible for their planned, or actual, disruptive behavior.  

This is not a matter of speculation. In 1949, the U.S. Supreme Court overthrew the conviction of a suspended Catholic priest who gave an incendiary speech in Chicago. A riot took place outside the hall where he spoke, and he was held accountable for the mob's behavior. The high court overturned his conviction. Had it not done so, it would have been the death knell to robust speech of any kind. 

There was another dustup in June in Loudoun County when parents objected to the adoption of critical race theory (CRT). School officials mandated, without offering any proof that there was a problem with racism in the district, that all teachers accept the racist dogma associated with this ideology.   

An economist who lives in this area, Max B. Sawicky, recently defended the school district for ordering teachers to abide by CRT. In an article posted by The New Republic, he lashed out at parents and teachers who objected to it. He denied that CRT was racist. He is wrong.  

"White identity is inherently racist; white people do not exist outside the system of white supremacy." Those are the words of Robin DiAngelo, one of the gurus of this pernicious brand of hate speech. 

Ironically, those who live in Loudoun are mostly white privileged people, the very ones seen as racists by CRT activists. Sawicky brags that "Loudoun is one of the richest counties in the United States," where "Joe Biden received 62 percent of the vote."  

These are precisely the kind of people who are most likely to deny that there are only two sexes. Not surprisingly, Sawicky berates "Christian fundamentalist teachers" who object to having their religious rights abrogated by sexually confused elites. He also rails against "anti-CRT fanatics" who object to branding all white people as racists. 

More important, there is no shortage of left-wing totalitarians who want to use the power of the state to dictate how people think about transgenderism and CRT. Their penchant for thought control makes these people the most dangerous segment in American society today. They need to be resisted and defeated.

Harvard Epidemiologist Says the Case for COVID Vaccine Passports Was Just Demolished | The Stream

Harvard Epidemiologist Says the Case for COVID Vaccine Passports Was Just Demolished | The Stream: Infection from COVID-19 confers considerably longer-lasting and stronger protection against the Delta variant of the virus than vaccines.