US District Judge Merryday: "quite plausible that each branch’s procedure for requesting a religious exemption is a ruse that will result inevitably in...denial of each service member’s request"

Did you think you would live to see the day when a federal judge would think that it is quite possible that the military branches are engaging in ruse procedures to end-run the religious rights of servicemen? We are now at that point. And, unfortunately, the judge is not wrong.

In Judge Merryday's November 22 Order  in Navy Seal, et al v. Biden (8:21-cv-02429) a Liberty Counsel case (Middle District of Florida), we see evidence that the "exception process" at the federal government is just as fake as the "vaccines" from which citizens are seeking exception.  Like the "vaccines", exception requests at best provide some protection for a short period of time. They also come with side effects (like unfavorable assignments) and don't ultimately stop you from getting fired.  

Judge Merryday:

 "Whether characterized as a facial challenge or as a class of precisely similar as applied challenges, requiring only a single judicial determination, the plaintiffs’ contention is — based on current data — quite plausible that each branch’s procedure for requesting a religious exemption is a ruse that will result inevitably in the undifferentiated (and therefore unlawful under RFRA) denial of each service member’s request. Particularly, the data produced by the defendants show that more than 16,643 requests for a religious exemption pend. The military has granted no exemptions but has denied hundreds. This disparity, although susceptible to a benign explanation is, as well, susceptible to an explanation actionable and remediable under RFRA."

(emphasis supplied) 

Although I view them grimly, these numbers come as no surprise.  As I wrote in response to an agency solicitation for religious exception requests:

Wicked and Cruel Exercise  

It is my (nonreligious belief) that this whole inquiry is essentially a demeaning and cruel exercise where no matter how much groveling they do, very few employees will be granted an exception and roughly zero employees will be accommodated in a manner that involves them retaining their jobs. 

If you have any concrete guidance as to the idea of an accommodation being something that is possible for employees, please provide me with that assurance. If there is not really any chance of accommodation, please stop this demeaning inquiry. 

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver discussed Judge Merryday's order as follows:

 “Although the court withheld an injunction today, the military will now be under a microscope to report the status and disposition of all religious exemption requests. The military has not granted any of the 16,643 requests. The military now has a clear choice—voluntarily accommodate those with sincere religious beliefs or be ordered by the court to accommodate sincere religious beliefs. Federal employers and civilian contractor employers must hear the message from this court loud and clear—the federal executive orders expressly require religious exemption.”

From my point of view, federal mandate challengers should take heart that at least one federal court is raising its eyebrows about the lack of exemption approvals. As the days go on and the number of exemptions remains at about zero, more courts will be doubtlessly raise their eyebrows as well.

Pray for the members of our armed forces.

St. Michael the Archangel,

defend us in battle.

Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.

May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,

and do thou,

O Prince of the heavenly hosts,

by the power of God,

thrust into hell Satan,

and all the evil spirits,

who prowl about the world

seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

Feds for Medical Freedom

So far, only one federal employee union (Local 501, an AFGE local that represents prison guards in the Miami area) has taken legal action against President Biden's unconstitutional federal employee vaccine mandate. There are 986 other AFGE locals who are standing on the sidelines with their hands in their pockets. 

Meanwhile, at the national level, AFGE has been complicit, complacent, and accommodating to the President's demand that federal employees submit to experimental treatments.

 The best that national level AFGE has done is to ask President Biden to make the federal employee deadline consistent with the federal contractor deadline, which has been moved back to January 18.

AFGE and other unions will tell their members that the President's powers are airtight and that there are no viable legal challenges. Do you really think they would say the same thing if President Trump had done something similar?  Including Local 501's case, there are nine cases challenging the mandate in federal court. AFGE and its locals aren't failing to take action because they lack any grounds to challenge the mandate. They aren't challenging the mandate because they don't want to challenge the mandate.

Meanwhile, a growing number of federal employees are banding together to do that which the unions should be doing.

This is a video about their group: 

https://www.facebook.com/Feds4MedFreedom/videos/911401359491987/

All-Cause Mortality and Occam's razor

11,000 people were given a placebo and 11,000 were given Pfizer's elixir of life. Six months later, 38 participants had died.  This total includes all causes of death, regardless of whether it is traceable to the injections or the virus. Which group fared better? 17 placebo participants died, compared to 21 who had received the elixir; a difference of 23.5%. 

That was in March of 2021.  How have these groups done since? We will never know that because the placebo participants were later informed that they had not gotten the elixir of life and were encouraged to take the "vaccine."  Even placebo group guinea pigs children who participate in these studies are later informed that they were in the placebo group and encouraged to become "fully vaccinated." Given that the virus poses a virtually non-existent threat to children, this move can at best be seen as squandering a very good source of information about long-term risks. At worse, it could be viewed as a deliberate effort to prevent investigation. 

Meanwhile, all-cause mortality is up significantly in Scotland as a whole. See https://scottishunity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/MortReport_2021-45.pdf  Incidentally, 80% of the Scottish population has received at least one dose. 

Hospitals in America are seeing record numbers of emergency room patients. These patients are really sick and they don't have Covid. See https://khn.org/news/article/hospital-emergency-rooms-swamped-seriously-ill-non-covid-patients/:

"But now, they’re too full. Even in parts of the country where covid isn’t overwhelming the health system, patients are showing up to the ER sicker than before the pandemic, their diseases more advanced and in need of more complicated care."

Leading theories are that people waited until covid had died down to have heart attacks and get cancer.

On the other hand, if the results of the Pfizer were extrapolated, we would expect to see about a 24% increase in excess deaths among those who took the injections.

Where have all the rebels gone?

Catholic Voices of Dissent on COVID-19 Vaccines

I am going to collect some Catholic voices of dissenting on the Covid vaccines here. By referencing them, I do not necessarily endorse them.

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George Buscemi asks in A Disconnected Elite, November 17, 2021, Crisis Magazine:

Along these lines of subsidiarity, why is there hardly any recognition on the part of upper-echelon clergy of the many Catholics and pro-lifers who, wanting to resist abortion and other modern ills with “maximum determination,” voluntarily decide to withdraw from the emerging pharmaceutical dystopia? Is this not akin to St. Benedict of Nursia’s quest for a more authentic albeit demanding Christian life? The hierarchy should be more sensitive to the signs of the times and the talk of parallel societies and “Benedict options,” for these are signs that the globalist, one-world ideal pedalled by pharmaceutical corporations and their proxies is considered by many anti-Christ, not least of which because it in no way respects subsidiarity.

Douglas Farrow writes in his November 3, 2021 article Vaccine Passes for the Mass in Crisis Magazine:

That is why we are witnessing, as in Grand Falls, government-imposed and episcopally-sanctioned diocesan schisms. But schism, in ecclesial terms, is a cardinal sin. And this sin presently entails—we must not overlook this!—a twofold assault on the little ones whom Jesus insisted His disciples permit to approach Him.

First, it helps sustain an attack on their bodies, for the authorities are now gearing up to subject these little ones, who are at virtually no risk from COVID-19, to the far greater risks of the injections. (Of this “far greater” there is no statistical doubt; only the sin of sloth prevents anyone from knowing that.) And why? As ever, for dishonest gain; but also for the sake of acclimatising the entire population to the shiny Nowa Huta that is its Pharma-run future.

More importantly, it is a stone of stumbling for their souls, a rock of offense. They and their parents are being told that they are not welcome in church and/or that they do not require their church. Virtual church will do for them if virtual proof of vaccination is wanting. What won’t do is not being vaccinated. For as the World Health Organization reverently declared in a recent global synod, “in vaccines we trust.”

All people are being told, then, that the leadership in such churches is not half as serious about the things of God as about the things of man, even the medically and politically perverse things of man, by which man oppresses man. When that message is fully absorbed, what will be the result? What indeed, if not the proliferation of cardinal sins and a still more obvious apostasy? As if seconding the power of excommunication to the ministry of health were not obvious enough!

Archbishop for the Military Services, USA Timothy Broglio, October 12, 2021, Statement on Coronavirus Vaccines and the Sanctity of Conscience

 Even if an individual’s decision seems erroneous or inconsistent to others, conscience does not lose its dignity. This belief permeates Catholic moral theology as well as First Amendment jurisprudence. As stated by the United States Supreme Court, “[R]eligious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others in order to merit First Amendment protection.” The denial of religious accommodations, or punitive or adverse personnel actions taken against those who raise earnest, conscience-based objections, would be contrary to federal law and morally reprehensible. 

John Clark, September 28, 2021, Without the Right of Conscience, There Is No Common Good

The right of conscience does not merely exist alongside common good; conscience is a component of common good.

The denial of this principle inevitably leads to totalitarianism. As Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote that “one must follow a certain conscience, or at least not act against it.” History illustrates that the penultimate policy of totalitarianism is to disallow the following of conscience; the ultimate policy of totalitarianism is to force people to act against their own consciences.

The attack on conscience is devastating to the common good. As Cardinal Ratzinger phrased it, “the silencing of conscience leads to the dehumanization of the world.”

Jane Smith, September 27, 2021, Crisis Magazine, The Fake Theology behind Vaccine Mandates

None of these documents, however, have the degree of magisterial authority to require assent; they are all low-level documents or non-magisterial statements that cannot impose obligations on Catholics. While these sources do attempt to make a strong case that there is a “moral responsibility” to receive the vaccine, none speak of a moral obligation to do so. And, as we shall show, according to Catholic theology, they can’t do so. (For an explanation of the various levels of authority of Church teaching, see the “Doctrinal Commentary on concluding formula of Professio fidei.”)

Bishop Athanasius Schneider, September 14, 2021

The fact that abortion is in the causal chain in the testing and/or producing of all the current Covid-19 vaccines means that they are gravely immoral. I will not argue that here. Please see my letter where I discuss it thoroughly and definitively.

So in that sense Catholics are not disobeying the Pope because the directive itself is undermining the clarity of the Catholic doctrine and the Catholic witness against abortion and the fetal industry. Furthermore, the Pope is not teaching in this case infallibly.

Suzanna Sammons, September 7, 2021, Crisis Magazine,  Stop Pretending the COVID Jab is Morally Equivalent to Other Meds

Bishop Thomas Olmstead, letter to the faithful regarding COVID-19 vaccinations and individual decisions based on a well-formed conscience (August 27, 2021)

Bishop of a diverse flock with the care of many souls, I continue to encourage the prayerful consideration that each individual must make in regard to receiving the vaccine. For those who have discerned to receive one, they can be assured that they can do so in good conscience. For those who have discerned not to receive one, they too can do so in good conscience. What is primary for us as individuals is to form our conscience through the teachings of the Church.

Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila, Bishop Stephen J. Berg, James R. Golka, Jorge Rodriguez, A Letter from the Bishops of Colorado on COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates (August 5, 2021)

If any person comes to an informed judgment that he or she should receive or not receive a vaccine, that person should follow their conscience, and they should not be penalized for doing so. We encourage any individual seeking exemption to consult their employer or school. The Colorado Catholic Conference also has a letter template available to be signed by pastors of the Faithful if a Catholic wants a written record that they are seeking exemption on religious grounds.

Eric Sammons, Abortion-Tainted Vaccines: From Objection to Obligation April 22, 2021, Crisis Magazine:

A careful reading of the statement reveals a far different emphasis versus what we now hear from our Church leaders, including those at the Vatican. After detailing the moral arguments regarding the degree of cooperation one might have when taking an abortion-tainted vaccine, the PAL states forcefully,

Therefore, doctors and fathers of families have a duty to take recourse to alternative vaccines (if they exist), putting pressure on the political authorities and health systems so that other vaccines without moral problems become available. They should take recourse, if necessary, to the use of conscientious objection with regard to the use of vaccines produced by means of cell lines of aborted human foetal origin. Equally, they should oppose by all means (in writing, through the various associations, mass media, etc.) the vaccines which do not yet have morally acceptable alternatives, creating pressure so that alternative vaccines are prepared, which are not connected with the abortion of a human foetus, and requesting rigorous legal control of the pharmaceutical industry producers. (emphasis added)

“They should oppose by all means…the vaccines which do not yet have morally acceptable alternatives”—do we see this happening today? Far from opposing “by all means” these vaccines, the Church rather is advocating for them, to the point of assisting in their promotion and even their distribution.

 

 

Bishop Athanasius Schneider, December 11, 2020, Covid vaccines: ‘The ends cannot justify the means’

In the case of vaccines made from the cell lines of aborted human fetuses, we see a clear contradiction between the Catholic doctrine to categorically, and beyond the shadow of any doubt, reject abortion in all cases as a grave moral evil that cries out to heaven for vengeance (see Catechism of the Catholic Church n. 2268, n. 2270), and the practice of regarding vaccines derived from aborted fetal cell lines as morally acceptable in exceptional cases of “urgent need” — on the grounds of remote, passive, material cooperation. To argue that such vaccines can be morally licit if there is no alternative is in itself contradictory and cannot be acceptable for Catholics.

 Bishop Joseph Strickland, December 8, 2020, Letter to Flock of East Texas

Every procured abortion murders an innocent human person. For university, government, or industrial scientists to use materials obtained from the remains of an electively aborted child in the research, development, testing, or production of any vaccine is immoral and constitutes formal cooperation in evil. We must never cease to protest this practice with maximum determination to defend the dignity and sacredness of children in the womb. They are not objects to be used but persons to be received as gifts, our brothers and sisters. As your shepherd, I cannot in good conscience receive a vaccine that has been produced using an aborted child. There are ethical vaccines in development which are worth waiting for.