It is increasingly the mantra of our generation — the “go to” phrase to seemingly end all discussions, resolve all problems, and calm all troubled waters: “Follow the science.” During this pandemic, you hear politicians breathlessly evoke it, bishops repeating it, laity wielding it and social media proclaiming it. The problem is that some of the most credible voices in the fields of virology, immunology, microbiology, etc. today are being silenced, suppressed, censored or ignored at this hour. Hence, “follow the science” de facto means “follow the narrative.”
And that is potentially catastrophic if the narrative is not ethically grounded.
Papal WarningsFor those who feel this is hyperbole, both St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI foresaw the warning signs of a generation that was “following the science”… but increasingly departing from God.
Science can contribute greatly to making the world and mankind more human. Yet it can also destroy mankind and the world unless it is steered by forces that lie outside it… —BENEDICT XVI, Spe Salvi, n. 25-26
Without the guidance of the gifts of the Holy Spirit: Wisdom, Knowledge, and Understanding, man’s reason is darkened; he begins to operate in the flesh, in compulsion, greed, and haste. Without Piety and Fear of the Lord, he begins to act as if he, himself were a god.[1] And this is no more evident today than in the exponentially exploding technological revolution.
If God and moral values, the difference between good and evil, remain in darkness, then all other “lights”, that put such incredible technical feats within our reach, are not only progress but also dangers that put us and the world at risk. —POPE BENEDICT XVI, Easter Vigil Homily, April 7th, 2012
In that regard, John Paul II does not disconnect “personal sin” from its broader impact upon society and its institutions that can move an entire generation to act irrationally:
We face an alluring hedonism that offers a whole series of pleasures that will never satisfy the human heart. All these attitudes can influence our sense of good and evil at the very moment when social and scientific progress requires ethical guidance. Once alienated from Christian faith and practice by these and other deceptions, people often commit themselves to passing fads, or to bizarre beliefs that are shallow and fanatical. —Address at St. Mary’s Cathedral, San Francisco; cited in Defiance, Rev. Joseph M. Esper, p. 243
Those are serious warnings. And nor are they limited to merely communications, transportation or space and military technology. John Paul II was particularly concerned with ominous developments within the field of health care.
A unique responsibility belongs to health-care personnel: doctors, pharmacists, nurses, chaplains, men and women religious, administrators and volunteers. Their profession calls for them to be guardians and servants of human life. In today’s cultural and social context, in which science and the practice of medicine risk losing sight of their inherent ethical dimension, health-care professionals can be strongly tempted at times to become manipulators of life, or even agents of death. --Evangelium Vitae, n. 89
But the warnings certainly aren’t limited to the pontiffs. In an extraordinary statement that echoes not only their concerns but many of the prophetic words that have appeared here on Countdown to the Kingdom over the past year (see Related Reading below), one scientist has bravely stepped forward…
Expert WarningsDr. Geert Vanden Bossche, PhD, DVM, is a certified expert in microbiology and infectious disease and consultant on vaccine development. He has worked with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization). On his Linkedin page, he states that he is absolutely “passionate” about vaccines. Indeed, he is about as pro-vaccine as one can be. In an open letter written with “utmost urgency,” he said, “In this agonizing letter I put all of my reputation and credibility at stake.” He writes:
I am all but an antivaxxer. As a scientist, I do not usually appeal to any platform of this kind to make a stand on vaccine-related topics. As a dedicated virologist and vaccine expert I only make an exception when health authorities allow vaccines to be administered in ways that threaten public health, most certainly when scientific evidence is being ignored.
His warning is how the current vaccines being administered at this time to suppress the symptoms of COVID-19 are creating “viral immune escape.” That is, they are fostering the coronavirus’s ability to escape a person’s immune response antibodies and then rapidly mutate into more viral and dangerous strains that the vaccinated themselves will spread. And since the general healthy population have not built up their immunity naturally at the beginning of the pandemic, due he says, “to stringent containment measures” (ie. lockdowns, masks, etc.), these new strains will soon dramatically increase mortality rates, especially among the young.
…this type of prophylactic vaccines are completely inappropriate, and even highly dangerous, when used in mass vaccination campaigns during a viral pandemic. Vaccinologists, scientists and clinicians are blinded by the positive short-term effects in individual patents, but don’t seem to bother about the disastrous consequences for global health. Unless I am scientifically proven wrong, it is difficult to understand how current human interventions will prevent circulating variants from turning into a wild monster… Basically, we’ll very soon be confronted with a super-infectous virus that completely resists our most precious defense mechanism: The human immune system. From all of the above, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to imagine how the consequences of the extensive and erroneous human intervention in this pandemic are not going to wipe out large parts of our human population.
But even this scientist appears to be ignored thus far by those with whom it counts.
While there is no time to spare, I have not received any feedback thus far. Experts and politicians have remained silent… While one can barely make any incorrect scientific statements without being criticized by peers, it seems like the elite of scientists who are currently advising our world leaders prefer to stay silent. Sufficient scientific evidence has been brought to the table. Unfortunately, it remains untouched by those who have the power to act. How long can one ignore the problem when there is at present massive evidence that viral immune escape is now threatening humanity? We can hardly say we didn’t know—or were not warned. --Open Letter, March 6th, 2021; watch an interview on this warning with Dr. Vanden Bossche here or here. (Read how Dr. Vanden Bossche is a contemporary “Moishie” in Our 1942)
On his Linkedin page, he adds: “For God’s sake, does no one realize the kind of disaster we’re up to?”
Dr. Vanden Bossche notes that the facts he is presenting are not “rocket science.” Indeed, it was a year ago that I was privvy to a conversation of a Canadian virologist who likewise said that locking down the healthy rather than letting them be exposed to the initial strain of the virus, which has such a high survival rate (over 99%),[2] would be a grave mistake, leading to more dangerous strains — virtually the same (unheeded) warning. In his letter and interviews, Dr. Vanden Bossche has simply but urgently asked that an immediate international debate take place.
Whether Dr. Vanden Bossche’s science is correct or not is not for me to say. It should also be noted that he concludes saying he is promoting the pursuit of a different vaccine that may, in fact, put his warnings in a conflict of interest (see this rebuttal to Dr. Vanden Bossche that is, at least, the beginning of the debate). But what does “follow the science” mean other than to listen to those who are experts in these fields? Why is the debate not even permitted? Why are so many intellects okay with this, including several in the hierarchy of the Church? There is not only a fear of this virus, but seemingly a fear to question the status quo; a fear to be called a “conspiracy theorist”; a fear to call out the anti-science, anti-freedom of speech, and highly political climate that is shuttering more than churches. And the cost of this may be absolutely catastrophic, not only according to Dr. Vanden Bossche, but according to other world renowned scientists.[3]
Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, M.D. is a renowned German microbiologist who has published over three hundred articles in the fields of immunology, bacteriology, virology, and parasitology, and received numerous awards and the Order of Merit of Rhineland-Palatinate. He is also the former Emeritus Head of the Institute for Medical Microbiology and Hygiene at the Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität in Mainz, Germany. His primary concerns are in the unforeseen long-term effects of these new mRNA vaccines, since long-term trials were waived and the experimental vaccines rushed to the public.
There is going to be an auto-attack… You are going to plant the seed of auto-immune reactions. And I tell you for Christmas, don’t do this. The dear Lord did not want humans, not even [Dr.] Fauci, going around injecting foreign genes into the body… it’s horrifying, it’s horrifying. --The Highwire, December 17th, 2020
Again, can these kinds of warnings simply be brushed off, much less censored? Would this not be the height of recklessness when it involves the rushed injection of the entire planet? Given the stature of these virologists, can the clergy continue to say to their flocks that the vaccines are without any “special dangers” and even obligatory, as some, including the Holy Father have suggested?[4]
Moral Pressure?In that regard, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has issued guidelines on some moral questions on these vaccines. While the main thrust of their statement was dealing with vaccines that utilized the cells of babies aborted for medical research and development, their guidelines generally apply that:
- The vaccines must be proven to be clinically safe.
- Vaccines must always be voluntary.
- There must be an absence of other means to stop or prevent an epidemic for a vaccine to be considered morally compelling for the common good.
- There is a “moral imperative for the pharmaceutical industry, governments and international organizations to ensure that vaccines” are “effective and safe from a medical point of view.”
As I have noted previously, there are now available not only “other means to stop” COVID-19 but even cure it.[5] And Pope St. Pius X issued an encyclical affirming, as did the CDF, the autonomy of the human body.
Public magistrates have no direct power over the bodies of their subjects; therefore, where no crime has taken place and there is no cause present for grave punishment, they can never directly harm, or tamper with the integrity of the body, either for the reasons of eugenics or for any other reason… Furthermore, Christian doctrine establishes, and the light of human reason makes it most clear, that private individuals have no other power over the members of their bodies than that which pertains to their natural ends; and they are not free to destroy or mutilate their members, or in any other way render themselves unfit for their natural functions, except when no other provision can be made for the good of the whole body. --Casti Connubii, 70-7
As I write this, several European nations have stopped the distribution of one of the vaccines to due “dangerous blood clots in some recipients.”[6]In the United States, tens of thousands of people have reported adverse affects, many to the point of being incapable of going back to work, and over 1500 have died after taking the vaccine.[7] More and more doctors are beginning to sound the alarm that they are increasingly uncomfortable with the actual lack of evidence-based science in the handling of the pandemic.[8] And as an omen, perhaps, of Dr. Vanden Bossche’s science-based warnings from early March 2021, many nations are beginning to lockdown again as they report a “third wave.”[9]
Dr. Anthony Fauci recently warned that Americans should not “make the same mistakes” as Europeans who are now trying to counter the new waves with further lockdowns, vaccines, etc.[10] But as Dr. Vanden Bossche warns, continuing these same measures may actually lead to mass casualties around the world. So shouldn’t this at least be debated?
One could only think of very few other strategies to achieve the same level of efficiency in turning a relatively harmless virus into a bioweapon of mass destruction. —Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche, Open Letter, March 6th, 2021 (see The Caduceus Key of how this may relate to Freemasonry and population control methods)
In Catholic spirituality, silence, patience, and waiting are at the heart of proper discernment in order to facilitate hearing the Will of God. Noise, rushing, and compulsion, on the other hand, play into the hands of the devil who constantly tempts us to act according to the flesh.
Isn’t it time that our politicians, scientists, and even clergy just stop and insist on the discussion? With a recovery rate of around 99% for those under 69,[11] needlessly rushing experimental vaccines and draconian measures at this point not only puts our freedom but potentially the lives of our loved ones at stake.
Fear is not a good counsellor: it leads to ill-advised attitudes, it sets people against one another, it generates a climate of tension and even violence. We may well be on the verge of an explosion! —Bishop Marc Aillet commenting on the pandemic for the diocesan magazine Notre Eglise (“Our Church”), December 2020; countdowntothekingdom.com
The Church respects and supports scientific research when it has a genuinely human orientation, avoiding any form of instrumentalization or destruction of the human being and keeping itself free from the slavery of political and economic interests. --POPE JOHN PAUL II, Address to participants in the Ninth General Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, 24 February 2003, n. 4; ORE, 5 March 2003, p. 4
Epilogue
What can we personally do in the face of such warnings? The messages of Our Lord and Our Lady on Countdown to the Kingdom have been ongoing for months now that we need to make sure we are in the Immaculate Heart of Mary, our refuge. How? Through consecrating ourselves to her, given by Jesus as an “ark” for these times. In this way, Psalm 91 may in fact become a literal reality, though we surrender always to God’s will with our eyes fixed on Heaven:
You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shade of the Almighty,
Say to the LORD, “My refuge and fortress, my God in whom I trust.” He will rescue you from the fowler’s snare,
from the destroying plague,
He will shelter you with his pinions, and under his wings you may take refuge;
his faithfulness is a protecting shield. You shall not fear the terror of the night nor the arrow that flies by day, Nor the pestilence that roams in darkness, nor the plague that ravages at noon. Though a thousand fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand, near you it shall not come.
—Mark Mallett is a former television reporter with CTV Edmonton and award-winning documentarian and the author of The Final Confrontation and The Now Word.
www.countdowntothekingdom.com/grave-warnings/