Brownstone Institute
Reflections on the Triduum: Can the Darkness Turn to Light?
From the Brownstone Institute
The days leading up to Easter Sunday of 2020 were the darkest days not merely of my priesthood, but of my life.
People were no longer allowed to attend Mass or even to go to Confession. My very life’s vocation was rendered suspended indefinitely. Worse yet, I experienced a deep sense of betrayal as I had been formed to believe that it was a priest’s job to be ready to “preach, pray, or die at any moment.” The lack of pushback against what had never happened in the whole of history seemed to render such a sentiment a macabre joke.
I experienced a similar sense of betrayal from many of my “friends” on Facebook. From the beginning I was vocal about how predictions of doom were obvious untruths and that lockdowns were tantamount to civilizational suicide. Many heaped mockery and derision upon me for having spoken blasphemies against the Narrative.
Echoing Jeffrey Tucker’s moving reflection, the sunrise had become a curse. Waking up became a moment to wonder what fresh new Hell would be unleashed upon us. It was during this time that I encountered a song which framed perfectly the emotions I was feeling:
No good word today,
No good word today,
The sun’s still a shining
And I’m still above the ground,
But there’s no good word today.
Worse yet, now approached the Sacred Triduum, the special liturgies which begin the evening of Holy Thursday and carry us through into Easter Sunday. The thought of celebrating this holy time in an empty church for the benefit of internet streaming transformed my favorite time of year into a period of intense dread.
It was as if the “night” of John’s Gospel, which represents an end of the “day” when the works of the Father may be done (John 9:4), the time when men stumble because the light is not in them (John 11:10), and when the betrayal of Judas is set in motion (John 13:30) had become our unbroken reality with no end in sight.
Of course, the night is not to be feared, for the darkness has not overcome the light (John 1:5). My experience of Good Friday and Holy Saturday in 2020 became a profound moment of grace for me, a moment that would strengthen my resolve against the forces of evil which had brought us to such a dark moment in human history.
Good Friday: Fear Begets Darkness
In seminary, one of my Scripture professors challenged us to understand that the text of Sacred Scripture doesn’t reveal all of its secrets in one’s first reading, but only through constant revisiting. Tasked with celebrating and preaching the Good Friday ceremony to only a camera, it occurred to me for the first time that, just like in lockdowns, nearly everybody was motivated by fear:
-The Sanhedrin is fearful of any challenge to their religious authority and they accomplish the trial at night due to fear of riots.
-Pontius Pilate is fearful for his career, as this whole affair has the potential to be the final straw that ends a career that has placed him in this “last chance” assignment. Pilate is fearful of the crowds. Pilate is fearful even of the concept of truth itself.
-Eleven of the Twelve Apostles are fearful. The faithless betrayer and thief is afraid for the end of his ability to embezzle and looks for one final opportunity to cash out. Nine disappear into hiding completely. The leader observes from a distance, but denies his friend and Lord under the slightest of social pressure.
– The crowds, easily manipulated by the passions of the moment, rapidly change their tune from “Hosanna” a few days earlier to “Crucify him” out of fear of standing out against the direction where these events were clearly going.
Such great evil accomplished in so short of a time! The fearful spiritual darkness of night unleashed the worst that humanity was capable of, not merely once in human history but as a recurring pattern. The spread of fear in March 2020 clearly had nothing to do with God or goodness. As I preached that day, I drew attention to a news story from an Emergency Room just days prior. Fear and panic were so prevalent that a woman assaulted and killed an old woman with dementia who, while confused, moved too close to her.
What was happening was evil. What was happening was dark, and it was fear that was the means by which this evil created the darkness.
Easter Vigil and the Missing Voices
Saturday night after dusk is the time for the Easter Vigil. Once again, I was charged with preaching. But at this ceremony, I would have a disturbing spiritual experience during the chanting of the Exsultet by the deacon when he arrived at the part which announces:
Be glad, let earth be glad, as glory floods her,
ablaze with light from her eternal King,
let all corners of the earth be glad,
knowing an end to gloom and darkness.
Rejoice, let Mother Church also rejoice,
arrayed with the lightning of his glory,
let this holy building shake with joy,
filled with the mighty voices of the peoples.
At this point I began crying and shaking. It was as if I could hear in my mind a malevolent voice taunting me: “Filled with what people’s voices? Look at these empty pews! Look at what I have accomplished! Behold and despair, priest.”
I did not listen to this voice, whatever or whoever it was. Instead I was filled with a sense of defiance, a defiance which I expressed in my sermon later in that ceremony. The light conquers the darkness! Nothing matters more than gathering together to fill a church and cry out with mighty voices! This evil which we have brought upon ourselves must never happen again.
That night I gathered with friends at a house for a wonderfully and defiantly illegal social gathering. There was no distance, no masking, and no fear, only a celebration of the coming of Easter.
Mere days later I would write my first op-ed wherein I condemned these indefinite lockdowns as intrinsically evil. Merely posting on my private social media wasn’t enough; conscience convicted me that my voice had to go public. Now was the time to side with the light which the darkness cannot overcome, even through manipulation of human fear. Now it was John Cash’s cover of an old gospel song that reinforced my disposition:
… He spoke to me in the voice so sweet
I thought I heard the shuffle of the angel’s feet
He called my name and my heart stood still
When he said, “John, go do my will!”
… Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter
Tell ’em that God’s gonna cut ’em down
Tell ’em that God’s gonna cut ’em down
Defiant Lights Against the Darkness
For Christians, Easter has always been associated with the initiation rituals whereby the works of darkness are renounced and put to death so that the new life belonging to the Light of the World may be begun. In ancient days, the catechumens would defiantly turn towards the West to make this renunciation and then turn to the East, leaving behind everything to make their profession of faith.
Far too many voices want simply to “move on” and pretend as if the last 3 years never happened, even as we continue to deal with the destruction which has been wrought. This is an attempt to avoid admitting just how dark the things which were done were, because such an admission would require repentance, as I argued at the beginning of Lent.
Three years ago I felt the depth of the darkness which had entered the world, and I was moved to choose defiance in favor of the light. This brought my path to be part of the good work being done here at Brownstone. A Happy Easter to all, and let us continue the good fight against weaponized fear which seeks to prevent us from experiencing our highest goods.
Author
From the Brownstone Institute
You might think these are quite rare but not a bit of it; 13,200 of these were recorded in the last 12 months, and that’s around 36 a day, and they go on your record and sometimes mean you end up with no job. They also have new laws planned to control misinformation and disinformation, something not just confined to the UK. Similar laws are planned for Ireland, Australia, Canada, and the EU.
I’m envious. The US has something the UK doesn’t have, namely a First Amendment. Yes I know there are those who wish the US didn’t have it either, including, I understand, John Kerry and that woman who still thinks she beat Trump the first time around. Kerry kind of wishes that the First Amendment wasn’t quite so obstructive to his plans. But from where I stand, you should be thankful for it.
Not only does the UK not have a First Amendment, it doesn’t have a constitution either, and that makes for worrying times right now. Free speech has little currency with Gen Z and the way it looks, even less with the new UK Labour government. Even Elon Musk, who takes a surprising interest in our little country, has recently declared the UK a police state.
It’s not surprising. Take for instance the case of Alison Pearson, who had the police knocking on her door this Remembrance Sunday. They had come to warn her they were investigating a tweet she had posted a whole year ago which someone had complained about. They were investigating whether it constituted a Non-Crime Hate Incident or NCHI. Yes, you heard me right, a ‘non-crime’ hate incident and no, this is not something out of Orwell, it’s straight out of the College of Policing’s playbook.
If you haven’t heard of them, you can thank your First Amendment. In the UK you can get a police record for something you posted on X that someone else didn’t like and you haven’t even committed a crime. NCHIs are a way they have of getting around the law in the same way John Kerry would like to get around the First Amendment, except it’s real where I live.
Alison Pearson is a reporter for the Daily Telegraph, but that doesn’t mean she can write what she likes. When she asked the police what the tweet was which was objected to, she was told they couldn’t tell her that. When she asked who the complainant was, they said they couldn’t tell her that either. They added, that she shouldn’t call them a complainant, they were officially the victim. That’s what due process is like when you don’t have a First Amendment or a constitution. Victims of NCHI in the UK are decided without a trial or a defense. They asked, very politely, if Pearson would like to come voluntarily to the police station for a friendly interview. If she didn’t want to come voluntarily, they would put her on a wanted list and she would eventually be arrested. Nice choice.
It’s true that there has been a public ruckus over this particular case, but the police are unapologetic and have doubled down. Stung into action by unwanted publicity, they are now saying they have raised the matter from an NCHI to an actual crime investigation. Which means they think she can be arrested and put in prison for expressing her opinion on X. And of course they are right. In the UK that’s where we are right now. Pearson tried to point out the irony of two police officers turning up on her door to complain about her free speech on Remembrance Day of all days, when we recall the thousands who died to keep this a free country, but irony is lost on those who have no memory of what totalitarianism means.
The way things are looking I would say things can only get worse. The new Labour government has made it clear that it wants to beef up the reporting of NCHIs and make them an effective tool for clamping down on hurtful speech. You might think these are quite rare but not a bit of it; 13,200 of these were recorded in the last 12 months, and that’s around 36 a day, and they go on your record and sometimes mean you end up with no job. They also have new laws planned to control misinformation and disinformation, something not just confined to the UK. Similar laws are planned for Ireland, Australia, Canada, and the EU. Germany in particular is keen to remove all misinformation from the internet, I understand.
Whenever I see the word ‘misinformation’ these days I automatically translate it in my head to what it really means, which is ‘dissent.’ Western countries, former champions of free speech, the bedrock of liberty and individual choice, en masse it seems, now want to outlaw dissent. What is coordinating this attack on free expression, I don’t know, but it’s real and it’s upon us. We are slowly being intellectually suffocated into not expressing any opinion that others might find objectionable or that might contradict what the government said. If you had told me that would happen in my lifetime, I would have called you a liar.
I live in the UK, the home of the Bill of Rights and the Magna Carta, and the mother of parliamentary democracy. I was proud that we produced men like John Milton, John Stuart Mill, and Thomas Paine, that we understood the importance of the Areopagitica, the Rights of Man, and incorporated On Liberty into our social thinking. But those days seem long gone when police knock on your door to arrest you for an X post.
So I’m glad someone somewhere has a First Amendment even if we don’t. It may be your last defense in that republic of yours, if you can keep it.
Author
From the Brownstone Institute
The House report on HHS Covid propaganda is devastating. The Biden administration spent almost $1 billion to push falsehoods about Covid vaccines, boosters, and masks on the American people. If a pharma company had run the campaign, it would have been fined out of existence.
HHS engaged a PR firm, the Fors Marsh Group (FMG), for the propaganda campaign. The main goal was to increase Covid vax uptake. The strategy: 1. Exaggerate Covid mortality risk 2. Downplay the fact that there was no good evidence that the Covid vax stops transmission.
The propaganda campaign extended beyond vax uptake and included exaggerating mask efficacy and pushing for social distancing and school closures.
Ultimately, since the messaging did not match reality, the campaign collapsed public trust in public health.
The PR firm (FMG) drew most of its faulty science from the CDC’s “guidance,” which ignored the FDA’s findings on the vaccine’s limitations, as well as scientific findings from other countries that contradicted CDC groupthink.
The report details the CDC’s mask flip-flopping through the years. It’s especially infuriating to recall the CDC’s weird, anti-scientific, anti-human focus on masking toddlers with cloth masks into 2022.
President Biden’s Covid advisor Ashish K. Jha waited until Dec. 2022 (right after leaving government service) to tell the country that “[t]here is no study in the world that shows that masks work that well.” What took him so long?
In 2021, former CDC director, Rochelle Walensky rewrote CDC guidance on social distancing at the behest of the national teachers’ union, guaranteeing that schools would remain closed to in-person learning for many months.
During this period, the PR firm FMG put out ads telling parents that schools would close unless kids masked up, stayed away from friends, and got Covid-vaccinated.
In March 2021, even as the CDC told the American people that the vaxxed did not need to mask, the PR firm ran ads saying that masks were still needed, even for the vaxxed. “It’s not time to ease up” we were told, in the absence of evidence any of that did any good.
In 2021, to support the Biden/Harris administration’s push for vax mandates, the PR firm pushed the false idea that the vax stopped Covid transmission. When people started getting “breakthrough” infections, public trust in public health collapsed.
Later, when the FDA approved the vax for 12 to 15-year-old kids, the PR firm told parents that schools could open in fall 2021 only if they got their kids vaccinated. These ads never mentioned side effects like myocarditis due to the vax.
HHS has scrubbed the propaganda ads from this era from its web pages. It’s easy to see why. They are embarrassing. They tell kids, in effect, that they should treat other kids like biohazards unless they are vaccinated.
When the Delta variant arrived, the PR firm doubled down on fear-mongering, masking, and social distancing.
In September 2021, CDC director Walensky overruled the agency’s external experts to recommend the booster to all adults rather than just the elderly. The director’s action was “highly unusual” and went beyond the FDA’s approval of the booster for only the elderly.
The PR campaign and the CDC persistently overestimated the mortality risk of Covid infection in kids to scare parents into vaccinating their children with the Covid vax.
In Aug. 2021, the military imposed its Covid vax mandate, leading to 8,300 servicemen being discharged. Since 2023, the DOD has been trying to get the discharged servicemen to reenlist. What harm has been done to American national security by the vax mandate?
The Biden/Harris administration imposed the OSHA, CMS, and military vax mandates, even though the CDC knew that the Delta variant evaded vaccine immunity. The PR campaign studiously avoided informing Americans about waning vaccine efficacy in the face of variants.
The propaganda campaign hired celebrities and influencers to “persuade” children to get the Covid vax.
I think if a celebrity is paid to advertise a faulty product, that celebrity should be partially liable if the product harms some people.
In the absence of evidence, the propaganda campaign ran ads telling parents that the vaccine would prevent their kids from getting Long Covid.
With the collapse in public trust in the CDC, parents have begun to question all CDC advice. Predictably, the HHS propaganda campaign has led to a decline in the uptake of routine childhood vaccines.
The report makes several recommendations, including formally defining the CDC’s core mission to focus on disease prevention, forcing HHS propaganda to abide by the FDA’s product labeling rules, and revamping the process of evaluating vaccine safety.
Probably the most important recommendation: HHS should never again adopt a policy of silencing dissenting scientists in an attempt to create an illusion of consensus in favor of CDC groupthink.
You can find a copy of the full House report here. The HHS must take its findings seriously if there is any hope for public health to regain public.
Author
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