Catholic Bishops: Use of "licit" Vaccines

  AstraZeneca vaccine Photo: Jack Boland/Postmedia

"When ethically irreproachable COVID-19 vaccines are not available [e.g. in countries where vaccines without ethical problems are not made available to physicians and patients, or where their distribution is more difficult due to special storage and transport conditions, or when various types of vaccines are distributed in the same country but health authorities do not allow citizens to choose the vaccine with which to be inoculated] it is morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process."

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Vatican

"Since there is currently no choice of vaccine being offered, Catholics in good conscience, may receive the vaccine that is available and offered to them."

"These questions [over a different line of human embryonic cells from a different fetal retina] are important for they concern the sacredness of human life and its inherent dignity."

"Catholics are invited to be vaccinated, both in keeping with the dictates of their conscience and in contributing to the common good by promoting the health and safety of others."

Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops clarification bulletin

The AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine was developed using a cell line derived from fetal human embryonic kidney cells. (Dado Ruvic/Reuters)

 

Methods involving a line of cells known as HEK293 ("human embryonic kidney") led to the development of the AstraZeneca vaccine at Oxford University. The cell line is in wide use universally in science, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, originally derived from a healthy female fetus around 1972. Frank Graham, Canadian pioneer of molecular virology was one of the scientists involved in the development of embryonic cells used as a technique in testing the behaviour of genes.

His involvement in the development of HEK293 took place initially in the Netherlands. Eventually he brought his ongoing research to McMaster University in Hamilton where he is professor emeritus. The cell line has been in wide use in the study of the expression of virus genes in vaccine research and development. The cell line itself has, since the original cells were obtained, divided countless times. 

In 2001 the leading scientist in the development of the cell line informed regulators in the U.S. that the reason or cause of an abortion which provided the fetus used was no longer available, records had been lost, but the assurance was that it had been a normal fetus, its family history unknown. The Catholic Church is concerned with the constituents of the virus since it is opposed to abortion even though there is no evidence available that the fetus had resulted from an elective abortion.

 

A woman receives communion during mass at the Mary Queen of the World Cathedral in Montreal, Que. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has urged parishioners to steer clear of viral vector vaccines like the one produced by AstraZeneca. (Graham Hughes/Canadian Press)

 

Johnson & Johnson's vaccine used the PER.C6 cell line, different, but still a line of human embryonic cells from another fetal retina. The knowledge that human fetal cells were used in the vaccine production prodded the Church to its advisories raising questions about the acceptability of the vaccines. When the original Vatican statement was circulated it caused confusion until the clarification followed.

The clarification was deemed necessary for the comfort of the faithful, following the confusing din over the original statement that Catholics should 'prefer' the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines because although "unethically-derived" cell lines may have been used in the final testing, the connection to abortion is "extremely remote"; say at a time-distance of a half-century and uncounted numbers of transformations over the years that followed.

AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines developed, produced and tested with cell lines originally from from human fetuses. Catholics were informed they should reject these vaccines as long as alternates were available, then reversed themselves in the following days to offer that Catholics may "licitly" receive any vaccine approved by Health Canada.

 

Nuns listen as Pope Francis delivers his blessing as he recites the Angelus noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St.Peter's Square, at the Vatican on June 7, 2020. Pope Francis is cautioning people in countries emerging from lockdown to keep following authorities’ rules for COVID-19 contagion containment. Says Francis: “Be careful, don’t cry victory, don’t cry victory too soon.”   Andrew Medichini / AP

Shut Up, Satan! 

"[The devil is not a myth but a] personal being who assails us."
"We should not think of the devil as a myth, a representation, a symbol, a figure of speech or an idea."
"This mistake would leave us to let down our guard, to grow careless and end up more vulnerable."
Gaudete et Exsultate, Pope Francis 

Photo: Getty

"It's important to differentiate between psychopathic illnesses, neurasthenia, pathologies [to tell the difference between those mental illnesses like the bipolar spectrum and actual possession of the devil, requiring priestly intervention by skilled and experienced exorcists]."
"Satan you can recognize."
"Ah, you can see it immediately [when an exorcism has succeeded in casting out evil spirits from a host body for success results in one possessed] keeping three or four men busy [leaping about frantically, to rising with a] joyous smile."
"Pray without interruption."
"There are priests who carry out exorcisms on their mobile phones. That’s possible thanks to Jesus."
Cardinal Ernest Simoni, instructor in master-class exorcism

Cardinal Ernest Simoni (Getty Images)

"Priests pray with people on the phone to calm them down, but if you are not there you cannot control the physical aspects [considering the possessed exhibit superhuman strength, and] vomit nails and shards of glass [during the ritual]."
"Some exorcists say it is effective. Whether it is orthodox or correct, I couldn’t say."
Professor Giuseppe Ferrari, exorcist course organizer, Pontifical Regina Apostolorum University, Rome

Priests from all over the Catholic world attending a master class in exorcism take careful notes as they make an effort to discover how they may be useful in casting out demons, hateful spawn of Satan, who invade helpless peoples' bodies, confuse their thinking and make life utterly miserable for the faithful. Instructor Cardinal Simoni explains fasting can help occasionally those who are possessed. There are, however, occasions, when tough words are required to make an impact on the devil deserving of "shut up, Satan".

Some three hundred Roman Catholic priests converged on Rome to attend the 13th annual weeklong "Exorcism and Prayer of Liberation" course whose purpose is to recruit and train flocks of exorcists to meet the demand of frantic people who cannot live any longer in the absolute control of an evil invasion.  In Italy alone, half a million faithful requested exorcisms in the past decade; triple earlier demands for help from above.

Father Aldo Bonaiuto, one of the Vatican's team of anti-occult priests, conducted exorcism lessons in 2012 at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical Atheneum in Rome, Italy. Credit: Franco Origlia/Getty

Anthony Barrett, a British priest based in New York, feels he knows what is partially responsible for the uptick in possessions: "Demand is growing, absolutely. I think it is partly due to the Internet which makes it [Satanism] so accessible. Films and television programs are also a factor. There's a fascination." And of course, atheism is also responsible, confusing people, alienating them from their faith, causing their violent paroxysms of self-doubt and denials.

The International Association of Exorcists has been recognized formally by the Vatican since 2014. Its 250 members are kept up-to-date on best practices in confronting the wily devil. But there is also an undercurrent of disturbing belief murmured among the discreet holding similar views, that under Pope Francis the church has strayed from its former conservative view of Catholic values.

"More than anything, chastity", is an indispensable aid to success in exorcism, Cardinal Simoni responded in answering queries put to him by priests anxious to learn the secrets of his own successes. The good cardinal, an exemplar in successful exorcisms over the years, rescuing the faithful from the depths of their own depravity brought on by Satan's confidence, has, he admits, conducted cellphone exorcisms "one hundred, one thousand times".

Father Andres Cardenas, a 36-year-old priest from Colombia, gave warning of his own experience -- that black magic can be transmitted through screens, demons entering the body "through the back of the brain". Traumas, such as those occasioned by sexual abuse can render an innocent soul vulnerable to homosexuality, aligned with demons who incite to suicidal or violent reactions, so that only a solid base in understanding exorcism is capable of chasing them away.

The following course, led by Archbishop Luigi Negri, was titled "Exorcism as a Ministry of Mercy and Consolation Amid the Bewilderment of Contemporary Society". Those in attendance for the afternoon session heard the good Archbishop warn of the dark forces they would encounter: "The actor of this evil -- this diabolical and evil entity, is greater than any single man".

A set of witchcraft artifacts. (Credit: Wikimedia.)

Freshly Sainted

"[I] thus spent several hours in a closed hearing room with a priest, a deacon, and a monsigneur, no doubt making their day as I told off, as from a rosary, the frightful faults and crimes of the departed fanatic."
Christopher Hitchens, critic, author (deceased)

"Mother Teresa would have said, 'I'm not called to be successful but faithful. And if not for what we do there'd be more suffering and misery'."
"She was not working to eradicate the structures of poverty. Her concern was to bring immediate and effective health to the people who needed help and shelter."
Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, designated principal promoting sainthood for Mother Teresa

AFP --  The Nobel laureate nun, who died in 1997, founded the Missionaries of Charity

During her lifetime, Mother Teresa was a controversial figure. A woman of stern but humble mien, a disciple of the worship of Christ through her work with the Catholic Church, this diminutive woman was dispatched to India by her church to work in the field of education in the ways of Christianity. She was born in 1910 in Albania, as Agnes Bojaxhiu, and she dedicated her entire life to supporting the well-being of the humanly deprived.

She had a host of admirers who viewed her self-abnegation and total commitment to easing the passage from miserable life to the release of death for the world's marginalized and forgotten, people who lived on the street in India, foraging for sustenance, beset by the outcomes of dreadful diseases, not the least of which was old age, hastened by ill fortune.

She moved most people to examine the lack of their own compassion for the underdogs of this Earth. Her admirers included world leaders, both political and religious. Celebrities wanted to have their photographs taken alongside that of this woman who elicited strong emotions of both authentic admiration and virulent hostility; admittedly the latter category a small contingent of individuals, while the former constituted legions.

For through the force of her personality and her dedication to her vision of goodness and decency she demonstrated that one person could somehow manage to move mountains. Whatever her detractors said and felt about her, her more manifold supporters applauded her devotion to the welfare of human beings deprived of any hope, status or future in society.

Father Kolodiejchuk, Winnipeg-born, knew Mother Teresa for 20 years as a priest with the Missionaries of Charity, in Toronto. Appointed her postulator striving toward her canonization, 35,000 pages of documents and testimony was compiled by him for presentation to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Two verifiable miracles attributable to Mother Teresa's intervention with God were also presented.

In 1998 an Indian woman's cure from cancer was deemed to have resulted from praying to Mother Teresa, and ten years later a Brazilian engineer dying from multiple brain abscesses went into remission, again attributed to the intervention of Mother Teresa. The Congregation interviewed individuals who gave their opinion as to her outstanding qualities for which she should be anointed a saint, or that designation rejected.

The late acid-tongued intellectual Christopher Hitchens, a convinced atheist, found her qualities to be emphasized beyond their actual value, and that she was wanting in areas where she should have striven to excel. Critics like himself felt she relied upon poverty to enable her to make her mark in life, prepared to aid those whom privation struck, but not to campaign to end the poverty that assailed them.

Her traditional Catholic opposition to contraception and birth control, and her devotion in the belief suffering must be interpreted as a gift from God to make us better human beings failed to convince Mr. Hitchens and his supporters that she was the magnificent soul she was purported to represent. As Christ suffered on the cross, so too must others experience first-hand what it is to suffer to be whole, and united with their Saviour.

Her legacy is undeniable. At her death in 1997, the Missionaries that she founded working in the unforgiving slums of Calcutta numbered among them four thousand members, and an order of allied priests. At the present time, five thousand members have dedicated themselves to service to humanity in over 567 homes worldwide.

Her own relationship with the deity she revered was a troubling one. "As for myself, I just have the joy of having nothing -- not even the reality of the Presence of God", she wrote painfully. "No prayer, no love, no faith -- nothing but continual pain of longing for God", she wrote in personal reflections, the Dark Night of the Soul.

Mucking Things Up

"I must say in those days, if a priest denied such activity [child molestation], I was very strongly inclined to accept the denial."
"[The Church] mucked things up and let people down. [Its response was] indefensible."
Cardinal George Pell, Vatican finance minister

Senior Counsel Assisting Gail Furness stands in front of a screen displaying Australian Cardinal George Pell as he holds a bible while appearing via video link from a hotel in Rome, Italy to testify at the Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child...Reuters/Jeremy Piper-Oculi/Handout via Reuters

"[One abusive priest] would have been prosecuted and convicted except that the bishop intervened and he was sent to Michigan for treatment and then placed in another parish upon his return."
Pennsylvania grand jury

"Someone recently shared the expression, 'When you know more, you can do more'. With the grand jury report, we know more, and we will do more [to address the issue of priests preying on children]."
Altoona-Johnstown (Pennsylvania) Bishop Mark Bartchak

It never goes away. The horrendous scandal of priests molesting children who trusted them as God's representatives on Earth, just keeps repeating itself time and again, moving from one geographic area to another as abused children now adults, living with their agony in silence now feel empowered by previous revelations leading to investigations and public disclosure has given them confidence to relieve themselves of the misery they have long lived with silently.

Australia has been rocked to its core by the launching of charges of abuse by dozens of victims whom fourteen priests from the diocese in Ballarat, near Melbourne, from the 1960s to the 1990s assaulted as the story continues to reveal the wretchedness of humanity. As many as five priests at one time in that history preyed on children. In commenting on the testimony, Cardinal George Pell one of the Vatican's most influential figures, murmurs "disastrous coincidence."

It certainly was for some of those involved several of whom committed suicide. Father Gerald Ridsdale stands out as one of the worst offenders. He has been accused of over one hundred instances of abuse. Not even his own nephew was spared. And, as it happens, Cardinal Pell shared living quaerters with this man in their early years as priests. In retrospect, he says thoughtfully, he had noticed nothing unusual.

Cardinal Pell back then served as a consultant to Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns. Father Ridsdale was an irritant, a problem that Bishop Mulkearns neatly solved by moving him for years between parishes. But Cardinal Pell had no knowledge about the abuse that ran rampant through the ranks, even as he rose to attain the Archbishopric of Melbourne, and later Sydney.

Inconveniently Father Ridsdale's nephew recounts a conversation with Cardinal Pell who once said to him: "I want to know what it will take to keep you quiet", an remembrance that the good Cardinal denies. Cardinal Pell is elderly now, and in poor health. The Vatican is concerned for his health. He testified via video link from Rome, at the Australian hearing.

And so, Australians went to the trouble to raise $200,000 to enable fourteen victims to travel to Rome to face Cardinal Pell. Who then admitted he had done too little, as in nothing-at-all, to counter the abuse he had no knowledge of, that he had paid too little attention to accusations, and was willingly relieved to turn a deaf ear to. Hear no evil has its value' no knowledge, no action required.

That's what is happening in Australia, while in Pennsylvania two Catholic bishops have been revealed to have given assistance in shielding the abuse of hundreds of children at the hands of over 50 priests over a 40-year time-span. The grand jury report based its evidence partially on diocesan archives kept secret, but uncovered through the auspices of a search warrant.

Those archives validated the suspicion that this diocese had acted just as others all over the world had seen fit to do; 'trouble' priests were simply shunted about from one parish to another. They were never to be prosecuted. The dignity of the church would be impaired. One of the priests had been convicted of forcing sex on orphans during mission trips to Honduras.

The documents in question included a "payout chart": $10,000 to $25,000 to victims who were fondled while clothed; $15,000 to $40,000 to boys who had been fondled underneath clothing, or had been subjected to masturbation; $25,000 to $75,000 for those unfortunates subjected to oral sex; and $50,000 to $175,000 allotted to those who were subjected to intercourse.

More Catholic Than the Pope

"It is the poorest women who are suffering from this crisis. It is not women in the upper-class neighbourhoods, who can protect themselves from mosquito bites."
"I haven't seen anything from the governments of these countries themselves [Latin America] that indicate they are reconsidering the restrictive laws because of this crisis. I haven't seen any of that."
"The only calls that have gone out from health ministers is 'Don't get pregnant', which is kind of an unrealistic demand I think, if contraception is not available for the poorest..."
"Of course men are responsible for having sex and getting women pregnant as well, but the reality is that men refuse to take this responsibility seriously. So women are the ones who get pregnant and they are the ones who are called upon to prevent getting pregnant."
Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, Dutch physician

Photo: Still from video

"Not only is increased access to abortion and abortifacients [abortion-inducing drugs] an illegitimate response to this crisis, but since it terminates the life of a child it is fundamentally not preventative."
Vatican statement

"[Unlike abortion], avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil [in certain circumstances it may be viewed as] the lesser evil."
"[However, abortion is never permitted, including foetuses with serious brain defects caused by the Zika virus as abortion is] a crime. It is killing one person to save another. It is what the mafia does … It is an absolute evil."
Pope Frances 

Photo: Still from news video

No woman considers the birth of a disabled child to represent a blessed event, not even when the Pope himself sanctifies such a birth giving it his personal blessing. Yet even he has compassion for the mother and the child who will be faced with a lifetime of sorrow in negotiating life's passages from such a hugely disadvantageous perspective. And so, he can personally and graciously overlook defiance of Church doctrine in the form of contraceptive for this singular situation, but never, no never, abortion, a cardinal sin.

An Internet-based helpline for women has lately been inundated with requests for help from desperate women, those who have access to computers (which rules out a lot of rural women living impoverished lives), speaking of their personal anguish, and reflecting the larger desperation of Brazil's demographic of child-bearing-aged women, as well as those across Latin America where the Zika virus is raising its grotesque head, leaving infants in its wake with uncharacteristically small heads and brains; microcephaly.

The Canada-based Women on Web providing advice and medications on request for women in need of abortion assistance haling from countries where abortion is banned, has been receiving increasing pleas for help through emails from women anxious to avoid giving birth to microcephalic babies. For those thousands of women who have already been shocked into insensibility by the reality that their newborns will face a life of uncertainty and discrimination, health misery and anguish, it is too late.

These women are begging for pills that are unavailable in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru or El Salvador where laws against abortion procurement prevail. Abortions in El Salvador are not to be had for any reason, including rape and incest. Colombia will permit abortions if severe deformity is identified in a foetus. The organization meant to aid women constrained by law from release of bearing a malformed baby was founded in 2005 by Dutch physician Dr. Rebecca Gomperts.

Women on Web has been supplying packages of Mifepristone and Misoprostol around the globe for over a decide to women who have requested their assistance. But the numbers have taken a sharp uptick since the Zika crisis has developed. "We think [the increase in requests] is related to the Zika outbreak. We cannot explain it any other way. Probably a lot of women are looking for abortion services now", stated Dr. Gomperts.

Little wonder, when in their patriarchal society that adheres to the strictures of the Roman Catholic Church forbidding both contraception use and abortion, when the women are informed by their highest government authority that it is up to them to avoid pregnancy, a true 'catch-2' that victimizes women and punishes them for having to bear a burden whose outcome is circumstantial and not of their volition or wishes.

"You Don't Want To Believe it"

"At that moment, you begin living in another world. You don't want to believe it."
"I was always told that I was not abused, that what they did to me was my fault, because I broke the rules, I was out of line."
"They have never recognized how they demonized us and destroyed our lives."
Udo Kaiser, 58, Regensburg, Germany

"[The school had an] elaborate system of sadistic punishments combined with sexual lust."
"[The headmaster at the time] would choose two or three of us boys in the dormitories in the evenings and take them to his flat." 
"[There was red wine; the priest had masturbated with the pupils.] Everyone knew about it. I find it inexplicable that the Pope's brother Georg Ratzinger, who had been cathedral bandmaster since 1964, apparently knew nothing about it."
Franz Wittenbrink, German director and composer

The boarding school of the Regensburg Domspatzen choir -- dpa

"It hurts me and my soul – behind every single case is a human being, a child’s soul severely tortured and often marked for life by these acts."
"I cannot undo it and can only ask the victims for forgiveness."
"It is not up to me to pass judgement on the perpetrators because they have died. They must answer to the judgement of Christ."
Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer

Pope Benedict XVI with his brother Georg Ratzinger and Archbishop Piero Marini (R), after a concert by the Regensburger Domspatzen boys' choir at the Sistine Chapel in 2005 -- Getty Images

 

 

It was no doubt considered a great privilege when boys as young as eight were accepted at the famed Regensburg Domspatzen ("Cathedral Sparrows") boarding school, boys whose voices were sublime and clear as bells, rising in a musical epiphany of heavenly song. At the boarding school the boys were tutored and their voices trained in sublime refinement, joined together in a choir that expressed the musical sentiment of faith and the glory of the human voice.

In 2010 the German newspaper Spiegel ran an expose based on the accusations of former Regensburger choirboys who claimed to have been abused and violated by the men who had sworn vows of chastity and given their lives to the worship of Christ, but whose vocation was divine musical expression and to whose care these boys were surrendered. The loving care and attention that they and their parents anticipated would be theirs in recognition of their extraordinary musical abilities, turned into the kind of loving care least expected.

That was in the 1950s, when one man, then a child of eight, had his introduction to the rules of his new school replete with beatings and other violent punishments. And then came his realization that something was awfully wrong when he became aware that the priest who was punishing him, beating his bare buttocks with a rod was doing something else against the back of his head. Mr. Kaiser is one of six victims scheduled to recount their experiences to representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and choir.

It was an institution of great renown and repute, but not for the maltreatment of its students, including sexual violations. But from 1964 to 1994 the school was headed by Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, brother of Pope Benedict XVI. A twelve-member commission is set to examine the history of abuse that took place with impunity against the boys of the choir. When the story first broke, Monsignor Ratzinger was quick to deny any knowledge of the abuse, musing however, that the accusations reflected "a certain animosity toward the church."

A generous mind might wish to conclude that the good Monsignor was happily oblivious to any crimes and misdemeanors perpetrated by those under his guiding hand, that the boys were without exception ecstatic to be at the Regensburg Domspatzen, grateful for the attention they were given and the opportunities to perform to great acclaim and distinction. Still, the commission comes in the wake of a report issued in January finding up to 231 cases of physical abuse from 1945 to 2014.

Among the instances of physical abuse were a dozen cases of sexual abuse. Since then, another 60 victims of physical abuse have found the courage to expose themselves to public scrutiny. As for the Monsignor, he has himself apologized for using the kind of capital punishment reflective of his annoyance at times when during his three decades of running the choir he slapped many boys, but he "was not aware that any sexual abuse was taking place at that time."

And, as far as Monsignor Ratzinger, now 91, is concerned, had that abuse taken place as claimed it was certainly unfortunate, but to pursue the issue so many decades after the fact was "insanity". This, despite that church leaders and choir authorities were aware of those abuse allegations, but chose to ignore them, and as a result no one was punished. The latest of those abuse allegations by three perpetrators took place in the late 1990s to the early 2000s.

Life's Disappointments

"The criminal justice system has taken its course. We hope and pray that the verdict and subsequent sentencing may bring some measure of closure for all those involved."
"He will still have the title of priest [without functions]. It's very difficult to get the title of priest removed. It's a decision that the Pope has to make. So as of right now it is unlikely that title will be removed."
It's an unfortunate situation. But we've taken all the actions that we can to rectify the situation and we've put more precautions in place."
"Of course it's going to hurt our image but I think we've done everything that we can and parishioners and staff are very understanding and have been very helpful in the entire process. And I think they are probably happy with the outcome."
Emma Moynihan, London (Ontario) diocese spokeswoman

"The church and the parishioners trusted this person and their trust was violated."
"We should all be able to trust someone, especially someone in a position of authority, and that trust was breached."
"There were a number of schemes involved in this case, so the evidence was as complicated as the schemes that were behind them."
Assistant Crown attorney Tom Meehan

"He's very disappointed. It's definitely a serious matter for him. It's life-altering because he loves to teach and loves what he did with the church. All those things will probably change. That's what happens when you have a result like this."
"When you work hard on a case and  you deliver an argument to the jury, you hope you're successful. So we're disappointed. But we respect this system; we respect the jury for rendering its verdict."
Defence lawyer Patrick Ducharme

Rev. Robert Couture has been convicted of embezzling funds from St. Anne Parish in Tecumseh

He has been disgraced, a man who denies that he is guilty of the charges brought against him of betraying the confidence of those whose implicit trust was subjected to the shock of discovering that their priest purloined huge sums of money for his own use, funds that were meant for the use of the faith congregation that held him in great respect, a respect he betrayed. Within an eight year period the man who was their priest took illegal possession of between $180,000 and $234,000 to feed his preferred lifestyle.

His bit-by-bit selection from collection plates, from donations for funerals, weddings, baptisms and masses where the funds taken were deposited to a bank account in the name of the church, but which was a "bogus" account, benefiting himself alone described his crime.  He was by no means living a life of poverty; his diocesan salary was $35,000 with an additional $12,000 for room and board. He earned as well $10,000 as a school board trustee, and $3,000 as a teacher.

Deemed for some reason known only to himself, insufficient to fuel the type of fine dining and travel he had accustomed himself to, inclusive of Broadway shows, jet-setting in Europe and driving his Cadillac, which alone must have raised some inquisitive eyebrows. He was certainly no shrinking violet in his fairly ostentatious choices. His taste for expensive clothing, his trips to Jamaica, Europe and Disney world, the cash paid for his vehicle all led to questions.

His subsequent trial and the response of the jury appear to have answered those questions. After a two-year investigation by an accounting firm and the Ontario Provincial Police, he was arrested in 2013 following his administrative leave from 2010 forward. Charged with theft over $5,000, he pilfered far more than that trifling sum, and the jury that heard all the evidence brought against him was obviously not swayed by his defence.

Superior Court Justice Scott Campbell instructed the jury following closing arguments in the trial, and it took the jury less than two hours to reach their verdict of guilty. Stealing up to $234,000 from Ste.Anne Parish in Tecumseh, Ontario east of Windsor. His sentence is yet to be delivered, but the worse-case scenario for him could conceivably result in ten years' imprisonment.

Holocaust Archaeology: Yahad-In Unum

"The purpose of my organization Yahad-In Unum (Hebrew "together"; Latin "One") is to look for the victims. We are not looking for the killers; we are looking for the victims."
"In many genocides, we only remember the names of the killers. The Jews have given sanctity to the names of the victims so that we remember them."
"We are now 23 full-time in my organization. I'm not alone now. All are younger than me."
"My goal is to give back to the families so they can pray and say Kaddish on the mass graves. The second goal is to give back the Jewish victims to the Jewish people. The third one is to fight the Holocaust deniers."
"We are investigating the crimes of Hitler against the Jews ... [and] we have interviewed 3,800 neighbours who were present at the killings. They could look through the window. They were not collaborators. They were teenagers who ... saw everything."
"They are now old and they want to speak before they die. For the majority of them, it is the first time they speak. We have recorded all of them and it is accessible through our website."
"I want to say to the young people, perhaps one day you will be a doctor, perhaps you will be a soldier or a journalist, and you will be in a country of genocide. You must take a photo and send it to CNN or somewhere, and that's the way you will protect humanity ... There is a Russian proverb in all these countries that says the work is over when the last victim is buried. If we don't do this, in future we will have no evidence of this crime."

 Father Patrick Desbois, head of Yahad-in Unum   http://www.yahadinunum.org

Father Patrick Desbois is a French Catholic priest. He has elected himself to bear witness to a mass atrocity, to remember and to find evidence, and to record and to memorialize. It is beyond human capacity to really understand what happened, why it happened, how it happened, that during World War II Nazi Germany strayed from the focus of world domination for the Third Reich, to perfect the world they envisioned by removing from it all traces of the presence of European Jewry as a start to eliminating Jews world-wide.

What is beyond human understanding is the capacity for some humans to demonstrate their capacity for mass slaughter, and to consider it a benefit to the world. To select an ancient people that persevered through countless millennia, to retain its faith and its cohesion as an ethnic group, with its distinct culture, heritage and religion, against all adversities. And adversity was never in short supply throughout the history of the Jewish people. And nor, since the advent of the Holocaust and beyond is it now in short supply. Father Desbois has dedicated his efforts to the memory of those who perished.

The founding of Yahad-In Unum took place in 2004, a joint project between leaders of France's Catholic and Jewish communities as a measure to bring Jews and Catholics together for a common purpose in shared humanity. The major initiative of the organization is meant to investigate and identify sites of mass graves of Jews murdered by German Fascist mobile killing units, called the Einsatzgruppen. And to look for their remains in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Moldova and Romania.

The pathological viral mental derangement more commonly spoken of as anti-Semitism had long found fertile ground and a comfortable home in Europe. Hitler and his minions felt that Germans were too civilized, would be too squeamish about having death camps positioned on German soil, so most of those concentration, labour and death camps were located elsewhere throughout Europe, where pogroms were not uncommon, and where it was less likely that any protests would arise, should anyone find the institutionalized obliteration of a people morally offensive.

Through dedicated on-the-ground research, Yahad-In-Unum has discovered evidence of mass graves in "village after village", representing the work of the Einsatzgruppen, separating the local Jewish population from their non-Jewish counterparts and eliminating them, men, women and children, in well organized operations, and in calculated cold blood. Yahad-In-Unum has signed a contract with the American Jewish Committee to ensure that revealed sites would be respected, "the graves will be protected forever and not be desecrated".

Father Desbois wears many hats, besides his anti-racist historical-humanitarian one; he is director of the Episcopal Committee for Relations with Judaism, itself connected with the French Conference of Bishops. His grandfather was a French soldier, deported to the Nazi prison camp Rawa-Ruska during the Second World War. Father Desbois himself studied anti-Semitism at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, as well as undertaking the study of Jewish religion and culture with a leader of the Jewish community in France.

Father Desbois embarked on a trip to Ukraine in 2002 to see for himself where his grandfather had been imprisoned, and while there he planned to pay his respects at a memorial he was certain he would find there. When he arrived he discovered to his amazement that there was no evidence, no kind of commemoration to the one-and-a-quarter-million Jews whose lives had been destroyed in Ukraine and Belarus. And he resolved to rectify that blatant oversight in respect and honour for the victims of morbidly destructive racism.

After founding Yaham-In Unum, he set about collecting information revolving around the mass killings of Jews and Roma in east Europe between 1941 and 1944. With the help of translators, Father Desbois along with others conducts interviews with witnesses. And with the use of metal detectors, he and his team have succeeded in unearthing German cartridges and bullets from pits where the bodies of the slaughtered were discarded, along with jewellery belonging to the victims, and other artifacts.

He has written a book outlining the immensity of the project: The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest's Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews.

Tuesday March the 4th, Father Desbois has been awarded the Crif award "in recognition of his commitment to the truth"