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March 31, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – A joint statement issued by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS) and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (PASS) on March 20 gives interesting insights into the priorities of the Vatican regarding the COVID-19 crisis.

Under the heading “Responding to the Pandemic, Lessons for Future Actions and Changing Priorities,” the scientific bodies attached to the Catholic Church reveal much of their globalist mindset while remaining totally silent with regard to the Catholic faith.

There is not a single mention of Jesus-Christ, nor even of God – whose existence is known through the observation of our senses and the use of our reason – in the 1,400-word statement.

Also of interest is the list of signatories, which includes several names well-known in the scientific community that believes global warming exists due to human activity and that one way of fighting is to check or curb the total global population, seen as nature’s prime enemy. 

While chaos reigns in a number of countries – such as Italy, Spain, and parts of France – where the coronavirus revealed the insufficient amount of ICU units to meet the needs of many victims who fell gravely ill in a relatively short period of time, others have responded in a way that has prevented the Chinese virus from doing the same kind of harm, such as Taiwan, South Korea, Germany, and Portugal.

But instead of giving a reasoned perspective based on experience and best practices in these countries, the PAS and PASS focus on compliance with the guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations’ globalist health division.

It was WHO that congratulated Communist China for its model management of the coronavirus epidemic in Wuhan.

The WHO also rejected widespread use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 positive patients, although in Marseille, France, where Dr Didier Raoult and his specialized infections unit is obtaining good results with the molecule in combination with antibiotics. There are spectacularly fewer deaths linked to the coronavirus in Marseille than in the rest of France, where his protocol is only being sparsely applied.

Given the circumstances, it is somewhat of a relief to find that both Pontifical academies recommend massive testing for the Chinese coronavirus and “quarantine” for those who “test positive,” “along with their close contacts.” That is precisely what is not happening in countries that have chosen full confinement, as in France, causing major destruction of the economy and preparing much misery when the general measures are lifted while only the severely ill are tested, and asymptomatic carriers of the virus do not get to know their own immune status once the virus is fought off.

Neither this (partially) avoidable disruption to many economies throughout the world, nor even the blatant disregard of peoples’ spiritual needs at a time when the Catholic Church has closed down public Masses and sacraments in a number of countries, are mentioned in the statement.

On the other hand, it appears that the Pontifical academies are particularly worried by the information and criticism circulating online at a time when many government responses have appeared to be haphazard, self-contradictory, and incapable of handling the crisis.

“Governments, public institutions, science communities, and the media (incl. social media) failed to ensure responsible, transparent, and timely communication, which is crucial for appropriate action. International organizations like WHO and UNICEF, but also academies of sciences, need to be supported in their communication efforts so that their scientific evidence-based information can rise above the cacophony of unproven assumptions spreading all over the world,” according to the statement. 

Both UNICEF and, in a wider and more direct measure, the WHO favor widespread contraception as well as “safe and legal abortion.”

While recognizing the role played by “local communities” in the fight against an epidemic such as COVID-19, and promoting the “empowerment of civil society,” the statement’s main focus is on global management.

First, the Pontifical academies suggested that scientific organizations be more closely linked to supranational bodies:

“Scientists in all nations already tend to serve with a global perspective when generating preventions and cures. This humane attitude needs further support. Professional associations and science academies need to check whether they can serve better in cooperation with international agencies such as WHO and others, and how.”

They also want global responses to the coronavirus epidemic to be assessed from a psychological point of view – even though it is obvious from what is happening in different countries in the world that national traits play a large role in citizens’ response to the risk of illness and confinement:

“We also need to know more about the psychological foundations of human behavior in situations of collective stress in order to decide on appropriate governance strategies in crises,” said the statement.

A quick sweep at gender inequality led the Pontifical academies to write: “Health workers fighting pandemics in the front lines need the best possible support and protection. Women, who are the majority of health workers and are often most at risk, still suffer the same injustices as in other areas of work. This must stop.” As if male doctors, nurses and carers were getting better protection than women in countries – such as France – where there is a dearth of masks and hydroalcoholic gel.

The statement called on papal expressions to justify a supranational response to the coronavirus crisis:

“We are concerned about the selfishness and shortsightedness of uncoordinated national responses. This is the time to prove that the ‘Family of Nations’ (Paul VI and John Paul II) or the ‘Family of Peoples’ (Pope Francis) are communities of values with a common origin and shared destiny.”

In what way are countries that are – for the time being at any rate – successfully avoiding the spread of COVID-19 “selfish”? Portugal, for instance, has a much lower infection, illness and death toll than its only neighbor, Spain. Was it wrong for that country to close its borders with Spain immediately when the virus started to spread? So did Taiwan stop flights coming in from Wuhan when it learned of an unknown variant of pneumonia in the Chinese province of Hubei.

The PAS and the PASS had many good things to say about economic globalism and multiple exchanges between nations. But they added:

“The sheer scale and scope of the current globalism has made the world unprecedentedly interdependent – and thus vulnerable and dysfunctional during crises. For example, the COVID-19 outbreak is prompting demand for more national isolation. However, seeking protection through isolationism would be misguided and counterproductive. A trend worth backing would be a strong demand for greater global cooperation. Transnational and international organizations need to be equipped and supported to serve that purpose.”

This can only be read as support for more power for international and transnational organization, overstepping the rights of sovereign countries, precisely at a time when national frontiers have shown their efficiency in blocking a man-spread virus.

The statement went on to say:

“Only governance based on sound scientific evidence and a solid basis of shared fundamental values can mitigate the consequences of such crises. Unless governments reduce their nationalistic interests, there is reason to expect a worsening of the health crisis and consequently a deep global recession, with profound and tragic implications especially for poor countries.”

This also reads as a call for the standardization of approaches and even worldviews. It is the same logic that is behind the push for a global response, based on “scientific” evidence, to “global warming,” where once more the developed nations are being pointed at as being responsible for the tragedies that befall the poor countries.

The Pontifical academies actually acknowledged this proximity between the issues being captured in the sphere of global governance (or government, as is becoming increasingly clear):

“Global problems such as pandemics or the less visible crises of global climate change and biodiversity loss demand global cooperative responses. We must take into account the relationships between human activities, global ecology and livelihoods. Once COVID-19 is under control, we cannot go back to business as usual. A thorough review of worldviews, lifestyles, and short-term economic valuations must be carried out to cope with the challenges of the Anthropocene. A more responsible, more sharing, more equalitarian, more caring and fairer society is required if we are to survive.”

This is the heart of the matter. The “Anthropocene” – a concept invented by one of the signatories, Paul Crutzen – is the age of man’s increased influence on nature since industrialization began in the late 18th century. According to those who believe in it, man is now the primary force for changes to the planet’s equilibrium (however powerful volcanoes and even the influence of the sun may be) and man therefore needs change his own behavior.

In an article published by Yale Environment 360 in 2011, Crutzen wrote, for instance:

“For millennia, humans have behaved as rebels against a superpower we call ‘Nature’ In the 20th century, however, new technologies, fossil fuels, and a fast-growing population resulted in a ‘Great Acceleration’ of our own powers. Albeit clumsily, we are taking control of Nature’s realm, from climate to DNA. We humans are becoming the dominant force for change on Earth. A long-held religious and philosophical idea – humans as the masters of planet Earth – has turned into a stark reality.”

This is in truth a direct attack against our knowledge and belief, grounded on the story of man’s creation in Genesis, that the Earth was created for man and entrusted to his lordship and his care. The whole article by Crutzen considered Earth a living organism of which man is more and more a driving part and to whose need he must submit: “Remember, in this new era, nature is us,” it concluded.

To return to the PAS and PASS statement: clearly, they want the present disruption to lead to a totally new situation, a new paradigm (to use a word beloved by the globalists), where a “sharing” and “equalitarian” society is presented as the only solution. Forced sharing and equalitarianism at societal or government level bear well-known names: collectivism and communism.

It is surely a revolution that is being aimed at, as the statement’s conclusion discreetly suggests:

“We insist that global crises demand collective action. The prevention and containment of pandemics is a global public good (Laudato Si') and protecting it requires increased global coordination as well as temporary and adaptive decoupling. At a time when rule-based multilateralism is declining, the COVID-19 crisis should encourage efforts to bring about a new – in the sense of different – globalization model aimed at inclusive protection of all.”

You can be sure that the “globalization model” suggested here is not the submission of sovereign and distinct nations to the natural law, much less the universal Kingship of Christ … The conscious use of a problem – whatever its nature and gravity – to bring about certain desired changes by the powers that be is preoccupying, to say the least.

A quick look at only some of the signatories should make that abundantly clear: Joachim von Braun, president of PAS (and also supervisor at the World Economic Forum), Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, Dario Edoardo Viganò (responsible for faking support of Benedict XVI for a series of books in the honor of Pope Francis), Yves Coppens (a famous French paleontologist and evolutionist), Crutzen, Partha Dasgupta (who favors population control, lauds China’s Human Development Index and is a patron of Population Matters that lobbies for the reversal of population growth in many countries).

Also on the list are Jeffrey Sachs and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. The first is “arguably the world’s foremost proponent of population control” and an abortion advocate. Schellnhuber, one of Laudato Si’s official presenters at the Vatican and a full member of the Club of Rome – favorable to population control – is known for his advocacy for one-world government via an “Earth Constitution.”

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Jeanne Smits has worked as a journalist in France since 1987 after obtaining a Master of Arts in Law. She formerly directed the French daily Présent and was editor-in-chief of an all-internet French-speaking news site called reinformation.tv. She writes regularly for a number of Catholic journals (Monde & vie, L’Homme nouveau, Reconquête…) and runs a personal pro-life blog. In addition, she is often invited to radio and TV shows on alternative media. She is vice-president of the Christian and French defense association “AGRIF.” She is the French translator of The Dictator Pope by Henry Sire and Christus Vincit by Bishop Schneider, and recently contributed to the Bref examen critique de la communion dans la main about Communion in the hand. She is married and has three children, and lives near Paris.