RALEIGH, North Carolina, December 1, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — The Jesuit pastor of St. Raphael the Archangel parish in Raleigh, N.C. has recruited special “ministers” from among the lay faithful to assist him by sanitizing the hands of communicants prior to receiving the Eucharist in the hand.
Father Phil Hurley, S.J. has instituted a number of “Ministers of Hand Sanitizer,” who, following him around the church as he distributes Communion to the faithful, squeeze a dollop of sanitizer into the communicants’ hands before Fr. Hurley will offer them Communion, again into their hands. He does this while suited up in a face mask and a visor. The measures implemented by the pastor are supposedly an attempt to safeguard parishioners from the material threat of COVID-19, even while the innovations may pose a threat to spiritual devotion and reverence of the Eucharistic Lord.
PETITION UPDATE (8/27/2020)
Thank you for continuing to SIGN and SHARE this petition, which asks policymakers at all levels of government to reverse mandatory mask orders within their borders.
Facebook has restored the share link for this petition, saying that the decision to block it was a 'mistake...'
Please share with your Facebook friends, but we should all take heed of this warning: when an organization or individuals have to beg, plead and cajole just to express objective truths, it may be time to start looking for other social networking platforms.
Facebook needs to treat its users with respect, no matter their political persuasion. Moreover, Facebook needs to treat objective reality and facts with more respect.
One-size-fits-all oppressive government mask mandates must stop!
Healthy adults and children should not be forced - by the state - to wear masks when the risk of infection is low and the benefit of wearing a mask is highly questionable.
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PETITION UPDATE (8/25/2020)
Facebook is actively censoring this petition, saying that some people find it 'abusive.'
How anyone could find alternate facts about oppressive mask mandates 'abusive' is incredible...that is, impossible to believe.
This is exactly the kind of censorship which Big Tech is getting a bad reputation for.
The fact that Facebook calls differing opinion and objective reality "abusive" says a lot about Facebook and their agenda to silence reason and logic, not just conservatives and Christians.
But, people are more intelligent than Facebook give them credit for.
And, the more this continues, the more reasonable people will look alternate platforms to share their thoughts and connect with their friends and family. The more that happens, the less revenue Facebook will generate.
All of us have a decision to make, and the time is coming where we might have to tell our Facebook friends that we are moving to another platform.
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Thank you!
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One-size-fits-all oppressive government mask mandates must stop!
Healthy adults and children should not be forced - by the state - to wear masks when the risk of infection is low and the benefit of wearing a mask is highly questionable.
Please SIGN this petition which asks policymakers at all levels of government to reverse mandatory mask mandates within their borders.
Public health policies should be based on science and logic, not on the type of political posturing and virtue-signaling which led Joe Biden to recently call for a national mask mandate.
And, public health policies certainly shouldn't lead to a situation where more people could become sick.
But, that is exactly what these mandatory mask mandates are doing.
Here are four inconvenient facts about masks:
1) Masks** are largely ineffective at stopping the transmission of viruses.
The vast majority of masks worn by the public are made from material which cannot filter-out viruses because virus particles are too small to catch or obstruct. Wearing cloth masks to stop a virus is like putting a bee in a bird cage to keep it from flying away.
Wearing a mask for long periods of time ensures that the wearer has a warm and moist receptacle around his or her mouth, on which viruses and bacteria can land and accumulate.
Thus, masks are actually likely to have little effect in stopping the spread of COVID-19 acting as a barrier, but could actually make things worse acting as a receptacle.
2) Mandates which call for masks to be worn outdoors are both absurd and oppressive.
3) There are clearly documented hazards of wearing masks for long periods of time.
4) And, since school is on everyone's mind...
Notwithstanding the above information on the ineffectiveness of most masks against viruses, we don't know if asymptomatic children can even transmit the virus.
But, it was a reported in an article in the July 21, 2020 Uk Times that: "There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the UK government's leading scientific advisers."
And, we also know that children are extremely unlikely to get seriously ill or die from COVID infections. In any case, children cannot possibly be expected to wear a mask properly in a way that would cut transmission.
There are still a lot of unknowns about COVID-19, but we have grown in our understanding of this disease since the beginning of the crisis.
The knowledge we have gained should allow government and health authorities to make more nuanced policies than the current one-size-fits-all mask mandates.
Where are the legislative hearings in county commissions, and state, provincial or federal legislatures before these drastic actions are mandated? Where are the open and transparent debates among experts that provide our representatives with the necessary information to make good policy decisions?
The real pandemic is the panic and the resulting tyranny that is being caused by dictatorial governors, corporate media and the monopolistic Big Tech.
The truth is that COVID-19 is like a bad cold for most people; this is not ebola or the plague.
Of course, the very elderly and those with serious health conditions should take precautions or be quarantined, but the rest of society should begin the long process of returning to normality.
The frenzy to force everyone to wear a mask, at all times, has gone beyond all comprehension, and goes against science and logic.
Please SIGN this petition which asks policymakers at all levels of government to reverse any mandatory mask order within the borders of their county, state, province, or country.
Thank you!
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
'Explosion in mandatory masking isn’t driven by science, but fear', PART I - https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/explosion-in-mandatory-masking-isnt-driven-by-science-but-fear
'Explosion in mandatory masking isn’t driven by science, but fear', PART II - https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/explosion-in-mandatory-masking-isnt-driven-by-science-but-fear-part-ii
OSHA Document on Surgical Masks and Respirators stating that surgical masks do NOT prevent airborne particles (e.g. viruses) from being inhaled - https://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3219.pdf
'PETER HITCHENS: Face masks turn us into voiceless submissives - and it’s not science forcing us to wear them, it’s politics' - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8537489/PETER-HITCHENS-Face-masks-turn-voiceless-submissives.html
**Here, we are referring to the masks worn by the vast majority of the public, not to specialist masks or respirator-type masks.
***Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com
The Jesuits USA East Province, who posted the above tweet, referred to the newly created “ministry” as an adaption to “the pandemic.” The idea of sanitizing people’s hands before Communion and priestly masking measures was the fruit of “months of planning by the church’s leadership to reopen for in-person services,” according to the parish’s pastoral associate for liturgy and music, Jeff Rice.
While St. Raphael parish might be unique in offering a new order of sanitizing “ministers,” the parish is far from alone in implementing regulations that are innovative and profane. Bishops and bishops’ conferences around the globe have been busy handing down proclamations denying the faithful Communion on the tongue and kneeling while demanding social distancing and the use of face masks.
A recent study from Denmark has concluded that wearing a face mask to stop the spread of COVID-19 is, in fact, ineffective. The study threw up some interesting and unexpected results, including that within the group which wore the mask “exactly as instructed,” as opposed to those who did so only “predominantly as instructed,” a greater percentage were infected. This is the exact opposite of what the legacy media have repeatedly reported to expect from “proper” use of face coverings.
Beside the debate over the effectiveness of face masks stands the much more controversial practice of mandating reception of Communion in the hand. Prominent figures in the Church, such as Raymond Cardinal Burke and Bishop Athanasius Schneider, have spoken publicly about the gravity of this matter. According to an instruction of the Congregation for Divine Worship to the USCCB, “[t]he faithful are not to be obliged to adopt the practice of communion in the hand. Each one is free to communicate in one way or the other.” Clearly, then, mandating reception of Communion in the hand is a violation of Church norms regarding the Eucharist.
With the above having been said, Bishop Schneider goes farther, instructing the faithful on the worthiness of receiving Communion on the tongue and the profaneness of receiving in the hand. Not only is there mounting evidence for why Communion on the tongue is safer and more hygienic than hand reception, contrary to the instructions given by some bishops, but moreover, there is a much greater chance that, by receiving Communion in the hand, one will accidentally and unwittingly drop (or otherwise lose) particles of the precious body of Christ. In addition to this, the auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan warns of the opportunity for malefactors to commit sacrilege against the Eucharist by being more easily able to steal the host. The occasions of “irreverence” and “sacrilege” can be greatly mitigated by adopting the universal norm of distributing Communion onto the tongues of the faithful.