Victims Only of Their Own Mendacity, part two

As the corrupt, venal, cognitively and ethically challenged Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., was plotting for the right time to pardon his son, Robert Hunter Biden, whose own criminal activities was only a part of the Biden Family Crime Syndicate, which includes, among others, the outgoing president’s brothers James and Frank, and its intricate web of very profitable influence peddling, his Ministry of Injustice was busy making a heroic pro-life American, Paulette Harlow, and twenty-six other pro-life Americans would be spending Thanksgiving and Christmas in prison for merely standing in front of an American killing center to try dissuade mothers from killing their preborn children:

This week our country has a lot to be thankful for as we look ahead to the re-ushering in of the Trump administration. We look with eager anticipation at his promises to improve the economy and create a safe, sustainable country for us all to live in. And most importantly, we look forward to putting the failures and governmental overreach of the Biden-Harris administration in the rearview mirror.

But not every American can do that this holiday season, some are still feeling the sting of the current government’s weaponization against them. It appears President Donald Trump was not the only American that Biden’s government targeted with lawfare.

This holiday, grandmothers like Paulette Harlow, will be forced to report to federal prison instead of her family’s Thanksgiving table, all thanks to Biden’s Department of Justice. Despite serving home detention, the federal government is now demanding this 75-year old Catholic nurse report to prison just days before Thanksgiving.

Ms. Harlow is not the only one spending her holidays and years to come in federal prison. The Biden-Harris administration has grossly abused the FACE Act and targeted pro-life Americans over the course of its reign. Under the FACE Act, pro-lifers were thrown in federal prison for protesting abortion. This DOJ seems to go in only one direction for FACE Act violations. In 2022 the DOJ charged 26 pro-life individuals with violations, yet there have been no FACE Act indictments against those who attacked pro-life centers besides four radical individuals charged in Florida. All while at least 88 pro-life groups and 436 churches have been attacked since the Supreme Court’s leaked decision to reverse Roe.

Eva Edl survived a Soviet prison camp but now faces a potential death by imprisonment from the current Biden-Harris administration. For 89-year old Michigander Ms. Edl, her potential sentence of 10 years in federal prison for peacefully demonstrating outside an abortion facility is pending.

I recently connected with one of the pro-life prisoners behind bars. I unexpectedly received a collect call from a federal prison, and it was from Lauren Handy. Ms. Handy is the pro-life protester who demonstrated outside of a Washington, D.C. abortion center. The now-infamous center that may have violated federal law with illegal abortion procedures on the bodies of the DC Five. These are five children who were killed through late-term abortion, thrown in a box, and sent to medical waste. Ms. Handy was given the box from the medical waste provider, opened it, and was horrified to discover the formed bodies of five late-term abortion victims. Ms. Handy explained to me what happened that fateful day and how there’s still no investigation from the federal government, despite repeated calls from Congress.

It’s important to note that these imprisoned pro-lifers each have different life stories but they all have one thing in common – they are victims of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ politicized DOJ. Rather than fixing rampant crime in American cities, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice spent the past four years hyper-focused on weaponizing its government against peaceful protestors, including grandmas and young moms who were praying at abortion facilities.

This holiday will not be comforting for those Americans who have been unfairly targeted for their political and personal beliefs. But there is a new administration on the horizon and if they can hold on to hope, I suspect there’s reason for great optimism.

President Trump was recently informed of grandmother Paulette Harlow’s tragic sentencing and he issued a statement. He said, “Paulette is one of many peaceful pro-lifers who Joe Biden has rounded up, sometimes with SWAT teams, and thrown them in jail…we will rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner who’s unjustly victimized by the Biden regime, including Paulette, so we can get them out of the gulags and back to their families where they belong.”

Even though Americans, like Paulette, will spend their holidays in prison simply because they have deeply held views that are different from the current regime…I still see room for hope. That’s because President Trump has signaled that he will not forget them this holiday season.

And sometimes, hope and a promise are the best kinds of gifts we can receive. In this case, that gift comes in the form of a pledge.

As President Trump put it, “We’re going to get that taken care of immediately — [on the] first day.” (Paulette Harlow, pro-life grandmother, reports to prison instead of Thanksgiving table.)

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., had plenty of “mercy” to dole out to his corrupt son, Robert Hunter Biden, but he is a cruel man who thinks nothing of weaponizing the Federal justice system against his perceived “enemies” and to incarcerate American citizens who engage in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience as violent immigrant criminals are released under “cashless bail” programs such as New York City and elsewhere in this country and seem to get put behind bars only when they kill innocent Americans such as Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, Lizbeth Medina, Kate Steinle, Jeremy Poou Caceres, Shannon Patricia Jungwirth, “her son, 20-year-old Jorge Alexander Reyes-Jungwirth, and her husband, 39-year-old Alberto Trejo Estrad,” “Melissa Powell, 47, and her son, 16-year-old Riordan Powell,” and very notoriously, Joycelyn Nungary, among many, many others Why should statist ideologues such as the corrupt, venal smeller of women’s hair named Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr, care for the deaths of innocent human beings at the hands of illegal immigrants when they fully support the chemical and surgical slaughter of the innocent preborn? Biden has no regard for innocent life in the womb, and he seems to care only the lives (and livelihoods) of his family members and the liberty of illegal immigrants, including those who are the most violent thugs imaginable.

It is for good reason that lifelong Democrat Jonathan Turley described the elder Biden’s pardon of his equally ethically-challenged the most shameful use of an American president’s pardoning power in history:

President Biden's decision to use his presidential powers on Sunday to pardon his own son will be a decision that lives in infamy in presidential politics. It is not just that the president used his constitutional powers to benefit his family. It is because the action culminates years of lying to the public about his knowledge and intentions in the influence-peddling scandal surrounding his family. Even among past controversies about the use of this pardon power, Biden has cemented his legacy for many, not as the commander in chief, but as the liar in chief. 

Despite its noble origins and purpose, the pardon power historically has not been a pristine power used by past presidents. As I have previously written, it was used to benefit the political cronies of past presidents. President Warren Harding was even accused of selling pardons, including to mob enforcer Ignacio Lupo, known as "Lupo the Wolf." Former President Bill Clinton waited for the final days of his presidency to pardon his own brother as well as a major Democratic donor. Trump also pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. (Charles Kushner was also recently named as Trump's choice of envoy to France.)

In 2023, I wrote that Biden might follow this same pattern and pardon his son as a lame-duck president. The column suggested that Biden might withdraw as a candidate for office and then take action as a father: "The pardon-and-apology approach might appeal to Biden not only as an effort to convert vice into virtue but to justify his withdrawal from the election as a selfless act."

In the 2020 election and throughout his presidential term, Biden repeatedly lied to the American public with an ease and impunity that shocked even many political veterans in Washington. He was repeatedly asked if he knew about Hunter's foreign dealings, including millions in alleged deals with Russians, Ukrainians, Chinese and other clients. President Biden lied and denied such knowledge. As I detailed in my testimony in the Biden impeachment hearing, he had repeated discussions of these dealings. He is even on tape discussing news stories on the dealings.

President Biden was also repeatedly asked if he met any of his son's clients. He repeatedly lied. We have pictures and records of dinners and meetings with these clients. Hunter Biden was expressly thanked for his arranging such access to his father.

Few reporters pressed Biden on the corruption scandal, but they were often met not only with denials but angry retorts from the president. When Fox reporter Peter Doocy raised it, the president steamed, "Yes, yes, yes. God love you, man — you’re a one-horse pony, I tell you."

When CBS' Bo Erickson broke ranks and raised the scandal, Biden replied, "I knew you’d ask it. I have no response, it’s another smear campaign, right up your alley, those are the questions you always ask.

The president continued to lie throughout the election, the presidential debates and his term.

Then, the press repeatedly asked him whether he would pardon his son. The president was now running for re-election and again lied. He and the White House said over and over again that no such pardon would occur and was not being contemplated. That was also a lie. NBC is reporting that, while issuing these denials last June, there were already discussions about the pardon.

The pardon power was written in absolute terms, and a president can even, in my view, pardon himself. However, what is constitutional is not necessarily ethical or right. This is one of the most disgraceful pardons even in the checkered history of presidential pardons.  President Biden has lied to cover up a corruption scandal that reportedly brought his family millions in raw influence peddling. His portrayal of his son as a victim stands in sharp contrast to the sense of immunity and power conveyed by Hunter in his dealings.

There were diamonds as gifts, lavish expense accounts and a sports car, in addition to massive payments that Hunter claimed were "loans." 

There are messages where Hunter belies the president's portrayal of a political witch hunt, including messages like the one to a Chinese businessman openly threatening the displeasure of Joe Biden if money is not sent to them immediately. In the WhatsApp message, Hunter stated:

"I am sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the Chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father."

The president has now pardoned Hunter for his convicted felonies and any crimes he may have committed from "Jan. 1, 2014, to Dec. 1, 2024." 

It is all now being buried under a sweeping pardon and a pack of presidential lies. (JONATHAN TURLEY: Joe Biden's pardon of son Hunter cements his legacy as liar in chief. Also see A Pardon for Hunter, Prison for Navarro, Injustice for All and We always knew Joe Biden would pardon troubled son Hunter.)

United States District Court for the District of Central California Mark Christopher Scarsi, who presided over the case involving Robert Hunter Biden’s evading Federal tasks to which the First Grift pleaded guilty three months ago, issued a scatahing condemnation of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.’s. attempt to rewrite history to make it appear that his son was targeted “unfairly” for political purposes:

The federal judge overseeing Hunter Biden’s tax case issued a sharp rebuke of President Biden's claim that his son was unfairly treated as well as the president's delivery method following the president's last-minute pardon.

U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi, who is based in the Central District of California and was nominated by President-elect Trump, accused President Biden in a scathing five-page order of "rewriting history" with the pardon and suggested that the breadth of the pardon granted to his son is unconstitutional.

"The Constitution provides the President with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, but nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history," he wrote.

The judge voiced his displeasure that the president alerted the judicial system of his order to pardon his son via a White House press release.

"Rather than providing a true and correct copy of the pardon with the notice, Mr. Biden provided a hyperlink to a White House press release presenting a statement by the President regarding the pardon and the purported text of the pardon," he wrote.

"In short, a press release is not a pardon," he continued.

Scarsi continued, reacting to the president's statement on his son's tax case: "the President asserts that Mr. Biden ‘was treated differently’ from others ‘who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions,’ implying that Mr. Biden was among those individuals who untimely paid taxes due to addiction. But he is not."

"According to the President, ‘[n]o reasonable person who looks at the facts of [Mr. Biden’s] cases can reach any other conclusion than [Mr. Biden] was singled out only because he is [the President’s] son.’ But two federal judges expressly rejected Biden’s arguments that the Government prosecuted Mr. Biden because of his familial relation to the President. And the President’s own Attorney General and Department of Justice personnel oversaw the investigation leading to the charges," Scarsi wrote.

"In the President’s estimation, this legion of federal civil servants, the undersigned included, are unreasonable people," he said.

The judge said he would dispose of the case once he receives the official pardon from "the appropriate executive agency." 

He also vacated Hunter Biden’s sentencing, which was scheduled for Dec. 16.  The charges carried up to 17 years behind bars, but the first son would likely have faced a much shorter sentence under federal sentencing guidelines.

"Subject to the following discussion, the Court assumes the pardon is effective and will dispose of the case. The Supreme Court long has recognized that, notwithstanding its nearly unlimited nature, the pardon power extends only to past offenses," he wrote.

Hunter Biden, 54, has had a busy year in court, kicking off his first trial in Delaware in June, when he faced three felony firearm offenses, before he pleaded guilty in a separate felony tax case in September. 

President Biden pardoning his son is a departure from his previous remarks to the media over the summer when he insisted he would not pardon the first son.

"Yes," President Biden told ABC News when asked if he would rule out pardoning Hunter ahead of his guilty verdict in the gun case. 

Days later, following a jury of Hunter’s peers finding him guilty of three felony firearm offenses, the president again said he would not pardon his son. 

"I am not going to do anything," Biden said after Hunter was convicted. "I will abide by the jury’s decision."

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment. (Federal judge accuses President Biden of attempting to 'rewrite history' in Hunter Biden pardon.)

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., believes that anyone named Biden, including himself, is above the laws of God and the just laws that apply to other mere mortals. This reprobate of a Catholic has even said on numerous occasions behind the scenes that “no one [messes] with a Biden.” One has to be quite delusional to believe this about himself and his family, and Biden, who has never been the brightest bulb in a room and who graduated near the bottom of his class at the Syracuse University College of Law (although he had boasted for many years that he graduated in the top percent of his class, yet another of the many lies he has told over the decades). Biden has no sense of shame. He does what he wants to do without regard for any concept of moral truth even on the purely natural level because he has always gotten away with his mendacity, which is why he has indemnified Robert Hunter Biden at every turn.

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., is also incapable of thinking in supernatural terms and has even said that the fact his second wife, Jill Jacobs Stevenson, was divorced did not even enter his mind as to being a canonical impediment. As has been explained in other commentaries, it is unclear whether Jill Jacobs Stevenson had ever applied for or had received a conciliar decree of marital nullity by the time of wedding officiated at by an anonymous “Catholic priest” at the United Nations ecumenical chapel on June 15, 1977:

For quite some time, I have been puzzled about the relative silence regarding the nuptials of Joe and Jill Biden, especially since President Biden has told us repeatedly that he is a devout, practicing Catholic.

In Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself (2019), Jill’s autobiography, we learn that she and Joe were married at the UN Chapel on June 17, 1977—and, she says, “by a Catholic priest.”

That factoid caused further puzzlement: Why get married at the UN? Neither of the Bidens had any apparent connection to that institution. Given that Joe has been a “priest-collector” his whole life, why go to New York to be married by an anonymous priest? Was he even a priest in good standing? After all, some ex-priests make a handsome living out of performing weddings.

Online searches for information on the UN Chapel turns up an article about it in the New York Times from May 9, 1976 (“UN Chapel Weddings: Ecumenical Spirit”). The chaplain was a Rev. Dr. Melvin Hawthorne, a minister of the United Methodist Church. He says that the chapel does not have an actual relationship with the United Nations, but that many people associated with the UN do opt for his chapel. In 1976, the chapel was the site of over 400 weddings, 60% of which were for couples of different faiths, many of whom had “run into snags elsewhere.”

So, what might the “snags” have been for the devout Catholic Joe Biden and his fiancee? A number of permissions would have been needed (e.g., mixed marriage since Jill is not Catholic; permission to marry outside a church or oratory). Did they participate in the required pre-nuptial investigation, which should have uncovered that Jill was previously married in February 1970 and divorced in March 1975?

An article in the July 24, 1977 edition of Wilmington, Delaware newspaper The Morning News, titled “‘Catholic’ Joe Biden avoids telling the press his wife is a divorcee,” reports Biden saying, “I thought the fact that Jill was married before had no relevance.”

If they did participate in the pre-nuptial investigation, was Jill willing to submit that union to a diocesan tribunal for a possible decree of nullity? If she engaged that process, was such a decree issued? What about the couple’s participation in marriage preparation, known as pre-Cana instructions? Admittedly, some of these matters are more serious than others.

The next step in consideration was to ascertain if the Biden wedding was indeed approved by the Catholic Church. If that ceremony was recognized by the Church, it should have been entered into the marriage register of the parish church in whose boundaries the UN Chapel sits, which is Holy Family Church. The pastor, Father Gerald Murray (coincidentally, a canon lawyer) and well-known member of Raymond Arroyo’s “Papal Posse” on EWTN, stated clearly that no such ceremony or any file for that event is to be found at Holy Family Church. Father Murray went on to mention that several weddings of Catholics at the UN Chapel are, in fact, registered at his church.

So, why not that of the Bidens?

In a call to the chancellor of the Diocese of Wilmington (where Biden’s domicile is), I asked this question of the chancellor’s secretary (since the chancellor was not in the office): In the knowledge of the Diocese, did the wedding take place according to canonical form?

Within an hour, the diocesan director of communications called me back to say that the Diocese cannot comment on the sacramental life of parishioners. When reminded that we are not asking about sins confessed in the Sacrament of Penance but about the reality or non-reality of a public act and sacrament, very politely but firmly, he repeated that the Diocese would not comment on the situation.

The facts of the case, then, appear to be: No Catholic wedding is recorded in the usual places for the Bidens in the Archdiocese of New York, where the ceremony took place. The Diocese of his canonical domicile would not answer a very simple question. If Joe and Jill are truly married in the eyes of Christ’s Church, the answer would likely have been forthcoming as simply: “Yes, of course, they are validly married.”

Absent that declaration, one may suppose that something is seriously amiss.

Again, this is not a private matter between Joe, Jill, family members, and priest. Marriage is public by its nature; it affects the entire community of the Church, and the People of God have a right to know the truth.

From his years in Catholic schools (about which he always reminds us), President Biden should have recalled Our Lord’s warning: “For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open” (Lk 8:17).

(Editor’s note: As of this posting, the White House has not responded to a CWR request for information about the Bidens’ 1977 wedding.) (Some questions about the Bidens’ 1977 Catholic wedding.)

Noting that conciliar tribunal process is as worthless as everything else connected with the counterfeit church conciliarism, Catholics within the conciliar sect’s structures who believe themselves to be within the Catholic Church are supposed to recognize that fact that no Catholic is to date, no less consider marrying, anyone who is civilly divorced and lacks what is believed to be a valid of marital nullity. Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., is such a shallow and willful man, however, he did think that the plain words of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ applied to himself or to Jill Jacobs Stevenson:

Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.  7 They say to him: Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorce, and to put away?  8 He saith to them: Because Moses by reason of the hardness of your heart permitted you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.  9 And I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery 10 His disciples say unto him: If the case of a man with his wife be so, it is not expedient to marry. (Matthew 19: 6-10.)

Bishop Richard Challoner commented on verse nine as follows:

[9] "Except it be": In the case of fornication, that is, of adultery, the wife may be put away: but even then the husband cannot marry another as long as the wife is living.

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., was educated during the 1940s and 1950s before the “Second” Vatican Council at a time when every Catholic understood that one who is civilly divorced cannot get remarried and that a Catholic can not even consider dating, no less marrying, a divorced person.

This is a truth that was understood by both Genevieve Halford Gleason, the true wife of John Herbert “Jackie” Gleason, and Nancy Barbato Sinatra, Sr., the true wife of Francis Albert Sinatra, neither remarried after their faithless husbands divorced them. Mrs. Gleason died in 2012 some forty-two years after her husband divorced her after sixteen years of separation, and Mrs. Sinatra died in 2018, sixty-seven years after Frank Sinatra divorced her to “marry” Ava Gardner. Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., he who considers himself unlike other mere mortals, chose to ignore this truth as his first concern has always been about his own pleasure, power, and wealth, not the sanctification and salvation of his immoral soul nor even of the souls of his children.

It is no wonder at that this wretched human being had no compunction about pardoning his son while his administration actively persecuted his political adversaries by means of a Soviet-style lawfare, persecuted peaceful pro-life Americans, refused to investigate crimes committed against Catholic churches and pro-life counseling centers, targeted “radical traditional Catholics,” including me, as “domestic terrorists,” and targeted “faith-based” schools for investigation by the Marxists who comprised the United States Department of Education under his authoritarian watch:

A report showed that nearly 70% of enforcement actions executed by the Biden administration’s Education Department targeted faith-based and career schools.

According to a press release published by the American Principles Project (APP), they drew on newly obtained data finding that nearly 70 percent of the Department of Education’s (ED) enforcement actions dealt with faith-based and career schools, even though those schools represent less than 10 percent of students in the US.

APP Policy Director Jon Schweppe said the Democrats have been "busy weaponizing every part of the federal government to target their opponents" for the past four years.

"While major assaults from agencies like the Department of Justice have taken most of the headlines, we should not ignore similarly corrupt efforts in other agencies as well," Schweppe said.

"As our report details, the Biden-Harris Department of Education has been engaged in a long-running scheme to punish Christian colleges that are ideologically opposed to the left’s agenda. The unfair targeting of these institutions has been egregious, and it needs to stop immediately."

The APP notes that two of the nation’s most prominent Christian universities, Grand Canyon University (GCU) and Liberty University, were subject to scrutiny by the ED. Both of these institutions faced record-level fines worth significantly more than "all penalties imposed over the past seven years combined," including fines imposed on Penn State ($2.4 million) and Michigan State ($4.5 million) relating to Jerry Sandusky and Larry Nassar’s respective sexual crimes.

GCU currently faces a hurdle while appealing a $37.7 million fine imposed by the ED in November of last year for allegations that the Arizona-based institution misled students about the cost of its doctoral programs over several years.

Furthermore, Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in April vowed to shut down GCU during a House Appropriations Committee hearing about for-profit colleges. The Biden administration official claimed that "predatory schools" are "preying on first generation students."

The report from APP said further that at "least 12 Christian colleges have been the target of excessive penalties or banned from receiving federal student aid; by comparison, no Ivy League school has been the recipient of punitive action by the Office of Enforcement."

"The average fine against a Christian school for a Clery Act violation was $815,000, compared to $228,571 against public and private institutions," it said.

The report comes after GCU recently scored a legal win over the ED regarding the Christian institution’s non-profit status. The ED denied GCU’s nonprofit recognition after it was approved by the Arizona Board for Private Postsecondary Education, the Internal Revenue Service, the State of Arizona and the Higher Learning Commission.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the ED unlawfully applied an incorrect standard to determine the university’s nonprofit status. 

The case is now being remanded back to ED. 

A department spokesperson sent a statement to Fox News Digital, saying that a "school’s religious affiliation or non-profit status has absolutely no bearing on our oversight and enforcement actions."

"Our top priority is protecting safety and academic opportunity for all students at institutions of higher education. The data in the APP report itself pushes a false narrative by distorting information released publicly by the Department," the spokesperson said. (New report shows nearly 70% of Biden admin's education enforcement targeted Christian and career colleges.)

The outgoing administration of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., and Kamala Harris Emhoff has sought to intimidate, persecutive and, when necessary, to prosecute those who they deem to be “threats” to their statist, globalist, anti-family, anti-life agenda, including those who have given the Federal Bureau of Investigation information concerning the Biden Family Crime Syndicate:

One of the most disturbing scandals of the Hunter Biden saga is the imprisonment without trial of former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov. 

The Ukrainian-born Israeli-American, who once told his FBI handler about Ukrainian claims of a $10 million bribe to the Bidens, has been languishing in a Los Angeles prison for nine months on charges that he lied to the FBI. 

Last week, federal prosecutors slapped new tax-evasion charges on Smirnov, 43, which suggests they know their original indictment is too weak for a jury to convict him when he faces trial beginning Jan. 8. 

Smirnov was one of the FBI’s most trusted confidential human sources, paid more than $100,000 during what his lawyers call “undivided, years-long loyalty to the United States” before he was thrown to the wolves in the middle of the Biden impeachment inquiry. 

Busted in February 

He was arrested in February on charges that he “provided false derogatory information to the FBI in 2020 about Joseph Biden, who at the time was a candidate for president and had previously been the vice president. 

“The alleged false information concerned Joseph Biden’s and his son Hunter Biden’s involvement with Burisma Holdings Ltd., a Ukrainian energy business.” 

When the FBI searched Smirnov’s Las Vegas apartment, they found “a hat emblazoned with an anti- [Biden] euphemism” — presumably “Let’s Go Brandon” — which the indictment says demonstrates “bias” against Joe Biden and “bears on the defendant’s motive in providing the FBI with false derogatory information about” Joe. 

Joe managed to evade impeachment over his family’s influence-peddling schemes — in part because of the Smirnov indictment — and is expected either to pardon his son or commute Hunter’s twin sentences next month in felony gun and tax-fraud cases. 

Yet it is Smirnov who is under indictment, when he merely relayed to his FBI handler a conversation he claimed to have had about Hunter with Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma.

The corrupt energy company at the time was paying the then-vice president’s crackhead son $1 million a year. 

There is no direct evidence that Joe and Hunter were paid $10 million by the Burisma owner to order the removal in 2016 of Viktor Shokin, the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma, as Smirnov claimed he was told by Zlochevsky. 

But since when does an FBI informant have to guarantee that the raw intelligence he provides to his handler is 100% factual, on threat of criminal prosecution?

That’s a surefire way to ensure nobody will ever be an FBI informant. 

It’s up to the FBI to investigate allegations provided by confidential human sources like Smirnov. Obviously. 

Handler’s mistakes 

But the case against Smirnov is that he did not tell his FBI handler the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

His lawyers have told the court that any inconsistencies in his information as recorded by the FBI were not lies told by him, but errors made by his handler, whom they accuse of “shoddy work and negligent record keeping.” 

Smirnov’s handler memorialized his reports in an FBI form called an FD-1023, which is used to record unverified reporting from informants. 

When Smirnov told his handler in 2017 that Hunter Biden was mentioned during a conversation he had with Zlochevsky, the hand­ler recorded it on an FD-1023 as “brief [and] nonrelevant” to the FBI’s “kleptocracy” investigation that Smirnov was assisting. The “kleptocracy” probe into Zlochevsky, coincidentally or not, was closed by the FBI Washington Field Office in December 2019, the same month the FBI took possession of Hunter’s laptop computer containing all sorts of incriminating evidence about Burisma’s relationship with the Bidens. 

In January 2020, with the Democratic presidential campaign in full swing, then-Pittsburgh US ­Attorney Scott Brady was tasked by then-Attorney General Bill Barr to vet the torrent of allegations about Biden corruption that were pouring into the DOJ, including from then-President Don­ald Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani. 

Brady found the brief mention of Hunter and Burisma in the Smirnov handler’s FD-1023 from 2017.

Smirnov was reinterviewed by the FBI for a new FD-1023 and elaborated on his conversation with Zlochevsky, adding the bombshell allegation of the $10 million bribe. 

Brady judged the allegations sufficiently credible to send the Smirnov file for further review to Delaware US Attorney David Weiss, who was in charge of the five-year investigation into Hunter over potential tax, money-laundering and foreign-agent violations. 

But Weiss concealed the Smirnov file and never mentioned the allegations to IRS agents conducting the investigation, Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler. 

When the IRS agents blew the whistle to Congress in 2023 about the DOJ’s obstruction, slow walking and political favoritism to Joe and Hunter, Shapley testified that the Smirnov file would have “likely been material to the ongoing criminal investigation of Hunter Biden . . . 

“As a result of the information being concealed by prosecutors from the IRS [and] FBI investigators assigned to this investigation, we were unable to follow alleged criminal activity as would normally be completed.” 

It was only when an FBI whistleblower gave a copy of the Smirnov FD-1023 to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in 2023 that the allegations came to light. 

After the IRS whistleblowers came forward, a sweetheart deal Weiss had stitched up with Hunter fell apart, and Attorney General Merrick Garland elevated Weiss to special counsel investigating Hunter. 

This meant Weiss would be investigating his own conduct. 

Seven months later, special counsel Weiss indicted Smirnov. 

In a pretrial motion, Smirnov’s lawyers anticipate prosecution efforts to “dirty him up” as a “Russian spy,” “unpatriotic” and a “double agent.” 

It’s a dubious claim considering that Smirnov was paid by the FBI to spy on Russians as recently as 2023. 

Smirnov’s arrest in February came at a convenient time for the Bidens and successfully blunted the attack by House Republicans hoping to impeach Joe. 

Hunter gleefully cited Smirnov when he testified to the impeachment committee earlier this year claiming “Smirnov . . . has made you dupes in carrying out a Russian disinformation campaign waged against my father.” 

Dem’s false claim 

The claim was enthusiastically echoed by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who falsely claimed that Smirnov was the impeachment inquiry’s “star witness” and used him to besmirch the damning evidence the inquiry had unearthed of Joe’s involvement in his family’s corrupt schemes as having “a very strong whiff of a Russian intelligence operation.” That old chestnut. 

Smirnov’s Las Vegas lawyers have subpoenaed Hunter’s former partner Devon Archer as a witness, suggesting the Bidens’ foreign influence-peddling schemes will play a role in their defense. 

Attorneys David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld claim Smirnov, who suffers from the eye disease glaucoma, has been subjected to cruel punishment in prison, with authorities refusing to give him the eyedrops he needs to save his sight. 

They are preparing to accuse the DOJ and FBI of conducting an unlawful “politically motivated” prosecution of their client to protect the Bidens, according to their pretrial motions. 

Expect the FBI and Justice Department to be as much on trial as Smirnov in Los Angeles District Court Judge Otis Wright’s courtroom in January. (The FBI and DOJ's 'politically motivated' persecution of a former informant -- all to protect the Bidens. For a detailed examination of the FBI’s return to the days of John Edgar Hoover’s gathering information on politicians to use against them if they criticized him, please see The Unconstitutional Abuses of the FBI.)

Yes, even though special counsel David Weiss has defended his prosecution of the supposed “victim” of “political warfare,” Robert Hunter Biden, that prosecution came only after he had tried to unsuccessfully sneak what was effectively a prosecutorial pardon dressed up as a plea bargain under the nose Judge Maryellen Noreika and after years of deliberately letting statute of limitations on the more serious charges of failing to register as a foreign agent and influence peddling expire. Weiss also acted in the mode of Robert Mueller’s hand-picked legal bullies to prosecute informants rather than to act on the information the informants possessed.

The cold-blooded cruelty of those serving in the Biden-Harris administration is but yet another example of what happens in a world where men who are unfettered by any thought of First and Last Things and thus do not fear the loss of their immortal souls for all eternity in hell treat human beings they know to be innocent as villains simply for committing
“thought crimes” by possessing and expressing ideas inimical to the “revealed truths” as pronounced by the high priests and priestesses of a world in the grip of both Judeo-Masonic Anti-Incarnationalism and the French and Marxist Revolutionaries’ Anti-Theism.

Perhaps the word to best describe almost everyone in the Biden-Harris administration is soulless. Kamala Harris Emhoff embodied this soullessness by the way she cackled inappropriately, was unable to articulate thoughts clearly as to do this one has to have a well-formed mind capable of separating fact from fiction and truth from error and spent more time with—and millions upon millions of campaign donation to be in the company of—the soulless ghouls in the fantasy celebrity world of Hollywood than upon understanding the concerns about voters she had to reach about illegal immigration, rampant crime, inflation, and even about the purely natural concept of freedom that the administration of which has been part for nearly four full years tried to snuff out at every turn imaginable.

As a reader who commented to United States Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when the latter asked her constituents how they could vote for Donald John Trump and for her, an avowed Socialist, “Harris was grown in a lab. Trump is authentic.”

The Bidens, the Clintons, the Gores, the Obamas, the Harrises, and all the rest, whether of the left or of the right, are victims only of their own mendacity.

Pope Leo XIII's Words of Warning That Masonry Leads to the Triumph of Injustice in Personal and Civil Affairs

The entire fabric of the false opposite of the naturalist “left” was grown in the laboratory of Judeo-Masonry, which was described as follows by Pope Leo XIII in Humanum Genus, June 20, 1888:

If those who are admitted as members are not commanded to abjure by any form of words the Catholic doctrines, this omission, so far from being adverse to the designs of the Freemasons is more useful for their purposes. First, in this way they easily deceive the simple-minded and the heedless, and can induce a far greater number to become members. Again, as all who offer themselves are received whatever may be their form of religion, they thereby teach the great error of this age — that a regard for religion should be held as an indifferent matter, and that all religions are alike. This manner of reasoning is calculated to bring about the ruin of all forms of religion, and especially of the Catholic religion, which, as it is the only one that is true, cannot, without great injustice, be regarded as merely equal to other religions.

17. But the naturalists go much further; for, having, in the highest things, entered upon a wholly erroneous course, they are carried headlong to extremes, either by reason of the weakness of human nature, or because God inflicts upon them the just punishment of their pride. Hence it happens that they no longer consider as certain and permanent those things which are fully understood by the natural light of reason, such as certainly are — the existence of God, the immaterial nature of the human soul, and its immortality. The sect of the Freemasons, by a similar course of error, is exposed to these same dangers; for, although in a general way they may profess the existence of God, they themselves are witnesses that they do not all maintain this truth with the full assent of the mind or with a firm conviction. Neither do they conceal that this question about God is the greatest source and cause of discords among them; in fact, it is certain that a considerable contention about this same subject has existed among them very lately. But, indeed, the sect allows great liberty to its votaries, so that to each side is given the right to defend its own opinion, either that there is a God, or that there is none; and those who obstinately contend that there is no God are as easily initiated as those who contend that God exists, though, like the pantheists, they have false notions concerning Him: all which is nothing else than taking away the reality, while retaining some absurd representation of the divine nature.

18. When this greatest fundamental truth has been overturned or weakened, it follows that those truths, also, which are known by the teaching of nature must begin to fall — namely, that all things were made by the free will of God the Creator; that the world is governed by Providence; that souls do not die; that to this life of men upon the earth there will succeed another and an everlasting life.

19. When these truths are done away with, which are as the principles of nature and important for knowledge and for practical use, it is easy to see what will become of both public and private morality. We say nothing of those more heavenly virtues, which no one can exercise or even acquire without a special gift and grace of God; of which necessarily no trace can be found in those who reject as unknown the redemption of mankind, the grace of God, the sacraments, and the happiness to be obtained in heaven. We speak now of the duties which have their origin in natural probity. That God is the Creator of the world and its provident Ruler; that the eternal law commands the natural order to be maintained, and forbids that it be disturbed; that the last end of men is a destiny far above human things and beyond this sojourning upon the earth: these are the sources and these the principles of all justice and morality.

If these be taken away, as the naturalists and Freemasons desire, there will immediately be no knowledge as to what constitutes justice and injustice, or upon what principle morality is founded. And, in truth, the teaching of morality which alone finds favor with the sect of Freemasons, and in which they contend that youth should be instructed, is that which they call “civil,” and “independent,” and “free,” namely, that which does not contain any religious belief. But how insufficient such teaching is, how wanting in soundness, and how easily moved by every impulse of passion, is sufficiently proved by its sad fruits, which have already begun to appear. For, wherever, by removing Christian education, this teaching has begun more completely to rule, there goodness and integrity of morals have begun quickly to perish, monstrous and shameful opinions have grown up, and the audacity of evil deeds has risen to a high degree. All this is commonly complained of and deplored; and not a few of those who by no means wish to do so are compelled by abundant evidence to give not infrequently the same testimony.

20. Moreover, human nature was stained by original sin, and is therefore more disposed to vice than to virtue. For a virtuous life it is absolutely necessary to restrain the disorderly movements of the soul, and to make the passions obedient to reason. In this conflict human things must very often be despised, and the greatest labors and hardships must be undergone, in order that reason may always hold its sway. But the naturalists and Freemasons, having no faith in those things which we have learned by the revelation of God, deny that our first parents sinned, and consequently think that free will is not at all weakened and inclined to evil.[13] On the contrary, exaggerating rather the power and the excellence of nature, and placing therein alone the principle and rule of justice, they cannot even imagine that there is any need at all of a constant struggle and a perfect steadfastness to overcome the violence and rule of our passions.

Wherefore we see that men are publicly tempted by the many allurements of pleasure; that there are journals and pamphlets with neither moderation nor shame; that stage-plays are remarkable for license; that designs for works of art are shamelessly sought in the laws of a so-called verism; that the contrivances of a soft and delicate life are most carefully devised; and that all the blandishments of pleasure are diligently sought out by which virtue may be lulled to sleep. Wickedly, also, but at the same time quite consistently, do those act who do away with the expectation of the joys of heaven, and bring down all happiness to the level of mortality, and, as it were, sink it in the earth. Of what We have said the following fact, astonishing not so much in itself as in its open expression, may serve as a confirmation. For, since generally no one is accustomed to obey crafty and clever men so submissively as those whose soul is weakened and broken down by the domination of the passions, there have been in the sect of the Freemasons some who have plainly determined and proposed that, artfully and of set purpose, the multitude should be satiated with a boundless license of vice, as, when this had been done, it would easily come under their power and authority for any acts of daring.

21. What refers to domestic life in the teaching of the naturalists is almost all contained in the following declarations: that marriage belongs to the genus of commercial contracts, which can rightly be revoked by the will of those who made them, and that the civil rulers of the State have power over the matrimonial bond; that in the education of youth nothing is to be taught in the matter of religion as of certain and fixed opinion; and each one must be left at liberty to follow, when he comes of age, whatever he may prefer. To these things the Freemasons fully assent; and not only assent, but have long endeavored to make them into a law and institution. For in many countries, and those nominally Catholic, it is enacted that no marriages shall be considered lawful except those contracted by the civil rite; in other places the law permits divorce; and in others every effort is used to make it lawful as soon as may be. Thus, the time is quickly coming when marriages will be turned into another kind of contract — that is into changeable and uncertain unions which fancy may join together, and which the same when changed may disunite.

With the greatest unanimity the sect of the Freemasons also endeavors to take to itself the education of youth. They think that they can easily mold to their opinions that soft and pliant age, and bend it whither they will; and that nothing can be more fitted than this to enable them to bring up the youth of the State after their own plan. Therefore, in the education and instruction of children they allow no share, either of teaching or of discipline, to the ministers of the Church; and in many places they have procured that the education of youth shall be exclusively in the hands of laymen, and that nothing which treats of the most important and most holy duties of men to God shall be introduced into the instructions on morals.

22. Then come their doctrines of politics, in which the naturalists lay down that all men have the same right, and are in every respect of equal and like condition; that each one is naturally free; that no one has the right to command another; that it is an act of violence to require men to obey any authority other than that which is obtained from themselves. According to this, therefore, all things belong to the free people; power is held by the command or permission of the people, so that, when the popular will changes, rulers may lawfully be deposed and the source of all rights and civil duties is either in the multitude or in the governing authority when this is constituted according to the latest doctrines. It is held also that the State should be without God; that in the various forms of religion there is no reason why one should have precedence of another; and that they are all to occupy the same place.

23. That these doctrines are equally acceptable to the Freemasons, and that they would wish to constitute States according to this example and model, is too well known to require proof. For some time past they have openly endeavored to bring this about with all their strength and resources; and in this they prepare the way for not a few bolder men who are hurrying on even to worse things, in their endeavor to obtain equality and community of all goods by the destruction of every distinction of rank and property.

24. What, therefore, sect of the Freemasons is, and what course it pursues, appears sufficiently from the summary We have briefly given. Their chief dogmas are so greatly and manifestly at variance with reason that nothing can be more perverse. To wish to destroy the religion and the Church which God Himself has established, and whose perpetuity He insures by His protection, and to bring back after a lapse of eighteen centuries the manners and customs of the pagans, is signal folly and audacious impiety. Neither is it less horrible nor more tolerable that they should repudiate the benefits which Jesus Christ so mercifully obtained, not only for individuals, but also for the family and for civil society, benefits which, even according to the judgment and testimony of enemies of Christianity, are very great. In this insane and wicked endeavor we may almost see the implacable hatred and spirit of revenge with which Satan himself is inflamed against Jesus Christ. — So also the studious endeavor of the Freemasons to destroy the chief foundations of justice and honesty, and to co-operate with those who would wish, as if they were mere animals, to do what they please, tends only to the ignominious and disgraceful ruin of the human race.

The evil, too, is increased by the dangers which threaten both domestic and civil society. As We have elsewhere shown, in marriage, according to the belief of almost every nation, there is something sacred and religious; and the law of God has determined that marriages shall not be dissolved. If they are deprived of their sacred character, and made dissoluble, trouble and confusion in the family will be the result, the wife being deprived of her dignity and the children left without protection as to their interests and well being. — To have in public matters no care for religion, and in the arrangement and administration of civil affairs to have no more regard for God than if He did not exist, is a rashness unknown to the very pagans; for in their heart and soul the notion of a divinity and the need of public religion were so firmly fixed that they would have thought it easier to have city without foundation than a city without God. Human society, indeed for which by nature we are formed, has been constituted by God the Author of nature; and from Him, as from their principle and source, flow in all their strength and permanence the countless benefits with which society abounds. As we are each of us admonished by the very voice of nature to worship God in piety and holiness, as the Giver unto us of life and of all that is good therein, so also and for the same reason, nations and States are bound to worship Him; and therefore it is clear that those who would absolve society from all religious duty act not only unjustly but also with ignorance and folly. (Pope Leo XIII, Humanum Genus, April 20, 1884.)

Every single word of the passages quoted above apply even more to our own times than they did when Pope Leo XIII wrote them one hundred forty years ago.

Yet it is that many Catholics all across and up and down the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide that exists during this time of apostasy and betrayal continue to believe that the antidote to the horrors of the false opposite of the naturalist left is to found in one or another variations of the false opposite of the naturalist right even though most everyone in both camps are united in the false belief that Special Creation of man by God, man’s fall from Original Innocence when Adam and Eve brought Original Sin into the world, the Incarnation of the Word Who was made Flesh and dwelt amongst us in the Virginal and Immaculate Womb of His Most Blessed Mother by the power of God the Holy Ghost at the Annunciation, His Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension to His Co-Equal, Co-Eternal God the Father’s right hand in glory on Ascension Thursday are matters not only of complete indifference to civil affairs but as obstacles to a false concept of civil peace.

The conciliar revolutionaries have hidden under their Judeo-Masonic influences under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, the craving, especially pronounced at this time, to reconcile the Gospel with the precepts of Judeo-Masonic naturalism’s world view as they have attempted to reconcile “Christ and Belial, the Church of God and state without God. These wicked men celebrate sin in the name of a false “mercy”, and they praise the programs of elected officials and unelected apparatchiks whose final goal is the cosmic transhumanism of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

We must view all things through the eyes of the Holy Faith.

We must view all things through the eyes of the Holy Faith at all times.

We must never allow the events of the world to agitate us as agitation is from the devil.

We must rest secure in our absolute trust in Our Lord’s Divine Providence, remembering that we are living at the exact time which He has ordained from all eternity for us to live and thus to give Him honor and glory as His consecrated slaves through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Is it not the case today that most “Catholics work, act, in a word, live as if they had neither a Creator to obey, a Saviour to love, nor a soul to save”?

Well, it cannot be that way with us.

We must think supernaturally at all times, and we must give thanks at all times that we have been given the gratuitous gift of the Catholic Faith so that we can see the world and everything in it clearly through the eyes of the true Faith. Our gratitude must express itself especially in the midst of personal trials and those tragedies in the world as we give thanks to Our Lord and Our Lady that we can rise about naturalism and as we pray for the gift of perseverance to continue doing so.

Alas, the spirit of Calvinist materialism and Judeo-Masonic religious indifferentism has triumphed in the minds and hearts of so many Catholics here in the United States of America and elsewhere throughout the world because, at least for the most part, the doctrine of the Social Reign of Christ the King was never taught here in the United States of America even prior to the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9, 1958, as most every bishop and priest believed that everything to do with the American founding was perfectly compatible with the Holy Faith. This spirit of Calvinism and Judeo-Masonry, which was at the heart of the false notions advanced by the The Sillon that were condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910, has succeeded in shaping the counterfeit church of conciliarism’s rejection of the Social Reign of Christ the King in favor of the “Reign of Man” over himself as social order does not depend upon right order in the souls of men that is to be found only when such souls are in a state of justification by means of Sanctifying Grace.

The conciliar revolutionaries support everything opposed to the sanctification and thus of the souls for whom Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood to redeem as complete the work of His fearful Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday. The conciliar revolutionaries do not believe, nor do they accept the simple Catholic truth that the entirety of social order is premised upon the right ordering of human souls in light of First and Last Things and in cooperation with the ineffable graces that Our Divine Redeemer has for won us and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces.

The counterfeit church of conciliarism has not maintained the integrity of the Holy Faith.

The counterfeit church of conciliarism has not maintained in the same sense of the revealed Word of God.

The counterfeit church of conciliarism has destroyed the true Sacraments in favor of bogus rites that have dried the wellsprings of a superabundance of Sanctifying and Actual Grace.

The counterfeit church of conciliarism has been manifestly disobedient and defiant to our true popes and true bishops and to the true general councils of Holy Mother Church.

The counterfeit church of conciliarism is completely subordinated to the service of "man" for purely earthly considerations and is founded on a "conception of a church which replaces the true one."

We must use Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary in our own day today to combat the heresies of the counterfeit church of conciliarism and to pray for the conversion of the conciliar revolutionaries, praying for our own daily conversion away sin and disordered self-love and a belief in our own "virtues" that are more imaginary than real, ever desirous of offering all to the throne of the Most Blessed Trinity through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Peter Chrysologus, pray for us.

Saint Barabara, pray for us.

Saint Sabbas, pray for us.

Appendix

Dom Prosper Gueranger's Reflections on the Feast of Saint Peter Chrysologus, December 4

The same divine Providence, which would not that the Church should be deprived of the consolation of keeping, during Advent, the feast of some of the apostles, who announced to the Gentiles the coming of the Messias, has also willed that the holy doctors, who defended the true faith against heretics, should be represented in this important season of the Catholic year.

Two of them, Saint Ambrose and Saint Peter Chrysologus, shine as two brilliant stars in the firmament of the Church during Advent. It is worthy of note, that both of them were the zealous avengers of that Son of God whom we are preparing to receive. The first was the valiant opponent of the Arians, whose impious doctrine taught that Jesus, the object of our hopes, is merely a creature and not God; the second was the adversary of Eutyches, whose sacrilegious system robs the Incarnation of the Son of God of all its glory, by asserting that, in this mystery, the human nature was absorbed by the Divinity.

It is this second doctor, the holy bishop of Ravenna, that we are to honour to-day. His pastoral eloquence gained for him a great reputation, and a great number of his sermons have been handed down to us. In almost every page we find passages of the most exquisite beauty, though we also occasionally meet with indications of the decay of literature, which began in the fifth century. The mystery of the Incarnation is a frequent subject of the saint’s sermons, and he always speaks upon it with a precision and enthusiasm, which show his learning and piety. His veneration and love towards Mary, the Mother of God, who, in that very age, had triumphed over her enemies by the decree of the Council of Ephesus, inspire him with thoughts and language which are extremely fine. Let us take a passage from the sermon on the Annunciation.

“God sends to the Virgin an angelic messenger, who, whilst he brings graces, gives her the entrusted pledge, and receives hers. Then does Gabriel return with Mary’s plighted troth. But, before ascending to heaven, there to tell the consent promised him by the Virgin, he delivers to her the gifts due to her virtues. Swiftly does this ambassador fly to the bride, that he may assert God’s claim to her as His own. Gabriel takes her not from Joseph, but he restores her to Christ, to whom she was espoused when she was first formed in the womb. Christ, therefore, did but take His own, when He thus made Mary His bride. It is not a separation that He thus produces, but a union with Himself of His own creature by becoming Incarnate in her womb.

But let us hearken to the angel’s words. Being come in, he said unto her: ‘Hail full of grace! the Lord is with thee!’ These words are not a mere salutation; they convey the heavenly gift. ‘Hail’, that is, Take, 0 Mary, the grace I bring thee; fear not; this is not the work of nature. ‘Full of grace’, that is, thou art not in grace as others are; thou art to be filled with it. ‘The Lord is with thee’! What means this, but that He is coming to thee not merely to visit thee, but to enter within thee by the new mystery of becoming thy Child! ‘Blessed art thou among women’. How fittingly does he add these words! They imply, that they who heretofore were mothers with the curse of Eve upon them, now have the blessed Mary as their joy, and honour, and type: and whereas Eve was by nature the mother of children of death, Mary is by grace the mother of children of life.’

In the following passage from another sermon, the holy doctor teaches us with what profound veneration we ought to contemplate Mary during these days when God is still residing in her womb.

“What reverence and awe are shown to that inner chamber of a king, where he sits in all the majesty of his power! Therein no man may enter that is a stranger, or unclean, or unfaithful. The usages of courts require, that when men come to pay their homage, everything must be the best, and fairest, and most loyal. Who would go to the palace-gate in rags? Who would go, that knew he was odious to the prince? So it is with the sanctuary of the divine Spouse. No one is permitted to come nigh, but he that is of God’s family, and is intimate, and has a good conscience, and has a fair name, and leads a holy life. Within the holy place itself God receives but the Virgin, and spotless virginity. Hence learn, 0 man, to examine thyself : who thou art, and what thou art, and what merits thou hast. Ask thyself, after this, if thou mayst dare to penetrate into the mystery of the birth of thy Lord, or canst be worthy to approach that living sanctuary, wherein reposes the whole majesty of thy King, and thy God.”
Let us now listen to our holy mother the Church, who thus speaks of our saint:

“Peter, surnamed, for his golden eloquence Chrysologus, was born at Forum Cornelii (Imola) in Emilia, of respectable parents. Turning his mind to religion from his childhood, he put himself under Cornelius, the bishop of that city, who was a Roman. In a short while he made such progress in learning and holiness of life, that, in due time, the bishop ordained him deacon. Not long after, it happened that the archbishop of Ravenna having died, the inhabitants of that city sent, as usual, to Rome the successor they had elected, that this election might be confirmed by the holy Pope Sixtus III. Cornelius, who was also sent in company with the deputies of Ravenna, took with him the young deacon. Meanwhile, the apostle Saint Peter, and the holy martyr Apollinaris, appeared to the Roman Pontiff in his sleep. They stood with the young levite between them, and ordered the Pontiff to create him, and none other, archbishop of Ravenna.

The Pontiff, therefore, no sooner saw Peter than he recognized him as the one chosen by God; and rejecting the one presented to him, he appointed Peter to the metropolitan Church of that city, in the year of our Lord 433. At first, the deputies from Ravenna were dissatisfied at this. decision of the Pope; but, having been told of the vision, they readily acquiesced in the divine will, and received the new archbishop with the greatest reverence.

Peter, therefore, being, though reluctant, consecrated archbishop, was conducted to Ravenna, where he was received with the greatest joy. by the emperor Valentinian, and Galla Placidia. the emperor’s mother, and the whole people. On his part, he told them that he asked of them but this, that since he had not refused this great burden for their salvation’s sake, they would make it their study to follow his counsels, and to obey the commandments of God. He then buried in the city the bodies of two saints, after having embalmed them with the most precious perfumes; Barbatian, a. priest, was one; and the other, Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, whose cowl and hair-shirt he cIaimed as his own inheritance.

He ordained Projectus and Marcellinus bishops. In the town of Classis he erected a fountain of an incredible size, and built some magnificent churches in honour of several saints, of Saint Andrew among the rest. The people had a custom of assisting at certain games, on the first day of January, which consisted of theatrical performances and dances; the saint repressed these by the severity with which he preached against them. One of his expressions deserves to be handed down: ‘He that would play with the devil, can never enjoy the company of Jesus.’ 

At the command of Pope St. Leo I., he wrote to the Council of Chalcedon against the heresy of Eutyches. He answered Eutyches himself by another epistle, which has been added to the acts of that same Council in the new editions, and has been inserted in the ecclesiastical annals.

In his sermons to the people he was so earnest, that at times his voice completely failed him, as in his sermon on the woman healed by our Lord, as mentioned in the ninth chapter of St. Matthew; on which occasion his people of Ravenna were so affected, and so moved to tears, that the whole church rang with their sobbings and prayers, and the saint afterwards thanked God that he had turned the failure of his speech into the gain of so much love.

After having governed that Church, in a most holy manner, about eighteen years, and having received a divine warning that his labours were soon to end, he withdrew to his native town. There he visited the church of St. Cassian, and presented an offering of a large golden diadem, set with most precious stones, which he placed upon the high altar: he also gave a golden cup, and a silver paten, which imparts to water poured on it the virtue of healing the bites of mad dogs, and of assuaging fevers, as frequent instances have attested. He then took leave of those who had accompanied him from Ravenna, admonishing them to spare no pains in electing for their pastor him who was the most worthy. Immediately after this he turned in humble prayer to God, that, through the intercession of his patron St. Cassian, he would mercifully receive his soul; and calmly passed out of this life, on the third of the Nones of Dccember (Dec. 3), about the year 450. His holy body was buried, amidst the tears and prayers of the whole city, near the body of the same St. Cassian: there it is venerated even at this day; though Ravenna possesses and venerates one of the arms, which was enshrined in gold and gems and placed in the basilica Ursicana.” (Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of Saint Peter Chrysologus, December 4.)

Holy pontiff, who didst open thy lips and pour out on the assembly of the faithful, in the streams of thy golden eloquence, the knowledge of Jesus, cast an eye of compassion on the Christians throughout the world, who are watching in expectation of that same God-Man, whose two Natures thou didst so courageously confess. Obtain for us grace to receive Him with the sovereign respect which is due to a God who comes down to His creatures, and with the loving confidence which is due to a Brother who comes to offer Himself in sacrifice for His most unworthy brethren. Strengthen our faith, most holy doctor! for the love we stand in need of comes from faith.

Destroy the heresies which lay waste the vineyard of our Father; and uproot that frightful pantheism, which is the form under which the heresy thou didst combat is still among us. May the numerous Churches of the East abjure that heresy of Eutyches which reigns so supreme amongst them and gives them the knowledge of the ineffable mystery of the Incarnation only to blaspheme it. Pray that the children of the Church may show to the judgements of the apostolic See that perfect obedience, to which thou didst so eloquently urge the heresiarch Eutyches, in the epistle thou didst address to him, and which will ever be precious to the world: ‘We exhort thee above all things, most honoured brother, that thou receive with obedience whatsoeyer has been written by the most blessed Pope of the city of Rome: for, blessed Peter, who lives and presides in his own See, shows the truth of faith to all them that seek it.’ (Letter 25) (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of Saint Peter Chrysologus, December 4.)