It was an astonishly ill-advised deal in the first place.

The Vatican should immediately drop its deal with China following renewed revelations of forced organ harvesting, rape and torture by the communist regime, according to a letter signed by clergy, human rights campaigners and other leading Catholics.

The letter in this week’s Catholic Herald cites a report by the China Tribunal chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, a former prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. The Tribunal found that the Chinese government is conducting a state-run programme of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience and detailed acts of torture.

Such as:

According to the letter, these include: “Killing prisoners by the removal of organs, lethal injection and ‘organ harvesting under the pretext of brain death’; Widespread accounts of rape and torture, including harrowingly graphic stories of sexual violence and prisoners being ‘shocked’ with electric rods, with one woman ‘shocked until [she went] blind’; The use of the so-called ‘tiger chair’, a torture device, on Uighur prisoners.”

Objectors named names:

The letter says Vatican officials have “shamed their office” by backing the Holy See-China deal in face of the mounting evidence of atrocities. In particular, it names Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, the head of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, who asserted that the Chinese government had “accomplished the reform of the organ donation system” and even claimed that “those who are best implementing the social doctrine of the Church are the Chinese.”

What a fool.

As for the Vatican agreement:

The letter’s authors also note that the text of the 2018 deal has been kept so secret that not even Cardinal Zen [Hong Kong emeritus, a bitter critic of the deal] has seen a copy. “That in itself is a scandal,” they write.

The authors include human rights campaigner Benedict Rogers, founder and chairman of Hong Kong Watch, Professor Philip Booth of St Mary’s University, Twickenham, and Dr Joseph Shaw, chairman of the Latin Mass Society.

What were they thinking at RC headquarters? What was the reigning pontiff thinking?

via Catholic Herald

The other side of the body-soul divide.

”For the members of the Church, attending the Holy Eucharist … certainly cannot be a cause of disease transmission,” the Holy Synod declared in its statement.

”Faithful of all ages know that coming to receive Holy Communion, even in the midst of a pandemic, is both a practical affirmation of self-surrender to the Living God, and an apparent manifestation of love,” the Greek Orthodox Church averred. The statement will undoubtedly spark another public controversy on the subject.

Take all other appropriate measures, they say, but leave Communion alone.

It’s a statement of the supremacy of  the soul, the supernatural, the divine, of faith itself.

via GreekReporter.com

It’s what they do.

Shaking hands with the devil has its downside.

Housing commissioner looks back with regret:

“In our view, it’s long overdue,” Marisa Novara said of the ordinance. “Coach houses never should have been banned in 1957. This is a pretty archaic way of thinking about how we create units for people with a range of incomes across the city.”

She emphasized the ordinance enables ADUs [Additional Dwelling Units] but doesn’t force them on blocks where they aren’t wanted. “Where this makes sense for people, they can make use of it, and where it doesn’t, they won’t. But at least we are allowing that option,” she said.

With that welcome pro-choice option in a zoning decision.

via Affordable housing: Coach houses, ‘granny flats’ part of Mayor Lightfoot’s housing solution – Chicago Sun-Times

He should use the powers given to his office by the constitution. And will if necessary because he has gumption!

via Trump “strongly considering” a “Full Pardon” of Michael Flynn