Covidiots Are Missing More Than Just Brain Cells

Electron micrograph of a single SARS-CoV-2 particle with its spike proteins (blue) clearly visible. The inset is a 3D model of the spike protein — the portion of the COVID-19 virus that currently available mRNA vaccines recognize. A recent Johns Hopkins Medicine study suggests that T lymphocytes — immune system cells that target the spike protein and direct antibodies against the COVID-19 virus — persist six months after vaccination and help protect against the delta variant of the virus.

Credit:
Graphic: M.E. Newman, Johns Hopkins Medicine, using public domain images.
Micrograph: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
SARS-CoV-2 spike protein 3D model: National Institutes of Health

Study Shows Immune Cells Against Covid-19 Stay High in Number Six Months After Vaccination

A Recent study by scientists at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, published recently by Oxford University Press in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, shows just what the covidiots who are refusing to get vaccinated against the SARS-CoV-2 virus are missing in addition to the ability to make rational decisions and think for themselves. The study shows how people vaccinated with either of the mRNA vaccines still have high levels of t-lymphocytes circulating in their blood 6 months after immunisation and that these levels have only declined slightly from the initial levels.

In other words, people who have been vaccinated with the mRNA vaccines have specialised, pre-programmed cells active and ready to fight the virus by destroying infected cells and preventing them producing more virus particles in addition to the antibodies that identify and attack virus particles that get into the body.

Trumpanzee Talibangelical 'Prophets' are Becoming Even More Confused

Talibangelical false prophets.
Left: Nathan French of Nathan French Ministries
Right: Robin Bullock of Youth Force Ministries Church International Inc.

'Donald Trump, Call Me': Robin Bullock Says Trump Must Listen to the Prophets, Not His Political Advisers | Right Wing Watch

'Prophet' Nathan French Says God Must Restore Trump to Office to Silence Those 'Trying to Discredit the Prophetic Community' | Right Wing Watch

Judging by two recent items in Right Wing Watch, American Talibangelical, Trumpanzee 'Prophets of God' are becoming increasingly confused by their long litany of abject failures about what exactly God it trying to tell them. Firstly, to a man (or woman) they prophesied that their idol, Donald Trump, would win last November by a landslide, claiming God himself had assured them he would arrange it.

Then, when that prophesy proved false they searched around for ever-more creative and unlikely ways to explain their failure as a success, claiming the landslide would all be revealed once Trump had been returned to the Oval Office - which God had assured them was imminent - with an ever-shifting deadline - Before inauguration day, before February, by April, er… June… or July… At least one announced that God had told him Trump had secretly declared a state of emergency and declared martial law, so a military government, answerable to Trump, was now running the USA. They would soon be releasing the evidence of electoral fraud and arresting Biden and his fellow 'conspirators', including Hilary Clinton and Barak Obama! None of that was true either.

God's promise of electoral victory had turned instead into God's promise of a military coup to overturn the result that God had proved powerless to deliver, if we are to believe God's (false) prophets.

But with the anniversary of Biden's victory come and gone, and not a single successful attempt to prove electoral fraud in court, no attempt to find any evidence being successful, and no sign of the prophesied military coup or the arrest of leading Democrats, they have some explaining still to do.

One of the leading loons, Nathan French of Nathan French Ministries, is beginning to realise that his continuing failures is damaging him and his fellow frauds and threatening their tax-free income streams. He has even started demanding that Trump be reinstated to save their reputations because people are understandably losing faith in prophets who continue to prove themselves to be frauds.

Appearing on the ElijahStreams You Tube channel, he told host Steve Schultz:

If somebody gives a word that, ‘Hey, on this date, this person is going to be in office,’ and it doesn’t come to pass, then it was a false word. It wasn’t true. But if they give that word and the date that they gave hasn’t yet come to pass, you can’t call him a liar or [say] that they were wrong because the time hasn’t happened yet. If somebody doesn’t give a date and God gives a word and speaks through the voice of his prophets—which he’s doing on the Earth right now because there’s still prophets today. … There’s a whole bunch of people on the planet that don’t believe that there are still prophets on the Earth. And so they scripturally are trying to resolve that, and they’re teaching people that prophets no longer exist.

At least he got that part right. False prophets are of course, people like Nathan French who make prophesies that don't come true. The clue is in the name 'false prophet'. Had Nathan French not been a false prophet, Trump would have been restored to the White House last April.

Robin Bullock, on the other hand, is still prophesying a reversal of last November's result. The problem is that Trump is listening to his political advisers and not to Robin Bullock. He told the extreme conservative program, Flyover Conservatives:

[God said, Trump was] anointed from the day you were born to be president.

Get in touch with me, and I can tell you some of these things. Donald Trump, call me. Call me. … Listen to the prophets. Don’t let them tell you to not listen to the prophets. … I heard these people talking, and they told the president—I’m talking about President Trump. The president. I’m not talking about the jackal who barks over the desk of the Oval Office. I’m talking about the president—I was listening to this conversation and they said, ‘Don’t listen to the prophets.'

But the Lord said, ‘Don’t listen to your advisers about that because they have their own agenda in mind, and it does not include you. Operate in the power of God, and let him pave your way. [Take] one step toward your position, and God will open the way all the way back. After I gave a word similar to that, a very important person called me and said, ‘You have no idea how right you are.’ He said, ‘I know one of his close advisers, and they told him, “Don’t run in 2024. Don’t run again. You’ll mess it up for all of us.”‘ I heard the conversation. I heard them talking. And I’m going to tell the president something: Donald John Trump, you were anointed from the day you were born to be president, and you were brought on the scene for such a time as this.

From that forlorn please, it looks like even Bullock has now accepted that Biden is there until at least November 2024 and that his 'prophesy' of Trump's restoration will only come true if he stands and wins in a rerun against Biden. No coup, no revealed evidence of electoral fraud, no heavenly intervention to reverse a democratic vote… nothing. Just the normal operation of the democratic process he so despises when it doesn't produce the result he feels entitled to.

Just imagine if these frauds ever gained the political power they came close to obtaining under Trump's corrupt and incompetent leadership!

Power at Any Price - The Lengths Christian Extremists Will Go To To Grab Power

Michael P Farris, Conservative Christian President and CEO of Trump-supporting Alliance Defending Freedom

How Michael P. Farris Tried to Block 2020 Election Outcome - The New York Times.

As students of Early 20th Century European history will be aware, the Christian churches were often amongst the most enthusiastic supporters of the extreme right-wing parties that overthrew democracy and installed odious, racist, misogynist and criminal fascist government in countries such as Portugal, Spain, Italy, Hungary and Germany. Not surprisingly then, they are amongst the most enthusiastic supporters of attempts by the extreme right-wing in the USA to overthrow democracy, reverse the stunning victory of the Democrats and reinstall the odious racist, misogynist and criminal Donald J. Trump in the Oval Office.

One such would-be autocratic theocrat, is lawyer, Michael P. Farris, President and CEO of Christian extremist organization, Alliance Defending Freedom [sic].

Catholic Child Abuse News - Correction: Not 10,000 Victims of French Catholic Priests! It was 216,000 - 330,000!

Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, Archbisop of Reims. Head of the Conference of French Bishops.
Told there were 216,000 French victims of 3000 paedophile Catholic priest since 1950.

Estimated 216,000 children abused by French Catholic priests, report finds | France | The Guardian

A couple of days ago I reported on the leaked report of the French independent commission of enquiry into child abuse by Catholic priest in France since 1950. The reports spoke of 10,000 victims of 3000 priests and other Catholic clerics.

The 10,000 figure was wrong and grossly underestimated the true number. In the report delivered to the Archbishop of Reims, Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, in his position as head of the French Conference of Bishops, which commissioned the report, the true number of abuse victims was estimated to be about 216,000 and possibly as high as 330,000!

Catholic Child Abuse News - Enquiry Confirms - 3000 Paedophiles in the French Catholic Priesthood and 10,000 Victims!

Jean-Marc Sauvé, head of the independent commission

Photograph: Quentin TOP/SIPA/Rex/Shutterstockx

'3000 paedophiles' held positions in French Catholic Church since 1950s — leaked report | Euronews

Another major scandal is about to rock the Catholic Church with the report due out tomorrow into child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in France.

The report, leaked ahead of publication, will confirm that about 3000 priests and other Catholic clerics, sexually abused some 10,000 children between 1950 and 2018 when the independent commission of enquiry was established. The report runs to about 2,500 pages.

Christian Hate News - Loony Talibangelical Extremist Greg Locke on the War-Path.

Pastor Greg Locke, Global Vision Bible Church, Tennessee.
"This means war!"

Hate-Preacher Tells Right-Wing Crowd They’re Being Persecuted: “This Means War!” | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Readers of this blog will be very familiar with false prophet, rabid homophobe and preacher of hate with a persecution complex, Greg Locke, who recently announced he was building the violent Church that Jesus wanted. An announcement that promptly got him banned from Twitter and resulted in several of his more offensive YouTube videos being taken down.

According to Locke, only gay people would do nothing while the evil, Satanic Democrats closed churches to stop them spreading the coronavirus, and Jesus wasn't gay so he would have defended his First Amendments rights with his Second Amendment rights.

It goes without saying that the US Constitution applied in 1st Century Palestine and Jesus jealously guarded his right to use guns to keep his churches open by posting armed thugs at the door to stop the authorities "trying something"!

I'm not a psychiatrist, but Locke's behaviour since he was shown to be a false prophet by falsely prophesying that Trump would win last November by a landslide because God had told him personally, he would arrange it, is becoming so bizarre and extreme that if his behaviour doesn't meet the definition of insanity, then insanity needs to be redefined.

Creationism's Favourite Felon is Back Behind Bars.

Mr Kent Hovind. Back in prison, this time for assaulting his ex-girlfriend.

Creationist Kent Hovind Sentenced to 30 Days in Jail for Domestic Violence | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Creationism's favourite criminal, Mr Kent Hovind, is back in prison. Let's try to help him be a better person.

To anyone familiar with Hovind's distain for the law of the land, believing he makes his own laws because he has a close personal relationship with God, this will come as no surprise, since Hovind pushes a relentlessly literal interpretation of the Bible and the Bible positively commands behaviour which might have been acceptable in a brutal, Late Bronze/Early Iron Age tribal society but which is, following the European Enlightenment and the incorporation of Humanism into Christianity, now regarded as criminal in most civilised societies.

Covidiot News - Loony Talibangelical Nut Job "Destroys" COVID-19 - Again!

Kenneth Copeland, destroyed COVID, again!

Kenneth Copeland, Who Said COVID Was “Destroyed” a Year Ago, Is Saying It Again | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

The ridiculous grifter, Kenneth Copeland, darling of the Talibangelical extreme right, has demonstrated the credulity of his followers yet again, by claiming to have totally destroyed the coronavirus for at least the third time. The virus doesn't seem to have noticed this time either.

Readers may remember how, to the whoops and cheers of the fools in his audience, he 'destroyed' it in March 2020, in the early days of the pandemic, just by blowing 'the wind of God' on it, spitting at it and pronouncing it gone for ever.

You Don't Have to be Insane to Support Donald Trump, But it Helps!

Right Wing Bonus Tracks: A Mass Death Scale Injection | Right Wing Watch

Three stark staring bonkers Trumpanzee fruitloops show just how far round the twist you need to be to think Donald Trump was a good president who actually won a second term. Needless to say, these same bonkers fruitloops are also Talibangelical Christians.

First we have Shane Vaughn, co-founder of First Harvest Ministries in Waveland, Mississippi and convicted criminal who has been making increasingly bizarre 'prophesies' ever since he predicted that Donald Trump would never be impeached (he was impeached a record two time), that he would win a second term (he lost) and that he would serve

12 years as POTUS. After his false prophesy of a second term he declared that the prophesy was actually right because Trump was now 'inside their heads in the White House'.

Vaughn is now insisting that Trump will soon return to the White House to "destroy the work that Satan has done through Joe Biden and Kamala Harris".

Not to be out done, Talibangelical covidiot antivaxxer and former TV show host with links to QAnon but with no medical or scientific credentials, Lauren Witzke, has declared that the anti-Covid-19 injections are a "mass death scale injection" (whatever that means) and a "precursor to the Mark of the Beast" [sic].

Trumpanzee Lunatic News - Pastor Greg Locke "Building a Violent Church" for Jesus

Pastor Greg Locke
Building a violent church for Jesus

'Apostle' Michael Petro Says God Is Raising Up a 'Violent Church' Because Democrats Don't Tolerate Christianity | Right Wing Watch

Extremist Trumpanzee loon and self-style Prophet of God (PoG), Greg Lock, has never gotten over committing the cardinal sin for PoGs - prophesying a specific event on a specific date and so running the risk of being proved wrong and a false prophet. Lock, of course, is famous for prophesying a Trump win by a landslide last November, claiming God had revealed this to him and promised he would ensure it happened. Trump lost!

Now, as Locke dives deeper down the specially-constructed QAnon conspiracy rabbit hole, desperately trying to prove he isn't a false prophet because Trump won really (it's just that God was powerless to stop the massive, Satanic conspiracy to steal the election, apparently), he is becoming more and more extreme and revealing a tendency towards violence that many Christians find shocking for a supposed man of god and professed follower of Jesus. With every passing deadline by which the military were prophesied to have overthrown the Biden presidency, revealed the scale of the 'election fraud', named the 'child-trafficking paedophiles' responsible, executed the perpetrators, including the entire leadership of the Democratic Party, and reinstated Donald Trump in the White House (the last deadline being the end of August), Lock becomes ever more insane and increasingly violent.

Catholic Abuse News - Ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick in Court.

Former Cardinal McCarrick
Facing criminal charges for child sexual abuses in 1974

Defrocked prelate Theodore McCarrick arraigned for child sex abuse charges

Former Cardinal McCarrick, the most senior Catholic cleric in the USA and the most senior to be defrocked for child abuse to date, finally appeared in court in Dedham, Massachusetts, last Friday, charged with sexually abusing a 16-year-old boy in 1974. McCarrick, now aged 91 is charged with repeatedly sexually abusing the child of a family friend, including during the sacrament of confession at a wedding in Wellesley College. The alleged victim also claims that McCarrick abused him on family trips and at various hotels in the state.

He pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges and was ordered to stay away from the alleged victim and away from anyone under the age of 18. He has also been accused of similar offences in New York and New Jersey, where the statutes of limitation mean he cannot face prosecution for those offences in those states. These offences were investigated by the Vatican in addition to claims that he had sexually harassed and performed homosexual acts with adult seminarians under his authority. A two-year investigation by the Vatican also revealed that Pope John-Paul II had been aware of the allegations concerning his sexual relations with seminarians and allegations of paedophile abuse, when he appointed McCarrick to the post of Archbishop of Washington and made him a cardinal.

Given that Pope John-Paul II knew of these allegations, it is almost inconceivable that his then right-hand man and enforcer, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, effectively acting Pope in John-Paul II's prolonged dotage, later to become Pope Benedict XVI, knew nothing of them. This revelation then deepens the mystery surrounding why McCarrick was allowed to continue for so long in his post before anyone moved to stop him.

Here is how I covered it at the time:

The report bends over backwards to try to leave Pope Francis looking whiter than white but still leaves a number of questions unanswered. Particularly how much he was told about McCarrick by Pope Benedict XVI following his sudden abdication, and if nothing, why not? According to Archbishop Viganò, Pope Francis was fully aware not only of the allegations against McCarrick, but also that his activities had been 'restricted' by Benedict XVI, but Pope Francis removed these restrictions anyway and was thus complicit in his further predatory behaviour.

During John-Paul II's reign, his 'enforcer' was none other than Cardinal Ratzinger, later to become Pope Benedict XVI. It was widely reported when the sexual abuse scandals began to emerge that Ratzinger, acting on John-Paul II's orders, has instructed senior figure in the church to supress allegations of sexual abuse in order to protect the Church's reputation. It was assumed that Benedict XVI's hasty elevation of the dead John-Paul II to the sainthood, was intended to quell these rumours, on the assumption that this was not what a future saint would do. Therefore he could not have ordered Ratzinger to pervert the course of justice, deny redress and compensation to the victims of abuse, and to facilitate the paedophile activities of the Catholic priesthood by being instrumental in covering it up and keeping it from the child-protection agencies.

Pope Francis denies this (in effect, calling Viganò a liar), which begs the question, why did Benedict XVI not tell him? Or did he? By claiming he knew nothing, Pope Francis is shifting the blame onto Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

The executive summary reveals a litany of bumbling incompetence, an over-eager willingness by both John-Paul II and Benedict XVI to believe people who were close to them, and a credulous receptiveness to lies and false assurances that was naive in the extreme. Neither man appeared to be capable of believing a senior Catholic cleric could behave in such a way and then lie about it when challenged. McCarrick's 'oath as a bishop' was regarded as sufficient evidence of his veracity, when he lied about his sexual predation.

The executive summary of that Vatican reports, in the embedded PDF, bears further reading, revealing as it does, scapegoating and a laisses-faire attitude to child abuse and other inappropriate behaviour by senior clerics by Pope John-Paul II and his close advisers.

Meanwhile, Pope Francis, who has shed crocodile tears over the abuse allegations and even blamed Satan, not for the abuses but for encouraging people to speak out against them, is still under a strict code of Omertà regarding the truth of Viganò's allegation that his predecessor, Benedict XVI, placed McCarrick on restricted duties but that Francis rescinded those restrictions, and Francis' claim that McCarrick was never restricted in the first place and he knew mothing of the allegations. Either Francis is lying, or Benedict XVI knew about McCarrick and did nothing he deemed worthy of informing Francis about on his sudden resignation. Either way, McCarrick's predation continued unchecked and it was only when the scandal became public that Francis decided to act, throwing his hands up in horror when the full scale of McCarrick's predatory behaviour and arrogant betrayal of his clerical vows became public knowledge.

Kim Davis, Christian extremist
Ambush meeting with Pope Francis arranged by Cardinal Viganò.

Mind you, it should be said that Viganò bears a grudge. As Papal Legate to Washington, he was in charge of Pope Francis' 2015 official visit, which had been something of a PR coup, until Viganò arrange an ambush meeting between the odious Kim Davis, and Pope Francis. Davis was a Christian extreme fundamentalist and serial adulterer, with multiple extra-marital pregnancies, then disobeying a court order to register same-sex marriage in her job as a registrar. Viganò then issued a press statement announcing triumphantly that Pope Francis had given Davis encouragement in her resistance to authority (and to the rule of law) in the name of Jesus and the sanctity of heterosexual-only marriage.

For a visiting head of state to be seen to encourage law-breaking in his host state and take sides with someone disobeying a court order, turned the triumph into a diplomatic disaster, all so Viganò could sequester the visit and turn it into a victory for right-wing Christian conservatism. He was promptly transferred back to the Vatican, and stripped of his diplomat status, and Francis was left looking like a patsy, casting round for a scapegoat and claiming he knew nothing of Davis' criminal behaviour in the name of Jesus and would not have met her if he had - although, of course, his church still agreed with her about same-sex marriage being a sin.

Maybe the truth about what Pope Francis knew of his predatory behavior will emerge during the coming court case, if McCarrick's lawyers don't manage to get it halted on the grounds that McCarrick is now too old and frail to stand trial, and anyway it was all a long time ago and McCarrick is very sorry. In which case, all the old predator will have suffered is a loss of status and his pension. None of his victims will have received justice.

Christian False Prophet, Kat Kerr, Makes a Fool of Herself (and Her Followers) Again

Kat Kerr
Talibangelical Christian False Prophetess

Christian “Prophetess” Tries (and Fails) to Take “Authority” Over Hurricane Ida | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

As frauds go, they don't get more fraudulent than Christian Talibangelist, false prophetess, Kat Kerr.

Kerr earns her living telling her credulous followers implausible tales about her supposed multiple visits to Heaven to chat with her personal friends Jesus and his dad. She also claims to have the power to command vast armies of angels to guarantee the security of, for example, her beloved former president, Donald Trump's rallies, and to ensure he wins the presidential election in which he was booted out of office by the American electorate.

She also claims to be able to control the weather and take control of hurricanes and tropical storms; claims which her simpleton followers appear to believe despite her appalling record in that respect. Mind you, those who can believe a hurricane is sentient and has the ability to obey the words and magic spells of Kerr and her ilk can probably be persuaded to believe that which is manifestly untrue.

Covidiot News - No Time to Gloat, But We DID Say This Would Happen

Two Covidiots
Left: Jimmy DeYoung Sr. Antivaxxer. Died last Sunday
Right: Cardinal Burke. Antivaxxer. On a ventilator

Christian Radio Host Who Discouraged Getting the Vaccine Dies of COVID | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

It's difficult to feel sorry for people like antivaxxer, evangelical Christian radio host and covidiot, Dr Jimmy DeYoung Sr, who devoted his last year of life to spreading disinformation to discourage his followers from getting the anti-COVID vaccine and who has now died of COVID-19, and Catholic Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, the homophobic right-winger who downplayed the coronavirus and similarly rubbished and lied about the vaccine, who is now fighting for his life on a ventilator, suffering from... you've guessed it!.. COVID-19.

Christian Loopy Liar News - Spreading False Information for Jesus

Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel
Lies include claim that the vaccine is designed to prevent people from procreating!

Mat Staver Claims COVID-19 Vaccines Are Designed to 'Prevent People From Procreating' | Right Wing Watch

Two well-known Talibangelist Christian nut-jobs who have been doing their best to encourage the self-genocide of Trumpanzee evangelical Christians and GOP voters, through false witnessing about COVID-19, were in the news last week.

First off is the habitual liar, Mat Staver, of Liberty Counsel, an extremist conservative Christian, homophobic hate group, who, despite having no medical or other science qualifications and who manifestly knows nothing about how vaccines work, has been feeding his equally ignorant supporters with blatantly made-up disinformation about them. Back in 2019, Staver's Liberty Counsel was campaigning against lynching being made a federal offence because it extended that protection to LGBTQ people. Apparently, this would contravene the civil liberty of extremist Christians to lynch LGBTQ people whenever they felt like doing so.

Now, sounding more like a sex-obsessed paranoid psychotic, he told viewers of his "World Prayer Network" on Facebook, that the vaccines are part of Bill Gates' plan to reduce the world population by up to a billion people. He claimed, without offering the slightest evidence or saying where he got the information from, that this is being achieved by making people sterile and/or sexually dysfunctional. He said:

Creationist Fraud News - Mr. Kent Hovind Arrested on Domestic Violence Charge

Convicted tax fraud and Young Earth Creationist, Mr. Kent Hovind. Arrested on domestic violence charges.

Alabama evangelist Kent Hovind arrested on domestic violence charge - al.com

The Young Earth Creationist fraud and Christian televangelist, Kent Hovind, or to give him his correct academic title, Mr. Kent Hovind, has been arrested on domestic violence charges, brought by his wife, Cindi Lincoln, who alleges that he 'body-slammed her' causing injuries for which she needed to go to an emergency room. The alleged assault took place in late 2020. She is now seeking a protection order against him to prevent him repeating the attacks.

She also alleges that he sent his 'right hand man' to her apartment to threaten her and had her apartment trashed the next day. She now says she fears he may try to kill her to shut her up because his following depends on his public persona, not on his private behaviour.

Hovind, who styles himself 'Dr Dino', is the owner of a Creationist scam park, Dinosaur Adventure Land, in Conecuh, Alabama, which he opened soon after being released from an nine-year jail term for tax fraud. He makes a living by fooling scientifically illiterate simpletons by pretending to have a legitimate academic doctorate and to have been a high-school science teacher. This works on his target marks who believe anyone called 'doctor' must be an expert scientist.

Religion News - Ignorance and Indifference to Child Abuses in American Catholics

Former Cardinal McCarrick
Facing criminal charges for the sexual abuse of minors

National Survey of Adult Catholics | America Magazine (pdf)

As the news broke that former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, has been formally charged with sexual offences against minors, a survey revealed that 62% of American Catholics (52% of men and 69% of women) said they had never heard of him.

Given his former high profile as the senior Catholic cleric in America and the high-profile nature of both his crimes and his public laicisation, this shows an astonishing degree of indifference to the scandal of clerical sexual abuse that has engulfed the Catholic Church in recent decades. It suggests that many American Catholics are Catholic in name only, and have no particular affiliation to the Church or identification with what priests, Catholic school teachers, etc, have been doing under its protective and facilitative cover for decades now.

False Witnessing News - Another Christian Lying to Us.

Pastor Nik Walker, Nik Walker Ministries
Liar for Jesus, Plagiarist.

This Preacher Claims to Have Proof That Miracles Are Real. We Know He’s Lying. | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Fake miracles are the common currency of several Christian sects; used to fool the gullible into thinking there is a magic man in the sky who can suspend the natural laws at will and who sometimes grants this power to his preachers.

Here, for example is one such fraud, Pastor Nik Walker of Nik Walker Ministries, claiming to have healed a man's 'withered and useless' hand by simply baptising him. He even produces the 'evidence' in the form of x-rays, with a convincing (to anyone who doesn't know how hospitals work) backstory about how the x-rays were obtained.

Get a load of this. The ending is wild.

On his show yesterday, Pastor Perry Stone invited a guest who could PROVE miracles were real (with documentation!)...

Watch the clip. Pay attention to the last 30 seconds.

1/5 pic.twitter.com/z9fcCKDIJ1

— Hemant Mehta (@hemantmehta) July 27, 2021

What we aren't shown however, is the before x-rays, so we have nothing to compare them to. We also don't have the name of the hospital, nor the doctor, so there is no danger of the story being checked out. We just have Pastor Stone's word for it. A word which, as we shall see, is not worth the paper it's written on. In fact, it's a blatant lie.

Also, what we aren't told is that these x-rays are not of the hand of an adult man (as any decent radiographer would have noticed) taken in an American hospital, they are in fact of the hands of four different (Chinese) children, ranging from that of a 7-year-old boy to that of an 11-year-old girl, all suffering from a condition known as Kashin-Beck Disease (KBD). They were collected from various centres in China where the disease is endemic, as part of an effort by Chinese scientists working at the Institute for Kaschin-Beck Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, China, in order to get a better understanding of the disease. They have been plagiarised from a 2018, open access paper in the Nature journal, Scientific Reports in which these scientists published their findings.

In other words, the whole story is a blatant lie, concocted to deceive. There never was a man whose 'withered and useless' hand was miraculously cured by God when he was baptised. Nor was there a doctor in a hospital who was amazed at the change when he x-rayed the man's hand.

(A) Is a radiological image of the right hand with KBD-positive X-ray signs in an 8-year-old boy: some metaphyseal hardening signs, waviness or serration changes and small depressions (red arrows) are found in the zones of provisional metaphyseal calcification in the fingers (including index finger, middle finger and ring finger). (B) Is a radiological image of the right hand of a 7-year-old healthy boy: all metaphyses, epiphyses and diaphyses were glabrate, uniform, sinuous and non-destructive. The carpals were not completely formed. (C) Is a radiological image of the right hand of an 11-year-old girl with CRME in the equal-diameter period: the diameter of metaphysis and epiphysis are almost equal. Although it belongs to the normal development periods before complete closure of metaphysis-epiphysis (CCME), its imaging signs are similar to KBD-positive X-ray signs. Index finger, middle finger, ring finger and little finger show metaphyses serrated, wavy (green arrows). (D) Is a radiological image of the right hand of a 10-year-old girl with CRME in the ultra-diameter period: The diameter of epiphysis is longer than that of metaphysis. It occurs after the equal-diameter period normally and the features are similar to KBD-positive X-ray signs. Some metaphyseal waviness, serration and irregularly depressions are found in many fingers (white arrows).

Reference:
Song, Quan-Quan; Liu, Hui; Lian, Wei; Wang, Yue; Sun, Li-Yan; Gao, Mei; Liu, Yun-Qi; Deng, Hong-Xia; Deng, Qing; Liu, Ning; Yu, Jun
The characteristics of positive and confusing hand X-ray signs in diagnosing Kashin–Beck Disease in children in China
Scientific Reports 8, 3277 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-21675-5

Walker has chosen to be interviewed by a credulous dupe known for the readiness with which he accepts any old tosh told to him so long as it confirms his bias, or better still, confirms the bias of the credulous audience who donate money to have their biases confirmed in this way. Because he holds the same contempt for his target marks as a con-artist has for his, this is exactly the way Pastor Perry Stone of Perry Stone Ministries expects his target dupes to behave. You can almost hear him laughing all the way to the bank.

In 2020 it was announced that Stone had agreed to 'step aside' from his 'ministry' for an indefinite period because of his 'inappropriate actions' with female employees, although he wasn't required to 'step away' from his lucrative social media activities, such as interviewing blatant frauds like Nik Walker and helping him fleece his target marks.

Last April Stone, apparently unaware, in common with other parochial American fundamentalists, that there is a world outside the USA that is also suffering from the same pandemic (the clue in in the word 'pandemic'), revealed his theocratic ambitions and contempt for the US Constitution, when he announced that the God had told him the coronavirus was sent as 'a moment of reckoning' [for America]:

Because we have by law forced God out of our country and basically told him, ‘In public places, you’re not welcome.’ You’re not welcomed in our schools, so our schools are now shut down. No prayer in public school, no Bible reading in public school. Now, are you with me? They’re telling kids to stay home for who knows how long, so our schools are shut down.

He also told his dupes, gullible audience:

I know what I heard, I did not make that up. I audibly heard the phrase, a male voice speaking, and I believe it was the Holy Spirit.

And his guest, Nick Walker, did not make that up just like he didn't make up the miraculously cured 'withered and useless' hand, no doubt. Between 1999 and 2012 (the last time accounts were filed) Perry Stone Ministries had an income of $17 million.

Yet another sanctimonious evangelical con-artist who feels his piety allows him to self-license a few exemptions from the morals he expects others to live by.

When you show the world you know you need to lie for your faith, you show the world you know your faith is a lie that needs people to believe falsehoods.

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Catholic Abuse News - The Scandal Rumbles On...

Bishop Peter Libasci, centre, arrives at the Cathedral of St. Joseph for his Installation service as the Tenth Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, USA (2011). A lawsuit is accusing him of sexually abusing an unidentified, then 12- or 13-year-old youth, on numerous occasions in 1983 and 1984.

Photo: AP/Jim Cole

New Hampshire bishop accused of abusing teenage boy.

The latest senior Catholic to face allegations of the sexual abuse of a minor is Peter Libasci, bishop of the New Hampshire Catholic Diocese of Manchester.

A Lawsuit filed in Supreme Court in Suffolk County, New York alleges that he sexually abused a male youth aged 12 or 13 on numerous occasions while serving as a pastor in the Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius and the Saints Cyril and Methodius School in Deer Park, New York, in 1983 and 1984. The youth was a student at the school at the time. The church and school are run by the Diocese of Rockville Center.

We worry that allowing the Bishop to remain in ministry may further endanger young lives in New Hampshire. We hope that the Bishop’s Metropolitan or the Vatican intervene to correct this troubling situation immediately.

Statement by Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP)

The lawsuit also names the church and the school as well as the Sisters of St Joseph, which is responsible for organizing activities at the school. Rockville centre is one of a number of New York Catholic dices that have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection because of the large number of abuse allegations which have emerged since New York abolished the statute of limitations, allowing formerly time-lapsed allegations to come to court. This is but one of the more than 200 allegations of sexual abuse that have been filed against this one Catholic diocese since then.

Catholic Abuse News - Compensation for Victims of Paedophile Priests Bankrupts Yet Another Diocese

Bishop Michael R Cote
“grievously sorry.”

Connecticut diocese files for bankruptcy amid abuse claims

In common with many other American Catholic diocese, the diocese of Norwich, Connecticut has declared itself bankrupt and applied for Chapter 11 protection. This is often a devise to protect church funds from claimants and ensure victims are denied the compensation they are entitled to while the diocese hangs on to the funds it needs to pay its expenses such as the wages and pensions of those who oversaw the abuses.

This action was precipitated by dozens of lawsuits of victims of the regime that ran the now closed Academy at Mount Saint John School, a residential treatment centre for 'troubled youth' in Deep River. They are also suing the former Bishop of Norwich, Daniel Reilly.

According to this report in Religion News Service:

Another Stink Rising from the Vatican Cesspit

Former Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, now under indictment in the Vatican for bribery, abuse of office and embezzlement.

Vatican indicts cardinal and nine others connected to financial scandal.

The murky world of Vatican finances is to be brought under the spotlight again towards the end of July when a Vatican tribunal begins hearing charges brought against former cardinal and powerful chief of staff of the Vatican secretariat of state, Giovanni Angelo Becciu and nine other business associates and Vatican officials are facing corruption charges in connection with a $225 million property deal in London in 2014.

The corruption charges relate to the use of the Vatican slush fund known as "Peter's Pence", which is the recipient of charitable donations throughout the Catholic world and which is supposed to be used by the Pope for charitable works. As former effective number 2 in the Vatican, Becciu had access to this largely unregulated account. I appears that he, like so many Vatican officials before him with access to large, unregulated slush funds, couldn't resist the temptation to plunge his grubby hands deep into the coffer.