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Dear OnePeterFive donors, supporters and readers, As the conclave looms over the Church and everyone is asking questions about what’s next, we at OnePeterFive want to begin preparing for Sacred Heart Month. Last year we promoted the Sacred Heart flag for June and shared photoshops of everyone’s efforts. Whoever becomes the next Pope, the Sacred Heart is still King over June and every…

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US Vice President JD Vance has revealed that he has “thought a lot about” the fact he saw the Pope only the day before the pontiff died, describing the Easter encounter “as a great blessing”.

JD Vance was among the last officials to meet with an ailing Pope Francis before he died on Easter Monday. Vance spoke about the 20 April encounter with reporters in Agra, India, while on a four-day visit with his wife, Usha, the first Hindu-American second lady, reports the Catholic News Agency (CNA).

When asked about that now seemingly providential meeting on the morning of Easter Sunday, Vance said he had “thought a lot about that”.

“I think it was a great blessing,” Vance added.

Vance met the Pope during a state visit to Italy that preceded his onward journey to India. The main purpose of the two visits was to discuss shared economic and geopolitical priorities with the leaders of both governments, according to the White House. The full trip occurred from 18 April through 24 April.

During the papal audience, Pope Francis gave the vice-president three chocolate Easter eggs for his three young children as well as a Vatican tie and rosaries.

“It’s pretty crazy actually, and obviously when I saw him I didn’t know he had less than 24 hours still on this earth,” Vance said, before adding:

“He saw a lot of people, he affected a lot of lives. I try to just remember that I was lucky I got to shake his hand and tell him that I pray for him every day because I did and I do.”

AGRA, INDIA – APRIL 23: U.S. Vice President JD Vance and his family, including wife Usha Vance, visit the Taj Mahal on April 23, 2025 in Agra, India. (Photo Kenny Holston – Pool/Getty Images)

Vance also discussed how he is refusing to politicise Pope Francis’s death.

“A lot of people, especially in the American press, want to make the Holy Father – his entire legacy and even his death – about American politics,” Vance told reporters in Agra.

“He was obviously a much broader figure than the United States of America. He represents over a billion Catholics worldwide,” Vance said.

When asked about the “disagreements” that the Pope had with President Donald Trump, both during the latter’s first presidential administration and as his second one got started, Vance said he was “aware” of them before highlighting that the Pope “also had a lot of agreements with some of the policies of our administration”.

“I’m not going to soil the man’s legacy by talking about politics,” Vance added. “I think he was a great Christian pastor, and that’s how I choose to remember the Holy Father.”

When asked about what type of pope he would prefer to be elected next, Vance said he would pray for the cardinals who will cast the votes in the upcoming conclave, CNA reports.

“I won’t pretend to give guidance to the cardinals on who they should select as the next pope,” the US vice-president said. “We’ve got plenty of issues to focus on in the United States.”

He added: “I’ll just say a prayer for wisdom because I obviously want them to pick the right person, I want them to pick somebody who will be good for the world’s Catholics, but I’ll let them make that decision and obviously they’re entitled to do so.”

Vance also offered condolences to Catholics around the world coming to terms with Pope Francis’s death.

“We’re very saddened by it,” Vance said. “Our condolences to Catholics all over the world, but especially [to those] back home who love and honour the Holy Father.”

Vance has previously spoken publicly in praise of the homily Pope Francis gave in an empty St. Peter’s Square at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, with Vance describing how meaningful it was to him at the time and that it remains meaningful to him today.

“That is how I will always remember the Holy Father, as a great pastor, as a man who can speak truth to faith in a very profound way at a moment of great crisis,” Vance said in a speech at the annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast held in the US capitol at the end of February this year.

He also commented: “I think that we should, frankly, take a page out of the books of our grandparents who respected our clergy, who looked to them for guidance, but didn’t obsess and fight over every single word that came out of their mouth and entered social media. I don’t think that’s good.”

RELATED: JD Vance acknowledges Pope’s criticism and prays for his recovery

Photo: U.S. Vice President JD Vance delivers remarks at the Rajasthan International Centre on April 22, 2025 in Jaipur, India. The Vice President’s remarks focused on the U.S. and India’s shared economic priorities. (Photo Kenny Holston – Pool/Getty Images)

The post JD Vance opens up about his papal meeting the day before Pope died first appeared on Catholic Herald.

The post JD Vance opens up about his papal meeting the day before Pope died appeared first on Catholic Herald.

A little over a year ago, I spent a week living and studying at the Vatican as a guest lecturer at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, a university-like organization of scholars that explores ideas of interest to the Vatican. Last year, the Academy addressed the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas on the 750th anniversary of his death.

This is not an esoteric subject. Aquinas taught that all rational persons are capable of discerning right from wrong and good from evil by the exercise of free will and human reason, and they do not need the government to aid them in this endeavor.

This is generally known as Natural Law. My presentation was on the concept of natural rights, a derivation of Natural Law.

The Vatican, which is a fraction of the size of Central Park in New York City, has a fine guest house on the grounds, called The Domus, which was my home for four days. It was also the permanent residence of Pope Francis.

My 24 colleagues and I were dining in the small Domus dining room on our first day there, when the Pope came in and sat two tables away from us. It was surreal.

Here is the backstory.

How do we know what we know?

Aquinas set about to answer that intriguing question. How do we know that we exist, that 2 plus 2 equals 4, that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line? These are truisms; thus, they cannot change and all rational people can discern them. They are true intrinsically, whether we believe they are or not. 

Aquinas taught that all rational adults can discover the truth by the exercise of free will. That exercise requires rational thinking. At the time he taught this, it was radical, as other scholars taught that forces outside of us drew us to discover truths.

Let’s say you like chocolate ice cream. Aquinas taught that you can rationally choose chocolate whenever you have an ice cream choice to make. Others taught that you really didn’t choose chocolate; it chose you — meaning that you can’t control your tastebuds.

This is not hairsplitting; rather it is central to Western thinking. If we don’t have free will, if we are just animals drawn to satiate our tastes, then are we responsible for our behavior? Can we take credit when we hit a home run or compose a symphony, or is all this just animal instinct acting out?

Aquinas’ views are known today as Natural Law. And the derivative of Natural Law are natural rights. Aquinas taught that the same God who made us in his own image and likeness gave us the gift of free will. We can use that free will to discover truth, practice baseball, learn music or choose our favorite ice cream. We can also use that free will to harm others, like stealing a purse or robbing a bank.

Aquinas taught that when we see a purse being stolen or a bank being robbed, we instinctually know that we are witnessing evil. How do we know this? We are hardwired by our Creator to discern good from evil.

But we cannot know this unless we have the free will to reject it. As God is perfectly free, so are we — his creatures — perfectly free.

The theory of natural rights — extrapolated from Aquinas — teaches that our rights are permanent claims against the whole world that no one, not even government, can take away. Of course, the purse snatcher and the bank robber give up their rights when they violate the rights of the purse owner and the bank depositors.

Today, we allow the government to take our property, privacy and free speech from us all the time.

Aquinas knew that government is the negation of liberty. We in the 21st century realize that we have a government that is utterly indifferent to our rights. The folks who run the federal government — no matter which political party is in power — believe they can kill any foe, steal any property, extinguish any right, declare any wrong, regulate any behavior, tax any event and insinuate themselves into any relationship so long as they can get away with it politically — all in defiance of Natural Law.

In America today, we see the destruction of Natural Law principles and the rejection of natural rights.

Now, back to the Pope.

Catholics believe that he is the Vicar of Christ on earth. But Francis may have been the worst pope in history. He watered down Church teachings on marriage, sexuality and confession. He declined to judge right from wrong. He forbade the Mass that every canonized saint in Heaven attended and participated in since 1564. He has even claimed that all religions are equal and welcomed in the eyes of God — contrary to 2,000 years of express Church teaching. This is heresy.

He attacked long-standing theology, universal liturgy and Thomistic Natural Law; when his principal job was to preserve them. He even questioned the concept of sin.

Nevertheless, it was surreal when he was brought into the guesthouse dining room, using a walker and an assistant at each arm. It was bizarre when he sat with his back to us. I wanted to go up to him and greet him, but the Swiss Guards had warned us not to approach him or call his name.

Two days later, I turned a corner in the guest house lobby, and there he was, 10 feet away — just the two of us. I gently bowed and whispered, “Your Holiness.” He looked at me and moved on.

Now, mercifully, Francis is gone. I pray for his soul and I pray for his successor. Please Lord, may the next Pope be a Catholic Pope.

To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.
COPYRIGHT 2025 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO
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Letter from law professor, Stephen Mikochik urging Delaware Governor Meyer to veto assisted suicide bill HB 140, “The Ron Silverio/Heather Block End of Life Options Law.”

Stephen MikochikDear Gov. Meyer:

I am a professor emeritus of Constitutional Law at Temple Law School in Philadelphia and a senior lecturer in Jurisprudence at Ave Maria Law School in Naples, Florida. I have reviewed numerous state proposals to legalize physician-assisted suicide. House Bill 140 would authorize that practice in Delaware.

I urge you not to sign H.B. 140. The bill threatens vulnerable patients, is not needed to mitigate pain at the end of life and creates a right that all competent persons who wish to end their lives for whatever reason will demand.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that physician-assisted suicide is not a fundamental right guaranteed by the Federal Constitution;[1] and nowhere has the Supreme Court of Delaware held it protected under the State Constitution. Therefore, the question of whether to legalize assisted suicide is one of policy in Delaware; and the balance clearly weighs in favor of rejecting it.

On the one hand, a chief reason for rejecting assisted suicide is the protection of vulnerable patients from abuse. As the U.S. Supreme Court explained:

As shown in the attached letter to Sen. Sokola, H.B. 140 provides only phantom safeguards for vulnerable patients.

It is argued on the other hand that assisted suicide is needed to mitigate physical pain at the end of life. Most terminal patients, however, die peacefully; palliative care can control the pain of those who do not; and sedation is available if that care proves ineffective. Irremediable pain is not a major concern terminal patients express for seeking assisted suicide and is not a qualifying condition in H.B. 140 or nearly all other assisted suicide measures. Thus, it is not a factor that should tip the balance in favor of legalization.

It is further argued that H.B. 140 is needed to mitigate distress at the end of life. As the U.S. Supreme Court observed, however, many patients who request assistance in suicide withdraw that request when their depression is treated.[3] Depression, of course, affects others who have no terminal condition; but that only strengthens their claim for access to assistance in suicide since they may face distress, not  for months, but for a life-time.

Finally, it is argued that assisted suicide protects the dignity of terminal patients by respecting their choice. Yet, the threat to dignity is death itself; choosing death by poison over death by cancer is a feeble capitulation to that threat. To recast that choice as the right to act on one’s deepest beliefs on the meaning of life would make “the right to suicide and the right to assistance in suicide … the prerogative of at least every sane adult[:]”[4]

The depressed twenty-one year old, the romantically-devastated twenty-eight year old, the alcoholic forty- year old who choose suicide are also expressing their views … [on] existence, meaning, the universe, and life; they are also asserting their personal liberty.[5]

The State may act gradually to avoid the free-fall that Canada has faced; it may make exceptions for those whose family obligations would fall upon it if they died; but, once suicide is legalized for terminal patients, expansion is inevitable: How could the State distinguish among persons’ beliefs about the meaning of their lives?

You alone can sign H.B. 140 into law. You thus have the awful power to choose between life and death. I urge you not to sign it, and choose life.

Respectfully submitted,

Stephen L. Mikochik

What Happens to Us if President Trump Loses the Existential War with the Evil American Establishment?

Paul Craig Roberts

A few readers thought I went a bit too far in my column two days ago when I expressed concern that if President Trump loses the existential conflict between Mega Americans and the corrupt anti-American Establishment, a return to power of the Democrats will mean oppression for traditional white ethnic Americans.  Not in America, they said.  But, yes, especially in America.

White heterosexual gentiles, especially males, have been second class citizens in the United States ever since Alfred Blumrosen at the EEOC stood the 1964 Civil Rights Act on its head and defied the clear statutory language in the legislation and imposed racial and gender quotas on white gentile heterosexual American men. These quotas have been in effect for 60 years, supplemented during the Biden regime with DEI-imposed quotas.

The American judiciary, despite the 14th Amendment absolutely requiring equality under the law and the clear unambiguous language of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, did nothing to enforce the Constitution and the Law.  The American judiciary, the American corporations, the American universities accepted and enforced the illegal and unconstitutional racial and gender quoters.  Essentially, the quotas are still in place.  The US Supreme Court ruled against them a year or two or so ago, but in a weak way that did not stop the Biden regime from extending them to DEI privileges and refusing to promote in the military based on merit.  Instead, the Biden regime placed racial and sexual constraints on military promotion. Promotions were not available for white heterosexual gentile males.

So what does law mean in the US?  Nothing except the right to gain money by suing and the right of partisan Democrat judges to block the President of the United States from fulfilling his contract with the electorate. For example, currently 12 Democrat states are suing the Trump administration for alleged damages to them from tariffs which so far are nothing but negotiation tools.

There is no law.  American Law Schools were taken over years ago and turned into instruments for overthrowing alleged white, racist America.

The George Soros-implanted Leticia James in New York is the perfect example of an Attorney General trained in law school to use law as a weapon against those in the way of revolutionizing American society. The electorate in New York is so indoctrinated and brainwashed that the people accept as attorney general a person committed to their demise. What was once our greatest state appears now to be our most stupid.

The same happened in journalism schools.  I was an invited  lecturer for some period at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism or at some program of the institution.  I remember watching the transformation of journalist training from finding and reporting the facts to learning to use journalism to support narratives that advanced the agendas of the ruling establishment. It became the only path to employment and success, and the budding “journalists” moved willing into it.  Today they know no other function.  Today the normal function of journalists is to lie in support of the agendas of the American Establishment, which most certainly is not a Mega American establishment.

I don’t think Trump understands the strength of the forces that he has challenged.  If you peruse the left-wing websites, you will acquaint yourself with the retaliation that is being prepared for the “Trump deplorables,” Hillary’s term, once Trump is defeated or out of office.

Without going there, let’s just consider what Democrat members of Congress, elected by Americans, have to say about the retaliation measures they will be able to use once Trump is gone.

Democrat US Representative Jamin Ben Raskin represents the 8th congressional district of Maryland. He is a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Law School. He led the impeachment of President Trump during Trump’s first term of office.

US Representative Raskin has issued a threat to everyone who does business with the Trump administration that “when we come back to power we are not going to look kindly.”

In other words, Raskin has clearly threatened repercussions for doing business of any kind with a lawfully elected government of the US.

This threat, of course, applies to the “domestic terrorists” who elected Trump.  Remember, it is Trump who is trying to restore America, and the Democrats who are trying to turn America into a Sodom and Gomorrah Tower of Babel.  But Raskin, the Democrats, the left-wing and most of the white liberals regard President Trump’s effort to resurrect America as the imposition of fascism. In US Rep. Democrat Raskin’s words, “We’re going to restore strong democracy to America and we will remember who stood up for democracy in America and who tried to drive us down towards dictatorship and autocracy.”

Raskin is indicting the traditional Americans who elected Trump by such a large margin that the Democrats could not again steal the presidential election.

It is my opinion that Trump, his government, and his supporters do not understand that they are up against a more powerful destructive ideological force than America ever faced from the Soviet Union.  The entirety of the Democrat Party, media, universities, deep state, are totally opposed to America and want to transform America into a Sodom & Gomorrah Tower of Babel.  

How else can you explain decades of totally open borders?

How else can you explain teaching white kids that they, their parents, their grandparents are racists who exploit black people?

How else can you explain teaching kids that they are born into the wrong body and need sex change operations that their parents cannot prevent?

The United States is a crazy land as is all of the Western World.  The Belief System that comprised Western Civilization has been destroyed by decades of propaganda from well-funded universities.

As I have said before, every institution that constitutes the United States has been hollowed out by decades of anti-American propaganda from American universities and public schools.  Those who defend America have been written out of public discussion and banned from the presstitute media. I used to be a Wall Street Journal editor and columnist, a columnist for Business Week, for the Scripts Howard News Service.  I was often on the major TV networks.  Today I am totally banned.  As a truth-teller, I am an enemy who must be suppressed.

Americans are very slow in realizing that the Democrats are an ideological party, like the Bolsheviks.  Democrats already know the truth and are unbothered by facts.  Facts are what serve the agenda.  The truth is in the agenda.  

Since Wednesday, the remains of Pope Francis are lying in state inside St. Peter’s Basilica until his funeral Mass on Saturday.

Francis’s simple coffin, based on his specifications, was laid at the Altar of the Confessio, a sacred space in front of the main altar, above the tomb of St. Peter, the first pope. Francis decreed that his coffin would not be exhibited on a raised platform known as a catafalque, and would not be comprised of the usual triple casket of cypress, lead and oak.

The following video shows images of people filling St. Peter’s Square to await their turn to pay their final respects to Pope Francis, along with other related scenes and events. It gives a sense of this extraordinary time for Rome, for the Catholic Church and for the world at large:

Photo: Pope Francis lies in state inside St Peter’s Basilica as people pay their respects, Vatican, Vatican City, 24 April 2025. (Photo by Antonio Masiello/Getty Images.)

The post VIDEO: Scenes from Rome as the world pays its last respects to Pope Francis first appeared on Catholic Herald.

The post VIDEO: Scenes from Rome as the world pays its last respects to Pope Francis appeared first on Catholic Herald.

The Roman Catholic Church is still waiting for a genuinely third-millennium pope. All three of the last popes—John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis—were men very much shaped by the 20th rather than the 21st century. When Benedict XVI died, I reflected that both JPII and Benedict were members of what we in America refer to as “The Greatest Generation”—those who survived the horrors of…

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