Gov. Kelly Armstrong has signed the North Dakota Med Ed bill to protect pregnant women’s lives from abortion misinformation. Sponsored by Susan B. Anthony National Pro-Life Women’s Caucus members Rep. Karen Rohr and Sen. Janne Myrdal, the bill establishes materials to educate medical professionals on the ability and necessity of providing emergency care to pregnant women under North Dakota’s pro-life law. HB 1511 requires OB-GYNs to review the materials on the medical and legal parameters of North Dakota law before performing an abortion.

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North Dakota is among the first states to pass a Med Ed bill to end the confusion caused by the abortion lobby through direct education to doctors. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem signed the first Med Ed bill into law in 2024 and this year Kentucky passed a law dispelling that women can’t get medical care under the state pro-life law. Other states have taken similar steps administratively, including Texas and Florida.

Sue Liebel, state affairs director for SBA Pro-Life America, celebrated the victory for North Dakota moms:

“We thank Gov. Armstrong for making North Dakota among the first states to protect women’s lives with a Med Ed law. Regardless of political affiliation or whether someone is pro-life or pro-choice, North Dakotans of all philosophies can celebrate that moms will be better protected through direct education to our doctors on their ability to exercise reasonable medical judgment in all situations.

“Though every state with a pro-life law allows pregnant women to receive emergency care, the abortion industry has sown confusion on this fact to justify their position of abortion without limits. With many in the media refusing to fact-check this obvious lie, other states should look to North Dakota in combatting dangerous abortion misinformation.”

North Dakota is one of 22 states with a pro-life law protecting life at 12 weeks or sooner. North Dakota’s pro-life law is not currently in effect due to litigation.

The post North Dakota Governor Signs Bill Confirming Abortion ban Doesn’t Deny Women Emergency Care appeared first on LifeNews.com.

On April 29, House Speaker Mike Johnson is slated to join SBA Pro-Life America as keynote speaker at the group’s Pro-Life America Gala.

The pro-life movement is coming together for a historic evening to celebrate the movement and renew the fight for every baby and every mom. Additional speakers include SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser, U.S. Senators Tim Sheehy, Bernie Moreno, Steve Daines, and Lindsey Graham.

“We are delighted Speaker Mike Johnson, a dear friend and longtime pro-life champion, will join us as our keynote guest. Speaker Johnson has boldly fought for life as an activist, litigator, state legislator, and now as a leader in Congress,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. “From consistently standing up against Biden’s radical pro-abortion agenda to advocating for moms and babies, Speaker Johnson leads the pro-life majority in the House to serve moms and families and protect children in the womb.”

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Johnson commented:

“I am grateful to join Marjorie and all my friends at SBA Pro-Life America who are leading the charge in advocating for unborn children and their mothers. I look forward to celebrating all that our movement has accomplished as we reflect on and renew our commitment to building a culture of life. At the heart of the American political experiment is the right to life, and Congressional Republicans are committed to the preservation of this fundamental principle.”

Previous SBA gala speakers include President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Marco Rubio, Nikki Haley and Mike Huckabee, among others.

The post Speaker Mike Johnson Will Keynote Major Pro-Life Event appeared first on LifeNews.com.

Happy Easter Tuesday!

GRADUAL Ps. 117:24; Ps. 106:2
This is the day the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it. Let those who have been redeemed by the Lord now speak, those whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy and gathered together from all lands. Alleluia, alleluia! The Lord is risen from the sepulchre, who for us hung upon a tree.

Christ is truly risen! Best week of the year, folks. Church law dictates that there is no mourning for anything or anyone during the Octave. Every day of the Octave is a first class feast that cannot be trumped. Don’t shoot the messenger. Party must continue.

Pray for eyes to be opened. Mine, yours, your loved ones’. He is the opener of eyes, on His schedule. The fruit of the fourth sorrowful mystery is patience. This is primarily patience with yourself, so as not to become frustrated as you stumble along the uneven path toward sanctity. But it is also patience with others, and even patience with God. Think about it. Think about how patient He is with us, but how we demand immediate results from Him. Abandon yourself to the Divine Providence… the inventor of time is Himself the Timekeeper.

Yesterday’s Gospel had us on the road to Emmaus, on the very first Easter Monday. After their miraculous encounter with Christ as He consecrated the first post-resurrection Eucharist, the disciples immediately set out back to Jerusalem. Having traveled all day to Emmaus, they traveled all night back. So today’s Gospel is the immediate continuation of yesterday’s, taking place on the very first Easter Tuesday. As they are all gathered together, Jesus pops in for some fish. Because even though they had left everything behind in order to follow him, and had received more teaching directly from God than anyone else, “they yet believed not.”

They yet believed not.

Meditate on how this dynamic is at play in your life today. Happy Easter!

“By blood-sealed covenant, by prophetic utterances and figures, and by prescriptions for sacrificial worship, God tried to prepare His people to expect a Redeemer who would have to bleed and die. But they wanted only a glorious conqueror with a universal and endless reign. Even when Jesus appeared to the Eleven, who had received two and one-half years of special training and instruction, He found them confused and wondering. As a doctrine, Christ crucified is central to Christian life. In practice, is there not much insistence on a comfortable Christ, a Christ without wounds?“

https://tridentine-mass.blogspot.com/2022/04/easter-tuesday.html

GOSPEL Luke 24:36-47.
At that time, Now, whilst they were speaking these things, Jesus stood in the midst of them and saith to them: “Peace be to you. It is I: Fear not.” But they being troubled and frightened, supposed that they saw a spirit. And he said to them: “Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? See my hands and feet, that it is I myself. Handle, and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have.” And when he had said this, he shewed them his hands and feet. But while they yet believed not and wondered for joy, he said: “Have you here any thing to eat?” And they offered him a piece of a broiled fish and a honeycomb. And when he had eaten before them, taking the remains, he gave to them. And he said to them: “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was yet with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the psalms, concerning me.” Then he opened their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures. And he said to them: “Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer and to rise again from the dead, the third day: And that penance and remission of sins should be preached in his name, unto all nations.”

A century ago, on April 22, 1925, a suburb of Paris witnessed the passing of André Caplet, a composer and conductor whose unique artistry distinguished him from his contemporaries. As the French poet and Germanist Maurice Boucher († 1977) astutely observed, Caplet “resembled none of his contemporaries and […] represented in his own way and in his own place an art that was always wide-awake and…

Source

CNN in a recent article has reported that:

The United States could end its efforts on ending the Ukrainian conflict within “days” if there are no signs of progress, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Friday. 

‘If it is not possible to end the war in Ukraine, we need to move on,’ he told reporters before departing Paris, where he had held high-level talks with European and Ukrainian officials. ‘We need to determine very quickly now, and I’m talking about a matter of days, whether or not this is doable,’ he said. 

This is framed as if the US is serving as some sort of mediator between Russia and Ukraine. In reality, the US is one of two primary parties to the conflict – the other being Russia, with whom this war was provoked.

A US War on Russia Since the Cold War Ended… 

The US had since the end of the Cold War invested billions of dollars in political interference within Ukraine, including regime change operations attempted in 2004 and successful regime change finally taking place in 2014. From 2014 onward, Ukraine was transformed into a military proxy of the United States aimed specifically to threaten the Russian Federation, just as a politically captured Georgia in 2003 was used to attack Russian peacekeeping forces in 2008.

The growing security threat this posed to Moscow precipitated the launching of Russia’s February 2022 Special Military Operation (SMO) and the subsequent fighting that has continued ever since.

A series of articles from the Western media itself has revealed over recent years the degree to which the US had not only politically captured Ukraine, but also institutionally captured its military and intelligence agencies, reconfiguring them to operate as armed extensions of the US along Ukraine’s border with Russia, and even across it within Russia itself.

Among these admissions is the New York Times’ February 2024 article titled, “The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin,” which admits to, “a C.I.A.-supported network of spy bases constructed in the past eight years that includes 12 secret locations along the Russian border.” 

The article would also admit:

Around 2016, the C.I.A. began training an elite Ukrainian commando force — known as Unit 2245 — which captured Russian drones and communications gear so that C.I.A. technicians could reverse-engineer them and crack Moscow’s encryption systems. (One officer in the unit was Kyrylo Budanov, now the general leading Ukraine’s military intelligence.) 

And the C.I.A. also helped train a new generation of Ukrainian spies who operated inside Russia, across Europe, and in Cuba and other places where the Russians have a large presence.

While the New York Times tries to insist the CIA did not help Ukrainians conduct offensive lethal operations, it later admits CIA-trained Unit 2245 not only conducted lethal operations, but did so within Russian territory, claiming:

At the time, the future head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, General Budanov, was a rising star in Unit 2245. He was known for daring operations behind enemy lines and had deep ties to the C.I.A. The agency had trained him and also taken the extraordinary step of sending him for rehabilitation to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland after he was shot in the right arm during fighting in the Donbas. 

Disguised in Russian uniforms, then-Lt. Col. Budanov led commandos across a narrow gulf in inflatable speedboats, landing at night in Crimea. 

But an elite Russian commando unit was waiting for them. The Ukrainians fought back, killing several Russian fighters, including the son of a general, before retreating to the shoreline, plunging into the sea and swimming for hours to Ukrainian-controlled territory.

In other words, the US was training, equipping, arming, and directing deadly operations out of Ukraine into Russian-held territory before Russia launched its 2022 SMO.

The same article admitted that these CIA officers deployed to and overseeing operations in Ukraine began playing a central role after Russia launched its SMO in 2022.

The NYT would admit:

Within weeks, the C.I.A. had returned to Kyiv, and the agency sent in scores of new officers to help the Ukrainians. A senior U.S. official said of the C.I.A.’s sizable presence, “Are they pulling triggers? No. Are they helping with targeting? Absolutely.” 

Some of the C.I.A. officers were deployed to Ukrainian bases. They reviewed lists of potential Russian targets that the Ukrainians were preparing to strike, comparing the information that the Ukrainians had with U.S. intelligence to ensure that it was accurate.

Subsequent articles by the New York Times would expand upon just how deeply involved the US has been in the fighting – making the war for all intents and purposes an American war fought through the Ukrainians.

Washington’s War on Russia 

A March 2025 New York Times article titled, “The Partnership: The Secret History of the War in Ukraine,” would explain that not only has the US provided tens of billions of US dollars worth of military equipment, weapons, and ammunition, including, “a half-billion rounds of small-arms ammunition and grenades, 10,000 Javelin antiarmor weapons, 3,000 Stinger antiaircraft systems, 272 howitzers, 76 tanks, 40 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, 20 Mi-17 helicopters and three Patriot air defense batteries,” but that the US military itself has been (and still is) playing a central role in picking and striking at targets on both sides of the Ukrainian-Russian border.

It admitted that it was US intelligence used to carry out many of Ukraine’s most successful attacks on Russian military headquarters including at the Crimean port of Sevastopol which had been under Russian control even before the 2014 US overthrow of Ukraine and Crimea’s subsequent reunification with Russia.

Much of Washington’s control over the conflict was coordinated through a mission command center established in Wiesbaden, Germany. While many of Ukraine’s military operations were attributed to Ukrainian planning, the New York Times has since revealed it was instead overseen by the US and other NATO members through Wiesbaden.

The article would explain:

Side by side in Wiesbaden’s mission command center, American and Ukrainian officers planned Kyiv’s counteroffensives. A vast American intelligence-collection effort both guided big-picture battle strategy and funneled precise targeting information down to Ukrainian soldiers in the field.
One European intelligence chief recalled being taken aback to learn how deeply enmeshed his N.A.T.O. counterparts had become in Ukrainian operations. “They are part of the kill chain now,” he said.

The New York Times also admitted:

Military and C.I.A. officers in Wiesbaden helped plan and support a campaign of Ukrainian strikes in Russian-annexed Crimea. Finally, the military and then the C.I.A. received the green light to enable pinpoint strikes deep inside Russia itself.

The article admits that Western military officers – not Ukrainians – made the final decision regarding what targets would be hit and how.

This included the use of US-provided M777 howitzers and the HIMARS multiple launch rocket system.

The New York Times admitted:

Wiesbaden would oversee each HIMARS strike. [US] General Donahue and his aides would review the Ukrainians’ target lists and advise them on positioning their launchers and timing their strikes. The Ukrainians were supposed to only use coordinates the Americans provided. To fire a warhead, HIMARS operators needed a special electronic key card, which the Americans could deactivate anytime.

Every large-scale Ukrainian operation, including the 2022 Kherson and Kharkov offensives as well as the failed 2023 offensive, were planned, organized, and directed by US military officers from Wiesbaden. This also included the creation of new Ukrainian brigades, the New York Times admits was overseen by US Lieutenant General Antonio Aguto Jr.

It is also revealed that it wasn’t Ukraine who asked for longer range weapons like the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), it was US generals.

The New York Times admits:

Generals Cavoli and Aguto recommended the next quantum leap, giving the Ukrainians Army Tactical Missile Systems — missiles, known as ATACMS, that can travel up to 190 miles — to make it harder for Russian forces in Crimea to help defend Melitopol.

It was also revealed that Ukrainian commanders realized the US-planned and directed 2023 offensive was doomed during its earliest phase, yet US commanders demanded Ukraine “press on.” 

Various options were formulated to try to salvage the failed offensive, with the New York Times attributing its failure to a number of factors, including infighting among Ukrainian commanders and even tension between Ukrainian commanders and their US handlers. In reality, the offensive failed because of the realities of material limitations on Western military industrial production and their inability to fight the type of war of attrition Russia had prepared for years in advance and imposed on them.

Toward the end of the New York Times article, it admitted that, “the coalition simply couldn’t provide all the equipment for a major counteroffensive. Nor could the Ukrainians build an army big enough to mount one.”

Various operations were described throughout the article including US-British attempts to destroy the Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea to the rest of Russia, which all ended in failure.

While the article attempts to blame the gradual draw down of US support for Ukraine on the election of President Donald Trump and his desire for “peace,” it is clear the US simply exhausted the means to continue waging a proxy war against a Russian military much better able to replace its losses than Ukraine and its Western sponsors.

The New York Times essentially admits this was a US war waged against Russia, simply using Ukraine as intermediaries.

Every major military operation down to specific targets to be struck and which US-European-made and provided weapon system to use to strike it with was made by American – not Ukrainian generals.

Playing “Mediator” While Seeking to Freeze a Failed Proxy War 

Today, the US government is attempting to play the role of a frustrated mediator trying to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia, when in reality this was always a war between the US and Russia.

In reality, current US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, in a February 12, 2025 speech, discussed “European and non-European troops” being sent into Ukraine as a “security guarantee” which would in practice either freeze the conflict or precipitate direct hostilities between Russia and Europe.

Secretary Hegseth also instructed Europe the next steps regarding Ukraine would be “donating more ammunition and equipment” to Ukraine, as well as “expanding your defense industrial base.”

What Secretary Hegseth actually laid out was a directive not toward peace in Ukraine, but to once again freeze the conflict as the US and Europe did during the Minsk agreements, during which the US and Europe could expand their own military industrial bases to match or exceed Russian production and rearm and reorganize Ukrainian forces to resume hostilities again in the future when factors lean in Washington’s favor, not Moscow’s.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s predictable boredom with peace talks with Russia signals the US’ readiness to transfer responsibility for its proxy war fully onto Europe as it pivots toward a much more dangerous confrontation with Russia’s ally to the east – China.

The Trump administration and the Biden administration before it never had any intention of addressing the actual cause of the conflict in Ukraine – NATO’s expansion up to and all along Russia’s borders with every intention of inevitably absorbing Russia itself. Because of this, genuine peace was never possible regardless of the Trump administration’s public rhetoric and empty gestures toward Russia.

While the Trump administration has paid lip service to NATO expansion, its only decision regarding NATO specifically has been to demand NATO members more than double funding for NATO.

Russia, for its part, has left the door open for honest negotiations and has provided the United States ample exit ramps from both an unwinnable proxy war and indefinite confrontation with Russia into the future. The US is obviously not interested. Russia had, throughout “peace talks” with the US, continued its war of attrition against Ukrainian forces, continuing the process the New York Times describes as the central contributing factor for the proxy war’s current failure.

The real question that remains is whether or not Russia can continue this process at a faster and more effective rate than the US and Europe can continue “donating more ammunition and equipment” to Ukraine while attempting to expand their “defense industrial bases.” Only time will tell for sure.

As Syria has demonstrated, a proxy war the US has lost one moment can be frozen, revisited, and eventually won if it is able to overextend designated adversaries like Russia and Iran for long enough and extensively enough elsewhere. The US has already embarked upon armed conflict with Yemen and is threatening war with Iran – forcing Russia to once again make difficult decisions regarding where it invests finite military resources versus the seemingly infinite US capacity to create instability and conflict wordwide.

The survival and success of multipolarism depends on the multipolar world cooperating against US attempts to reassert American primacy – not only through direct and proxy war, but also through economic coercion and political interference – and to understand that a US war on Russia in Ukraine or a proxy war waged against Syria in the Middle East – is, in fact, a war against the rise of multipolarism altogether and the promise of peace and prosperity it offers.

Reprinted with permission from New Eastern Outlook.

ROME – Following the death of Pope Francis on Easter Monday, the Vatican has announced that his funeral will be held Saturday morning in Rome at St. Peter’s Basilica, before his coffin is transferred to a different location, per his special request, for his entombment.

The pope died Monday at 7:35am local time after experiencing a cerebral stroke that subsequently led to a coma, and cardiocirculatory failure.

His death came as a shock to many, given that he had made an appearance for Easter Sunday, giving his traditional noontime Urbi et Orbi blessing and taking his first ride in the popemobile to greet and bless faithful and pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square.

On Tuesday the Vatican announced that on Wednesday, April 23, at 9a.m. local time, Francis’s coffin will be transferred from the chapel inside the Vatican’s Saint Martha guesthouse, where he resided for the past 12 years, to St. Peter’s Basilica after a brief prayer by the papal Camerlegno, Cardinal Kevin Farrell.

Once inside the basilica, Farrell as Camerlegno, who governs the church during the sede vecante until a new pope is elected, will preside over the Liturgy of the Word, after which visits to the pope’s body will begin for his official lying in state.

Pope Francis’s funeral will be held Saturday, April 26, at 10a.m. local time, in St. Peter’s Square, and it will be presided over by Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Dean of the College of Cardinals.

In addition to flocks of faithful from around the world, his funeral Mass is expected to be attended by various dignitaries and heads of state from around the world. It is unclear if United States President Donald Trump will attend the Mass.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance had a private meeting with the pope Sunday, less than 24 hours before his death, and is believed to be the last official appointment the pope had prior to his stroke and subsequent passing.

After Pope Francis’s funeral Mass, his coffin will be transferred to the Roman Basilica of Saint Mary Major, his favorite of the Roman basilicas which he visited before and after every international trip to pray in front of the famed Maria, Salus Populi Romani (Mary, health of the Roman people) icon, and where he said he wants to be buried.

In his last testament, Francis said he wished to be buried in a tomb prepared in the Pauline Chapel of the basilica, where the Salus Populi Romani icon is housed, without extravagant décor, and with the simple inscription of his papal name in Latin, Franciscus.

“I have always entrusted my life and episcopal ministry to the Mother of Our Lord, Mary Most Holy. For this reason, I ask that my mortal remains rest awaiting the day of resurrection in the Basilica of Saint Mary Major,” he said in the testament.

Francis voiced his desire that “my last earthly journey conclude precisely in this ancient Marian sanctuary, where I went to pray at the beginning and end of every apostolic journey to confidently entrust my intentions to the Immaculate Mother and to thank her for her docile and maternal care,” he said.

A rosary will be said for Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square Tuesday night at 7:30p.m. local time, led by Re.

Follow Elise Ann Allen on X: @eliseannallen

(The late Pope Francis’ body lies in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta | VATICAN MEDIA Divisione Foto)

The post Funeral for Pope Francis to be held on Saturday morning in Rome first appeared on Catholic Herald.

The post Funeral for Pope Francis to be held on Saturday morning in Rome appeared first on Catholic Herald.

Dear Readers, the illegal oppression to which the “democratic” state of Germany, an offspring of Nazi tyranny, is subjecting Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, is identical to the illegal persecution of Julian Assange by the UK and US governments.

What Western peoples do not know, and do not want to know, is that they no longer live in democracies.  They live in tyrannies in which they have no reliable rights.  The orchestrated “Covid pandemic” perfectly demonstrated that civil liberty is totally dead in the Western World.

US President Donald Trump, a courageous man unlike the cowards of our time, has challenged the corrupt American and European Establishment.  He has undertaken to renew the principles and values that made the Western World great.  But has he the power?  It remains to be seen, and I support him.

However, it took Americans too long to realize and to acknowledge their peril.  Trump has been handed the challenge after the rot of every American value and principle has been institutionalized, set in stone, for so long that the institutionalized government is against him, the judiciary is against him, the Democrat Party and the RINO Republicans are against him,  the law and journalism schools are against him, the universities, the print, TV and NPR media are against him. The Establishment’s opposition to Trump expresses their opposition to democracy.

Only the dispossessed majority are for Trump, and they have no power.  The Democrats have proven that it is easy to steal the vote from them, to arrest them as insurrectionists, to seize their children from them, and to have them fired from their jobs because they gave voice to unapproved statements. The Biden regime had succeeded, and carried corporate America with it, in having a government in which there were no white heterosexual gentile males in senior positions and in which promotions of white heterosexual males in the military were put on hold in order to advance DEI.  The blatant discrimination against white heterosexual males was a violation of the 14th Amendment and the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  And the judiciary did nothing about it.  But the judiciary is active in preventing the deportation of illegals who have no right to be in the US.

Considering the extraordinary powers arrayed against Trump only violence can prevail over the powerful anti-American Establishment.  The American people do not understand this, and so Trump hasn’t the power to prevail.

When the Democrats return to power, Americans will experience tyranny not seen since Stalin. Like Cicero, who did his best to save Rome, Trump and his supporters will be hunted down and destroyed. All white heterosexuals will be suppressed, reduced to second class citizenship, and regarded as an unreliable element always under government surveillance. We will be put on terrorist watch lists and designated a terrorist group.  Already some years ago the Secretary of Homeland Security, a Nazi term, said that the focus had changed from the war on terror to “domestic terrorism” by which was meant white gentile heterosexuals who are pro-family, pro-life, and Christian.  Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton gave traditional Americans their term of demonization when she declared them to be the “Trump deplorables.”

Already, the tyrannical government of Germany, an alleged “democracy,” has exceeded in its treatment of  Dr. Reiner Fuellmich the invidious attacks by the US and UK governments on Julian Assange.

When truth cannot be spoken and truth-tellers are imprisoned, freedom is totally dead.  This is the situation today throughout the Western World.  Can Trump really resurrect the West from the dead?

The persecution of Dr. Reiner Fuellmich: the biggest judicial scandal ever seen in Germany

by Seba Terribilini and Cynthia Salatino

April 17, 2025

Dr. Reiner Fuellmich is known and respected internationally for his work as a consumer defense lawyer and for having won major lawsuits against corporate giants such as Volkswagen, Kühne & Nagel, and Deutsche Bank. He was one of the first persons who recognized that the COVID measures constituted crimes against humanity and decided, together with three other lawyers, to create the Corona Investigative Committee, whose aim was to shed light on the actions of governments, public institutions, and the medical community in the context of the so- called “pandemic”.

Thanks to his brilliant investigative work and after having consulted more than 150 scientists and experts around the world in all fields, as well as numerous whistleblowers (from Pfizer, WHO, CDC, UN), he was able to collect an abundance of evidence of what he calls “the biggest crime ever perpetrated against humanity.”

He was ready to take action.

However, the German secret services, in cooperation with Göttingen public prosecutor Simon Phillip John and Fuellmich’s accusers, had already decided to construct a case against Fuellmich, aimed at stopping him.

He is accused of having embezzled 700,000 euro but, in truth, he did not. The imminent threat of seizure of the Corona Investigative Committee’s bank accounts by the German government during the fallout of the COVID pandemic, along with the risk of no longer being able to use the funds raised by private donations to carry out their investigative work, Reiner Fuellmich and Viviane Fischer took steps to protect those funds. They purchased 1 million euros worth of gold (current value: 1.8 million euros) and each took out personal loans (700.000 euros to Reiner Fuellmich, and 100.000 euros to Viviane Fischer). Their loan agreements were documented in written, signed contracts.

When the defense demonstrated the erroneousness of the original accusation which asserted that Fuellmich had no authority to take a personal loan without the other committee member’s consent, the judge had to invent a new accusation in order to justify Fuellmich’s continued imprisonment. The judge thus declared that that the loans were “fake”.

What is interesting is that the previous Göttingen lead prosecutor Reinicke, who had been asked by the secret services to open an investigation on Fuellmich, had clearly stated that there were no grounds upon which to investigate him, and archived the case in June 2022. Merely two and a half months later, a young, inexperienced prosecutor by the name of Simon Phillip John was transferred from Hanover to Göttingen and given the task to do the dirty work that Reinicke had previously deemed unjustified.

Judge Carsten Schindler, as well as prosecutor John are, without any shadow of a doubt, following someone else’s instructions.

Dr. Reiner Fuellmich has been unlawfully held in pre-trial detention in the German maximum-security prison in Rosdorf for 18 months. This, despite the fact that the maximum term for pre-trial detention in Germany is 6 months. This, after his having been lured under false pretenses, subsequently abducted in Mexico, and then deported to Germany –without an international arrest warrant NOR a formal extradition order– where he was then arrested and imprisoned.

The circumstances of his illegal arrest and subsequent mistreatment in prison are very concerning.

From June 2024 until December 2024, Reiner Fuellmich was placed in solitary confinement. The official reason was that he was providing fellow inmates with legal advice. Fuellmich was also subjected to various forms of abuse, in clear violation of his human rights: physical and psychological mistreatment including prolonged solitary confinement, deprived of sunlight, deprived of outdoor physical activity, deprived of sleep, forced to choose between taking a shower or having his one-hour outdoors, and even prohibited from calling his lawyers. Aside from their brief (and monitored) telephone calls on Skype, he has not seen his wife since his arrest.

He is only permitted three hours per month of visits and telephone calls.

On top of that, he has been denied adequate medical care, including simple access to vitamins.

Moreover, Reiner was not allowed to visit his dying mother nor attend her funeral.

Both the inhumane prison conditions as well as the manner in which his trial is being conducted raise serious doubts about the level of respect for fundamental rights in the German judicial system.

From June 10, 2024 to this day, Reiner Fuellmich, after being body-searched, is brought to the court and back to prison in shackles and handcuffs, escorted by armed security officers in armored vehicles, as if he were a serial killer!

He is being denied a fair trial, in that any motions presented by his defense lawyers are rejected without explanation. As of July 2024, Judge Schindler ordered that the defense motions and arguments, instead of being read aloud to the court, were from then on to be presented in writing only, thus impeding court observers from understanding and properly documenting the proceedings. These same court spectators have been subject to threats, as have Fuellmich’s defense lawyers.

In addition to not permitting defense witnesses to take the stand, Judge Schindler steadfastly refuses to allow the person who actually pocketed the funds to testify in court.

This “kangaroo court” proceeding” is now in its final phase. As we write this, the defense lawyers have completed their closing statements, and Fuellmich has begun to make his final, closing statement before the court, which, in order to silence him, interrupted and admonished him at least 12 times. It is feared that the court may impose upon Fuellmich a time limit for the presentation of his final defense statement, as they did to his defense lawyers, forcing them shorten their closing statements.

In the course of 51 hearings, what we have witnessed is nothing less than an egregious case of obstruction of justice –a criminal offense in Germany– which confirms the intent of the German secret services as stated in their dossier on Reiner Fuellmich. This dossier was presented to the court by one of Fuellmich’s defense lawyers. It specified that Fuellmich was to be stopped “at all costs”; that “it is necessary to prepare a criminal case against Fuellmich, [including the] collaboration of prosecutors and suitable third parties”; and recommending “the recruitment and involvement of trusted persons amongst Fuellmich’s closest circle.”

It was also their stated objective to convict Fuellmich; that “the possibility of [him] obtaining a politically exposed position must be prevented by any means”. This dossier, provided by a whistleblower, demonstrates that Reiner Fuellmich was already under special surveillance as far back as 2021.

That said, it is beyond a shadow of a doubt that Reiner Fuellmich had to be stopped in order to prevent him from continuing his precious investigational work exposing the truth regarding the “pandemic” as well as the so-called “vaccines”.

Fuellmich is clearly a political prisoner, punished for having spoken the truth. His case demands the attention of international human rights organizations, as well as the indignation of worldwide public opinion.

Pre-trial detention must never be used as an instrument to defer, suppress, or completely substitute the justice system in the form of a legitimized punishment without a sentence.

Justice, free speech, and respect for fundamental human rights are the pillars of a democratic state, not only for but especially for those individuals who raise uncomfortable questions and have the courage to speak up.

For Americans who still think that Donald Trump is an advocate of realism and restraint in foreign policy, the events in Yemen should come as a rude awakening.  Unfortunately, the most prominent indicator enabled the president’s political opponents to evade their own share of the blame for the tragic events in that country.  Revelations that members of Trump’s national security team had conducted a discussion of highly classified information about war plans in Yemen over an insecure system exploded in the news media last month.  One official, apparently National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, had even inadvertently invited Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic, to join the chat.  The resulting “Signalgate” scandal dominated the news cycle for the next two weeks.

The dominant focus of most news stories about the episode was both revealing and depressing.  Critics vehemently denounced the Trump team for an egregious inability to keep the Yemen war plans secret.  Few journalists or members of Congress condemned the participants in the chat for planning an unconstitutional war.  There was no hint that President Trump planned to seek a formal declaration of war as required by the Constitution.  Instead, the principal officials intend to continue the illegal practice of waging presidential wars that has become the norm since the end of World War II.

Indeed, a new phase of the conflict with Yemen was already well underway. Vice President J. D. Vance boasted to the other participants in the chat that U.S. forces had located a “terrorist leader” (i.e. a high-level military official of Yemen’s Houthi rebel government) and would be taking him out.  Indeed, the U.S. launched an air and missile attack on the apartment complex where the official was visiting his girlfriend. The collateral damage included the collapse of the building along with extensive casualties. Notably, very few administration critics bothered to criticize the Trump foreign policy team for such conduct.

Matters have grown worse since that episode.  On April 17, U.S. forces conducted an even larger assault on a civilian port in Yemen.  This time, more than 80 people, mostly civilians, perished.  And once again, there was silence from critics who have denounced the Trump administration for everything from the ill-treatment of immigrants, to harassment of law firms linked to the Democratic Party, to the White House’s efforts to downsize the federal bureaucracy.

Bipartisanship about waging brutal, unconstitutional wars, though, apparently remains thoroughly intact. Given the long history of pro-war views on Yemen in both parties, one should not be especially surprised that there would be no meaningful dissent regarding Washington’s current belligerence toward that country.  When Saudi Arabia first intervened in Yemen’s simmering civil war in 2015, Barack Obama’s administration gave full backing to its ally and the coalition that Riyadh led.  Washington supplied weapons to the Saudi-led forces, shared military intelligence with those forces, and helped to refuel coalition warplanes.  Most of that support continued through both Trump’s first term and Biden’s presidency.

The U.S. meddling helped produce one of the worst tragedies in the perennially troubled Middle East.  In the years that followed during the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, the people of Yemen suffered from famine, a cholera epidemic, and the chronic infliction of military casualties.  Even when the fighting subsided from time to time, the respites were relatively brief.  Before Trump took office for his second term in 2021, the Biden administration had launched a new wave of attacks on Houthi targets because the Yemini regime condemned Israel for its war crimes in Gaza and harassed Western shipping passing through the Red Sea.

The Trump administration’s decision to reignite full-scale warfare in Yemen is horrifying and immoral.  To do so without a declaration of war is also unconstitutional.  For administration critics to condemn officials for insufficient skill in concealing such illegal and immoral conduct but not to denounce the conduct itself is disgraceful.

Reprinted with permission from Antiwar.com.

Speaking on Thought for the Day this morning on BBC Radio 4, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, expressed sadness at the death of Pope Francis.

The Cardinal said that “the death of Pope Francis takes from us a voice that has been heard in every corner of the world”.

Cardinal Nichol’s full message can be read below. 

“Good morning.

“Today a voice has fallen silent. The death of Pope Francis takes from us a voice has been heard in every corner of the world: a voice of warm encouragement and sharp challenge, expressing both love of God and love of our shared humanity.

“He had a single focus in life: to do the will of God, as it was given to him in the Catholic Church and in honouring the summons to holiness which touches every human heart. Once asked ‘Who is Pope Francis?’ he instantly replied: ‘A sinner’. His discernment was sensitive and profound. He knew that maturity, growing closer to God, comes mostly through our struggle with weaknesses and not by the highway of our own achievements. He taught that our best way of life is one of loving mercy, received and given. For we know the mercy of God outweighs the burden of our faults.

“He gave his voice to share the Word of God. This is why he spoke so directly to countless people.

“He spoke of hope. To millions of young people he said: ‘If you want to be a sign of hope, go and talk to your grandparents.’

“He spoke for those on the margins of society. He said: ‘If you want to know how successful your economy is, go and speak with an unemployed person.’

“He spoke of those imprisoned in slavery and suffering other terrible forms of abuse. He said: ‘These are gaping wounds in the flesh of humanity, wounds in the flesh of Christ himself.’

“This voice, filled with compassion, mercy, and righteous indignation, is now silent, for a more authoritative voice has spoken, that of his heavenly Father, calling him home, to be with his Lord and Master for ever. And he has done so on the day after the great feast of Easter, the solemn proclamation of the victory of Christ over death. Pope Francis died in the light of the brightly burning Pascal candle, the symbol of the risen Christ. In this hope he lived, in this light he has died. Its promise will be fulfilled.

“It is for us to continue this task: to make humanity great: great in strength of service, great in depth of compassion and great in richness of generosity. These are the measures of true greatness.

“May Pope Francis, beloved of so many, rest in peace.”

(Cardinal Vincent Nichols attends a press conference at the Throne Room of the Archbishop’s House in central London on April 21, 2025, following the news of the death of Pope Francis. (Photo by HENRY NICHOLLS / AFP)

The post ‘A voice heard in every corner of the world’: Cardinal Nichols’ BBC Radio 4 tribute to Pope Francis first appeared on Catholic Herald.

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SÃO PAULO, Brazil – Pope Francis’s death at 88 in Rome on Apr. 21 has truly affected his motherland of Argentina.

Since the Vatican released the tragic news, there has been unprecedented commotion in the South American nation. The most visible expressions of grief have been coming from the so-called villas de emergencia o villas miseria, as the Argentinians call their slums.

“Sadness is noticeable among the poorest social segments. He was an icon for the poor,” said Bishop Marcelo Margni of Avellaneda-Lanús.

Cesar Sanabria, a community leader at Villa 31, noted the atmosphere has been one of sorrow all over the region.

“We, the poor, had a fantastic connection with him. He knew how to talk and how to motivate us,” Sanabria said.

After he was appointed as an Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires, in 1997, Jorge Mario Bergoglio became a frequent visitor of Villa 31 and other poor neighborhoods. With his incentive, the movement of slum priests, created in the 1960s, gained strength.

“He knew our problems, because he frequently came to us and talked to us,” Sanabria remembered.

The Argentine Church plays a central role in providing charitable work for the poor in the country. It keeps numerous social services in poor districts, distributing food, hot meals, medicines, and other goods. Such a network grew during Bergoglio’s years as the capital city’s archbishop (1998-2013).

In 2018, already as the pontiff, Francis welcomed Sanabria in the Vatican for a meeting.

“I had the rare opportunity of showing to him a number of projects for Villa 31. We discussed several of them. He was a great listener and had a peculiar way of being Saint Peter’s successor,” Sanabria said.

Carlos Custer, a long-time labor leader who was Argentina’s ambassador to the Vatican (2003-2008), spoke about Bergoglio’s solidarity with the poor was also noticeable in his defense of the dignity of the neediest in society.

“He would always criticize the current system’s inhumanity, defending those who have been discarded,” Custer told Crux.

That stance would put Francis and current Argentine leader Javier Milei on opposite sides. An ultra-libertarian economist, Milei had been advocating for years a broad transformation of the country’s socioeconomic structure, with the goal of reducing the State’s presence economically and as a provider of relief aid.

On different occasions, Milei would insult Francis during TV interviews, calling him a “communist” and “an imbecile”.

“For a Jesuit, to be called a ‘communist’ is not relevant, but to be called an ‘imbecile’ is not acceptable,” Custer humorously remarked, emphasising that they met in Rome in Feb. of 2024 and that the Pope “pastorally forgave Milei, but he kept opposing his economic ideas.”

Elected in 2023, Milei put in practice his vision, taking economic measures that further debilitated the poor’s quality of living.

Despite a continuous demand from the Argentine Church for a papal visit, Bergoglio ended up never traveling to his home country again.

“There were no conditions for him to visit Argentina. Our government stimulates intolerance,” Custer said.

In his opinion, Francis had a very clear stance against ultra-liberalism, the financialisation of the economy and cutting the rights of the poor.

“That was a political voice, but without a party politics nature. He would denounce bad ideas and suggest ways to deal with the ensuing problems,” he added.

The president issued a statement on Apr. 21 lamenting the pope’s death and praising his “goodness” and “wiseness”.

If his clashes with Milei didn’t necessarily bring him popularity among Argentinians – the president enjoys about 50 percent of support – his defense of a Church that welcomes everybody, from divorced people to members of the LGBT community, apparently led him to be viewed with positive eyes among many.

“His efforts to empower women in the Church, including the appointment of women to play central roles in the Vatican, and his insistence in a synodal Church, in which laypeople and the clergy are equally important, drew the attention, and the support, of many Argentinians,” Custer said.

Taty Almeida, one of the founders of the Mother of Plaza de Mayo – a movement formed by women whose children were abducted by the Armed Forces and disappeared during the Military dictatorship (1976-1983) – defined Bergoglio as “the pope who transformed the Church.”

“Women didn’t have any place in the Church. Now they’re in very relevant offices. Can you imagine the explosion he detonated? Not to mention his humbleness,” she told Crux.

In Almeida’s opinion, “we can only wait that the next pontiff will be faithful to Bergoglio’s legacy.”

That seems to be the expectation of many in Argentina, people who not only celebrate the fact that the pope was their countryman, but also feel that maybe precisely because of it he was able to boost relevant transformations in the Church.

“He was the pope of the poor. We’ll miss him forever. He’s mostly irreplaceable,” Sanabria said.

A woman holds a picture of late Pope Francis during a mass at the San Jose de Flores Basilica in Buenos Aires on April 21, 2025. The San Jose de Flores Basilica was the church where Pope Francis was inspired to consecrate his life to God and the Catholic Church. (Photo by Luis ROBAYO / AFP)

The post Argentines mourn their ‘pope of the poor’ first appeared on Catholic Herald.

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“Pope Francis has returned to the House of the Father.” Those sad words, read out by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, a former Bishop of Dallas, shortly after 10 a.m. local time yesterday morning echoed John Paul II’s final utterance in April 2005: “Allow me to depart to the house of the Father”. It is twenty years since the world last saw a pope die in office.

Few Catholics can not have been moved by Francis’s dignified response to suffering and decline over the past few months, which his spiritual testament has now told us he offered “to the Lord, for peace in the world and for fraternity among peoples”. His long hospitalisation occasioned an outpouring of sympathy and concern; he willed himself to be discharged from the Gemelli Hospital to reach the Easter liturgies, and to appear amongst his flock one last time.

Francis’s demise has now set in motion an ancient and well-established series of rites. Farrell, the cardinal camerlengo (the chamberlain), will have verified the pope’s death, removed his fisherman’s ring, and have sealed off his private apartments – the added complexity that would have ensued had the pope died in hospital has been avoided. However, the Church has now entered a period of sede vacante (the time of “the seat being vacant”). Her normal laws and structures of authority are suspended. The world, even as it mourns, now waits expectantly for information about what will follow.

The first phase of activity during the sede vacante focuses on the repose of the papal body. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI lay in state only two years ago; around 200,000 people filed past this venerable priest to pay him their last respects and to pray for his soul. The practice for Francis is likely to be similar, although the numbers coming to Rome to honour his memory may be considerably larger. Eyes will also turn to Buenos Aires, where mass for Francis has already been said, and where further commemorations are likely being planned.

The papal funeral in St Peter’s Square is traditionally presided over by the Dean of the Sacred College (currently the ninety-one-year-old Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re). It should take place between four and six days after the pope’s death. Dignitaries are expected to fly in for it from around the world – including, we have learned, President and Mrs Trump. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary mourners will also make the journey; security will be tight, and the Italian government will hope that everything passes as smoothly as it did in 2005.

There are then nine further days of mourning for the late pope (the novendiales). Historically, these have provided an opportunity to make arrangements for Church governance during the vacancy and the conclave. However, they are also important as a moment of breathing space for the cardinals entrusted with the awesome task of electing a papal successor.

All cardinals, even the non-voting ones over 80, are eligible to take part in the discussions that take place at this time, both during the formal consistories and at their fringes. Many current cardinals will not know each other well – a legacy of Francis’s push to have all Catholic communities represented, no matter how small. The non-curial cardinals in particular will need this time to become acquainted, to sound out each other’s views, and to form judgments about each others’ qualities and vulnerabilities.

The voting cardinals will also likely turn to their non-voting brethren for advice. Many of these elder statesmen will play an important and active part in the proceedings. Their voices, those of experience, will be valued and consulted.

The conclave itself should begin anywhere from fifteen to twenty days after the pope’s death. That said, Benedict XVI’s constitution Normas nonnullas (2013) in fact gives the cardinals unprecedented discretion over its timing: they can move it forwards, but also backwards. 

Recent conclaves have taken place in the Sistine Chapel and it would be a major surprise if this were not the case this time around. The cardinals themselves will stay at the Casa Santa Marta, Pope Francis’s former home, for the duration. Electronic communications will be closely monitored, not least for outside interference. Two ballots will likely be held each day: one in the morning and one in the evening. Prayer and contemplation will fill the time in between.

Voting regulations for the conclave have varied considerably over time, but the modern “one cardinal, one vote” procedure has been in place since at the Third Lateran Council of 1179. Pope Alexander III instigated rules then that each cardinal has an equal vote, and that the votes of two-thirds of the cardinals are required to win. The only slight modification in place today is that there is now a “run off” between the leading candidates after thirty deadlocked ballots.

Although the Church currently has fifteen extra voting cardinals above the 120 named by John Paul II’s conclave constitution Universi Dominici gregis (1996) they are all likely to be welcomed in. Whom the cardinals will choose is historically very difficult to predict. Much media commentary in recent months has focused on the Sacred College’s so-called “progressive majority”. Over two-thirds of cardinals are Francis’s picks so it would seem logical that they would be willing and able to elect someone in his image.

Alas, voting for a pope does not work quite like that, not least on account of the influence of the Holy Spirit. Cardinals are a sophisticated electorate who will consider the many facets of a man’s character, not just his most obvious ideological leanings.

Some Catholics will be hoping for another pope from the Global South, others for a man who will be more sympathetic to traditionalism within the Church than Francis sometimes was. Whatever their views, the cardinals themselves will be tight-lipped and respectful – both to Francis and to the process of choosing who will succeed him.

We will only know what has happened once the senior cardinal-deacon intones the famous “habemus papam” from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica. He will then inform the world of the name the new pontiff has chosen, who will to pray with and for the whole Church. “He who enters the conclave a pope leaves it a cardinal,” an old saying goes. We will just have to wait and see, with hearts primed and eyes peeled.

Photo: A mourner holds a portrait of Pope Francis in Buenos Aires, Argentina. 
(Gustavo Garello/AP)

Dr Miles Pattenden is the author of Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700 (OUP, 2017).

The post Watching and waiting: customs and ceremonies surrounding death of a pope first appeared on Catholic Herald.

The post Watching and waiting: customs and ceremonies surrounding death of a pope appeared first on Catholic Herald.

In the Gospel for Easter Sunday, we have St. John’s account of the two apostles, Peter and John, discovering the tomb empty. The evangelist records how John, the younger of the two, outran Peter and arrived first at the sepulcher. But the younger apostle deferred to Peter and allowed him to enter first. John followed, and the evangelist remarks of him that he saw and believed (John 20:8).

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