Issue 2023-17
18208 Preston Road, Ste D9-552
Dallas TX 75252
Read this newsletter in PDF format for greatest clarity. Print out any sections you might want in a power-out situation.
There’s been a lot of talk about momentous events coming in October. Doug Barry has mentioned a few visionaries who speak of October surprises. Aside from private revelations, we have the Synod convening, second rollout of masks and vaxxes, the annular eclipse on October 14, and the inevitable defeat of the Kiev regime, which can’t be kept secret much longer. Frankly, I think it’s a good time to fine-tune your preps, and spend more time in front of the Eucharist.
Sheryl Collmer, editor
September 15, 2023
sheylc@coracusa.com
From the cockpit of the Subaru
CORAC founder Charlie Johnston travels from coast to coast in his trusty Outback to speak in person to those now weathering the Storm.
A SIGN OF HOPE BLOG
Twigs
A few weeks ago, a fellow promised to cut off my tie if I wore one to a dinner...
more >
REVEILLE
A Wisconsin Field Day – Back to Basics
A new CORAC podcast hosted by member Joe Gallagher. Try out the first episode…
more >
NEWS
The Synod
Many of us have a sense of dread about the upcoming (and ridiculously named) Synod on Synodality…
more >
Bishop Strickland
It is still amazing to me that anyone in the great, wide world outside of Texas even knows where Tyler is… more >
mRNA “Vaccines”
Plenty has been said in this newsletter about the malfeasance of the mRNA vaxx project… more >
Hygiene For Respiratory Viruses
As Dr. McCullough has been advising for several years now, viruses can be stymied before they… more >
Pure Water
Our small city of Tyler recently had a “boil-water advisory.” E. coli was thought to have been found… more >
In The Theater
Watch for these new independent films… more >
PRAYER TEAMS
September Prayer Intentions
For CORAC courage and prudence as our members may need to resist unjust governmental mandates… more >
Beyond the Failsafe (Excerpt)
Charlie has a couple of big projects up his sleeve, so he’s taking a break from the usual letter that appears here each edition. Instead, an excerpt from one of his best blog posts appears below. This post was widely shared online among people who’ve never even heard of CORAC.
An existential conflict is near at hand – in this country and in the world. The left has decided it will lie, cheat and steal to establish the authoritarian oligarchy it wants. For our own sake and that of our children and grandchildren, we must not and will not submit. The only options left open to us now are revolution, civil war, or secession. Of course, catastrophic collapse could come before any of those options come fully into play. Heaven knows incompetent leftist policies hollow us out culturally, politically, and economically even as they crow about how wonderful everything is. Even so, the skills necessary to weather any of these eventualities are similar, if not exactly the same.
In the first place, we must be prepared for the crisis. As special soldiers forces sometimes say, “Hope is not a plan.” If an enemy is trying to kill you, hoping for the best will only get you killed. Make no mistake, the left is now glad to kill us if they can’t get us to submit. Hundreds of political prisoners are being held in Washington jails. Fire-bombing crisis pregnancy centers is a matter of indifference to this federal government. We must be prepared for ever-increasingly frequent and violent depredations by a federal occupying force that has concluded that we will not submit voluntarily so they must use force and coercion to bring us to heel.
While we must be aware of the specific outrages, if howling about them is where it both begins and ends, we are doomed. You might just as well howl that rattlesnakes bite and scorpions sting. Certainly, if you are too busy howling to put on boots, gloves and trail pants when in the desert, you are likely to get bit or stung. Get dressed for your trek and you can walk with both care and confidence. It is easy and viscerally satisfying to howl with outrage at abuses. If you are dealing with honorable people, it is often even effective. But when you are dealing with a cadre determined to seize power by any means it is not only ineffective, it can actually help enable their seizure by convincing others that they are utterly powerless to stop the assault.
Developing the habits of mind and action that will help you endure and overcome any social crisis takes a lot of work – work that is often mundane and grinding. It also takes a lot of cooperation. There is strength in numbers – and that strength is all the greater when the people involved already know and care about each other. That is why we set up the teams at CORAC the way we have. All the teams are focused on skills and knowledge that will be useful if everything miraculously smoothed out – and vital if they do not.
In the second place, we must “judge righteous judgment” (John 7:24) by exercising prudence and restraint as well as vigor and action. If all you have is a sword, and no shield, the devil owns you. You may think yourself a warrior for Christ, but what is really happening is the devil is using you to do some of his dirty work until you have played out your usefulness to him.
Then he runs his sword through you and finds another to unwittingly do his bidding. If you find yourself angry and aggressive all the time, you have entered into the service of the satan.
Fear is also a tool to destroy you. Remember, it is when fright overtook St. Peter that he began to sink beneath the waves. Have you ever made a good decision while in a state of panic? They exist, but are rare. If that is your general modus operandus, you will sink soon enough – while the devil hopes you will take a few down with you.
There are a whole host of people and organizations on the right running around like chickens with their heads cut off, in response to the assaults from the left. Which do you think is the more likely scenario: that ordinary folks, as they realize with certainty that things have taken a rottenly sinister turn in the world, are going to turn to people who have been almost as unhinged and volatile as the shrieking, aggressive left or to people who have been measured, joyful, steady, and effective? I take very seriously what I believe to be my commission to help people navigate the greatest crisis in human history up to this point. I will not degenerate into panicked shrieking. Nor will I be distracted into chopping away at the branches of our problems, when I am called to be focused on the roots.
In that regard, I spend very little time looking for enemies. In this time of naked aggression, most enemies reveal themselves quite openly. Rather I engage in a search for allies – and speak in a way that reassures potential allies that if they come to us, they will not be sent away. There is a story about Abraham Lincoln I absolutely love. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, frustrated with Lincoln’s generous temperament, exclaimed in a meeting that, “Mr. President, you must destroy your enemies.” To which Lincoln replied, “Why Stanton, if I make an enemy into a friend, haven’t I destroyed an enemy?”
One way or another, it is all coming down. I do not want ANYONE to dread to come to us out of fear that all they will get is an “I told you so” or a recitation of their previous sins. Lord help us, if all were to have to be reminded of their previous sins before working for the good, who would be able to stand? It is enough for me that one wants to stand now.
In that light, it is incumbent on each of us to work to see what is best in each person we encounter and appeal to that. That is not just a moral prescription, but a practical guide to coalition building. If someone is of evil will, dismiss them. But make them prove it before shaking the dust off your feet. That applies to the hierarchy in the Church, as well. I have not been shy about criticizing abuses from clerics. But what about those clerics who abuse neither Scripture nor the Magisterium nor their people? Yes, many are timid. What have we done to demonstrate to them that if they stand we will stand with them against the inevitable attacks they will attract? Even the boldest warrior, confronted by a hostile army, will quail if he turns and sees his troops are hiding. I want every Priest and Bishop I encounter to know that if he stands boldly for Scripture and the Magisterium, I will stand boldly and publicly with him, wherever the attacks may come from.
Thus, I encourage everyone to cooperate and collaborate with your Bishops and Priests, so long as they are not actively seeking to overturn Scripture and the Magisterium – and do not pretend that, if they simply disagree with you on a point, they are undermining the faith. If they are timid, well, that is not your fault. You will have the joy of knowing that, if they do act boldly in defense of the faith, you helped by showing them they had people who would stand firmly with them. Courage is contagious. Let your courage be open and without rancor and you will inspire many.
Understand that banishing fear does not mean nothing bad will ever happen to you. Bad things will almost certainly come. It is a matter of trust. When you fully put your trust in Christ, it no longer matters much what happens to you, for you are confident that whatever Christ allows to befall you, it is either for your good or that of those around you – or both. Your job is to pray and study before making a decision and then make the best decision you can. You will still make errors, but God will draw fruit from even those. Do it consistently enough and even the decisions you have to make under pressure will get better.
Finally, be rigorous in the standards you hold yourself to, and generous with everyone else. Too many people do this exactly backwards. Do not count yourself among them. If you want to do solid research, privately attack your own position ruthlessly, seeking out every credible element you can that contradicts your position. You are ready to opine on a subject when you can routinely express the opposition’s position better than they can. Sometimes you will change your position. If you have rigorously attacked your own position privately, you can walk with real confidence when you proclaim publicly. Frankly, that is a big part of the secret of acting boldly without acting brashly.
Understand that a lot of good people are going to be caught up in the hysteria and tumult of the moment. While speaking boldly about what you believe to be true, do not be quick to denounce those who have let the winds and waves of the storm cause them to sink into panicked error. To do so may well hinder them from doing great work once again after the initial panic has passed.
It comes down to my most oft-repeated dictum: Acknowledge God, Take the Next Right Step, and Be a Sign of Hope to Those Around You. We are the people who do stuff. The old ways are falling away. We are called to stand in the breach. Work steadily without ceasing at this and we will, indeed, be heralds of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart.
If communication goes out for any length of time, meet outside your local Church at 9 a.m. on Saturday mornings. Tell friends at Church now, in case you can’t then. CORAC teams will be out looking for people to gather in and work with.
A Sign of Hope Blog
God’s Plan Begins To Reveal Itself – If You Relax
Yuba City, California – In the ‘90s there was a craze for what were...
Are We There Yet?
The older I get, the more I come to appreciate the wisdom of Jesus...
Twigs
“As the twig is bent, so grows the tree” – old Oxford proverb A few...
Brief Updates
Belling The Cat
Some brief thoughts from Charlie Johnston about applying a different...
It Is the Religion of Ignorance That Tyranny Begins
Some brief thoughts from Charlie Johnston about how the left is...
Reveille
A Wisconsin Field Day – Back to Basics
In this inaugural episode of "Reveille," the newest CORACast, Joe...
NEWS
The Synod
Many of us have a sense of dread about the upcoming (and ridiculously named) Synod on Synodality. It’s like the Pope giving an in-flight press conference: nothing good is going to come of it. It bothers me greatly that the logo is so obviously designed to portray a harmless, even childlike, activity, while harboring some of the most evil notions the Church has ever seen. (Is there a darker reason for the pre-occupation of adults with the things of childhood?)
Don the armor of God for October. The Synod begins October 4, after a retreat led by a priest who searches for evidence that that homosexual relations are Eucharistic. Any participant with a lick of sense will cancel their travel plans now, and save their souls as well as their dignity.
The goal of the synod is to journey toward a “synodal Church.” Whoever asked for that? What exactly does it mean? And why, after 2000 years, do we suddenly need a Church that is “synodal”, as opposed to a Church that is apostolic and sacramental? I have never once heard a single Catholic, ever, say, “Oh, if only the Church were more synodal!”
According to the Instrumentum Laboris, a synodal Church is a listening Church and is attentive to the “ecological emergency.” A synodal Church is more concerned with questions and incompleteness, than with answers, as though God revealed Himself to us just so that we could live lives of restless seeking. The working draft envisions endless meetings where everyone speaks with equal authority, without regard to education, experience, ordination or formation of conscience, and no one gets to go home until a “universal consensus” is reached.
Any commercial business conducted that way would be bankrupt in a year.
There are some attractive-sounding notions in the Instrumentum, but they strike me as code language, given the heterodox participants who have been specifically invited to create this “synodal Church.” For example, “listening.” It certainly sounds good, and it’s a cornerstone of good personal relationships… but if the Church is stuck in an endless obligation to “listen,” when will it have time to act? And why are we “listening” to those with pronounced viewpoints that are antithetical and vicious to the received teaching of Jesus Christ? Shouldn’t we be evangelizing them instead?
I can never forget that Cardinal Pell died shortly after submitting for publication his “Toxic Nightmare” letter warning about the Synod. It was published in The Spectator the day after he died. Clearly it was a tremendously important subject to him. We owe it to his memory to read it again, before the toxic nightmare begins next month.
Resources to prepare yourself:
- Cardinal Pell’s last letter: The Catholic Church Must Free Herself From This Toxic Nightmare >
- Bishop Strickland’s Pastoral Letter Ahead of the Synod >
- The Synodal Process Is A Pandora’s Box > Print copy is $10.95; ebook is free. Excellent resource.
- What You Need To Know About the Synod >
Bishop Strickland
It is still amazing to me that anyone in the great, wide world outside of Texas even knows where Tyler is. Bishop Joseph Strickland being one of the few bishops in the world to speak out on behalf of Jesus Christ and the unchanging doctrine of His Church has drawn the Great Eye to this diocese as surely as Frodo’s ring. It’s an apt analogy, as I believe there is indeed a battle coming. Princes of the Church are flirting with something very dangerous and ugly with the Synod.
There are approximately 5,400 bishops in the world. How is it that only a few are speaking up in the face of terrible destruction? Do the bishops, as a whole, give a fig about the Faith and the laity? Why is Bishop Strickland standing isolated among US bishops? Why is there not a line of prelates linking arms against the evil descending on the world today?
It reminds me of Uriah the Hittite, whose name can be translated, “Flame of God.” King David, the favored of God, commanded that Uriah be ordered to the front line of battle. The army would then withdraw, leaving Uriah alone facing the enemy, and certain death. This was David’s plan to cover up his own sin. You can see the parallels.
Remember when we were so concerned about the Amazon Synod, and how it looked like it would ditch priestly celibacy? We prayed a novena that Pope Francis would not adopt that position in his Post-Synodal Exhortation. And he didn’t, for which we were grateful. But it quietly ushered in things like adopting practices of witchdoctors and shamans as ministries of the Church. See what they did there? The old bait-and-switch.
- Bishop Strickland’s pastoral letter on the nature of the Church, issued Sept. 5 >
- Bishop Strickland’s pastoral letter on the Eucharist, issued Sept. 12 >
- Bishop Strickland will not abandon his mandate >
- Bishop Schneider encourages Bishop Strickland >
- Pray the 54-day Rosary Novena requested by the Bishop beginning on October 7 >
Let’s Just Do It
Everyone reading this has probably written their bishop over one thing or another, and likely not received a response. But let’s give it another go. After reading any of the above-named resources on the Synod, you can see that we must do something.
Consider this:
One marginalized, demonized, firebrand bishop is easy to ignore and to remove, but ten, twenty, thirty or fifty good men might be enough to save the Church, as it was enough to save Sodom. For those fearful of a backlash, it doesn’t have to be an endorsement of Bishop Strickland, and those who don’t have time, it doesn’t have to be a lengthy pastoral letter – a simple straightforward statement to the effect that regardless of what happens or doesn’t happen at the Synod on Synodality, as the one given the authority to teach the Faith, the immutable, unadulterated, apostolic teaching will be preserved and protected in this diocese. Period.
Read the full article here, and please write your bishop immediately.
mRNA “Vaccines”
Plenty has been said in this newsletter about the malfeasance of the mRNA vaxx project. The trend in the industry is toward mRNA platforms for all drug delivery, despite all the problems we saw with the covid vaxx.
Question the flu vaccines this year. Some will be mRNA; some will be the classic inactivated virus strains, but those vaccines have never been particularly successful, since they are predictively formulated. Efficacy has historically been around 15-20%. You are better off practicing nasal and oral hygiene, as recommended below.
More detail from Dr. John Campbell, UK >
Covid vaxxes will be coming at us again this fall and winter, too. Does anyone still believe the words “safe and effective”? Find out just exactly what that means in the current profit-inebriated world of massive vaccine sales.
Hygiene For Respiratory Viruses
As Dr. McCullough has been advising for several years now, viruses can be stymied before they ever get into our cells. Respiratory viruses enter the body primarily through the nose and mouth. If you rinse your nasal passages and mouth, you are killing the virus before it can make its way to your cells to begin replicating. Effective rinse solutions can be made with povidone-iodine (Betadyne), hydrogen peroxide, colloidal silver or xylitol (Xclear).
Hand-Powered Tools
If you had to live without electricity for a time, do you have what you need? Some of these are obvious, like a multi-tool, but how about a grinding wheel, manual can opener and hand-cranked grain mill?
Uses For Rosemary
Like ginger and garlic, rosemary is a multi-purpose herb. It can soothe an upset stomach, freshen the air, repel pests and even clean the house. It’s easy to grow in most places, and might be considered one of your “staple” herbs.
Pure Water
Our small city of Tyler recently had a “boil-water advisory.” E. coli was thought to have been found in one of the reservoirs, so residents boiled water for several days until it was resolved. It was a good reminder that our preps are not just stuck in a closet to collect dust until some major worldwide disaster. Your preps should be easy to roll out, and many people believe that we should already be purifying our city water, regardless of any specific problems. Water is our most critical need, after oxygen.
Have your water plan in place.
In the Theater
Watch for these new independent films:
Route 60: The Bibical Highway, a travelogue of the “Path of the Patriarchs” in Israel, now known as Route 60. It runs from Nazareth in the north, passing through Jerusalem, to Beersheba in the south. It’s the ancient road Jesus would have walked. PLAYING SEPT 18 & 19 ONLY
Mother Teresa and Me: a story of two vocations, one that of a privileged Indian woman who finds herself with child, and the other that of a young Mother Teresa. A new twist on Mother Teresa’s story. Opens October 5.
River of Freedom: the story of courageous Kiwis who stood up against a particularly tyrannical government during the plandemic. Only being shown in New Zealand currently, but you can watch trailers and background material here:
CORAC General Discussion on Signal
To chat with other CORAC members nationwide, you can join the General Discussion channel on Signal. Download the Signal app and register your account. Then search “CORAC General Discussion” and request to be added.
ACTIONS TO TAKE NOW
USE CASH
You can never go wrong using cash; use it for everything.
ADORE JESUS
Give Jesus one hour each day, in person or with the livestream from St. Maximilian Kolbe’s chapel in Poland.
FIND ALT FOOD SOURCES
Find local food sources now. Start here >
CORAC WEBSITE
There’s a new resource on our website called The Conversation. This is a posting of particular topics that crop up among the specialty teams. Check out this page to see what’s being discussed >
PRAYER
September Prayer Intentions
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For Charlie, his Subaru, and CORAC gathering organizers as they plan, publicize, and hold events in Arizona, California, Oregon, and Washington during September and October; and that these gatherings bear good fruit and uplift all involved
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For CORAC courage and prudence as our members may need to resist unjust governmental mandates that have moved beyond the rumor phase in some places
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For fruitful ideas and actions as CORAC members continue to Go Forth, joining together with people of other churches to do good deeds for people in their local communities
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As always, that CORAC members volunteering for all of our committees in all of our regions receive the gifts of creativity, good humor, resilience, camaraderie, and unexpected joy of spirit as we serve the Lord in these days
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That existing and new CORAC members may strongly desire and find the means to participate in financial support for our vital ministries
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For all intentions carried in the hearts of CORAC members and those posted on the CORAC Prayer Hotline, with gratitude for prayers answered in our daily lives
St. Gabriel, enlighten us.
St. Michael, defend us.
St. Raphael, protect us.
Ave Maria, Stella Maris!
Prayer Hotline
Email prayer requests to the CORAC Prayer Hotline at prayerteams@coracusa.com, and we will post your request (using firstnames only) on the CORAC Prayer Hotline Signal group.
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