Corona Action Letter: Bishops spread conspiracy theories



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Several Catholic bishops criticize the crown’s measures and resort to widespread conspiracy theories. You see the “prelude to world government”. His letter is clearly criticized.

Measures to curb the coronavirus pandemic are seen by several Catholic bishops, including Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, as a worldwide conspiracy aimed at permanently restricting personal liberties. In a multi-language call, they warn of the “prelude to creating a world government that is out of control,” using a currently widespread conspiracy theory.

There are reasons to believe that “there are forces that are interested in causing panic among the population,” said the good three-page letter. The signatories also express “doubts about the real risk of infection” of the coronavirus.

The call is an initiative of the former papal ambassador to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, and was signed by Cardinal Müller, Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong, and other Catholic clergy, doctors, journalists, and lawyers. The prefect of the Congregation for Services, Cardinal Robert Sarah, said on Twitter that he shared the “concerns” of the appeal he expressed. However, he did not sign it.

Vigano is one of the harshest critics of Pope Francis. He accused the head of the church of dealing with abuse cases in the United States last year of the “obvious lie.” Sarah and Müller had previously criticized worship bans in the fight against the crown virus in recent days as inappropriate interference with religious freedom.

“That has to be contradicted!”

The letter received clear criticism, also within the Catholic Church. Everyone who signed this call is exposing themselves, wrote the Essen diocese of Klaus, on Facebook. He was “simply stunned by what is spreading in the name of the Church and Christianity: crude conspiracy theories without facts and evidence, combined with right-wing populist battle rhetoric that sounds terrifying.”

“This has to be contradicted! Jesus Christ, to whom the signatories refer, has such confused theses that they arouse fear, persecute thought in black and white, draw evil images of enemies and poison coexistence in our societies,” he says. Pepper.


“Information Struggle” Warning

Politicians have been grappling with the spread of conspiracy theories around the crown virus for a long time. The chairman of the conference of interior ministers, Thuringian interior minister Georg Maier, told the “Spiegel”: “The idea that the pandemic was deliberately provoked to control people and that Bill Gates or other supposedly dark powers they are behind it, it reaches the middle of society. ” This protest threatens to become “anti-Semitic”.

Maier is also concerned about the protests on the streets. “When people criticize, of course, it’s fine,” said Maier: “What alarms us is the extremists’ attempt to hijack the protests.” Therefore, the SPD politician wants to put the issue on the agenda of the next conference of interior ministers.

Markus Kerber, Secretary of State at the Federal Ministry of the Interior, spoke of a “global information fight” over Corona. The ministry first noticed an increase in disinformation and propaganda from abroad. Meanwhile, conspiracy theories were also spreading nationally, Kerber said: “We have to take action against this, with facts, transparency and a defense of science.”


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