this Series has been on the heresies that have Afflicted the church and we
started with the early centuries and have proceeded in a more or less
chronological fashion finishing last class with Vatican 2 and what is
modernism what are the errors of modernism and we talked about some of the specific erors of Vatican 2 so what
I'd like to do today for our final class is to talk about what are the modern
dangers to our faith uh in the 21st century
what are the the pitfalls and the dangers to traditional Catholics in
particular uh today so I came up with a list of five things to consider one
would be what I call false apparitions they had um father kimer
spoke about this at the Fatima conference and I actually spoke about the same thing the year before and the
idea here is that our lord said as we read in the 24th chapter of St Matthew's
gospel which is read on the last Sunday after Pentecost every year he said that
Satan will strive to deceive if possible even the elect so the devil is going to
try and deceive those who are Catholic those who are practicing their faith those who have a Devotion to our Blessed
Mother and St Louis points out in his book on true devotion that the devil
tries to counterfeit devotions to our Lord and our blessed mother because he says those
are like gold and silver among other metals Devotion to Jesus and Mary and in
particular speaking about false apparitions I'm thinking of supposed apparitions of our Lady there was one
that made quite a stir in the 70s and 80s in this country on Long Island um
Bayside Bayside long Island just outside of New York and uh this woman claimed to
have these apparitions and people who were devout to our lady who prayed the rosary very often fell for that and then
a more recent one starting I think in the 80s and into the 90s and might still
be going on I'm not sure is called meori or some pronounce it magigoria in
Yugoslavia and a supposed Apparition of our lady that goes like every day and
what you find in these is that the people who are Avid followers of these
apparitions they still go to the novas sordo they're still they believe in Vatican 2 in fact the one in magigoria
um promotes a humanism and so people have asked me and I said well if the
supposed Apparition told the people not to go to the novas Oro that Vatican 2 is
erroneous uh that the sacraments there are invalid or for the most part Etc then I might
take a second look at it but we have approved apparitions such as Guadalupe
Fatima lelet Lords Etc where there's no the church has approved them but these
more modern apparitions supposed apparitions um I believe are a a danger
to Faith and lead the faithful who love our Lady lead them away I um years ago
when I was a young priest I would have public lectures several maybe about five or six uh trips around the country
giving public lectures and I just remember one that was either in Connecticut or Rhode Island and there
were four or five women who were Avid followers of Bayside who came to the
lecture and they stayed afterwards and I was speaking to them they were very modestly dressed they had probably a
Miraculous Medal they prayed the rosary they loved our lady but they wouldn't even think of
addressing the mass issue that the novas Ordo is not a valid Mass they wouldn't
even think of that because Veronica Lucan who is the The Seer at Bayside didn't say that and she was still going
to her local novas orto church so so to them that that was like Doctrine you
know so this is where you can see how the devil can lead people astray who love our lady uh by these
apparitions the next one will take me a little longer to speak about you've heard of it and this would be called
phism phism so father Leonard pheni was
a Jesuit priest in Boston area in the 1940s and
1950s and in the 1940s he began to teach
that there is no such thing as baptism of desire and baptism of blood and
furthermore he taught that these teachings on baptism of Desire baptism
of blood were concocted by American uh you know priests and and
it's found only in the Baltimore catechism well that's not true at all
and I'm going to give you some quotes but basically basically this is the understanding is that if a person is
unable to receive the sacrament of baptism but the person is
martyred then we say that that person was baptized in his blood or her blood
like in the case of s emerenciana whom we honor in the Liturgy she was baptized in her blood and a book called the Roman
martyrology has at least five Saints who are honored as Saints who were martyr
before they were able to be baptized and so they're baptized in their blood so that's called baptism of blood and then
the other one is called baptism of
desire and that means that someone desires to receive
baptism but dies before he or she is baptized and I wrote it article on phism
on father Leonard feny for the reign of Mary some I don't know five six years ago and I wanted to be fair so I read
his book it's called bread of life this book he wrote which was tedious because
a lot of repetition Etc and the book was really a compilation of his lectures he
was if I'm not mistaken he was a uh as a Catholic priest he was running the
Newman club or which which were organizations on campuses of
non-catholic universities to provide a place where Catholics could go and they would have mass and conferences and that
type of thing to help them hold on to their faith it was called the Newman Club well it was either that or a
similar organization at Harvard University which is in I guess it's in
Charlestown it's just right on the other side of the river from Boston Harvard University and has a has a big name
famous un univers I think it's the oldest in the United States and he was there to help the Catholic students well
he began to teach this this teaching there and that raised uh the the
attention obviously of the bishop or the Archbishop of Boston Cardinal Cushing
and uh you know there was obviously concerns by his own superiors he was
assigned to a different house he refused to go uh he was called To Rome he refused to go he eventually was
excommunicated around 1950 I think it might have been 52 or 53 but by pop Pas
the 12th he was excommunicated and again he was denying baptism of blood and baptism of
Desire now those who promote phism today they will say well there's only
one baptism our you know St Paul talks about one Lord One Faith one baptism so
are you saying that there are three baptisms and that's not what we're saying at all there is only one
sacrament of baptism but what we're saying is someone can gain the effect of the sacrament who's unable to receive it
due to circumstances but I I started to say that I read this
book of authored by father feni called bread of life and was very tedious but
among other things that I pointed out in the article I quoted directly from there but this is one thing he said
he said some will ask me if a man is a cuman preparing to be baptized and he
finishes his last lesson and he's on his way to the church to be baptized and
gets in a car accident and dies what happens to him he says it's just too bad
he's lost it's just too bad now that Common Sense tells you that that is
contrary to our sense of the justice of God and the mercy of God it it it is
contrary to our sense both of the justice and the mercy of God that this man who desired to become a Catholic
went through all the instructions is on his way to the church is killed too bad he's lost and that was kind of his
attitude so you can see why he was eventually excommunicated now I'm just going to give you a few quotes there's a
website that has quotes from fathers of the church and councils Etc that is like
22 pages long but I just I just pulled off a few to give you a few quotes and
this shows that the teaching of the church here baptism of blood and baptism
of Desire is consistent it goes back to even before the time of Constantine like
origin tertullian some of the early writers taught this so here's just a few
quotes um this first one is on uh baptism of blood St uh John chrisostam
who lived in the 4th century in a panyc on St Luciana said do not be
surprised that I should equate martyrdom with baptism for here too the spirit
breathes which M with much fruitfulness and a marvelous and astonishing remission of sins and cleansing of the
soul is affected and just as those who are baptized by water so too those who
suffer martyrdom are cleansed with their own blood again fourth century and
father feny said this was just invented you know in the in the United States here is St basil also fourth Century in
A Treatise on the Holy Ghost he says quote and air now there have been some who in their championship of True
Religion have undergone the death for Christ's sake not in mere similitude but
in act actual fact and so have needed none of the outward signs of water for
their salvation because they were baptized with their blood thus I WR not to disparage the baptism of water but to
overthrow the arguments of those who exalt themselves against the spirit who confound things that are distinct from
one another and compare those which admit of no comparison I say there's numerous here
quotes now here's one on baptism of Desire this is St Ambrose once again
fourth Century uh he is writing concerning the death of a man named valentinian
who had not been baptized and died before he was baptized kind of similar to what I was saying here the man
desired to be baptized had scheduled it and died before he could be baptized and St Ambrose says I hear that you are
distressed because he did not receive the sacrament of baptism tell me what attribute do we have besides our will
Our intention yet a short time ago he had this desire that before he came to
Italy he should be initiated that is baptized and he indicated that he wanted to be baptized as soon as possible by
myself did he not therefore have that Grace which he desired did he not have
what he asked for undoubtedly because he asked for it he received it so that's a
clear teaching on baptism of Desire now um there are numerous other quotes I
just give you one last one this is St Bernard of clairo so 10 hundreds St
Bernard wrote in a letter uh um to Hugh of St Victor on baptism quote if an
adult wish and seek to be baptized but is unable to obtain it because death
intervenes then when there is then where there is no lack of right Faith devout hope sincere charity may God be gracious
to me because I cannot completely despair of salvation for such a one solely on account of water if it be
lacking and cannot believe that faith will be rendered empty hope confounded and charity lost
provided only that he is not contemptuous of the water but as I see
said merely kept back from it by lack of opportunity and these quotes can be
multiplied but let's go to the solemn teaching of the church the Council of
Trent taught no one can be saved without baptism or the desire of it very clear
teaching from Trent now there are some who say well you're misunderstanding and what it means is you have to be baptized
and have the desire for it both well the word is or and St Thomas aquinus I'm sorry St St
Thomas aquinus taught this as well back in the 1200s but St alonsus Lori who
lived in the 1700s therefore two centuries after Council of Trent says that it is deid it is a faith that
baptism of Desire saves a person so he obviously understood here's a canonized
Saint and a doctor of the church what the Council of Trenton was teaching now you might ask then
why why did father Leonard feny do this and why is this such an issue today to
this day there are traditional Catholics who are just totally uh convinced of
phism reject baptism of Desire baptism of of blood and say you know that they
believe father feni was a saint and believe him exactly everything he taught so why is that and the reason why this
is attractive today is because we live in an age of liberalism right we talked
about liberalism and modernism so we live in an age of liberalism and the opposite end of the
spectrum would be to fall into error by exaggerating the truths of of
the Faith with an excessive rigorism so rigorism
is the opposite of liberalism and that's kind of the old the old thing of the
pendulum swinging you know so the pendulum in this country especially but
really with Vatican 2 everywhere has swung so far towards
liberalism that out of a desire to not be tainted with that to not fall into
that track trap many have gone too far the opposite way into rigorism and this
this is an example of rigorism um I was going to make one other comment
on that but that this this idea of the pendulum oh I know what I was going to say father feni himself talked about the
fact that he met or knew priests even Jesuits because he taught at Uni Boston
University I think for a while that in his mind they were were and they very
likely were uh liberal and and fell into
um indifferentism that one religion is as good as another and the false ACC humanism of Vatican 2 this was before
Vatican 2 but I mean that was those ideas were prevalent and so he realized
that error but then he went to this opposite extreme and one of the things about heresy you find somebody falls
into it and it's hard for them to admit it or acknowledge it realize it that
pride is a very subtle thing a very terrible thing and once a person has
become entrenched to admit I was wrong it's not easy to do especially someone
who's like a priest as a teacher Etc so uh this is an issue today and
sadly has led many people astray another one that I want to talk about talking
about modern dangers is has to do with with reading material and what I mean by that is if
you look at the practice of the Catholic Church
going back centuries the reading material of the
faithful was monitored you were forbidden to read certain things there was what was called an index of
forbidden books and even going back to the time of the Apostles and I don't
remember I think it's one of his Epistles or else Acts of the Apostles where St Paul was preaching and
condemned the certain books and and books on Magic Etc these people brought them all together and they made a big
bonfire and burn burned all the books that he told them were no good so the Catholic Church always had What's called
the prohibition of forbidden books you can't just go and read a book say uh I
want to see what Martin Luther really taught so I'm gonna go get go to the library and get a book written by Martin Luther and read that you couldn't do
that without permission the church realizes that people can be easily LED
astray by reading something that's dangerous to their faith and what's
interesting is that this is the source of what was called the
Inquisition now the Inquisition existed in Europe uh around the time of
protestantism and in some places to some degree began before because of albigensianism but especially with
protestantism M and the Inquisition was strongest in two countries in Italy and
Spain well which are the two countries in Europe Mainland Europe Continental Europe that did not fall into
Lutheranism by and large you know there were some but they they remain Catholic countries Italy and Spain and in fact
the the Cardinal in charge of the Inquisition in Italy in the in the
middle of the 16th century was a cardinal known as is Michael gizer and
he became Pope pasus I and is a canonized Saint so he was in charge of the Inquisition now of course
Protestants and and modern-day freethink thinkers look upon the Inquisition as horrible you are just deprived you're
telling people what they have to believe that this this idea of freedom of thought freedom of expression that you
can read anything and believe anything you want that's typical of a modern way of thinking right so it's looked upon as
the churches this cruel harsh uh Authority telling people what they can't
read but again that's necessary because of our fallen human nature and our
ability to be deceived the church as a loving mother is concerned for the Salvation of her children and so there
is uh a decree uh Pope Leo the 13th came out in
1900 with the decree on the prohibition of books but then that was superseded
with the new code of canon law in 1917 which embodied that material in the
Cannons I think they're canons like 1347 to 1447 or thereabouts or there are 11
cannons I believe that deal with the prohibition of books Catholics can't read for example you can't have a
Protestant Bible and not only can you not read the books that are forbidden
you may not have them in your home now what's interesting about this
reading material is in the late 1960s Paul v 6 came along and did away
with the obligation to have an imprimo before something is printed so any book
you pick up a book on the life of a saint or whatever you can go to the front and you find an emater which was a
stamp of approval by a bishop an ordinary saying there's no heresy in
this book not necessarily saying I think it's a good book or I agree with everything in it but there's nothing in
it that's contrary to Faith and there would be a sensor who is a theologian a priest that
had a a degree in theology Etc usually a a doctorate in sacred theology who would
be assigned if somebody wrote a book and wanted it to get published in this particular dicese he would have to go it
was given to the censor he would read it and if he thought there was nothing wrong he would write out a
recommendation to the bishop and then the bishop would give the imper moer and that priest who read it gave what was
called the nikil obot which means nothing stands in the way for it to be printed but can't be
printed yet until the bishop says let it be printed impr promat it may be printed
now if you look at a lot of books like say in our our bookshelves the imperat I
would say by more than 50% of them at least if they were written in the 50s was Cardinal Spelman of New York so
why is that well the benzinger brothers had their presses their Printing House in New York and they're the ones that
printed all the the missiles and breviaries we use Etc so that beniger Brothers was a printing company that did
catholic books and so you know because that's where the printing press was located for this particular company the
bishop of New York had to give his approval now again Paul the six did away
with that but that was a very strict you could not even print a holy card that
had not been previously approved by the bishop of the the dicese but I bring
this up for several reasons first of all with regards to printing nowadays there are photocopy machines there's scanners
there's printers the the technology is absolutely astounding compared to what
it used to be I was some of us that are older Remember When when when F what we
called Xerox machines first came out and it was a very shiny paper and so forth
and would smudge you know the the first generation of copy machines we thought wow and nowadays you look at what we
have with digital scanners and copiers and so on and so forth It's just incredible so as a result this there's
just this diffusion of anybody can can be a printer and you
can get books you want printed and they have these big machines and they can they can print them for you you know a
small number you know I I wanted one book that was out a print and I ordered
20 copies of it and they just print 20 copies I mean it's just incredible the printing that that's available well
that's one aspect of this point this third point I'm bringing up the other one is the
internet so again we've only had the internet for what 30 30 years more or less and before that time you didn't
have people who had the websites the blogs Etc so how does a church deal with
this you have I know of people who because they read an article on the
internet they lost their faith or they they thought we were heretical and they
left us or went back to the novas order or whatever because of something they read so anyone in his brother can start
his own blog his own chat room his own website Etc and people write and they
just put anything and everything up there so what's the solution here what what am I saying is be careful of what
you read number one make sure that it's obvious that it's not clearly against the faith get advice of your pastor if
you need it but also something that's very good is to be
skeptical of anything you read you read anything that sounds this doesn't sound quite right we should have this this
kind of a skeptical attitude that we're not just going to take something because we read it because somebody else wrote
it therefore it must be true um but this I mean I could go on
here about uh traditional Catholics getting themselves into trouble by
reading this that and the other thing on the internet sometimes people read blogs by Protestant ministers why because all
this has prophecy in it and they're all concerned about the anti Christ in the end of the world and this and that and
they read this stuff and then they get taken by the errors that are there so
this is something we have to be very careful about because we live in the information age I mean we're just
surrounded by information and it's an overload you know system overload but if you think about the Catholic Church how
careful she was before um you know before Vatican 2 in
canon law and with the emod and so on and so forth the inquisitions
the church is careful to keep back from the faithful um something that would
danger be dangerous to their faith and what we lack is a true Pope we lack that
hierarchy that where the pope can come out and say I mean what how do you clean it up nowadays what would you do if you
all of a sudden had a true Pope and true Bishops ordinaries Etc I think they would they would require that someone
who wants to have a website for example have a a spiritual director or a priest that would review it that wants to do
articles you couldn't just have anyone and everyone writing whatever he wants and putting it out there and that's
what's going on right now so that's that's a real danger uh another
one with which I will just call because that's what people call it home
this is at the time the movie Home Alone came out and he wrote an article on this
movement or this thinking and he called it home alone and what he's saying is
those it has to do with jurisdiction Authority those who say I can't go
to the mass of Father Benedict at the city of Mary or father casmer at Mount St Michael or whoever wherever I can't
go because they don't have have jurisdiction from an ordinary who
received his authority from a true Pope because we don't have a true Pope
therefore no priest should be ordained and that people should just practice their faith in their homes so what these
people do who are home aloners as as um you know father Chaka coined the term
and it kind of stuck people use that they won't go to a church because of their exaggerated ideas of they of
jurisdiction they don't understand canon law and in
particular a principle of canon law which is called Ecclesia sulet and that
that just means the church supplies because there's several kinds of jurisdiction there's ordinary
jurisdiction there's delegated jurisdiction and then there supplied jurisdiction and canon law has a number
of cannons that talk about Supply jurisdiction certain situations where
the church would Supply and a very clear example would be if you're dying and there is a valid priest around
but he's excommunicated or has lost his faculties or whatever this is normal times the church would Supply him with
authority to hear your confession to give you Absolution so the church supplies here's
a man who's excommunicated therefore he doesn't have any any Authority from the Catholic church but it's supplied to him
for that one moment for the Salvation of this Soul so Ecclesia sulet is is a
basic principle of canon law and the overriding principle of all of canon law
is the Salvation of souls is the highest law now I did a interview on a podcast
on this very subject maybe about two months ago a month or two months ago with Kevin Davis so his uh podcast is
called Catholic Family podcast Catholic Family podcast and he has interviews
I've been on it before the Bishops been on it different priests lay people he you know things for Catholic families
and it's it's developed quite a a clientele quite a following some good
things on there but so he wanted to have this up there and we were talking about this and I said you know the way I look
at it is at the time of our Lord there were the Pharisees
and you know how the Pharisees were they had this exaggerated we had the word
rigorism up here that was the Pharisees rigorist they had these exaggerated
ideas on the Mosaic law and the practices at that time for instance our
Lord cured someone on the Sabbath day and they said Horrors you know he he
broke the Sabbath and they went so far as to say to people bring your sick people on any other day of the week to
be cured but don't bring them on the Sabbath and our Lord confounded them he
said which of you you have an animal like an ox or an ass that falls in a pit you'll pull it out on the Sabbath day so
it doesn't drown or or die but should not this daughter of
Abraham be released from her it was a woman who was sick remember there was a
man that had a withered hand and came into the synagogue and our Lord just by
a word cured his hand and they had a problem with that and our lord said to
them and think about this he said man was not made for the Sabbath but the
Sabbath was made for man in other words the day of rest is for us for the for
our benefit to give honor and glory to God but also to rest you know one day a week a day we don't work a day to rest
we need that so the Pharisees looked upon it at the Sabbath is was so so
sacred that man was made for the Sabbath and man had to be subject to you know
their laws on how the Sabbath would be observed well I take that with home aloners because they look upon canon law
Church law or at least their interpretation of church law as like an end in itself they don't think about
that overriding principle that the salvation of souls is the highest law
and therefore they say um you know canon law like man was made for canon law
Canon they don't they disagree with me that canon law was made for man law
Church law is made for the good of society the good of the faithful for the Salvation of Souls and if a particular
law works against the salvation of a soul that law ceases to bind
um in this regard um I was going to make a
comment and and just lost my train of thought sorry about that but um
at any rate canon law proper inter oh I know what I was going to say because the Homer looners they won't go to mass they
won't go to confession they won't receive any sacraments from a priest unless they can find a priest who was
ordained before Pope Pas the 12 died and had faculties but even then he he would
only have faculties in the dases where he was incardinated so they will go on for
decades not going to mass their children grow up
never having seen a mass never having gone into a church and what's ironic is
the parents will baptize their own children or maybe get someone else to baptize them but they're so rigid on
canon law but they're disobeying canon law because canon law says that lay people cannot baptize except in case of
necessity in danger of death otherwise it must be a priest or a deacon so they
they don't care about that particular law they baptize their children and they do their own marriages Etc without a
priest there so it's it's sad but that's a um that's a problem nowadays as well
for otherwise good traditional Catholics who recognize the errors of Vatican 2 and all of that but again they just
won't go anywhere until there's a true Pope again I guess all right and then
lastly it's what is called and I don't like the name it's a very awkward name
recognize but resist and got to be a better name for that uh
I'm guessing that father chicata also who was quite a writer and as you know
father chicata passed away two or three years ago but he did a tremendous amount
of very good writing uh we didn't agree with him on everything but um hi hi
respect for him and I think he coined that pra that phrase but recognize and
resist or recognize but resist is the idea that someone looks upon
Francis supposed Pope Francis or before him John Paul 2 and says I recognize in
him the Vicor of Christ the true Pope but I have to resist what he's saying
because I know it's heretical so they've concocted this new theology that
Catholics have to take what the Pope says and subject it to the filter of
their Catholic way of thinking to see should I obey it or not so um like the
society St Pas the 10th they accept some of the new code of canon law of John
Paul 2 which was promulgated in 1983 but they reject other things and they say
well we we accept what is in accord with tradition well who decides
that the the idea of a pope is you submit you obey and not only do you obey
you have no right to judge a pope and it's impossible for a pope to promulgate
a law for The Universal Church that would be harmful to souls or be heretical or be a danger to one's Faith
that's impossible church has defined that in many ways so the problem here is
their Catholic faith is telling them that Francis is crazy E I mean that he is destroying the faith and saying that
that divorced and remarried people remarried outside the church and divorced that they can receive the sacraments or what was the latest thing
it came out that priests have to give a blessing to homosexual couples who ask for it they said oh we're not saying
this is a Sacrament but the priest has to give them a blessing which of course is condoning their way of life and and
on and on I mean that the amount of shocking statements he made is incredible so they're Catholic in their
thinking and they recognize that they see that and they say well this is wrong
my Catholic faith tells me it's wrong but they won't get to the point of saying therefore he's not a true Pope
there's no way this man could be a true Pope so what they have to do to hold on to this idea of
recognizing Francis John Paul 2 John Paul 1 Paul v 6 Etc Benedict the 16th
John the 23rd to recognize them as true popes they have to set aside Catholic
theology that you must submit to the pope you have no right to judge him you must obey him he cannot promulgate
anything harmful to the faith to The Universal Church Etc his canonizations are are are valid acts of
infallibility and you know scet St Pas attent they'll say well we'll accept this canonization but we won't accept
that one so who becomes the the
the Arbiter We Trust our superiors you know
in the society bishop fle or the priest whoever their superiors are but what Authority they have where did they get
that Authority so this is a big problem because the majority of those who are
traditional Catholics today and by that I mean they recognize Vatican 2 as heretical
erroneous they reject Vatican 2 they recognize that the UN ver that the novas Ordo is a
man-made service it is offensive to almighty God it
is a community man centered and invalid and sacriligious Etc and they reject the
novas sordo but they can't come to the point of saying Ergo The Logical conclusion is
this man cannot be a true Pope I don't know how you know there are different different ways might say well I don't
know how he's not a true Pope but I just know there's no way this man can be a true Pope and the irony is that there
are people outside the church that are recog i' I've read articles by individuals who are not Catholic who are
saying this man is not a pope they recognize it because everything that he teaches is contrary to what the true
popes for nearly 2,000 years taught so there's there's this contradiction there
so whatever you want to call it RNR recognize and resist it's this idea that
you can believe a man is a pope but you can turn around and re resist him reject
what he teaches disobey What He commands and and that's what you need to do to
persevere in your faith but still believe he's a true Pope you know they you go into a church of the society St P
ATT 10 and they have a picture of Francis in the vestibule or whatever but then they ignore everything he says well
what's the point point of having a picture you know and how how can this man be a successor of St Peter a true
Pope If he if he's teaching contrary to everything that the popes from St Peter
to Pas I 12 taught and stood for it's only logical to us but it's hard for
people to make that you know they look upon beginning with John the 23rd well he was elected by the Cardinals that
popas of 12th had there were Cardinals under Pas the 12 and then after him
there was Paul the 6 and you have they occupy St Peters they occupy the offices
in Rome these modernists and so people think well I don't like it but they're
true Pope so they they recognize that that they have authority but they decide
when they will obey and when they won't okay that's it so these are five modern
errors that we need to be aware of and realize our faith is
precious the devil's seeking to destroy it and remember those words of Our Lord I started with in in the gospel of St
Matthew that we read on the last Sunday after Pentecost that the devil will deceive if possible even the elect and
he tries to do that through these these snares that are very prevalent
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