The John-Henry Westen Show - On the ground update from coronavirus lockdown in London

00:00:00.000 Welcome to this special episode of the John Henry Weston Show. I'm your host John Henry Weston.

00:00:03.920 England is on lockdown. Churches are locked shut by order of law and yet the subway that is the

00:00:09.840 underground is still packed. Flights are still coming in from China and Iran and from Italy

00:00:15.580 and we're going to talk about it with LifeSite's own London correspondent Paul Smeaton. You're

00:00:30.000 just before we start today let me ask you please to consider giving LifeSite News a donation for our

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00:00:53.280 all the news we share each and every day on LifeSiteNews.com. Please visit give.LifeSiteNews.com

00:00:59.220 right now to give us your most generous gift that is give.LifeSiteNews.com. Let's begin as we always

00:01:06.740 do with the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

00:01:13.780 Paul Smeaton welcome to the program. Thank you John Henry good to be with you. All right this is

00:01:19.740 unbelievable what's been going on. As much of the world I believe people are reporting that about

00:01:25.380 three billion people are in lockdown. London is no exception yet. There are some very specific things

00:01:32.760 going on in London that are very shocking. Tell us about what's happening. Okay so prior to this week

00:01:39.540 we haven't been on lockdown. There were recommendations issued by the government but they were not law. We

00:01:45.640 were not obliged to follow them and so this week they've come into force. There was a dramatic press

00:01:54.040 conference with Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday and I think a lot of people well certainly

00:02:03.640 I am and many others are a bit shocked by the extent of those measures. So everybody has been told to stay

00:02:14.920 at home. You're only allowed to go to work if absolutely necessary. You're only supposed to leave

00:02:20.840 the house once a day at most and you're only allowed to leave for four reasons. One of four reasons. So

00:02:30.120 to go to the shops, to get food if you need the food, for medical supplies, for work if you absolutely

00:02:41.160 have to. And so all of a sudden we can't do ordinary things like go to visit our friends or

00:02:52.600 even potentially be out for too long. You know you're not you're not supposed to go out

00:02:57.160 just for any reason. It's got to be for a particular reason. They have a once a day for exercise as well

00:03:03.400 which I found quite interesting is the same kind of allowance for prisoners. They also get out once a day

00:03:09.640 for exercise. Unbelievable and it does feel like a police state a little bit I'm sure and yet we're

00:03:17.640 told this is for health reasons but there's some very strange disparities. One of the things that we

00:03:23.640 note is that the churches are locked by order of law and yet in the Magna Carta that's one of the things

00:03:29.560 guaranteed first and foremost is the freedom of religion, the freedom of the church. Maybe you can speak to that.

00:03:36.840 Yeah well I think that's probably the thing which is going to be hardest certainly for Catholics,

00:03:46.520 the fact that for the next three weeks we can't go to a church to pray, we can't go to mass and we don't

00:03:55.880 even know when the next time we might be able to go to confession is because you're not actually meant to

00:04:01.800 to socialise, to mix with anyone who's not of your household and there's no provision for those 1.00

00:04:10.920 sorts of necessary services in the government's legislation. So that's very strange and it's

00:04:22.200 obviously something that all of us are you know our heads are spinning we're trying to get our heads

00:04:27.160 around this what's what's an utterly unknown unknown situation for us. Yeah absolutely incredible

00:04:34.280 because you have this situation where you are now there are all sorts of things deemed essential

00:04:40.600 not the mass not confession and yet you have a subway system or underground as you call it which is

00:04:46.440 packed with people flights still coming in from China and Iran and Italy that's all seemingly very

00:04:53.160 dangerous yet mass could be practiced in a very safe way in a large church with let's say only 50

00:04:59.640 people or only 10 or however many with them all wearing face masks let's say and is keeping six

00:05:05.160 feet apart or six feet or even meters apart or whatever all that could be done respectfully with

00:05:11.480 with the proper measures and yet that's not even thought of because it's not seen as something essential

00:05:17.000 it's just unbelievable. Yeah I mean with the underground thing I think is particularly striking

00:05:23.320 so um because it's the government who's imposed this this this measure this government who's imposed

00:05:30.200 this legislation um and they're allowing for a certain amount of people to go to work people who

00:05:37.080 absolutely have to go into work and many of those people just wouldn't have any other means to get to

00:05:42.520 their places of work other than by taking the underground so the thing that's happened there

00:05:46.840 though is that because of the crisis the number of services running on the underground has been

00:05:52.520 dramatically reduced so even though there's less people using it there's less services for those

00:05:58.040 people to get on and so while many of us are adjusting to um government policies unlike anything we

00:06:07.480 ever have known in our life or ever expected to know at the same time the system is such that

00:06:14.600 people can't avoid flagrantly uh going against those those uh requirements going against the

00:06:22.760 requirements to social distance because if they're getting on a train you're not two meters apart from

00:06:27.640 somebody you've got several people you know 10 or more people within two meters of you um you you know

00:06:34.520 you look at the look at the photos for yourself i'm sure sure you put them up for our viewers to see

00:06:39.640 the scenes on london you're a baked bean in there um yeah and uh you're squashed up against everybody

00:06:45.720 it's it's it's couldn't be less like social distancing um so i mean if you're going to take

00:06:54.120 a sympathetic uh view of of the government and and and what's happened you'd say that this is an

00:07:02.440 impossible situation for for anyone to to manage without inconsistencies but what certainly is the

00:07:09.080 case is that there's inconsistencies um and that's that's possibly chief among them the other one is

00:07:13.800 going to supermarkets so uh people you know it's difficult to social distance in supermarkets i think

00:07:20.520 it probably happens to some extent in some places and not others but i think you're you're 100 right

00:07:26.600 about the situation with churches that's probably fairly easy to to manage in a church i think most

00:07:34.760 churchgoers would be more than willing to to help in any way that they could to adhere to what the

00:07:42.520 government's asking in order to go to to a church um but i don't think it's been campaigned for i don't

00:07:49.320 think it's been asked for by our bishops and it was interesting that they cancelled uh public attendance

00:07:56.440 at sunday mass before that was even asked of them by the government that's now been ordered so it's

00:08:01.000 now it's uh there's now no option um if you want to obey the law then you you have to cancel mass but

00:08:07.080 but last weekend there was there was the option and the bishops decided decided to cancel mass anyway

00:08:13.480 yeah it's incredible to me also because there's so many groups fighting for their services as

00:08:19.320 essential services and successfully so and this is another huge disparity so the abortion lobby has

00:08:25.240 successfully in england lobbied that their abortions are an essential service and tell us about what's

00:08:30.280 going on there yeah so the whole situation with abortion england is is is one of the strangest things

00:08:38.120 that's happened so um abortions i think are basically continuing as as normal um for for now uh so i think

00:08:48.120 there's been a number of questions raised by pro-life groups in this country uh asking how they possibly

00:08:54.200 can um how anyone can have the medical expertise to say that they don't present an increased risk of of

00:09:02.760 passing on the coronavirus so there's that aspect to it but the really strange aspect to it was that we

00:09:08.600 had earlier this week a dramatic expansion in abortion in this country uh for a very short period

00:09:16.760 of time um i think that there's an incredible story there i don't we don't have all the details at present

00:09:22.520 maybe we will one day um so earlier this week the government had on its website that there'd basically

00:09:31.000 been a massive expansion for abortion what was happening was legislation was issued by the government

00:09:37.400 without a vote that uh diy abortions at home were going to be available on the on demand in response

00:09:45.880 to the coronavirus so women being able to take both stages of the abortion pill at home um at request

00:09:55.320 now that was on that was on the government website that appeared to be legislation for a period and then

00:10:00.440 overnight it disappeared um we don't know we don't know quite what happened uh please god there's a hero

00:10:07.080 somewhere in that story and and one day we'll know we'll know the full details but um

00:10:14.200 it's uh it's something that the abortion lobby wanted for many years and just like in the states

00:10:19.560 you're seeing it uh where the abortion lobby are trying to push through uh expansions to abortion

00:10:25.800 abortion laws um in response to this virus the same thing same thing appeared to happen here but then

00:10:31.160 but then was uh was that it was reversed unbelievable there's all sorts of strange things happening uh

00:10:38.920 with regard to legislation because as you said everybody's in disarray people are looking out

00:10:43.720 for themselves trying to get the provisions they need to survive a lockdown where they're restricted

00:10:48.440 in terms of getting outside and yet all of this stuff is being pushed through legislatively

00:10:54.040 giving massive uh uh powers restricting freedoms of people day after day after day uh tell us a little

00:11:01.800 bit about the powers being pushed through and concerns that way yeah well i mean with those i think um

00:11:11.400 it's possibly too early to speak authoritatively on them because um the legislation has been going through

00:11:18.120 this week so um what i'd say is that i think people are responding to this crisis uh in different ways

00:11:28.600 and there's so many big things happening that your your attention is shifting from one thing to the other

00:11:35.640 as as days go by and what i think we've seen is an increased concern about risk of the virus itself

00:11:43.800 but maybe maybe less concern um among the general public about the restriction of our civil liberties

00:11:51.640 um and about the powers that the state is accruing to itself um so one thing that i believe um

00:12:00.600 has been explored on a on an article appearing on life site is this idea that psychiatrists now they may

00:12:07.880 have the right to section so to put into mental institutions uh people who they deem to be a mental

00:12:14.920 health risk uh indefinitely previously there was a six month cap on the time that that could be done

00:12:20.760 it had to be approved by two doctors it's now one and apparently no time cap so um

00:12:27.720 that sort of thing uh and there seems to be increased powers given to the state for surveillance

00:12:32.840 um of individuals um these sorts of things are very worrying and uh maybe more worrying is how few

00:12:40.840 people are talking about them um i think one one person who is speaking about them speaking about

00:12:45.160 them a lot is the prominent daily mail journalist peter hitchens um but he's taking a lot of criticism

00:12:51.160 online for raising that and i don't know how many voices are joining joining with him

00:12:55.240 speaking of these kinds of powers of the state and of or even more nefarious proposals uh one of the

00:13:03.720 proposals that uh we saw and uh is on life site right now is just shocking is actually a proposal for

00:13:11.080 one world government can you explain that yes and that was that was something i saw just before coming

00:13:17.400 coming on this call with you and so gordon brown one of our former prime ministers uh is reported in the

00:13:25.080 guardian as having called for global government in response to the coronavirus so apparently it's

00:13:34.040 temporary so i don't know if we should have some consolation consolation in that and and who knows

00:13:39.560 what what sort of response that's going to get but i think that's just part of a picture of

00:13:47.960 witnessing all of us sort of getting used to in the last couple of weeks witnessing

00:13:53.160 dramatic world events dramatic statements um and dramatic things that impact our our lives in

00:14:00.760 the most basic way happening on a daily basis so um please god there won't you know there'll be

00:14:07.720 resistance to that and that that won't be picked up but um yeah hugely concerning unbelievable just so

00:14:15.560 many things happening day after day after day you don't know what's coming one of the things that you

00:14:19.080 mentioned is that we'll be at this for three weeks what is the official date of release if you will

00:14:25.240 from this kind of uh um system or when do we get out of jail i'm sure that some will argue that um

00:14:33.640 that in the case of this of a health crisis that it's a necessary measure but what what i can certainly

00:14:39.080 say is that it's a huge suffering for catholics um to be to be facing that it's um it's not something

00:14:46.760 that i think any of us ever expected expected to see yeah we've never seen anything like this in the

00:14:52.840 history of the world actually you've never had a shutdown a complete shutdown almost all over the

00:14:58.760 world of the high sacrifice the mass yeah um tell me paul you being right in the middle of things as a

00:15:04.760 life site correspondent you're following this stuff every day uh from most parts of the globe tell me

00:15:10.440 what are your concerns right now well yeah it's a great question um so uh probably like many people

00:15:21.960 i've lots of concerns um so i have concerns uh about my own health and the health of those those dear to me

00:15:30.920 and my family and friends um and i've concerns about the state of the world and the state state of my

00:15:39.080 country and particularly i suppose i'm based here in london um i think that uh as we've said nobody knows

00:15:49.160 what's coming next and um i think the only reference point that i have for an event like this

00:15:57.720 is the 2011 london riots which were made international news and were at the time probably

00:16:05.480 the most dramatic thing i i'd lived through i think that's already has already surpassed this crisis

00:16:11.080 has already surpassed surpassed that so with the london riots we saw looting violence um violent scenes

00:16:19.240 on the streets businesses being destroyed by looters and rioters um cars set on fire over a number of days

00:16:25.320 it was spreading it was getting more dramatic uh there was a sense that the government didn't have

00:16:30.840 full control of the situation that the police authorities didn't have full control of the

00:16:35.480 situation and it was the same same in this for me in the sense that nobody knew where this was going to

00:16:42.760 go that was that was that's the comparison that i draw we didn't know what was going to happen from

00:16:47.960 one day to the next now i'd say this has already surpassed the the london riots in terms of changes

00:16:55.480 to people's lives ultimately with with those with those um with the london riots ultimately life got

00:17:03.960 back to normal pretty quickly but already for lots of people life isn't going back to normal it's clear

00:17:08.040 for people who've lost their job without much hope of getting it back life isn't going back to normal

00:17:12.840 people who've witnessed uh all of us have witnessed this immense power grab by the state in the last

00:17:18.520 few days life's not going back to normal from that that circuit that perspective um

00:17:25.320 but one thing that we haven't had yet is riots um and since since those riots in 2011 we've had a

00:17:32.200 steady stream of terrorist incidents in london um people tend to forget those pretty quickly too

00:17:39.080 and we've also had a sore in violent crime in our streets in particular knife crime

00:17:43.480 um that's a huge story on its own and and really uh has been spiraling out of control for several years

00:17:49.800 so uh as a londoner knowing that i come from a city city of riots down through the ages and which is

00:17:56.680 which seems to have become more violent than ever in recent years i am concerned that that that will play

00:18:03.000 out if if tensions continue to increase and if the uncertainty um continues to increase if people

00:18:09.640 don't know what's going on if people feel they're having their their freedoms restricted and they

00:18:13.720 don't really know why um then then then i i you know who knows please god it won't i think these things

00:18:21.560 uh many people are making the point that these situations bring out the best as well as the worst

00:18:27.320 um and i think so far you know we're seeing a lot of the best but as i say we we don't know we don't

00:18:33.400 know what's coming right some people have talked about this as a chastisement from gone yeah uh john

00:18:41.000 smeaton your father in fact has mentioned that because of the gravest heinous sins that we're committing

00:18:47.400 abortion for instance top of the pile um what do you make of those assertions i think that some people

00:18:54.920 would probably say that we've we've potentially been overdue a chastisement for some time now

00:19:00.440 i trust none of us know none of us know what's what's happening exactly um but uh i think it's

00:19:07.880 certainly certainly a possibility one thing that's been on my mind a lot in the last couple of weeks

00:19:15.000 um been recent events in in our own in our own country here and and also in ireland so in 2018

00:19:24.920 ireland legalized abortion thanks to a national referendum so the irish people themselves voted

00:19:33.000 to legalize the killing of innocent children in the womb i think there's so many people in the states

00:19:39.960 in canada across england australia with really special and real connections to ireland and ireland's a

00:19:47.880 place that in the lifetime of my parents was a truly catholic nation my mum grew up in ireland

00:19:55.240 my dad was at seminary there briefly when my dad was at seminary in ireland

00:20:00.520 as he'd walk down the streets people in the public would lift their caps out of respect to the

00:20:05.560 seminarians um you know people have talked i think i've seen michael voris talk about the streets being

00:20:12.280 thick with incense and now ireland's a place that chooses itself to legalize the killing of their own

00:20:20.200 unborn children um so an interesting thing that again people people forget about was that the night

00:20:26.520 of that referendum there were the most amazing disturbances in the sky this is all recorded

00:20:33.560 in mainstream media you know i saw one article looking at it this morning called it the mother

00:20:37.960 of all thunderstorms i looked out well i was sad in my my back garden uh that evening and it was unlike

00:20:46.280 i'd ever anything i'd ever seen um the sky was red when i was looking at it and the it was just a

00:20:52.920 continual stream of constant heavy lightning bolts it it went it went for long enough that i got bored

00:21:00.760 you know i started to think you know does this happen all the time this is this is just unreal um

00:21:07.160 um and you know at fatima the miracle of the sun in 1917 we see you know the famous miracle that 70 000

00:21:17.320 people people saw i think professor de matey talks about this sort of thing a lot of the time um so the

00:21:24.360 sun danced in the sky but also plummeted towards the people gathered there um and some people interpret

00:21:31.560 from that uh a certain threat that if man mankind doesn't repent doesn't turn away from sin that a

00:21:39.080 chastisement is imminent from god um and the sad thing is as one friend commented to me this morning

00:21:49.480 there isn't much sign of anybody repenting there isn't much sign of people repenting in the church

00:21:54.360 um there isn't that much sign of people repenting uh in general society there seems to be a focus on

00:22:03.080 on trusting the government on trusting science to deliver us but i don't think there's been a a

00:22:09.800 widespread um a widespread idea that that perhaps we need to review our lives i think sadly as often

00:22:19.400 happens in these situations many people at least those people prominent in the media are coming out

00:22:26.280 confirming the positions they already held um i think we see that in the statements uh made by pope

00:22:32.760 francis earlier this week suggesting that this is this is mother nature um being angry with us i think

00:22:39.240 that's a confirmation of some of some of the worst things that we saw at the recent amazon synod i just

00:22:44.520 pray that this situation wherever it goes that it gives people enough pause for thought to to

00:22:51.400 reconsider their lives reconsider what's important and um to try to strive to walk towards the good

00:22:58.520 and to turn away from from the evil that many people have embraced today very good very good let me let's

00:23:05.880 close off with what uh you are doing with what how this has affected your faith i wrote an article earlier

00:23:13.320 this week for life site uh encouraging everybody to pray the rosary daily as requested by our lady of

00:23:21.240 fatima in 1917 um i think for me i've been speaking to my friends and probably anybody who'll listen for

00:23:29.800 for some time now that things can't continue as as they have been you know we cannot keep murdering our

00:23:37.480 children in the womb we cannot keep destroying the innocence of children through distorted uh immoral

00:23:45.240 sex education that's pumped out across the world we cannot keep word wading further and further into 0.87

00:23:50.680 sin as a people turning away further and further from god um but at the same time i haven't deep down

00:23:56.600 probably really expected to see the sort of change which is which is now potentially looming

00:24:00.680 um for me it's made me realize that that that that life is short and that we don't have

00:24:08.600 any guarantees and that the time to strive for holiness is is now um so fortunately as an englishman

00:24:17.480 with the example of countless saints and martyrs through the ages witnessing to the to the faith with

00:24:24.840 countless examples of great devotion to our lady um i've got plenty of guides and and i'm blessed to

00:24:31.080 have have have many good friends and i think um within my own community of of catholic men in london

00:24:38.440 um it's been one of the great constellations that that we're really encouraging each other

00:24:44.040 in every way during this period of crisis intellectually we're trying to help each other

00:24:48.680 get our heads around what's going on um emotionally dealing with you know the fact that all of our lives

00:24:54.120 have been turned upside down but probably more most importantly spiritually um we're all encouraging

00:24:59.560 each other that you know there isn't any time to wait there's no time for delay to try to grow in

00:25:05.640 holiness you know i think the situation is making us realize we don't know what tomorrow holds tomorrow

00:25:11.640 could be a more dramatic story than we've seen for the last couple of weeks so the time to try to grow

00:25:17.000 in holiness is now excellent excellent we remember that all things work for good

00:25:23.880 for those who love him so whatever hardships we have to deal with the lord will make them for our

00:25:29.560 own good paul smeaton london correspondent for life site news thank you for being with us and may

00:25:35.560 god bless you thanks john henry and god bless all of you we'll see you next time hello this is john

00:25:42.200 henry weston i'd like to invite you to subscribe to the john henry weston show youtube channel if you

00:25:47.640 haven't already done so there you will find all the past episodes and much more thanks again for watching

00:25:54.280 and may god bless you

The John-Henry Westen Show - March 27, 2020

On the ground update from coronavirus lockdown in London

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