How the Vatican Built a Secret Real Estate Empire With Mussolini's Millions

Personally, I view the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy as among the most corrupt and morally bankrupt institutions in the world.  But, as a story in The Guardian reveals, a world wide conspiracy to protect and cover up for sexual predators who molested thousands and thousands of children and minors and past charges of money laundering aren't the Church's only dirty laundry.  Now, we find out that the Vatican has used millions in Fascist money to build a secret real estate empire.  As I have frequently maintained, tawdry whore are more virtuous that the leadership of the Catholic Church.  Here are story highlights:

Few passing London tourists would ever guess that the premises of Bulgari, the upmarket jewellers in New Bond Street, had anything to do with the pope. Nor indeed the nearby headquarters of the wealthy investment bank Altium Capital, on the corner of St James's Square and Pall Mall.

But these office blocks in one of London's most expensive districts are part of a surprising secret commercial property empire owned by the Vatican.

Behind a disguised offshore company structure, the church's international portfolio has been built up over the years, using cash originally handed over by Mussolini in return for papal recognition of the Italian fascist regime in 1929.

Since then the international value of Mussolini's nest-egg has mounted until it now exceeds £500m. In 2006, at the height of the recent property bubble, the Vatican spent £15m of those funds to buy 30 St James's Square. Other UK properties are at 168 New Bond Street and in the city of Coventry. It also owns blocks of flats in Paris and Switzerland.

The surprising aspect for some will be the lengths to which the Vatican has gone to preserve secrecy about the Mussolini millions. The St James's Square office block was bought by a company called British Grolux Investments Ltd, which also holds the other UK properties. Published registers at Companies House do not disclose the company's true ownership, nor make any mention of the Vatican.  Instead, they list two nominee shareholders, both prominent Catholic bankers.

Ultimate control is recorded as being exercised by a Swiss company, Profima SA.  British wartime records from the National Archives in Kew complete the picture. They confirm Profima SA as the Vatican's own holding company, accused at the time of "engaging in activities contrary to Allied interests". Files from officials at Britain's Ministry of Economic Warfare at the end of the war criticised the pope's financier, Bernardino Nogara, who controlled the investment of more than £50m cash from the Mussolini windfall.

Nogara's "shady activities" were detailed in intercepted 1945 cable traffic from the Vatican to a contact in Geneva, according to the British, who discussed whether to blacklist Profima as a result.

The Mussolini money was dramatically important to the Vatican's finances. John Pollard, a Cambridge historian, says in Money and the Rise of the Modern Papacy: "The papacy was now financially secure. It would never be poor again."

The Mussolini investments in Britain are currently controlled, along with its other European holdings and a currency trading arm, by a papal official in Rome, Paolo Mennini, who is in effect the pope's merchant banker. Mennini heads a special unit inside the Vatican called the extraordinary division of APSA – Amministrazione del Patrimonio della Sede Apostolica – which handles the so-called "patrimony of the Holy See".

While secrecy about the Fascist origins of the papacy's wealth might have been understandable in wartime, what is less clear is why the Vatican subsequently continued to maintain secrecy about its holdings in Britain  .  .  .  .  True to its tradition of silence on the subject, the Roman Catholic church's spokesman said that the nuncio had no comment.

For those unfamiliar with Mussolini, here are some highlights from Wikipedia:

Following the March on Rome in October 1922 he became the 27th Prime Minister of Italy and began using the title Il Duce by 1925, within five years he had established dictatorial authority by both legal and extraordinary means, aspiring to create a totalitarian state. After 1936, his official title was Sua Eccellenza Benito Mussolini, Capo del Governo, Duce del Fascismo e Fondatore dell'Impero ("His Excellency Benito Mussolini, Head of Government, Duce of Fascism, and Founder of the Empire").

^{Mussolini argued that Italy was right to follow an imperalist policy in Africa because all black people were "inferior" to whites.  Mussolini claimed that the world was divided into a hierarchy of races (stirpe), though this was justified more on cultural than on biological grounds, and that history was nothing more than a Darwinian struggle for power and territory between various "racial masses"}

after 1922, Mussolini personally took over the ministries of the interior, foreign affairs, colonies, corporations, defense, and public works. Sometimes he held as many as seven departments simultaneously, as well as the premiership. He was also head of the all-powerful Fascist Party and the armed local fascist militia, the MVSN or "Blackshirts", who terrorised incipient resistances in the cities and provinces. He would later form the OVRA, an institutionalised secret police that carried official state support. In this way he succeeded in keeping power in his own hands and preventing the emergence of any rival.

Between 1925 and 1927, Mussolini progressively dismantled virtually all constitutional and conventional restraints on his power,

He did not hesitate laying siege to towns, using torture, and holding women and children as hostages to oblige suspects to give themselves up.

Mussolini pushed for government control of business: by 1935, Mussolini claimed that three-quarters of Italian businesses were under state control. That same year, he issued several edicts to further control the economy, including forcing all banks, businesses, and private citizens to give up all their foreign-issued stocks and bonds to the Bank of Italy.

All teachers in schools and universities had to swear an oath to defend the fascist regime. Newspaper editors were all personally chosen by Mussolini and no one who did not possess a certificate of approval from the fascist party could practice journalism.

By 1938, the enormous influence Hitler now had over Mussolini became clear with the introduction of the Manifesto of Race. The Manifesto, which was closely modeled on the Nazi Nuremberg laws, stripped Jews of their Italian citizenship and with it any position in the government or professions.

On 11 February 1929, he signed a concordat and treaty with the Roman Catholic Church Under the Lateran Pact, Vatican City was granted independent statehood and placed under Church law—rather than Italian law—and the Catholic religion was recognized as Italy's state religion. The Church also regained authority over marriage, Catholicism could be taught in all secondary schools, birth control and freemasonry were banned, and the clergy received subsidies from the state, and was exempted from taxation. Pope Pius XI praised Mussolini, and the official Catholic newspaper pronounced "Italy has been given back to God and God to Italy."

And there you have it - a little bit of background on the man who was the source of the Vatican's new found wealth following the Lateran Pact.  Wealth that allowed the Vatican to build its secret real estate empire.   Ill gotten money financing an ill gotten institution.  ^{How appropriate that the current Pope is literally a former Nazi - or at minimum, a Hitler Youth.}

Diocese of Richmond Seeks to Kill Joint Episcopal-Catholic Parish

The Vatican and the Catholic bishops give a great deal of lip service about wanting to increase ecumenism and building improved relations with other Christian denominations.  Like so much that comes out of the mouths of these people, it's a lie.   The Nazi Pope, Benedict XVI, and his Schutz-Staffel like bishops and cardinals increasingly want a form of Catholic purity dictated by they themselves and truly care nothing about the wedge they are driving between the Catholic Church and other denominations, not to mention between the Church hierarchy and much of the laity.  A local example of this effort to burn all bridges and erase all real efforts at ecumenism can be found in Virginia Beach where The Church of the Holy Apostles, the nation's only joint Episcopal-Catholic parish has received orders from SS Sturmbannführer - I mean bishop -  Francis X. DiLorenzo of the Diocese of Richmond that the parish must segregate portions of their service into separate facilities.  Having attended The Church of the Holy Apostles myself in the past with friends who were members, given the layout of the church facility (pictured above), this dictate may well kill the joint parish - which I suspect is Bishop DiLorenzo's real goal.   Here are excerpts from a Virginian Pilot story:

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Richmond has told the nation's only blended Catholic and Episcopal parish it must change its worship services so Catholics and non-Catholics meet in separate rooms for Holy Communion.

The parish, Church of the Holy Apostles, is led by Catholic and Episcopal co-pastors and has worshipped together for more than 30 years.  It's an arrangement, parishioners say, that over the years has allowed families in mixed marriages to worship side by side and has helped build bonds that transcend denominational boundaries.

[Diocese] officials made it clear the current worship practice – using a combined liturgy in which the priests move to separate altars in the same room to say the Eucharistic prayers – was unacceptable, Ferguson said.  They instructed the parish to come up with a plan that provides for separate liturgies in separate rooms, Ferguson said.

[P]arishioners at the church on Lynnhaven Parkway are still upset by DiLorenzo’s removal of the parish’s Catholic co-pastor, the Rev. James E. Parke, earlier this month.  DiLorenzo gave no reason for Parke’s dismissal, which was communicated in a letter to the parish on Nov. 2 – one day after the parish celebrated its 35th anniversary.

In the same letter, DiLorenzo said he was sending in a team to determine whether the way the parish worships is consistent with Catholic doctrine.

Catholics in the parish, in my view, need to tell SS Sturmbannführer DiLorenzo that he can put his orders where the sun doesn't shine and simply walk away from the Roman Catholic Church.  The more one knows of the Church's real history including its collaboration with the Nazi regime and now the global conspiracy in today' sex abuse scandal, the more obvious it is that the moral thing is to leave the Catholic Church.

Catholic Theologian Preaches Revolution and Overthrow of Pope

I have addressed the many problems relating to and the evil, if you will, that the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy works across the globe be it in the form enabling of cover ups for predatory priest or the denigration of women's and LGBT rights.  Having been raised as a Catholic, I know full well just how soul killing and psychologically harmful the Vatican's version of Catholicism can be for so many.  Being raised to loath one's self and be racked with fear and guilt are not healthy attributes.  Yet that is the stock in trade of the Church hierarchy.  Now, a leading catholic theologian - who not surprisingly the Vatican has sought to silence - is speaking out and urging the Catholic laity to revolt and take the Church back from the foul and morally bankrupt hierarchy which cares only about its power, its ability to control others, and to demonize anyone who fails to heel to the Vatican's dictates.  It is note worthy that the oath Benedict XVI demands from bishops and cardinals bears a frightening similarity to the oath Hitler demanded of his generals.  The Guardian has coverage on this call to revolution by theologian Hans Küng.  Here are excerpts:

 

One of the world's most prominent Catholic theologians has called for a revolution from below to unseat the pope and force radical reform at the Vatican.

Hans Küng is appealing to priests and churchgoers to confront the Catholic hierarchy, which he says is corrupt, lacking credibility and apathetic to the real concerns of the church's members.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Küng, who had close contact with the pope when the two worked together as young theologians, described the church as an "authoritarian system" with parallels to Germany's Nazi dictatorship.

"The unconditional obedience demanded of bishops who swear their allegiance to the pope when they make their holy oath is almost as extreme as that of the German generals who were forced to swear an oath of allegiance to Hitler," he said.

The Vatican made a point of crushing any form of clerical dissent, he added. "The rules for choosing bishops are so rigid that as soon as candidates emerge who, say, stand up for the pill, or for the ordination of women, they are struck off the list." The result was a church of "yes men", almost all of whom unquestioningly toed the line.

"The only way for reform is from the bottom up," said Küng, 84, who is a priest. "The priests and others in positions of responsibility need to stop being so subservient, to organize themselves and say that there are certain things that they simply will not put up with anymore."

Küng, the author of around 30 books on Catholic theology, Christianity and ethics, which have sold millions worldwide, said that inspiration for global change was to be found in his native Switzerland and in Austria, where hundreds of Catholic priests have formed movements advocating policies that openly defy current Vatican practices. The revolts have been described as unprecedented by Vatican observers, who say they are likely to cause deep schisms in the church.

"I've always said that if one priest in a diocese is roused, that counts for nothing. Five will create a stir. Fifty are pretty much invincible. In Austria the figure is well over 300, possibly up to 400 priests; in Switzerland it's about 150 who have stood up and it will increase."

He said recent attempts by the archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Schönborn, to try to stamp out the uprising by threatening to punish those involved in the Austrian "priests' initiative" had backfired owing to the strength of feeling. "He soon stopped when he realised that so many ordinary people are supportive of them and he was in danger of turning them all against him," Küng said.

"He [Benedict XVI]has developed a peculiar pomposity that doesn't fit the man I and others knew, who once walked around in a Basque-style cap and was relatively modest. Now he's frequently to be seen wrapped in golden splendour and swank. By his own volition he wears the crown of a 19th-century pope, and has even had the garments of the Medici pope Leo X remade for him."

That "pomposity", he said, manifested itself most fully in the regular audiences who gather on St Peter's Square in Rome. "What happens has Potemkin village dimensions," he said. "Fanatical people go there to celebrate the pope, and tell him how wonderful he is, while meanwhile at home their own parishes are in a lamentable state, with a lack of priests, a far higher number than ever before of people who are leaving than are being baptised and now Vatileaks, which indicates just what a poor state the Vatican administration is in

Calling Pope Benedict XVI's reign a "pontificate of missed opportunities", in which he had forgone chances to reconcile with the Protestant, Jewish, orthodox and Muslim faiths, as well as failing to help the African fight against Aids by not allowing the use of birth control, Küng said his "gravest scandal" was the way he had "covered up" worldwide cases of sexual crimes committed by clerics during his time as the head of the Roman Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as Cardinal Ratzinger.

"The Vatican is no different from the Kremlin," Küng said. "Just as Putin as a secret service agent became the head of Russia, so Ratzinger, as head of the Catholic church's secret services, became head of the Vatican. 

Will American Catholics wake up to what they are financially supporting at the Vatican?  A portion of every single dollar contributed at the parish level goes to support the Vatican, not to mention the typically morally challenged bishops who act as Benedick XVI  thugs to keep the laity in line while the Church hierarchy lives in luxury and continues to protect sexual predator priests.

Catholic Bishop Resigns Over Church's Refusal to Address "Serious Trouble"

While I commend Australian Catholic bishop Pat Power's honesty and integrity, his departure only solidifies the powers of dishonesty, reaction and anti-modernity that are the hallmarks the Catholic Church hierarchy.  On the other hand, had he not resigned, the Nazi Pope would likely have forced him from office because he was speaking the truth.  God forbid that a bishop openly describe the cancer within the hierarchy and priesthood. Or that a bishop openly talk about how out of touch the Church leadership is with the laity.  A piece in The Age looks at the situation.  Here are highlights:

AUSTRALIA'S last openly progressive Catholic bishop, Canberra's Pat Power, has resigned, citing the Vatican's inability to listen and the twin crises of clergy sex abuse and the shortage of priests as the most vexing issues facing the church.

Bishop Power, 70, was not due to retire for five years, but will step down on June 30. With Toowoomba bishop Bill Morris sacked by the Pope last year, Bishop Power was the last Australian bishop prepared to challenge the Vatican publicly.

He called sexual abuse ''a terrible stain on the church'', and said the Vatican habit of secrecy had provided conditions for sex abuse and many other forms of abuse to thrive.

He said it was essential for the Vatican leadership to be aware of the real issues touching the lives of the faithful. ''Sadly, I don't think they have a good grasp of that reality and when things are tough, as they are now, there can be a temptation to bunker down.''

Bishop Power called the sex abuse crisis the gravest faced by the church since the 16th century Protestant Reformation, needing not just a focus on abusers but a total systemic reform of church structures. This had to be much more than ''tinkering around the edges'' and must address the authoritarian nature of the church, the participation of women, clergy celibacy and teaching on sexuality. The leadership must hear the voices of the faithful, he said.Leading progressive commentator and former priest Paul Collins said the resignation took the Australian church ''further into serious trouble'', not least because it was increasingly hard to find experienced priests prepared to become bishops.

''All this goes back to the total failure of leadership and the failure to tackle controversial issues. I'd say a third to half the bishops agree with Pat, but are not prepared to speak out,'' Dr Collins said.

The Vatican Makes A Nun's Sexual Ethics Book A Best Seller

It seems that the bitter old queens in dresses at the Vatican can't do anything right.  Their program of deliberately hiding the rampant sexual abuse of children and youths by priests blew up in their face a decade ago and continues to explode literally daily somewhere around the world, costing the Church billions of dollars in the process.  Lately, the Nazi Pope cannot even keep his private correspondence private and the hierarchy finds itself in a political war with the President of the United States.  And then there's the issue of the troublesome, uppity American nuns who refuse to conform to the Vatican's version of keeping women barefoot and pregnant.  Now, because of the Vatican's condemnation, an obscure book by an American nun on sexual ethics - which doesn't conform to the Vatican's own sick obsession with sex and anything pleasurable - has become a best seller.   It couldn't happen to a group more deserving of humiliation and exposure as hypocrites.  A piece in Religion Dispatches looks at the Vatican's disastrous attack on Sr. Margaret A. Farley’s book.  Here are some highlights:

If Margaret A. Farley’s fine theo-ethical work causes “grave harm to the faithful,” Catholics live very graced lives. War, poverty, ecocide, racism, colonialism, sex and gender injustices of all sorts come to mind in the “grave harm” category. But not in the wildest imagination of anyone other than a Vatican bureaucrat would Dr. Farley’s sexual ethics qualify.

Recent attention to her work only serves to deepen her impact and broaden her audience; 24 hours after news broke of the Vatican censure the book was propelled from an Amazon ranking of 142,982 to 16. 

The June 4th Notification from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) [formerly known as the Inquisition] titled “Regarding the Book Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics by Sister Margaret A. Farley, R.S.M.,” left many scandalized by the intellectually embarrassing and morally tawdry work of a group that obviously needs a permanent vacation. William Cardinal Levada and company at the CDF are simply out of their league theologically when it takes them 6 years (the book was published in 2006) to comment on an important work—and they still get it wrong.

A first-year graduate student could have handled the analysis in a week. S/he would have figured out that Dr. Farley was dealing with ethical method—how we frame and approach moral questions—not defending the Catechism of the Catholic Church. 

Vatican interlocutors, who obviously have no clue about such matters, only embarrass themselves by publishing their ignorance in six languages. They leave the distinct impression that they are oblivious to the fact that postmodern ethical analysis emerges from multi-disciplinary, multi-religious discussions grounded in concrete actions for justice.

A scholar of Margaret Farley’s stature must terrify the staff of the CDF. She is, after all, the Gilbert L. Stark Professor Emerita of Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School; a past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America which gave her its highest award in 1992; as well as a past president of the Society of Christian Ethics.

Rather than embrace her project and explore, as she does, the range of ways that good people try to love—with an emphasis on the demands of justice in every intimate relationship—the CDF theologians boiled down her opus into five cherry-picked nuggets on sex and marriage that reflect their priorities, not hers. They missed the forest for the trees. Their statement is deeply insulting, not to mention morally suspect, in that such a stellar scholar’s reputation is impugned. As my mother would say, “Consider the source.”

The Roman men are hell-bent on reining in American nuns, if only to prove that they can rein in somebody in a world that pays them increasingly little heed. They fear that such intellectually powerful and theologically persuasive women, who identify with the institutional Roman Catholic Church through their membership in canonical communities, will trump them in the public arena.

The Notification’s 5 little points need no rehearsal. Her critics simply miss the fact that Margaret Farley does not do ethics the way that they do. She does not share their ethical priorities on what Catholic moral theologian Daniel C. Maguire calls matters of the “pelvic zone.”  .  .  .  .  But the fact that they would dwell on it speaks volumes about their ethics and their rapidly eroding power. Sexual power is power, and more and more women have it. Apparently the struggle to wrest it back is high on the agenda of those who live on the 110 acres called the Vatican.

The impact of Margaret Farley’s work will be measured in many ways, but none will be more accurate than an assessment of her long-term commitment to women who live with HIV/AIDS in Africa.  .   .   .   .   
The result was practical, not theoretical—the founding of a now-flourishing NGO, All-Africa Conference: Sister to Sister, with support from Margaret’s community, the Sisters of Mercy. She still makes regular visits to Uganda and Cameroon to teach and learn as a collaborator.

The organization “brings together women religious so that they may address the crisis of HIV and AIDS by listening to, learning from and empowering one another to collaborate in strategies for prevention and care in response to the pandemic.

Long after the Vatican’s Notification has been forgotten, generations will recognize that the HIV/AIDS pandemic occasioned a seismic shift in moral theology. Real world experience drives the discussion. Margaret Farley’s name will forever be associated with Catholic moral theology that does justice.  

The psychological and emotional sickness of the bitter men at the Vatican - and in bishoprics around the world - is becoming more and more obvious to both Catholics and non-Catholics and is why more and more Americans chose to ignore the pontificating of the morally bankrupt old men in Rome.  The irony is that as they strive to "protect the Church" they are the ones who are killing it long term. 

The Blindness of "Liberal" Catholics

I often comment on the many huge failings of the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church and urge Catholics disgusted with the moral cesspool in the leadership to vote with their feet.  Throughout history the ONLY way the Church has experienced major lasting change is when membership plummets and the flow of money to the Vatican is diminished.  Catholics who refuse to accept this harsh reality and who continue to support their local parishes are in fact enablers of the hierarchy.  Yes, it's hard for many to see this reality, but a portion of every single dollar received at the parish level goes to support the local diocese and still another portion goes to Rome.  E.J. Dionne who writes for the Washington Post is one such Catholic who refuses to see his own culpability.  In a column where he tries to justify his continued membership in the Church he cites the Church's social ministry and he cites Pope John XXIII.  My response is that (i) if the Church cleaned house within the hierarchy and cleaned up the sex abuse disaster, there's be more funds for social ministry.  As for Pope John XXIII, yes in ways he was a breath of fresh air.  But Dionne misses one huge blight on his papacy:  John XXIII authorized a 1962 Vatican directive that validated the Church's covering up for and enabling predator priests.  Here's a sampling of Dionne's effort to deny his own culpability:

Recently, a group called the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) ran a full-page ad in The Washington Post cast as an “open letter to ‘liberal’ and ‘nominal’ Catholics.” Its headline commanded: “It’s Time to Quit the Catholic Church.”

The ad included the usual criticism of Catholicism, but I was most struck by this paragraph: “If you think you can change the church from within — get it to lighten up on birth control, gay rights, marriage equality, embryonic stem-cell research — you’re deluding yourself. By remaining a ‘good Catholic,’ you are doing ‘bad’ to women’s rights. You are an enabler. And it’s got to stop.”

Catholic liberals get used to these kinds of things. Secularists, who never liked Catholicism in the first place, want us to leave the church, but so do Catholic conservatives who want the church all to themselves.
I’m sorry to inform the FFRF that I am declining its invitation to quit. It may not see the Gospel as a liberating document, but I do, and I can’t ignore the good done in the name of Christ by the sisters, priests, brothers and lay people who have devoted their lives to the poor and the marginalized.

I’d like the FFRF to learn more about the good Pope John, but I wish our current bishops would think more about him, too. I wonder if the bishops realize how some in their ranks have strengthened the hands of the church’s adversaries (and disheartened many of the faithful) with public statements — including that odious comparison of President Obama to Hitler by a Peoria prelate last month — that threaten to shrink the church into a narrow, conservative sect.

Do the bishops notice how often those of us who regularly defend the church turn to the work of nuns on behalf of charity and justice to prove Catholicism’s detractors wrong? Why in the world would the Vatican, apparently pushed by right-wing American bishops, think it was a good idea to condemn the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the main organization of nuns in the United States?

Too many bishops seem in the grip of dark suspicions that our culture is moving at breakneck speed toward a demonic end. Pope John XXIII, by contrast, was more optimistic about the signs of the times.  .   .   .   .   The church best answers its critics when it remembers that its mission is to preach hope, not fear.

Dionne misses the point that the bishops and Vatican will not change voluntarily.  And as long as "liberal" Catholics like Dionne keep putting their checks in the collection plate and donating to Catholic institutions, there's no reason to change.  They money flow is continuing proving that the bishops and Nazi Pope can continue doing whatever they want with impunity.  Dionne needs to get his head out of the sand - or somewhere else.

The Nazi Pope's Misplaced Ire

While Benedict XVI, sometimes referred to as the Nazi Pope on this blog, cracks down on American nuns for not being anti-gay and anti-contraception enough, the world wide sex abuse scandal continues with daily coverage out of Australia, Ireland, and of course, the USA, especially the Archdiocese of Philadelphia of late.  With incontrovertibly evidence that bishops, cardinals, Popes - and a Trustee of Boston College - appear to have knowingly protected sexual predatory priests who likely worldwide sexually abused hundreds of thousands of children and youths, the misdirected ire of the Nazi Pope is noting short of ridiculous, not to mention the height of hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy.  A column in the Boston Globe looks at this latest display of moral bankruptcy.  Here are highlights:

Pope Benedict XVI can’t wait to crack down on “radical feminist” nuns.  But will he ever really crack down on protectors of pedophile priests?

A Vatican-led investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious cites the nuns’ silence on abortion and same-sex marriage. How bad is that up against the silence of church officials, from parish priests to the Vatican, who ignored and concealed child sex crimes?

By ironic coincidence, news about the Vatican’s effort to rein in the conference — the largest and most influential group of Catholic nuns in the United States — broke the same day the Rev. Bradley M. Schaeffer resigned from the Boston College Board of Trustees after growing public criticism over the role he played in supervising a former Jesuit priest who allegedly molested dozens of children over a span of 40 years.  

The juxtaposition of the two events exposes a familiar church mindset.  Perceived threats to his authority swiftly grab the pope’s attention. Accountability for long-ago threats to children is still something to dodge.

This follows Benedict’s recent condemnation of dissident priests. During a Holy Thursday Mass, the pope publicly rebuked a group of Austrian priests who challenged the church on priestly celibacy and the ban on female priests; disobedience would not be tolerated, he said.  What he [Benedict] does tolerate is a worldwide network of priests who enabled sexual abusers.  Unlike dissidents, they are not called out in St. Peter’s Square and no one is put in charge of reeling them in. They are free, like Schaeffer, to end up on the boards of prominent Jesuit institutions — until public pressure forces them out. 

As reported by the Globe’s Michael Rezendes, Schaeffer was the leader of the Jesuits in the Chicago area when an anguished father came to him in 1993 with concerns about an inappropriate relationship between Donald J. McGuire, then a Jesuit retreat leader, and the man’s young son. Schaeffer neither investigated the complaint nor contacted police. Instead, he sent McGuire for treatment of a sexual disorder. Afterwards, he acknowledged he knew the treatment did not cure McGuire.  Today, McGuire is serving 25 years in federal prison on child sex-abuse charges, while the Jesuits face a lawsuit for their failure to protect one of McGuire’s alleged victims. 

 

Schaeffer stepped down after the Boston College independent school newspaper, The Heights, called for his resignation and a group of faculty members met with Boston College President William P. Leahy to make a similar argument.  He continues to serve in the study center and is still a board member at Georgetown University, Loyola University Chicago, and Brebeuf Jesuit, a prep school in Indianapolis.

Benedict has apologized for the clergy sexual-abuse scandal and launched ongoing investigations of widespread allegations. But he does not jettison all those who broke the church’s sacred covenant with children. There are too many and the chain of accountability leads directly to him. It’s much easier to condemn naughty nuns.

Benedict's moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy make a tawdry whore look virtuous.  Why does anyone listen to anything this monster says?

Virginia Priest Who Headed Child Protection Office Accused of Abuse

A couple of news stories underscore the continued moral bankruptcy of the Catholic Church leadership which continues to push anti-gay and anti-modernity jihads while continuing to ignore the sexual predators within the ranks of the priesthood. The latter problem is highlighted news coverage about the Catholic priest who headed the Diocese of Northern Virginia (an very reactionary diocese by the way) office responsible for protecting children from sexual abuse who has now been accused of abuse in the late 1990's. That's right, the late 1990's not some 30 or 40 years ago or more. Meanwhile, the Vatican is cracking down on American nuns who are not sufficiently anti-modernity and anti-gay. The only bright spot in this abysmal picture is that parishes are refusing to climb aboard the hierarchy's anti-gay train and one pastor received a standing ovation from his parishioners when he announced that the parish would not participate in the anti-same sex marriage campaign in Washington State. First these highlights from the Washington Post on the accused sexual predator:

The Catholic priest who headed the diocese’s Northern Virginia office responsible for protecting children from sexual abuse was placed on administrative leave Wednesday while he is investigated for alleged sexual misconduct with a teenage boy.

From 2004 until last year, [Rev. Terry W.] Specht was director of the Office of Child Protection and Safety, which trains church employees and volunteers to spot abuse and monitors youth activities “to ensure that all contact with young people is appropriate,” its Web site says.

Specht, a native of Pennsylvania, became a priest in Arlington in 1996. He worked with multiple ministries focused on youths. From 2000 to 2004, he was chaplain and assistant principal at the 1,000-student Paul VI Catholic High School, one of four Catholic secondary schools in the diocese.

Specht has been more visible than many priests, and until late Wednesday he maintained a Twitter account on which he posted and commented on various conservative issues, poking fun at President Obama and more liberal Catholics who support gay rights. The photo on the account was of a bulldog.

Neither he [diocesan spokesman Michael Donohue] nor the police would specify if the allegation involved one incident or more, or what sort of evidence was presented. Donohue said that an accusation itself would not automatically trigger the administrative-leave process. “The bishop has looked at the information provided from the very beginnings of this and made a determination that it was best to put Rev. Specht on the administrative leave,” he said.

Becky Ianni, an advocate for clergy sex-abuse survivors in Northern Virginia, said the allegation is disturbing. “It’s just frightening to think that this is the person educating people and perhaps he is a predator,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post is reporting on the Vatican's crack down on American nuns - who in my opinion seem to get the true Gospel message far better than the power and control hungry bitter old men in dresses in Rome. Here are some highlights on this sad issue:

WASHINGTON — The Vatican has launched a crackdown on the umbrella group that represents most of America’s 55,000 Catholic nuns, saying that the group was not speaking out strongly enough against gay marriage, abortion and women’s ordination.

Rome also chided the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) for sponsoring conferences that featured “a prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

The directive, which follows a two-year investigation by Rome, also comes as the Vatican appeared ready to welcome a controversial right-wing splinter group of Catholic traditionalists back into the fold, possibly by giving the group a special status so that they can continue to espouse their old-line rites and beliefs.

It added that “crucial” issues like “the church’s biblical view of family life and human sexuality, are not part of the LCWR agenda in a way that promotes church teaching. Moreover, occasional public statements by the LCWR that disagree with or challenge positions taken by the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals, are not compatible with its purpose.” Many bishops were angered when LCWR and Network, along with the Catholic Health Association, endorsed President Obama’s health care reform over the bishops’ objections.

In 2009 the Vatican launched a wide-ranging investigation of all women religious in the U.S., prompted by concern over their commitment to doctrine and tradition as well as the sharp decline in vocations. The number of nuns in America has dropped from 179,954 in 1965 to just 55,000 today.

I suspect the Vatican's actions will only serve to further reduce vocations. I truly look forward to the day Hispanic Catholic open their eyes to the moral bankruptcy of the Vatican and join the exodus of American Catholics from the Church. Once this happens, the Vatican will find it difficult to hide the step decline in membership in the American Church which has been masked by the influx of new Hispanic immigrants.

Pope Palpatine

A fellow Bilerico Project contributor came across this photo and couldn't help himself and posted it. I couldn't either. It would seem to me at least that there are some similarities between Ratzinger and the fictional Emperor Palpatine - not the least of which is an utter lack of concern for others as typified by the countless children and youth who were allowed to be exposed to serial sexual predators while no one in the Church hierarchy gave a damn, including Ratzinger during his roughly 20 years as head of the Vatican department formerly known as The Inquisition.

Pope's "Katrina" Bishop Giving Up Promotion

Among Pope Benedict XVI's recent debacles is the decision to elevate Gerhard Maria Wagner to the position of auxiliary bishop of Linz, Austria. As I noted previously, Wagner is a far right nutcase who previously stated in a parish newsletter that he was convinced that the death and destruction of Hurricane Katrina earlier that year was "divine retribution" for New Orleans' tolerance of homosexuals and laid-back sexual attitudes. The reaction by Catholics to Wagner's elevation to Bishop has been anything but positive and trigger threats by numerous Catholics to leave the Catholic Church. Two stories from the Washington Post look at the reaction of Austrian Catholics and now Wagner's decision to ask that the Pope reverse the decision to make Wagner a bishop. First, here are highlights on the reaction in Austria:

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VIENNA -- A group of Austrian priests has vehemently criticized Pope Benedict XVI's decision to promote an ultraconservative pastor who suggested Hurricane Katrina was provoked by sin in New Orleans, the group's head said Wednesday. . . . . Franz Wild, chief church dean of Upper Austria province and pastor in the town of Traun, is among those leading the criticism of Wagner. In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Wild confirmed that 31 out of 35 Upper Austrian church deans present during an informal meeting late Tuesday had criticized Wagner by voting for a statement saying they could not support his nomination.

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The controversy may already be affecting church membership in Upper Austria. According to broadcaster ORF, 110 Catholics left the church in Linz last week, about four times as many as during the same period a year ago. General criticism of the Vatican is also being heard from high-ranking Austrian clerics such as Salzburg's Archbishop Alois Kothgasser. . . . Kothgasser warned in a recent statement about the future of the church. "Should the Catholic Church be shrunk to the point where it's like a cult, with only a few members that toe the official line?" Kothgasser asked.

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Apparently, the fire storm got too hot for Wagner and/or the Nazi Pope and today the Washington Post is reporting that Wagner has requested that the Pope rescind his promotion. Here are highlights from that story:

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A pastor who created a controversy by suggesting that God punished New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina because of the city's sins said Sunday he will ask the pope to rescind his promotion. Pope Benedict XVI's recent appointment of the conservative Rev. Gerhard Maria Wagner, 54, to auxiliary bishop in Linz, Austria's third largest city, sparked an outcry among Catholics who warned it could prompt people to leave the church. Wagner, among other things, also had characterized Harry Potter novels as "Satanism."

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"Regarding the fierce criticism, I am in prayer and, after consulting the diocesan bishop, I have decided to ask the Holy Father in Rome to take back my promotion as auxiliary bishop," Wagner said in a statement released by Linz Diocesan Bishop Ludwig Schwarz.

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While this action by Wagner may defuse the current crisis, it remains to be seen whether or not the out of touch and Medieval minded Benedict XVI can grasps today's reality and move the Church forward or whether it is merely a matter of time before the next Neanderthal slip up occurs.

Pope Benedict XVI Rehabilitates Holocaust Denier - Update

On Saturday I posted about Pope Benedict XVI un-excommunication of one of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s far right appointees, Briton Richard Williamson (pictured at left), who is denies that the Holocaust occurred and/or that there were no Nazi gas chambers and that at worse only 300,000 Jews perished. It now turns out that those views are only a few of Bishop Williamson's views that ought to be beyond the pale for any truly Christian Pope. Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin has even more shocking information on this man whom has now apparently been embraced by former Hitler Youth, Benedict XVI. This event, plus many, many more previously recounted in prior posts on this blog beg the question of why ANYONE gives credence, deference or respect to Benedict XVI and his unholy minions at the Vatican. Here are some highlights from Jim's story:

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With Pope Benedict XVI saying such outrageous things as describing same-sex marriage as an “obstacle on the road to peace,” or opposing the decriminalization of homosexuality worldwide — including in countries that carry the death penalty even though the Vatican is itself opposed to the death penalty — it’s hard to imagine him surprising us much. And yet, he manages not merely to surprise, but astonish:

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The Pope has lifted the excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church of four bishops appointed by a breakaway archbishop more than 20 years ago. One of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s appointees, Briton Richard Williamson, outraged Jews by saying the Nazi gas chambers did not exist.

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It turns out that Williamson is a fan of a lot of remarkable anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. In a September 2002 newsletter, Williamson charges that “Judeo-Masonry is known to have been envisaging three World Wars to achieve its unified global domination. . .

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Williamson’s newsletters are a treasure-trove of paranoia, nutty conspiracies and general all-around lunacy. Williamson argues that women should not wear trousers and that “almost no girl should go to any university” because doing so contributes to the “the unwomaning of woman.” He blames modernism for causing the Rwandan massacre, he describes pluralism as the major threat to the Faith and salvation of Catholics today, and he decries religious liberty as a substitute religion. He has even criticized the movie The Sound of Music because of how it portrays those “nasty Nazis” and elevates “self-centered” romantic love. His views on gay people, engaging in a sin “crying to Heaven for vengeance,” are all too predictable:

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In fact the sin [of homosexuality] is so unnatural that Mother Church ranks it alongside murder, defrauding the worker of his just wage, and oppression of the widow or orphan, as one of the four sins "crying to Heaven for vengeance". However, God did not wait for the founding of the Catholic Church to instill in men the horror of this sin, but he implanted in the human nature of all of us, unless or until we corrupt it, an instinct of violent repugnance for this particular sin, comparable to our instinctive repugnance for other misuses of our human frame, such as coprophagy.

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Take a good look at Bishop Williamson and come to terms with just how horrible and nasty Catholicism is becoming under the Nazi Pope. Oh, and by the way, Benedict XVI nonetheless has the insufferable gall to criticize Barack Obama:

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ROME (AFP) - A senior Vatican official on Saturday attacked US President Barack Obama for "arrogance" for overturning a ban on state funding for family-planning groups that carry out or facilitate abortions overseas.

An Australian View: Bear still shits in woods, Pope still an arse

Magic BellyButton (a former Catholic like me) scores a hit with her analysis of the Nazi Pope's latest pronouncements against any form of contraception. I have swiped her photo and posted it above, but for the full story, go to: http://mymagicbellybutton.blogspot.com/2007/10/bear-still-shits-in-woods-pope-still.html.

She also discusses (in another post) Australia's answer to Daddy Dobson & Co: Australian Christian Lobby . Some of her comments:

The ACL is committed to seeing "Christian principles and ethics accepted and influencing the way we are governed". When Muslims talk like that, of course, there are dark mutterings about "Sharia Law". All the major, and a few minor, parties replied to the ACL survey. But the Greens told them to get stuffed.

But a quick check of the rest of the survey shows why the Greens were right to have nothing to do with it. What is the big issue of the 2007 election campaign? The economy? Industrial relations? Tax reform? Education? The worm?Wrong. For the ACL, it's sex. Eleven of the ACL's 25 questions are about sex or reproduction, including the usual religious fixations with controlling women's bodies, homosexuality and pornography. No wonder ACL likes the Family First Party, which in recent days has taken its obsession with porn to new, erm, lengths.

The ACL survey isn't some neutral list of political positions to help those with monotheistic delusions to make up their minds how to vote.Instead, it pushes a nasty agenda focused on sex and discrimination.

Pope: Other Christians Not True Churches

If expanding the use of the old latin mass was not enough proof that Benedict XVI thinks we are back in the 1400's, his new pronouncement should eliminate all doubt:

LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches.

Benedict approved a document from his old offices at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that restates church teaching on relations with other Christians. It was the second time in a week the pope has corrected what he says are erroneous interpretations of the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 meetings that modernized the church.

On Saturday, Benedict revisited another key aspect of Vatican II by reviving the old Latin Mass. Traditional Catholics cheered the move, but more liberal ones called it a step back from Vatican II.

The document said Orthodox churches were indeed "churches" because they have apostolic succession and that they enjoyed "many elements of sanctification and of truth." But it said they lack something because they do not recognize the primacy of the pope - a defect, or a "wound" that harmed them, it said.

The full news story can be found on MyWayNews: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070710/D8Q9O1FO0.html

More Catholic Church Hypocrisy

Also in the Virginian Pilot today, a story about a local man from Virginia Beach who is suing the Catholic Diocese of Burlington, Vermont:

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) -- A man who says he was molested by a priest 30 years ago broke down in tears Friday as a former church official read aloud in court a letter he wrote to the church, describing the incidents. James Turner, 46, of Virginia Beach, Va., who is suing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington for negligent supervision, hung his head and sobbed into a handkerchief as former Vicar General Rev. Wendell Searles read the letter on the witness stand.

Searles, 78, the Diocese's former No. 2 man, said he acted as the church's point person on sex abuse cases before retiring and fielded Turner's initial complaint to the church. . . . Searles acknowledged that for years, the church protected the privacy of priests who had been accused, shielding them by keeping secret allegations made against them. O'Neill pressed him about whether the church had done so with Willis, who was later convicted in a 1981 church tribunal and declared "infamous." "Yes, we wanted to protect his privacy," Searles said.

And yet none of the Church hierarchy has been punished. Bishops and cardinals get to continue to live as potentates and then retire on Church funded pensions. These people have no shame and in any other area, civilian or military (well, except perhaps under Chimperator Bush's regime), such dereliction by superiors would result in firing and other severe consequences. Sadly, not under the Nazi Pope (shown at left in his red Prada shoes) or his predecessors who seem to have specialized in false piety.