Pope 'plans to chew coca leaves during Bolivia visit'

Pope Francis has requested to chew coca leaves during his forthcoming visit to Bolivia, according to Bolivian Culture Minister Marko Machicao.

Coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine, has been used in the Andes for thousands of years to combat altitude sickness and as a mild stimulant. Mr Machicao said the government offered the Pope coca tea and the pontiff had "specifically requested" to chew coca. Coca leaves were declared an illegal substance under the 1961 UN convention on narcotic drugs. But the growing of coca leaves for religious and medicinal purposes is legal and licensed in Bolivia.

The Vatican has not yet commented. The Pope travels to Bolivia on 8 July.

More at BBC News

Pope Francis Delivers Blistering Christmas Message To Vatican Curia

To the Catholic Church's "seven deadly sins," Pope Francis has added the "15 ailments of the Curia."

Francis issued a blistering indictment of the Vatican bureaucracy Monday, accusing the cardinals, bishops and priests who serve him of using their Vatican careers to grab power and wealth, of living "hypocritical" double lives and forgetting that they're supposed to be joyful men of God.

Francis turned the traditional, genteel exchange of Christmas greetings into a public dressing down of the Curia, the central administration of the Holy See which governs the 1.2-billion strong Catholic Church. He made clear that his plans for a radical reform of the structures of church power must be accompanied by an even more radical spiritual reform of the men involved.

Huffington Post - The 15 ailments of the Vatican Curia, according to Pope Francis at washingtonpost.com

Oh, also see: Eyewitnesses Testify: Pope Francis Raped and Killed Children

Pope Assassination Imminent

ISIS is planning to kill the Pope in one of his overseas trips, Iraq Ambassador to Vatican Habeeb Al Sadr warns. He said that the terrorist group had spoken of its plan to assassinate the pope as he was vocally supporting U.S.' intervention in Syria and Iraq. He underlined that the ISIS has foreign members - Canadian, American, French, Britain and even Italians. The group can instruct these members to kill the pope when the opportunity arises.

"What has been declared by the self-declared Islamic State is clear - they want to kill the Pope. The threats against the Pope are credible," Al Sadr said during an interview with Italian newspaper La Nazione.

Al Sadr's warning come before the Pope's visit to Albania on Sunday to celebrate the resurrection of Christianity from the destruction of Communist dictator Enver Hoxha. In 1967, Hoxha had declared Albania as the world's first atheist state. Pope's Sunday visit is a way of showing that Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims could live in peaceful co-existence

Full article at International Business Times

Peace Doves Released By Pope & That's When All Hell Broke Loose

Pope Francis 'Shocked' By Gay Adoption Bill

Pope Francis reportedly was "shocked" by a bill that would allow gay couples to adopt children in Malta. Maltese Bishop Charles Scicluna told the Times Of Malta that he spoke with Pope Francis about the bill and the pope encouraged him to speak out against it.

The Holy See's reaction may come as a surprise to those who have viewed him as progressive on gay rights. LGBT magazine "The Advocate" even named him their person of the year, citing his comments about homosexuals. "Who am I to judge a gay person of goodwill who seeks the Lord?" he told reporters in Italian in July.

Despite his July comments, the pope has a long history of being against gay rights. He has come out strongly opposed to same-sex marriage and called it "a destructive attack" on God's plan.

Huff. Post

Pope Francis says he’s not a Marxist – but knows lots of good people who are

Pope Francis has been forced to defend his economic and social ideologies after prominent conservatives accused him of coming forward with “pure Marxism”. Speaking to an Italian newspaper today, the pope described Marxism as “wrong”, but refused to condemn people who hold left-wing views.

The comments came after the Pontiff railed against the “new tyranny” of unfettered capitalism in an 84-page document published last month. The “apostolic exhortation” sets out the terms by which a pope intends to run the Catholic Church – yet it was slammed by the outspoken conservative US talk show host Rush Limbaugh.  Mr Limbaugh, who is not a member of the church, said the comments went “beyond Catholicism” and were “purely political”. He claimed parts of the document were “pure Marxism coming out of the mouth of the pope”, and suggested that someone else must have written the papal document for him.

Today, Pope Francis said: “Marxist ideology is wrong. But in my life I have known many Marxists who are good people, so I don't feel offended.”

The Independent

Vatican corrects Pope: Atheists are still going to hell

The Vatican issued an “explanatory note on the meaning of “salvation,” on Thursday, May 23, after media reports circulated indicating that Pope Francis” promised heaven for everyone engaged in good works, including atheists.

In response to the media attention, the Rev. Thomas Rosica, a Vatican spokesman, said that people who know about the Catholic church “cannot be saved” if they “refuse to enter her or remain in her.” (Translation: Atheists are going to Hell if they don’t accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.)

Rosica also said that Francis had “no intention of provoking a theological debate on the nature of salvation,” during his homily on Wednesday. The current theological confusion began after the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics made comments during the homily of his morning Mass on Wednesday, May 22, indicating that atheists would enjoy the fruits of eternal salvation if they were good people. Francis said:

The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!

From Examiner.com

Bizarre Video: Pope Performs "Exorcism"

Pope Francis appears to have been captured on video performing an exorcism in St Peter's Square.

Who are the Jesuits?

The Jesuits are a priestly militia who aren't that known in our modern culture. In our digital age, truth seekers are obsessed with secret societies, where the Papacy and its loyal soldiers the Jesuits, Knights of Malta and Opus Dei have been overlooked, making their work of global control a lot easier. Respectable books on them are either out of print, or in some archive which most of the public won't have access to. The Jesuits are experts at covering their tracks and they have played a key role and have been behind many of the bloodiest wars and assassinations in almost five hundred years - The Spanish Armada (1588), The Gunpowder Plot (1605), The Thirty Years War (1618-1648), American Civil War (1861-1865), World War I (1914-1918) and World War II (1940-1945) and many modern wars in both Vietnam & Argentina. With the election of a Jesuit Pope what might you think is in store for the world?

Does the New Pontiff Come with a Dark Past?

During Argentina's "dirty wars," which took place under a military dictatorship, 1976-1983, political opponents of the regime were routinely disappeared while American aid dollars rolled in to the junta. Throughout it all, most of Argentina's bishops remained silent, including Jorge Mario Bergoglio (now Pope Francis).

But Hugh O'Shaughnessy, writing two years ago in the Guardian, suggests that Bergoglio may have been more complicit than merely silent:

The extent of the church's complicity in the dark deeds was excellently set out by Horacio Verbitsky, one of Argentina's most notable journalists, in his book El Silencio (Silence). He recounts how the Argentine navy with the connivance of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, now the Jesuit archbishop of Buenos Aires, hid from a visiting delegation of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission the dictatorship's political prisoners. Bergoglio was hiding them in nothing less than his holiday home in an island called El Silencio in the River Plate. The most shaming thing for the church is that in such circumstances Bergoglio's name was allowed to go forward in the ballot to chose the successor of John Paul II. What scandal would not have ensued if the first pope ever to be elected from the continent of America had been revealed as an accessory to murder and false imprisonment.

The cardinal's spokesman denied the charges, and, according to the U.K. edition of the International Business Times, "no evidence was presented linking him to the kidnapping" of the two priests he was accused of hiding.

More on Alternet

Mother Teresa anything but a saint

A study conducted by Canadian researchers has called Mother Teresa "anything but a saint", a creation of an orchestrated and effective media campaign who was generous with her prayers but miserly with her foundation's millions when it came to humanity's suffering.

The controversial study, to be published this month in the journal of studies in religion/sciences called Religieuses, says that Teresa — known across the world as the apostle of the dying and the downtrodden — actually felt it was beautiful to see the poor suffer.

According to the study, the Vatican overlooked the crucial human side of Teresa — her dubious way of caring for the sick by glorifying their suffering instead of relieving it.

Instead, the Vatican went ahead with her beatification followed by canonization "to revitalize the Church and inspire the faithful especially at a time when churches are empty and the Roman authority is in decline".

Researchers Serge Larivee and Genevieve Chenard from the University of Montreal's department of psychoeducation, and Carole Senechal of the University of Ottawa's faculty of education, analysed published writings about Mother Teresa and concluded that her hallowed image, "which does not stand up to analysis of the facts, was constructed, and that her beatification was orchestrated by an effective media campaign".

According to Larivee, facts debunk Teresa's myth. He says that the Vatican, before deciding on Teresa's beatification, did not take into account "her rather dubious way of caring for the sick, her questionable political contacts, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her overly dogmatic views regarding ... abortion, contraception, and divorce."

At the time of her death, Teresa had 517 missions or "homes for the dying" as described by doctors visiting several of these establishments in Kolkata. They welcomed the poor and sick in more than 100 countries. Two-thirds of the people coming to these missions hoped to a find a doctor to treat them, while the other third lay dying without receiving apt care.

More on The Times of India

Farewell

Part 1

The Vatican and homosexuality

Robin Williams

Did a Gay Blackmail Scandal Bring Down Pope Benedict?

The pope's abrupt retirement gets stranger. Now, an Italian newspaper alleges corruption at the Vatican.

You know what the sudden, surprising, once-every-700-years story of the pope’s resignation needed? What every dramatic story line does: a gay blackmail twist. And so the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica this week reports on a very tangled web that claims to have brought down a pope, under the irresistible headline “Sex and career, blackmail in the Vatican: Behind the resignation of Benedict XVI.”

The paper says that Benedict made his decision to step down on Dec. 17, just one day after he received a revealing 300-page dossier from a trio of elderly cardinals. He’d assigned them to investigate last year’s scandal involving a slew of leaked confidential Vatican documents and letters that purported to show corruption and internal conflict within the Holy See. The “Vatileaks” mess was just another of the embarrassments the church has faced during Benedict’s reign — including a  money laundering investigation and record-breaking settlements in sex abuse lawsuits. But the leaks were a particularly personal humiliation to the pontiff — the documents in question had allegedly been stolen by his own butler Paolo Gabriele. Gabriele later told investigators he released the documents “for the good of the Church.”  “I was sure that a shock, perhaps by using the media, could be a healthy thing to bring the Church back on the right track,” he explained in his earnest pretrial testimony.

Now, La Repubblica says that the trio of cardinals, who’ve been looking into the matter since last year, revealed to the pope a faction within the Vatican  “united by sexual orientation” that had been subject to “external influence” of a “worldly nature.” (The paper helpfully explains this is Vatican-speak for blackmail.) A source it says is close to the cardinals who prepared the report told La Repubblica, with equal poetic obscurity, “Everything revolves around the non-observance of the sixth and seventh commandments.”

More on Alternet

Pope will have immunity by remaining in the Vatican

Pope Benedict's decision to live in the Vatican after he resigns will provide him with security and privacy. It will also offer legal protection from any attempt to prosecute him in connection with sexual abuse cases around the world, Church sources and legal experts say.

"His continued presence in the Vatican is necessary, otherwise he might be defenseless. He wouldn't have his immunity, his prerogatives, his security, if he is anywhere else," said one Vatican official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It is absolutely necessary" that he stays in the Vatican, said the source, adding that Benedict should have a "dignified existence" in his remaining years.

The 1929 Lateran Pacts between Italy and the Holy See, which established Vatican City as a sovereign state, said Vatican City would be "invariably and in every event considered as neutral and inviolable territory".

There have been repeated calls for Benedict's arrest over sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. When Benedict went to Britain in 2010, British author and atheist campaigner Richard Dawkins asked authorities to arrest the pope to face questions over the Church's child abuse scandal. Dawkins and the late British-American journalist Christopher Hitchens commissioned lawyers to explore ways of taking legal action against the pope. Their efforts came to nothing because the pope was a head of state and so enjoyed diplomatic immunity.

In 2011, victims of sexual abuse by the clergy asked the International Criminal Court to investigate the pope and three Vatican officials over sexual abuse. The New York-based rights group Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and another group, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), filed a complaint with the ICC alleging that Vatican officials committed crimes against humanity because they tolerated and enabled sex crimes. The ICC has not taken up the case but has never said why. It generally does not comment on why it does not take up cases.

More on Reuters

Apocalypse Now? The Final Pope

According to Saint Malachy's Prophecy of the Popes, the next pontiff will be the final pope and his anointment will usher in the end times. If you think the Mayan 2012 hysteria was crazy, you ain't seen nothing yet!

Saint Malachy predicted that the final pope would be called 'Peter the Roman'. Guess what the name is of one of the favorites to become the next pope?
Prophecy: Is the next pope the last pope? - Petrus Romanus: 900 Year Old Prophecy Says Next Pope Will Oversee End of Days - Prophecy of the Popes

Return of Darth Ratzinger

Pope Benedict XVI resigns

Victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests have accused the pope, the Vatican secretary of state and two other high-ranking Holy See officials of crimes against humanity, in a formal complaint to the international criminal court (ICC). - More info on The Guardian

Earlier this week (January 7th, 2013), USA Superior Court Judge Emilie H. Elias ordered the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, California to release 30,000 pages of classified Catholic files that name some high-ranking Church officials. – More info on richarddawkins.net

Cardinals after Pope Benedict XVI told them of his resignation today.

Pope Benedict's resignation brings end to paradoxical papacy - Messages the former Joseph Ratzinger hoped to convey were all but drowned out by string of controversies. – More on The Guardian

How the Vatican built a secret property empire using Mussolini's millions

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.

More on The Guardian

Dutch foreign minister criticises pope's view on same-sex marriage

The Dutch foreign minister has criticised Pope Benedict for his opposition to same-sex marriage – quoting comments by a papal envoy in Ireland last week to support his case for freedom of sexual orientation. The minister, Frans Timmermans, a former diplomat, responded in unusually strong terms to the Pope’s Christmas speech in which he denounced gay marriage as destroying the very “essence of the human creature”.

Mr Timmermans referred to an address by Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states – a post seen as the equivalent of Foreign Minister of the Holy See – at the meeting of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Dublin.

In his speech the Archbishop quoted the Pope, saying: “Good governance has to follow natural law that is written in the heart of every human being. Pope Benedict XVI expressed this view very clearly during his recent visit to Lebanon: ‘In God’s plan, each person is unique and irreplaceable . . .’. ” To this Mr Timmermans, who also attended the OSCE conference, replied: “If every person is unique . . . then why should that unique person not have the right to stand up for his or her own sexual orientation?” In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriages.

The Irish Times