Vatican charges former ambassador to Domincan Republic with sexual abuse

The Vatican’s former ambassador to the Dominican Republic has been charged with sexually abusing young boys in the Caribbean country and having child pornography on his computer, and will stand trial next month. In a statement, the Holy See said Jozef Wesolowski will have his first hearing on 11 July.

Wesolowski was recalled to Rome in 2013, and last year he became the first person to be arrested inside the Vatican on paedophilia charges. Since then he has been placed under modified house arrest, pending a decision by the Vatican criminal court on whether to charge him.

The Guardian

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

UN Report Denounces Vatican For Sex Abuse And Stands On Contraception, Abortion And Homosexuality

A U.N. human rights committee denounced the Vatican on Wednesday for adopting policies that allowed priests to rape and molest tens of thousands of children over decades, and urged it to open its files on the pedophiles and the churchmen who concealed their crimes.

In a devastating report, the U.N. committee also severely criticized the Holy See for its attitudes toward homosexuality, contraception and abortion and said it should review its policies to ensure children's rights and their access to health care are guaranteed.

On sex abuse, "the committee is gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by, and the impunity of, the perpetrators," the report said.

It called for the sex abuse commission that Pope Francis announced in December to conduct an independent investigation of all cases of priestly abuse and the way the Catholic hierarchy has responded over time, and urged the Holy See establish clear rules for the mandatory reporting of abuse to police.

See Huff. Post

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

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.

Aliens And The Vatican

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

Vatican, Russia and Iran resist U.N. efforts to fight abuse of women

The Vatican, Iran and other religious states are resisting efforts by a U.N. conference, which started Monday, to demand tougher global standards to prevent violence against women and children.

More than 6,000 non-governmental groups are registered at the annual U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, one of the biggest events held at the U.N. headquarters and one that regularly turns into a diplomatic battle. This year’s meeting has been made more emotive after an attack in October by the Taliban on 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai for her attempts to promote girls’ education in Pakistan and widely publicized gang rapes in India and South Africa.

Diplomats said the Holy See, Iran and Russia are leading attempts to wipe out language in a final statement that says religion, custom or tradition must not be used as an excuse to avoid a government’s obligation to eliminate violence. They have also opposed references to rape by a woman’s husband or partner, diplomats said. “Violence against women must be seen as a human rights issue and that has nothing to do with culture or religion,” Norway’s Gender Equality Minister Inga Marte Thorkildsen told AFP.

“The Vatican, conservative religious forces within the United States and Europe, Catholic and Muslim countries are joining forces to stop women from gaining sexual rights,” the minister said, predicting tough negotiations during the two-week conference.

The Daily Star (AFP)

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

The Vatican and homosexuality

Robin Williams

Genocide in Canada by Church & State - Verdict and Sentence

The final Verdict and Sentence of the International Common Law Court of Justice, in the Case of Genocide in Canada by Church and State - Includes the Court Order issued to the Defendants - Issued February 25, 2013

itccs.org

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 Contender Says No Priest Sex Abuse In Africa Because Of Anti-Gay Laws

The Cardinal heralded as the man who could be the first black Pope has said sex abuse could not happen in Africa, on the same scale as Europe, because of tough anti-homosexuality laws.

Survivors of abuse by priests say they "fear for the safety of kids in Turkson's diocese if he denies there are predatory priests there".

Cardinal Turkson is currently the second favourite to be the next pontiff, and had been championed by progressives who have urged the Vatican to elect the first African pope.

Huffington Post - Amanpour.blog

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