Rank: Old Salt Groups: Member
Joined: 9/7/2007 Posts: 2,626 Location: Harbor Area
|
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7421538/What-the-devil-is-going-on-at-the-Vatican.htmlWhat the devil is going on at the Vatican? As the chief exorcist claims the Devil is lurking at the heart of the Catholic Church, Peter Stanford examines the uses of Satan. Peter Stanford Published: 7:00AM GMT 12 Mar 2010 Talk of the Devil came cheap in medieval Christianity. No mystery play was complete without an appearance by God's great adversary, all horns, cloven hoof and sulphur breath, while every church would boast a depiction of the 'Harrowing of Hell', a graphic warning to worshippers of the everlasting torment in the bowels of the earth that awaited unrepentant sinners.
But modern mainstream Christianity has apparently pensioned off Old Nick as an embarrassing reminder of a past when it used too much stick and not enough carrot in spreading the Good News. You have to go back to 1972 to find a Pope offering any detailed reflection on Satan. Paul VI described him as 'not merely a lack of something, but an effective agent, a living spiritual being, perverted and perverting'.
So the remarks by 85-year-old Father Gabriele Amorth, for decades the chief exorcist in Rome, have taken many by surprise. Far from being superstitious medieval nonsense, Amorth has said in promoting his new book, Memoirs of An Exorcist, the Devil is 'lodging in the Vatican' and can be seen in the activities of paedophile priests, over-ambitious clerics and 'cardinals who don't believe in Jesus'.
Even Amorth's title sounds as if it belongs more to Hollywood blockbusters than the contemporary life of the Catholic Church which makes only the most fleeting of references in its encyclopaedic Catechism, published in 1993, to the Devil as the 'seductive voice' who tempted Adam and Eve (article 391). But despite its official silence about Lucifer, the fallen angel who was ejected from heaven and will, according to the Book of Revelation, roam the earth until the final day of Judgement spreading evil and lies, the Vatican has never dismantled its medieval network of exorcists in every diocese. It just prefers not to mention them – until Father Amorth blew their cover.
When I was researching a biography of the Devil in the 1990s, I contacted each Catholic diocese in England and asked to speak to their official exorcist. Most denied such a figure even existed – though the Vatican plainly requires that one does – and those that did own up said they couldn't give me his name. 'It's not something we do anymore,' I was told more than once. '99 per cent of people who claim to be possessed need referring to psychiatrist.'
In Rome, of course, they are less coy about such matters, and that is where I finally got to meet Father Amorth. He's a giant of a man with a deeply lined bulldog face who was working out of a subterranean office in an anonymous church building on the outskirts of Rome. 'Our language may be more discreet today,' he told me, referring back to the Devil's medieval heyday, 'but the idea remains the same.' He had, he said, carried out more than 50,000 exorcisms, but added that the centre of Catholicism was unusual because it was special focus for Satan's schemes. Only 84 of the 50,000, he added, had been genuine cases of possession, but then he described, in that very room the day before, exorcising 'the demon of the media' from a young man who had, as a result, vomited fragments of radio equipment. At a distance, it sounds almost comical. At the time, I was so disturbed I brought the interview to a rapid conclusion.
Amorth, of course, is a deeply traditional figure, out of step with many in the church – though not, apparently, either Pope Benedict who, the chief exorcist says, believes in the reality of the Devil, or John Paul II who, it has been reported by Cardinal Jacques Martin, who headed his household, in March 1982, carried out an exorcism himself on a young woman.
What echoes back down the centuries, though, in what Amorth is now claiming, is not only the longstanding belief in demonic possession, but the logic behind it. For the Devil has always been a useful way of the Church doing two things. First the Devil puts a face to the otherwise intangible reality of evil. This proved so successful that even in our secular times we still demonise particular criminals and hold them up as the face of evil – Myra Hindley being a good example, especially the picture taken of her at the time of her trial.
The second is that belief in Satan allows us to externalise and therefore disown things we don't like. They are not a part of us – as Freud and Jung pointed out – but rather something that temporarily takes possession of us and can, with the help of an exorcist, be banished. So paedophile priests and faithless cardinals are not, in Amorth's analysis, a sign of corruption and moral decay at the very heart of the Church, but the result of the wiles of an external evil spirit trying to destroy it.
The lure and the emptiness of that logic was best summed up during my research by a young woman at a prayer group I observed in London. She had had a bad week, she told her fellow believers, because 'the Devil made me spend all my money'. She thereby conveniently absolved herself of all responsibility or any need to address or even own her own compulsions.
Perhaps it is that possibility that the Devil offers to shuffle the blame off onto an external demon that makes the Church so reluctant finally to bury this medieval ghoul. It has long pretended to have pensioned Satan off, but its exorcist network shows it hasn't. The dilemma, though, goes deeper. For the Devil is at the very heart of the New Testament narrative, tempting Jesus during his 40 days in the wilderness.
If the Church is now to start trying to explain away that key character by saying that Satan was only really a face of evil, then it throws the whole emphasis on the truth of the gospels into question. If you start dwelling on the fact that you only have to add a 'd' to evil to get devil, you soon notice that by taking an 'o' away from good, you end up with God.
Peter Stanford is a former editor of the Catholic Herald. His book, The Devil: A Biography, is published in paperback by Arrow “The greatest sins are the sins of silence in the face of evil. The action of a prophet is not to prophesy an event that can’t be changed. It’s to prophesy pathways and timelines that you can then decide because you are co-creators of your own future. By bringing these things to light is not to bring terror to the people, but to bring control, to bring a sense of empowerment to everyone who reads this.”
|
Rank: Old Salt Groups: Member
Joined: 9/7/2007 Posts: 2,626 Location: Harbor Area
|
http://www.henrymakow.com/malachi_martin_--.htmlMalachi Martin -- Satan Enthroned in Vatican?February 27, 2010 by Marie Henrie
(for henrymakow.com) Former vatican insider Malachi Martin's asserted that a "Satanic Enthronement ceremony" took place in the Vatican in 1963.
The result of this ritual meant the Vatican manifested what clerics referred to as the 'Superforce."
Martin had first made reference to a diabolic rite held in Rome in his 1990 non-fiction best-seller about geopolitics and the Vatican, The Keys of This Blood, p 632 where he wrote:
"Most frighteningly for [Pope] John Paul [II], he had come up against the irremovable presence of a malign strength in his own Vatican and in certain bishops' chancelleries. It was what knowledgeable Churchmen called the 'superforce.' Rumors, always difficult to verify, tied its installation to the beginning of Pope Paul VI's reign in 1963. Indeed Paul had alluded somberly to 'the smoke of Satan, which has entered the Sanctuary'... an oblique reference to an enthronement ceremony by Satanists in the Vatican.
Besides, the incidence of Satanic pedophilia --rites and practices-- was already documented among certain bishops and priests as widely dispersed as Turin, in Italy, and South Carolina, in the United States. The cultic acts of satanic pedophilia are considered by professionals to be the culmination of the Fallen Archangel's rites."..
These allegations have largely gone unnoticed, possibly because Martin was so crafty in his descriptions that he might even have been referring to the coronation of Pope Paul VI. But he revealed much more about this alleged ritual in one of his last works, Windswept House: A Vatican Novel (1996).
In this story, he vividly described a ceremony called "The Enthronement of the Fallen Archangel Lucifer" held in St. Paul's Chapel in the Vatican, and linked with concurrent satanic rites here in the U.S., on June 29, 1963, barely a week after the election of Paul VI.
In the novel, before he dies, a pope leaves a secret account of the situation on his desk for the next occupant of the throne of Peter, a thinly disguised John Paul II.
Malachi said this book was 85% based in reality.
Fr. Malachi Martin said more members of the clergy are becoming aware of the situation. An archbishop also accused high members of the hierarchy in Rome of practicing Satanism. The Italian newspaper Il Tempo and other major daily papers reported this stunning news."
"According to The New American, Martin confirmed that the ceremony did indeed occur as he had described."
http://www.tldm.org/news/martin.htm
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/profecias/esp_profecia10.htm
MARTIN HONORED
Fr. Malachi Martin was given tribute along with Fr. Fiore and Fr. Kunz on the website of Roman Catholic Faithful owned by Steven Brady. Brady was investigating cases of pedophilia by clerics and sought to alert the Catholic populace to the gravity of the problem.
Frs. Kunz, Martin and Fiore assisted and supported Mr. Brady in his efforts. Fr.. Kunz paid the highest price: ritual murder.
The oaths of many secret societies include throat slicing as a penalty for revealing a group's closest secrets. Had Kunz exposed the operations of a cult?
Kunz's friend and associate, Malachi Martin certainly thought so. Six weeks after Kunz's murder, Martin appeared on a radio show claiming to have inside information that Kunz's murder was carried out by Luciferians. Luciferians are not your garden-variety devil worshippers, but they are devil worshippers nonetheless.
Malachi Martin, a former Vatican insider and expert on deviant sex rings within the Catholic Church, had become a regular guest Kunz's radio show - "Catholic Family Hour." The night Kunz was murdered was the exact same night that Kunz's friend, Father Charles Fiore, took over the Catholic Family Hour show. Fiore planned to begin exposing satanic pedophile rings within the Catholic Church. Fiore was in a perfect position to collect intelligence on deviant sex rings both inside and outside the Catholic Church because of his participation in the Council for National Policy (CNP).
"Several CNP participants have been close to or involved in deviant sex rings that litter the American political landscape."
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Commentary/CNP_Revisited.htm
"Fiore said that he discovered sexual abuse at his first assignment and was deeply disturbed by the way it was covered up by the hierarchy. Over the years he assisted about a hundred victims of sexual abuse.
With aid from Kunz, Fiore prepared a dossier on the problems of the Catholic Church in the United States and had it delivered to the pope by a friend of Msgr. Dziwisz, the Secretary of Pope John Paul.
The pope ignored the dossier March 24, 2002. A similar dossier (prepared by another Dominican and canon lawyer, the Rev. Thomas Doyle) was delivered to the Pope by Cardinal Krol of Detroit and was also ignored. The Pope also ignored the cardinal's personal pleas to act against pedophilia,
Fiore claimed he knew of six bishops who were pedophiles. This statement was regarded as bizarre at the time, but as of 2008 nineteen American bishops have been accused, and some have admitted to the abuse.11See http://www.bishop-accountability.org/bishops/accused/.
Fiore's most controversial work was with Stephen Cook, who accused Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago of abuse. Bernardin later said that he could no longer trust his memory of the abuse because of the way his brain was affected by AIDS".
http://www.podles.org/case-studies/Alfred-Kunz-Murder-Case-Study.htm
Pedophilia is relevant because it is part of Satanic ritual.
QUESTIONS ABOUT MALACHI MARTIN
During Vatican Council Two, Fr.Malachi Martin made several trips to B'nai Brith in NYC as Secretary to Cardinal Bea. Martin was still a member of the Jesuit Order at the time and appeared as a modernist progressive during the Council.
http://www.latinmassnetwork.net/2009/05/malachi-martins-double-agent-s.html
There are those who think he remained a "double agent"
Martin did tell this author that he had worked for the CIA as a linguist on the Turkish border at one time.
Martin knew first hand where the Vatican was headed.
http://www.revisionisthistory.org/wire3.html
According to Fr Charles Fiore, Martin's the last book, Primacy, How the Institution of the Catholic Church became a creature of the New World Order, (the so called 'survival manual") was never completed. In fact, Fr. Fiore claimed he was in the process of editing the book himself at the time of Malachi's death. Questions remain as to whether the book was completed and somehow kept from circulation.
Some question whether Fr Martin was murdered..
http://www.unitypublishing.com/Newsletter/Malachi%20Martin.htm
Fr. Martin allegedly read the mysterious Third Secret of Fatima, which had to do with Russia and communism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5JWyzeNkgk
Confirmation was given that Fr Martin was relieved of his priestly Vows and Duties and released from the Jesuit Order upon request.
http://www.williamhkennedy.com/articles/highrankMM.html
Conversations with Fr. Malachi Martin near the end of his life convinced this author that he was fearful by both what he knew and what he saw happening in the world and to Catholicism in particular.
He knew he would probably not live to see it lived out in full himself, but felt a deep sorrow for those who were young now trying to raise children in the New World Order.
Although he was pressed by interviewers to reveal something of the Third Secret he claimed to remain faithful to his vow not to reveal it's contents. However, he did indicate to several friends that darkness was to cover the earth and that it would be both physical and spiritual in nature. He referred to communist freemasonry as the "Luciferian evil."
Fr. Martin Rest In Peace.
Related- Malachi Martin and the Enemy Within
http://www.freemasonrywatch.org/malachimartin_luciferianprocess.html http://www.tldm.org/news/martin.htm http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/profecias/esp_profecia10.htm http://www.podles.org/case-studies/Alfred-Kunz-Murder-Case-Study.htm http://www.latinmassnetwork.net/2009/05/malachi-martins-double-agent-s.html http://www.revisionisthistory.org/wire3.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5JWyzeNkgk http://www.williamhkennedy.com/articles/highrankMM.html
“The greatest sins are the sins of silence in the face of evil. The action of a prophet is not to prophesy an event that can’t be changed. It’s to prophesy pathways and timelines that you can then decide because you are co-creators of your own future. By bringing these things to light is not to bring terror to the people, but to bring control, to bring a sense of empowerment to everyone who reads this.”
|
Rank: Old Salt Groups: Member
Joined: 9/7/2007 Posts: 2,626 Location: Harbor Area
|
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Vatican_fights_to_distance_Pope_fro_03132010.htmlVatican fights to distance Pope from child sex scandals The Vatican fought attempts to link Pope Benedict XVI to child sex abuse in a counteroffensive on Saturday against widening paedophilia scandals.
"It is clearly evident that in the past few days there are some who have sought -- with a dogged focus on Regensburg and Munich -- elements to personally implicate the Holy Father in questions of abuse," spokesman Federico Lombardi said.
"It is clear that these efforts have failed," he said on Radio Vatican.
On Friday, the pope's former diocese of Munich confirmed a report that, as an archbishop in 1980, the pontiff approved housing for a priest who had been accused of forcing an 11-year-old boy to perform oral sex.
Six years later, the priest was given a suspended prison sentence for child sex offences. The archdiocese said he still works in Bavaria, with no known repeat violations.
The disclosure added to a growing scandal in Germany that had already come close to Pope Benedict's brother Georg Ratzinger, a former choirmaster.
The first revelations emerged in January when an elite Jesuit school in Berlin admitted systematic sexual abuse of pupils by two priests in the 1970s and 1980s.
Among other boarding schools since implicated is one attached to the Domspatzen ("Cathedral Sparrows"), Regensburg cathedral's thousand-year-old choir which was run for 30 years by the pope's older brother.
Ratzinger, 86, said on Tuesday that the alleged sexual abuse in the 1950s and 1960s -- before his time -- was "never discussed".
In an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel a former choirboy Thomas Mayer said he was raped by older boys at a time when Ratzinger ran the choir.
He also said Ratzinger had violent fits of outrage during rehearsals.
"Ratzinger, I saw him extremely angry and irascible during rehearsals," Mayer said. "Several times I saw him throw a chair at the male voices, which I was part of." Once he was so angry that he spat his dentures out.
Ratzinger recently acknowledged that he had "given slaps" at the beginning of his tenure and that he had always had a "bad conscience" about it and felt "relieved" when a law banning corporal punishment was made in the early 1980s.
A proliferation of abuse scandals across Europe has prompted deep soul-searching among church leaders, not least in Germany where 19 of the 27 dioceses have been implicated in allegations. Facts: Main abuse scandals facing the Church
Vatican spokesman Lombardi said on Saturday that the pope "encouraged" "recognising the truth and helping victims" in cases of abuse, adding that the line of the Church was not "to cover up these offences but ... to judge and adequately punish" offenders.
Most of the priests concerned are not expected to face criminal charges because the alleged crimes took place too long ago. But there have been growing calls for a change in the law and for the church to pay compensation.
Writing in the Vatican daily L'Osservatore Romano, the Bishop of Alessandria in northern Italy, Giuseppe Versaldi, criticised the attacks on the Church and said the pope had fought hard to tackle the problem of sex abuse.
"It is thanks to the pope's increased rigour that different episcopal conferences have shone light on cases of sexual abuse and worked with civil authorities to achieve justice for the victims," the bishop wrote in a front-page article.
A senior Vatican official sought to downplay the child sex abuse scandals in an interview with a newspaper.
Charles Scicluna told Italian newspaper Avennire, which is close to the Vatican, that 300 "cases of priests accused of paedophilia" had been counted between 2001 and 2010 out of 400,000 priests and other clergy overall.
"Of course it's too much, but it has to be acknowledged that the phenomenon is not as widespread as is being made out," he said. “The greatest sins are the sins of silence in the face of evil. The action of a prophet is not to prophesy an event that can’t be changed. It’s to prophesy pathways and timelines that you can then decide because you are co-creators of your own future. By bringing these things to light is not to bring terror to the people, but to bring control, to bring a sense of empowerment to everyone who reads this.”
|