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What You Didn't Know About the Popes of Rome
Mark Owen = Mark Owen is a freelance writer living in Toronto, Canada.
On the evening of Saturday April 2, 2005, after receiving the Rite of
Extreme Unction, Pope John Paul II passed away. At this time his
chamberlain would have gone to the papal hospital bed and asked the
Bishop of Rome a question, "Are you dead?" There would be no reply from
the Pope. The chamberlain would then pick up a silver hammer and strike
the Pope on the head and repeat his question, "Are you dead?" Again
there would be no reply. The chamberlain would then thrice call out the
Pope's baptismal name. He would then declare the Pope to be dead.
This is the way the Church has determined papal deaths for centuries. This is the way of the world's oldest monarchy.
Since 1763 the august Almanach de Gotha has been the ultimate
authority on the royal houses of Europe. Listed under 'Reigning
Sovereign Houses' is the Holy See. Therein is stated, "the incumbent of
the Holy See is considered by Christian sovereign families as the
'Father of the Family of Kings,' [and] his Holiness represents the
OLDEST MONARCHY on earth"
The triple sovereignty of the Pope-Person, Holy See & Vatican
City--is distinct in fact and in law. Internationally, he is not subject
to any authority on earth. His Cardinals are considered to be Princes
of the Church and peers of the sons of reigning monarchs. Each diocese
is considered to be a royal fiefdom. The word 'diocese' originally
signified an administrative unit devised by the Emperor Diocletian, a
tyrant noted for his persecution of Christians.
Following are brief sketches of some of the more interesting holders
of the title 'Vicar of Christ' (it should be noted that the Latin
equivalent of the Greek 'anti' is 'vicarius,' from whence is derived the
word 'vicar').
Without a doubt, there was one Pope who was completely mad. In 896
Stephen VII set in motion the trial of his rival, the late Pope Formosus
who had been dead for 9 months at the time. Formosus' corpse was
dragged from its tomb and arrayed on a throne in the council chamber.
The corpse, wrapped in a hair shirt, was provided with council, who
wisely remained silent while Pope Stephen raved and screamed at it. The
crime of Formosus was that he had crowned emperor one of the numerous
illegitimate heirs of Charlemagne after first having performed the same
office for a candidate favored by Stephen. After Stephen's rant, the
corpse was stripped of its clothes and its fingers were chopped off. It
was then dragged through the palace and hurled from a balcony to a
howling mob below who threw it into the Tiber. The body was later
rescued by people sympathetic to Formosus and given a quiet burial.
Stephen was strangled to death a few years later.
In 964 Pope Benedict V raped a young girl and absconded to
Constantinople with the papal treasury only to reappear when the money
ran out. Church historian Gerbert called Benedict 'the most iniquitous
of all the monsters of ungodliness.' The pontiff was eventually slain by
a jealous husband. His corpse, bearing a hundred dagger wounds, was
dragged through the streets before being tossed into a cesspit.
In October 1032 the papal miter was purchased for the 11-year old
Benedict IX. Upon reaching his 14th year, a chronicler wrote that
Benedict had already surpassed in wantonness and profligacy all who had
preceded him. He often had to leave Rome in a hurry.
Gregory VII was a master forger, surpassing even the great fraud
known as the 'Donation of Constantine,' the document that created the
Papal States. Gregory had an entire school of forgers turning out
document after document bearing the papal seal of approval. These
documents were later systematized in the mid-1100s in Bologna by
Gratian, a Benedictine monk. He called his work the Decretum, or Code of
Canon Law. It was peppered throughout with several centuries of
forgeries along with Gratian's own fictional additions. Gregory also
formalized the celibacy doctrine in order to curtail the many gifts of
church lands being given away to all of the illegitimate children of
priests and bishops. According to Catholic historian Peter de Rosa in
his book Vicars of Christ:
"Popes had mistresses as young as fifteen years of age, were guilty
of incest and sexual perversions of every sort, had innumerable
children, were murdered in the very act of adulteryIn the old Catholic
phrase, why be holier than the Pope?"
Another interesting figure was Alexander VI (formerly Rodrigo
Borgia). He reigned from 1492-1503. Alexander committed his first murder
at the age of 12. Upon assuming the Papal miter he cried, "I am Pope,
Vicar of Christ!" In his Decline and Fall Gibbon referred to Alexander
as the Tiberius of Rome. Like his predecessor Innocent VIII, Alexander
sired many children, baptized them personally and officiated at their
weddings in the Vatican. He had ten known illegitimate children
(including the notorious Cesare and Lucrezia), by his favorite mistress
Vannoza Catanei. When she faded, Borgia took the 15-year old Giulia
Farnese. Farnese obtained a Cardinal's red hat for her brother who later
became Paul III.
Alexander was followed by Julius II who purchased the papacy with his
own private fortune. He didn't even pretend to be a Christian. A
notorious womanizer who sired any number of bastards, Julius was so
eaten away with syphilis that he couldn't even expose his foot to be
kissed.
Under Leo X (1513-21)--who cursed and excommunicated Martin
Luther-specific prices were enumerated by the Roman Chancery for every
imaginable crime. For instance, a deacon accused of murder could be
absolved for 20 crowns. Once pardoned, he could not be prosecuted by
civil authorities. Two hundred years earlier, John XXII had done much
the same thing, setting prices for crimes ranging from incest to sodomy.
During his pontificate Innocent VIII (1484-92) granted a 20-year
Butterbriefe indulgence to persons who met his price. For a sum, one
could purchase the privilege of eating favorite dishes during Lent.
Leo X (Giovanni de Medici) commissioned the Dominican friar Tetzel to
sell indulgences which released one from purgatory. Tetzel's famous
refrain went, "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, a soul from
purgatory springs!"
Pope Sixtus IV charged Roman brothels a Church tax. According to
historian Will Durant, in 1490 there were 6800 registered prostitutes in
Rome. Pius II declared that Rome was the only city run by bastards (the
sons of Popes and Cardinals).
The iniquity of the various Popes has filled many books, and one has
to wonder if the Church has been cursed from the very beginning. After
all, Constantine leveled the Stadium of Caligula and the Temple of
Apollo and used the stones and marble from them to erect the original
basilica of Peter. Could he have been engaging in an act of sympathetic
magic, as some have alleged? Constantine's choice of building materials
might account for the observation made in Rome by Martin Luther
centuries later who declared, "If there is a Hell, Rome is built over
it. It is an abyss from whence issues every kind of sin."
Very brief mention should be made of the staggering scale of the
Inquisition. In his History of the Inquisition, Canon Llorente, who was
Secretary of the Inquistion in Madrid from 1790-92 estimated the number
of condemned in Spain alone to have exceeded 3 million, with 300,000
burned at the stake. A Catholic historian comments on the events leading
up to the suppression of the Spanish Inquisition:
"When Napoleon conquered Spain in 1808, a Polish officer in his army,
Col. Lemanouski, reported that the Dominicans (in charge of the
Inquisition) blockaded themselves in their monastery in Madrid. When
Lemanouski's troops forced an entry, the inquisitors denied the
existence of any torture chambers. The soldiers searched the monastery
and discovered them under the floors. The chambers were full of
prisoners, all naked, many insane. The French troops, used to cruelty
and blood, could not stomach the sight. They emptied the torture
chambers, laid gunpowder to the monastery and blew the place up"
Rome was truly drunk with the Martyr's blood.
And the Papacy isn't fairing much better in our modern age, and would appear to be in serious decline, if not in outright defeat.
In November 2000 Italian headlines screamed, "Devil Defeats Pope!" Il
Messaggero reported that the Pope had been confronted by a teenage girl
in the Vatican who screamed insults in a cavernous voice during an
audience. John Paul attempted an exorcism but his ministrations had no
effect on the girl.
Devils in the Vatican would come as no surprise to Msgr. Luigi Marinelli. His book Gone With the Wind at the Vatican fairly flew off the shelves in Italy, revealing as it did stories of money-laundering prelates, sex abuse and Satanic rituals performed within the walls of the Holy See.
Marinelli's comments echo those of the late Fr. Malachi Martin, a
former Jesuit and exorcist, whose 1990 book The Keys of this Blood
contains the following disturbing information:
"Most frighteningly for John Paul, he had come up against the
irremovable presence of a malign strength in his own Vatican and in
certain bishop's chanceries. It was what knowledgeable Churchmen called
the 'superforce.' Rumors, difficult to verify, tied its installation to
the beginning of Paul VIs 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 performed 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."
Adding fuel to the fire is ex-Jesuit Robert Kaiser with his recent
book Clerical Error. Kaiser states that Malachi Martin was something of a
confabulist who lived for 30 years as a kept man under the roof of
Manhattan socialite Kakia Livanos, the ex-wife of Greek shipping magnate
Stavros Niarchos. Kaiser goes on to say that Martin also stole his wife
Mary from him at one point in the 60s when all three were quartered in
Rome. Kaiser also surmises that Martin may have been a paid lobbyist for
the American Jewish Committee.
In his new book Glimpses of the Devil, psychiatrist M. Scott Peck
weighs in with many interesting comments on possession and exorcism. He
also declares Martin to have been most scrupulous in his histories of
the exorcisms recounted in Hostage to the Devil. However, according to
Peck, although a formidable scholar and gifted polyglot (17 languages),
Martin could by turns be a 'pathological liar' and a 'leprechaun.'
Needless to say, the jury is still out on the legacy of Malachi Martin.
On the other hand, the verdict on the pederasty that is endemic to
the Roman priesthood, is in. The Church paid out more than $1 billion in
claims to victims of sex abuse by clergy in the 1990s alone. And the
American branch offers a very disturbing treatment method to offenders.
One startling example should suffice:
Fr. Jay Mullin was accused of molesting a boy more than 20 years ago
in Boston. Then Cardinal Bernard Law commanded Mullin to be evaluated at
St. Luke's Institute. The Institute is a Washington clinic that was
profiled in a Boston Globe article of February 24, 2002:
"Mullin was flown south in 1992 to a clinic outside Washington, D.C.
The church-run clinic had a huge collection of child pornography of
varying degrees, which ranged from soft porn to hardcore S&M images,
all featuring pre-teen boys and girls"
This would have to rate as the most devilish form of aversion therapy
ever known. It would be akin to treating alcoholics with copious
quantities of vintage wine or bombarding junkies with free packets of
China White heroin. Truly degenerate and depraved lunatics were running
the asylum known as St. Lukes.
Notwithstanding the scandal and shock of the aforementioned, Rome
carries on quietly with her program of world dominion. They lead the
competition to establish the first one-world system that has ever
existed. Their ultimate goal is global religious syncretism, and to
eventually wield control and authority over every individual on earth.
The human solidarity goals of the Roman Church are identical to the
goals and objectives of the United Nations. This is why they are such an
perfect fit. Rome only gives the appearance of objecting to the UN
agenda. At the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome Cardinal Angelo Sodana
pledged the Holy See's support for the UNs humanistic 'Programs of
Action.'
Rome also has designs on Jerusalem.
For 46 years after Israel's rebirth the Vatican refused to acknowledge Israel's right to exist. But Rome wants to exert premier influence over Jerusalem, which will one day function as the capital of her World Church.
In a 1993 letter to the Pope, Shimon Peres promised to
internationalize Jerusalem, granting the UN political control of the Old
City and the Vatican hegemony over the holy sites within. This was
confirmed by the Italian newspaper La Stampa. In March 1995 the Israeli
radio station Arutz Sheva was leaked a cable from the Israeli Embassy in
Rome, confirming the hand over of Jerusalem to the Vatican.
The future Pope will establish his throne one day within the walls of the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem. It is from here that he will rule his World Church.
And this day may not be as far off as many believe. The corner
stones
for the Third Temple have already been quarried by the Jewish group
known as the Temple Mount Faithful. They are extremely well financed and
organized. They have also produced priestly vestments in accordance
with scriptural outlines and are presently attempting to breed a perfect
red heifer in anticipation of the coming dedication ceremonies.
Obviously, Rome and the Temple Mount Faithful are headed for a showdown.
In a letter sent to the Vatican in January 2004, the TMF demanded
that Pope John Paul return the Temple Menorah and other vessels and
treasures removed in 70AD by Titus and taken to Rome, where they are
presently held within the Secret Vatican Archives.
Mark Owen is a freelance writer living in Toronto, Canada Categories: Origins of the Catholic Church,