Knights Templar The Orthodox Account

So far as is generally known, the first historical information on the Templars is provided by a Frankish historian, Guillaume de Tyre, who wrote between 1175 and 1185. This was at the peak of the Crusades, when Western armies had already conquered the Holy Land and established the Kingdom of Jerusalem or, as it was called by the Templars themselves, “Outremer’, the “Land Beyond the Sea’. But by the time Guillaume de Tyre began to write, Palestine had been in Western hands for seventy years, and the Templars had already been in existence for more than fifty. Guillaume was therefore writing of events which predated his own lifetime events which he had not personally witnessed or experienced, but had learnt of at second or even third hand. At second or third hand and, moreover, on the basis of uncertain authority. For there were no Western chroniclers in Outremer between 1127 and 1144. Thus there are no written records for those crucial years.

We do not, in short, know much of Guillaume’s sources, and this may well call some of his statements into question. He may have been drawing on popular word of mouth, on a none too reliable oral tradition. Alternatively, he may have consulted the Templars themselves and recounted what they told him. If this is so, it means he is reporting only what the

Templars wanted him to report.

Granted, Guillaume does provide us with certain basic information; and it is this information on which all subsequent accounts of the Templars, all explanations of their foundation, all narratives of their activities have been based. But because of Guillaume’s vagueness and sketchiness, because of the time at which he was writing, because of the death of documented sources, he constitutes a precarious basis on which to build a definitive picture. Guillaume’s chronicles are certainly useful. But it is a mistake and one to which many historians have succumbed to regard them as unimpugnable and wholly accurate. Even Guillaume’s dates, as Sir Steven Runciman stresses, ‘are confused and at times demonstrably wrong’.”

According to Guillaume de Tyre, the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon was founded in 1118. Its founder is said to be one Hugues de Payen, a nobleman from Champagne and vassal of the count of Champagne.” One day Hugues, unsolicited, presented himself with eight comrades at the palace of Baudouin I -king of Jerusalem, whose elder brother, Godfroi de Bouillon, had captured the Holy City nineteen years before. Baudouin seems to have received them most cordially, as did the Patriarch of Jerusalem the religious leader of the new kingdom and special emissary of the pope.

The declared objective of the Templars, Guillaume de Tyre continues, was, ‘as far as their strength permitted, they should keep the roads and highways safe .. . with especial regard for the protection of pilgrims ‘.3 So worthy was this objective apparently that the king placed an entire wing of the royal palace at the knights’ disposal. And, despite their declared oath of poverty, the knights moved into this lavish accommodation. According to tradition, their quarters were built on the foundations of the ancient Temple of Solomon, and from this the fledgling Order derived its name.

For nine years, Guillaume de Tyre tells us, the nine knights admitted no new candidates to their Order. They were still supposed to be living in poverty such poverty that official seals show two knights riding a single horse, implying not only brotherhood, but also a penury that precluded separate mounts. This style of seal is often regarded as the most famous and distinctive of Templar devices, descending from the first days of the Order. However, it actually dates from a full century later, when the Templars were hardly poor if, indeed, they ever were.

According to Guillaume de Tyre, writing a half century later, the Templars were established in 1118 and moved into the king’s palace presumably sallying out from here to protect pilgrims on the Holy Land’s highways and byways. And yet there was, at this time, an official royal historian, employed by the king. His name was Fulk de Chartres, and he was writing not fifty years after the Order’s purported foundation but during the very years in question. Curiously enough, Fulk de Chartres makes no mention whatever of Hugues de Payen, Hugues’s companions or anything even remotely connected with the Knights Templar. Indeed there is a thunderous silence about Templar activities during the early days of their existence. Certainly there is no record anywhere not even later of them doing anything to protect pilgrims. And one cannot but wonder how so few men could hope to fulfill so mammoth a self-imposed task. Nine men to protect the pilgrims on all the thoroughfares of the Holy Land? Only nine? And all pilgrims? If this was their objective, one would surely expect them to welcome new recruits. Yet, according to Guillaume de Tyre, they admitted no new candidates to the Order for nine years.

None the less, within a decade the Templars’ fame seems to have spread back to Europe. Ecclesiastical authorities spoke highly of them and extolled their Christian undertaking. By 1128, or shortly thereafter, a tract lauding their virtues and qualities was issued by no less a person than Saint Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux and the age’s chief spokesman for Christendom. Bernard’s tract, “In Praise of the New Knighthood’, declares the Templars to be the epitome and apotheosis of Christian values.

After nine years, in 1127, most of the nine knights returned to Europe and a triumphal welcome, orchestrated in large part by Saint Bernard.In January 1128 a Church council was convened at Troyes court of the count of Champagne, Hugues de Payen’s liege lord at which Bernard was again the guiding spirit. At this council the Templars were officially recognised and incorporated as a religiousmilitary order. Hugues de Payen was given the title of Grand Master. He and his subordinates were to be warrior-monks, soldier-mystics, combining the austere discipline of the cloister with a martial zeal tantamount to fanaticism a “militia of Christ’, as they were called at the time. And it was again Saint Bernard who helped to draw up, with an enthusiastic preface, the rule of conduct to which the knights would adhere a rule based on that of the Cistercian monastic order, in which Bernard himself was a dominant influence.

The Templars were sworn to poverty, chastity and obedience. They were obliged to cut their hair but forbidden to cut their beards, thus distinguishing themselves in an age when most men were clean-shaven. Diet, dress and other aspects of daily life were stringently regulated in accordance with both monastic and military routines. All members of the Order were obliged to wear white habits or surcoats and cloaks, and these soon evolved into the distinctive white mantle for which the Templars became famous. “It is granted to none to wear white habits, or to have white mantles, excepting the .. . Knights of Christ.” So stated the Order’s rule, which elaborated on the symbolic significance of this apparel, “To all the professed knights, both in winter and in summer, we give, if they can be procured, white garments, that those who have cast behind them a dark life.

 

In addition to these details, the rule established a loose administrative hierarchy and apparatus. And behaviour on the battlefield was strictly controlled. If captured, for instance, Templars were not allowed to ask for mercy or to ransom themselves. They were compelled to fight to the death. Nor were they permitted to retreat, unless the odds against them exceeded three to one.

In 11396 a Papal Bull was issued by Pope Innocent II a former Cistercian monk at Clairvaux and protege of Saint Bernard. According to this Bull, the Templars would owe allegiance to no secular or ecclesiastical power other than the pope himself. In other words, they were rendered totally independent of all kings, princes and prelates, and all interference from both political and religious authorities. They had become, in effect, a law unto themselves, an autonomous international empire.

During the two decades following the Council of Troyes, the Order expanded with extraordinary rapidity and on an extraordinary scale. When Hugues de Payen visited England in late 1128, he was received with “great worship’ by King Henry I. Throughout Europe, younger sons of noble families flocked to enrol in the Order’s ranks, and vast donations in money, goods and land were made from every quarter of Christendom. Hugues de Payen donated his own properties, and all new recruits were obliged to do likewise. On admission to the Order, a man was compelled to sign over all his possessions.

Given such policies, it is not surprising that Templar holdings proliferated. Within a mere twelve months of the Council of Troyes, the Order held substantial estates in France, England, Scotland, Flanders, Spain and Portugal. Within another decade, it also held territory in Italy, Austria, Germany, Hungary, the Holy Land and points east. Although individual knights were bound to their vow of poverty, this did not prevent the Order from amassing wealth, and on an unprecedented scale. All gifts were welcomed. At the same time, the Order was forbidden to dispose of anything not even to ransom its leaders. The Temple received in abundance but, as a matter of strict policy, it never gave. When Hugues de Payen returned to Palestine in 1130, therefore, with an entourage quite considerable for the time of some three hundred knights, he left behind, in the custody of other recruits, vast tracts of European territory.

In 1146 the Templars adopted the famous splayed red cross the cross pat tee With this device emblazoned on their mantles, the knights accompanied King Louis VII of France on the Second Crusade. Here they established their reputation for martial zeal coupled with an almost insane foolhardiness, and a fierce arrogance as well. On the whole, however, they were magnificently disciplined -the most disciplined fighting force in the world at the time. The French king himself wrote that it was the Templars alone who prevented the Second Crusade ill-conceived and mismanaged as it was from degenerating into a total debacle.

During the next hundred years the Templars became a power with international influence. They were constantly engaged in high-level diplomacy between nobles and monarchs throughout the Western world and the Holy Land. In England, for example, the Master of the Temple was regularly called to the king’s Parliament, and was regarded as head of all religious orders, taking precedence over all priors and abbots in the land. Maintaining close links with both Henry II and Thomas a Becket, the Templars were instrumental in trying to reconcile the sovereign and his estranged archbishop. Successive English kings, including King John, often resided in the Temple’s London preceptory, and the Master of the Order stood by the monarch’s side at the signing of the Magna Carta.”

Nor was the Order’s political involvement confined to Christendom alone. Close links were forged with the Muslim world as well the world so often opposed on the battlefield and the Templars commanded a respect from Saracen leaders exceeding that accorded any other Europeans. Secret connections were also maintained with the Hashishim or Assassins, the famous sect of militant and often fanatical adepts who were Islam’s equivalent of the Templars. The Hashishim paid tribute to the Templars and were rumoured to be in their employ.

On almost every political level the Templars acted as official arbiters in disputes, and even kings submitted to their authority. In 1252 Henry III of England dared to challenge them, threatening to confiscate certain of their domains. “You Templars .. . have so many liberties and charters that your enormous possessions make you rave with pride and haughtiness. What was imprudently given must therefore be prudently revoked; and what was inconsiderately bestowed must be considerately recalled.” The Master of the Order replied, “What say est thou, O King? Far be it that thy mouth should utter so disagreeable and silly a word. So long as thou dost exercise justice, thou wilt reign. But if thou infringe it, thou wilt cease to be King.” It is difficult to convey to the modern mind the enormity and audacity of this statement. Implicitly the Master is taking for his Order and himself a power that not even the papacy dared explicitly claim the power to make or depose monarchs.

At the same time, the Templars’ interests extended beyond war, diplomacy and political intrigue. In effect they created and established the institution of modern banking. By lending vast sums to destitute monarchs they became the bankers for every throne in Europe and for certain Muslim potentates as well. With their network of preceptories throughout Europe and the Middle East, they also organised, at modest interest rates, the safe and efficient transfer of money for merchant traders, a class which became increasingly dependent upon them. Money deposited in one city, for example, could be claimed and withdrawn in another, by means of promissory notes inscribed in intricate codes. The Templars thus became the primary money-changers of the age, and the Paris preceptory became the centre of European finance. It is even probable that the cheque, as we know and use it today, was invented by the Order.

And the Templars traded not only in money, but in thought as well. Through their sustained and sympathetic contact with Islamic and Judaic culture, they came to act as a clearing-house for new ideas, new dimensions of knowledge, new sciences. They enjoyed a veritable monopoly on the best and most advanced technology of their age the best that could be produced by armourers, leather-workers, stone masons military architects and engineers. They contributed to the development of surveying, map-making, road-building and navigation. They possessed their own sea-ports, shipyards and fleet a fleet both commercial and military, which was among the first to use the magnetic compass. And as soldiers, the Templars’ need to treat wounds and illness made them adept in the use of drugs. The Order maintained its own hospitals with its own physicians and surgeons whose use of mould extract suggests an understanding of the properties of antibiotics. Modern principles of hygiene and cleanliness were understood. And with an understanding also in advance of their time they regarded epilepsy not as demonic possession but as a controllable disease.

Inspired by its own accomplishments, the Temple in Europe grew increasingly wealthy, powerful and complacent. Not surprisingly perhaps, it also grew increasingly arrogant, brutal and corrupt. “To drink like a Templar’ became a cliche of the time. And certain sources assert that the Order made a point of recruiting excommunicated knights.

But while the Templars attained both prosperity and notoriety in Europe, the situation in the Holy Land had seriously deteriorated. In 1185 King Baudouin IV of Jerusalem died. In the dynastic squabble that followed, Gerard de Ridefort, Grand Master of the Temple, betrayed an oath made to the dead monarch, and thereby brought the European community in Palestine to the brink of civil war. Nor was this Ridefort’s only questionable action. His cavalier attitude towards the Saracens precipitated the rupture of a long-standing truce, and provoked a new cycle of hostilities. Then, in July 1187, Ridefort led his knights, along with the rest of the Christian army, into a rash, misconceived and, as it transpired, disastrous battle at Hattin. The Christian forces were virtually annihilated; and two months later Jerusalem itself captured nearly a century before was again in Saracen hands.

During the following century the situation became increasingly hopeless. By 1291 nearly the whole of Outremer had fallen, and the Holy Land was almost entirely under Muslim control. Only Acre remained, and in May 1291 this last fortress was lost as well. In defending the doomed city, the Templars showed themselves at their most heroic. The Grand Master himself, though severely wounded, continued fighting until his death. As there was only limited space in the Order’s galleys, the women and children were evacuated, while all knights, even the wounded, chose to remain behind. When the last bastion in Arce fell, it did so with apocalyptic intensity, the walls collapsing and burying attackers and defenders alike.

The Templars established their new headquarters in Cyprus; but with the loss of the Holy Land, they had effectively been deprived of their raison d’etre. As there were no longer any accessible infidel lands to conquer, the Order began to turn its attention towards Europe, hoping to find there a justification for its continued existence. A century before, the Templars had presided over the foundation of another chivalric, religious-military order, the Teutonic Knights. The latter were active in small numbers in the Middle East, but by the mid-thirteenth century had turned their attention to the north-eastern frontiers of Christendom. Here they had carved out an independent principality for themselves the Ordenstoat or Ordensland, which encompassed almost the whole of the eastern Baltic. In this principality which extended from Prussia to the Gulf of Finland and what is now Russian soil the Teutonic Knights enjoyed an unchallenged sovereignty, far from the reach of both secular and ecclesiastical control.

From the very inception of the Ordenstaat, the Templars had envied the independence and immunity of their kindred order. After the fall of the Holy Land, they thought increasingly of a state of their own in which they might exercise the same untrammelled authority and autonomy as the Teutonic Knights. Unlike the Teutonic Knights, however, the Templars were not interested in the harsh wilderness of Eastern Europe. By now they were too accustomed to luxury and opulence. Accordingly, they dreamed o founding their state on more accessible, more congenial soil that of the Languedoc.

From its earliest years, the Temple had maintained a certain warm rapport with the Cathars, especially in the Languedoc. Many wealthy landowners Cathars themselves or sympathetic to the Cathars had donated vast tracts of land to the Order. According to a recent writer, at least one of the co-founders of the Temple was a Cathar. This seems somewhat improbable, but it is beyond dispute that Bertrand de Blanchefort, fourth Grand Master of the Order, came from a Cathar family. Forty years after Bertrand’s death, his descendants were fighting side by side with other Cathar lords against the Northern invaders of Simon de Montfort.

To be Continue. . . . . .   

THE HOLY BLOOD AND THE HOLY GRAIL

Is the Vatican an Evil Organization ?

With over a Billion adherents and growing, the Catholic Church is an immensely powerful institution. As an organization that claims to represent God and do good, it has tremendous potential to create positive change. Yet, the Catholic Church has a long history of supporting evil and continues to cause tremendous suffering while doing little real good. 

Mass Delusion

Catholics choose to selectively ignore the many past and present sins of the church. They ignore the fact that so many priests are child molesters and that church policy not only enabled abuse of children but consistently protected and even rewarded pedophile priests.

Catholics ignore the fact that the catholic ban on birth control has ensured that tens of millions of unwanted children live unimaginable lives of deprivation and grow up (those that survive) to prey upon the societies that forsake them.

The millions of preventable cases of AIDS caused by Vatican policy of avoiding condoms also goes ignored. 

Catholics ignore the financial scandals, the fact that the church supported the Nazi's and other other fascists and helped smuggle the worst war criminals to safety from justice. They ignore the unforgivable crimes of the holy inquisitors and the fact that the Catholic Church invented some of the most heinous forms of torture that could never be anything but evil. 

Catholics never mention their genocide committed against the peoples of the 'new world'. Books by priests who have witnessed the satanic ceremonies inside the vatican also go ignored. Catholics choose to ignore the fact that much of church doctrine not only has no biblical basis but actually goes against the bible that they claim as the word of God.

One of biggest excuses given by Catholics for the sins of their church is "it all happened a very long time ago" or "those were very different times with different morals". Yet, many of the church's worst sins were committed in recent history, not the distant past. Another excuse is that the sins of the church are committed by only a few flawed individuals and the organization as a whole remains good. This is simply not true. The Vatican and Popes have actively condoned and perpetuated the evil committed by the Church. Popes may occasionally make some public utterances of supporting peace and ending poverty but their actions tell the truth. 

Catholic Fascism & WW II

In 1929, Pope Pius XI signed the Lateran Treaty with Mussolini's government, affirming the dictator's rule and granting him the political clout necessary for a secure Fascist future. In exchange, the church got $90 million in cash, a new tax-exempt papal state on Vatican Hill, government salaries for Italian priests, and the promise of both power and financial security. The deal with Mussolini encouraged Hitler and so he too sought Vatican support and got it.

Germany's Catholics were against Hitler and he couldn't muster nearly enough votes to be elected to power without Catholic support. Seeing Hitler as a potentially valuable ally, the Vatican applied pressure to German Catholics and ultimately was able to exert enough force to get Hitler elected. In exchange for placing him in power Hitler signed a 'concordat' with the Vatican in 1933 that gave the Church exemption from some laws, state financial support and cash pay-outs amounting to billions of dollars during Hitler's reign.

"The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist State by the Catholic Church. The treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism is hostile to religion is a lie." - Adolph Hitler in letter to the Nazi party, July 22, 1933

However, not all Catholics could stomach the deal and four years later three German Cardinals and two German Bishops traveled to the Vatican in 1937 to plead with Pope Pius XI to help protect German Catholics from German oppression. In the summer of 1938 the ailing Pope finally wrote an encyclical entitled Humani Generis Unitas (On the Unity of the Human Race) that strongly condemned German oppression. However, his condemnation was not really in support of humanity but rather in defense against Germans shutting down Catholic Churches and schools where the nuns and priests were reported to molest children. The encyclical was suppressed by opponents within the Vatican and the existence of the 'lost encyclical" wasn't revealed until 1972.

On his deathbed the Pope pleaded with his physicians to keep him alive for a couple more days so he could finally oppose Hitler and Mussolini and avert war. He died under mysterious circumstances and on March 2nd, 1939, Eugenio Pacelli, the architect of the deal with Hitler was made Pope.

"Slovakia became a Nazi puppet state led by the Catholic priest Jozef Tiso. During this period, approximately 70,000 Slovak Jews were sent to concentration camps to perish in the Holocaust." - US State Department profile of Slovakia

After Hitler invaded Yugoslavia it split off Croatia as a Catholic state to reward the Vatican for its support and named Fascist Ante Pavelic and his Ustashi thugs as leaders. The Catholic Church openly ruled with Pavelic. Archbishop Alojzije Spinac, the primate of Croatia boldly proclaimed:

"God who directs the destiny of nations and controls the hearts of kings has given us Ante Pavelic and moved the leader of a friendly and allied people, Adolph Hitler, to use his victorious troops to disperse our oppressors and enable us to create an independent state of Croatia. Glory be to God, our gratitude to Adolf Hitler and infinite loyalty to chief Ante Pavelic."

The gift from Hitler of a Catholic Croatian State fulfilled the long held ambition of the Church to realize one of the dreams of the crusades - a Catholic state in the Balkans as a bulwark against Islam. Pavelic named the Archbishop Supreme Military Apostolic Vicar of the Ustashi Army.

When Pavelic was praised by the Vatican he was already a convicted murderer and had been sentenced to death in absentia by Yugoslav and French courts for the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia and Louis Barthou, the French Foreign Minister, yet his crimes were only about to begin. Pavelic, his goons and Catholic priests butchered anyone who was not Aryan or Catholic or couldn't afford to buy special high-priced 'certificates of conversion'. The degree of horror unleashed was unmatched by any of Hitler's troops. Children, women, men and the aged were butchered alive in death camps, in their homes and in public displays. Some of the most heinous acts were organized and carried out by Catholic priests and monks.

"The worst atrocities are being committed in the environs of Archbishop of Zagreb. The blood of brothers is flowing in streams. The Orthodox are being forcibly converted to Catholicism and we do not hear the Archbishop's voice preaching revolt. Instead it is reported that he is taking part in Nazi and Fascist parades." - BBC Radio, February 16, 1942

Eight days before the broadcast the former minister of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Prvislav Grizogono, sent a letter to Pope Pius XII stating:

"In all these unprecedented crimes, worse than pagan, our Catholic Church has also participated in two ways. First a large number of priests, clerics, friars, and organized Catholic youth actively participated in all these crimes, but more terrible, even Catholic priests became camp and group commanders, and, as such, ordered or tolerated the horrible tortures, murders and massacres of baptized people. None of this could have been done without the permission of the bishops..."

Yet, the Pope continued the slaughter. In a mere four years an estimated 600,000 people were killed, about 10% of the total population. Per capita this was the greatest mass murder of people in the twentieth century. Tens of millions of dollars were also looted from the Croatian people and flowed into Vatican coffers. 

After the liberation of Croatia from the Vatican, the Archbishop was sentenced to sixteen years in prison as a war criminal. The Pope was outraged and ordered the excommunication of anyone who participated in the trial. Stepinac was released early in 1951 and returned to the Vatican where his atrocities were rewarded with a Cardinalship. In 1998 Pope John Paul II traveled to blood-stained Croatia to announce the beatification of war criminal Stepinac, the first step in granting Sainthood. 

Pavelic and the worst of his Ustashi demons were sheltered from justice in the Vatican with their offerings of tons of gold and silver. Pavelic had been previously been captured and was on trial in Nueremburg but the trial was mysteriously brought to a halt and he was transferred to the Vatican.

"Pavelic's contacts are so high and his present position so compromising to the Vatican that any extradition of the subject would deal a staggering blow to the Roman Catholic Church." - William Gowen & Louis Caniglia, US Army Counterintelligence Corps, September 12, 1947

The Nazi SS also known simply as the "SS" (Sedes Sacrorum - See/Seat Holy) is actually a shortened name for the "Knights of the Holy See", a Catholic military order first formed in 1933 based upon the Jesuit order. The SS was created after the signing of the "sacred" Reich Concordat, specifically through the application of Articles 1,12,15,21 and 33 with the enaction of Clause (c) of the "Secret Supplement" of the Concordat between Germany and the Vatican. The SS was perhaps one of the most evil organizations to ever exist on Earth.

Vatican support for Fascism was the direct and greatest cause of World War II. Mussolini and Hitler could simply not have risen to power without direct Vatican support and assistance. Had the Catholic Church not supported the Fascists war simply wouldn't have happened and tens of millions of lives would have been spared.

Perhaps the greatest villain of WW II wasn't Hilter, it was Pope Pius XII, the Catholic Church and all the Catholics that actively and silently supported the horrific crimes against humanity. 

Nazi Protectionism - The Ratline

Eager to protect its Nazi friends, the Church ran a massive ratline out of Europe to secret some of the worst war criminals to South America. In Vatican City it housed and protected not only the Ustashi mass murders but other Fascist war criminals. Many were shipped to other countries disguised as priests.

Even after the war the Church continued to support fascism in Italy, Spain and Yugoslavia in the name of 'fighting communism'. In cooperation with western intelligence agencies the church ran clandestine groups of fascist thugs who engaged in terrorism, arson, murder and rape.

Catholic Fascist Argentina

The Nazis smuggled into Argentina by the Vatican were welcomed with open arms by Argentina's Catholics. Argentina had been an ardent supporter or Nazi Germany but officially remained neutral throughout the war and then officially joined the allied side just as the war was ending as a PR stunt to help protect the Nazi war criminals it would host.

As a result of the Catholic fascist influence, Argentina became an oppressive country that tortured and murdered anyone suspected of being subversive or possibly opposed to the government or the Church.

Just like in Croatia, the Church was deeply involved in the crimes against humanity. Catholic priests actively worked inside the military, worked as intelligence agents and approved the crimes. 

Journalist Horace Verbitsky published a book on the Catholic Church’s involvement with the military dictatorship. In his book, El Silencio (The Silence), he details how the Catholic Church actively participated in the 1976-1983 dictatorship that murdered over 30,000 people.

Marine captain Adolfo Scilingo who was convicted by a Spanish court and sentenced to 645 years testified that that the Catholic hierarchy approved drugging dissidents, slicing open their bellies and dropping them from planes into the Atlantic Ocean during the “flights of death" as a 'christian' form of death. It is hard for even ardent Catholics to imagine Jesus torturing people, gutting them and throwing them alive out of airplanes over the ocean because they might oppose a brutal military dictatorship.

Catholic Chaplin Christian Von Wernich officially worked inside torture centers to encourage prisoners to tell all they knew during torture sessions and then 'counseled' the victim's family members in an effort to obtain further information about the accused associates, so that more people could be tortured and murdered. 

As investigators closed in on Von Wernich, the Vatican continued its participation in the crimes by relocating Von Wernich to a church in El Quisco, Chile in 1996 and even gave him a new identity of "Christian González" to help him evade arrest.

Von Wernich was eventually apprehended, tried and convicted for his involvement in 7 murders, 42 abductions and 31 cases of torture. He was given a life sentence. No church officials have not been indicted for their roles. 

Archbishop Paraná Adolfo Tortolo and Monsignor Victorio Bonamín at the Catholic Church’s Vicariato Castrense headquarters both actively supported and blessed the military's actions. Without their approval it is likely that some restraint would be been exercised and thousands of lives saved. Both acted under direct authority of the Vatican.

 

Human rights representatives have demanded that the Catholic Church issue an apology for the many victims but the Church has refused and continues efforts to conceal its role and shield its henchmen from justice.

In Bed With the Mafia

The Vatican had long had cozy ties with the mafia and after the war it was involved in a number of criminal conspiracies. Its secretive Vatican bank is beyond the reach of anyone except the Pope and is used for laundering billions of dollars each year in criminal funds. The infamous BCCI scandal exposed a money laundering operation conducted by the mafia, the CIA and the Catholic Church. 

Pedophile Priests

Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of children have been sexually abused by Catholic priests. The abuse has been an integral part of church culture and has actively been encouraged and supported by the Vatican, Cardinals and Bishops.

Auditors for the Roman Catholic Church reported that in 2004 there were 1,092 new sexual abuse charges filed involving 756 priests, most all involved children. This brought the total to 11,750 US cases for the period of 1950 through 2004, still a fraction of the number of actual cases since most of the victims have never come forward. The auditors only covered US churches and only got voluntarily submitted information.

The Franklin Coverup case brought to light the participation of the Catholic Church in the abuse and prostitution of children from Boys Town as part of a CIA-satanic mind control program that reached all the way to the highest levels of government and the Vatican.

The 11,750 documented US cases are shocking and unfathomable. The number of unreported cases in the US and cases in other countries, where the Church still has substantial influence in schools, among police and in the courts, is indubitably much higher and likely amounts to hundreds of thousands or even millions of children molested by people who are supposed to represent God. 

A 2010 Belgian investigation found that virtually every Catholic Church in the country was involved in the sexual abuse of children. Belgium's bishops participated in the abuse or at least knew about it and supported it.

How could such a massive criminal conspiracy have gone on so long? What kind of God would permit such a thing? Why does it continue to be tolerated and even encouraged by the Vatican? 

Car-Bomber Catholic Priest

On July 31 1972, an 8 year old girl and 8 others were killed when car bombs ripped through the village of Claudy in Northern Ireland. It is widely believed that the bombs were placed by Catholic priest James Chesney, who was known as a regional “Director of Operations" for the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The Church knew of his involvement and quickly relocated him out of the reach of justice to the Republic of Ireland where he kept hidden away from authorities. Despite the presence of explosives residue in the back of his car, British authorities did not pursue the case due to pressure from higher levels.

Chesney died a few years later before he could be brought to justice for the car bombing murders.

 

Quebec Catholic Nightmare

Children born to single mothers in the province of Quebec, Canada were forcibly taken from their mothers from the 1940's up till the early 60's. Some were adopted out to families but most were locked up in Catholic run facilities masquerading as orphanages.  The policy of stealing children from unwed mothers was created by the Catholic Church so it could gain control over thousands of children.

When the Church found that it could nearly double the amount of money it got from the Canadian government for mentally disabled children over regular 'orphans' it suddenly declared all of the children in its charge as mental patients and orphanages were converted to psychiatric hospitals overnight.  No evaluations were conducted to determine the true mental state of the orphans and no beneficial therapy or education was ever offered to the children.  Over 20,000 children were locked away to suffer unimaginable horror in Catholic run facilities.

Not satisfied with the emotional damage to the children caused by labeling them as 'retarded', the Nuns who ran the orphanages abused the children in ways beyond comprehension. Children were whipped with chains, sexually assaulted, tortured, held in straight-jackets and subjected to needless lobotomies and electro-shocks.  Many were rented to Catholic-owned businesses to be used as slave labor.  Hundreds of children died from the abuse and many committed suicide. The bodies of children killed by the nun's abuse were sold to medical facilities for $10, if not claimed by a family member. 

Many of the children were used as human lab rats in sadistic experiments. Some of the children imprisoned at St. Jean-de-Dieu hospital were treated by the infamous Ewen Cameron, the psychopath psychiatrist who conducted lethal experiments on patients at Allan Memorial Institute of McGill University for the CIA as part of their MK-ULTRA mind control research program.

In 2004, some of the surviving children asked the government to open the mass graves where children were buried to support their claims which were being denied by the church and the government, but the government refused.

Other children were used to test dangerous drugs under contract to criminal pharmaceutical firms and sadistic psychiatrists.

The children were unleashed from their tortuous prisons upon reaching the age of 18, with no education, no means of support and so badly damaged that they were unable to function in society.

To shield the church from bankruptcy from the many lawsuits and further cover-up its partnership in crime with the CIA, the Quebec government agreed to pay surviving victims of the orphanages $26 million in compensation, provided that they agree to never sue anyone for the abuse. Taxpayers did not consent to the government spending their money to coverup the crimes and deny justice to the evil doers.

In 2001 another 1,000 orphans settled with the Quebec government for about $25 million for wrongfully placing them in the 'mental' institutions. Thousands of other abused orphans have not received any compensation and have been continually denied any measure of justice. 

The Catholic War on Natives

Throughout its history, the Catholic Church has been in bed with government and commercial enterprises.  For over 500 years it either supported or directly waged genocide against native populations for commercial purposes in the Americas.  The impact of catholics and others on the new world was an estimated 80% population reduction in the  span of 200 years.

In 1909, Dr. Peter Bryce of the Indian Affairs department in Ottawa, Canada claimed that churches were deliberately exposing native children to smallpox and tuberculosis in residential schools across Canada, and letting them die untreated. Thousands of children died as a result. The abuse of native children in Canadian residential schools continued up into the 1970's. Researchers estimate that 50,000 native children in Canada died as a result of the abuse, neglect and murder in ' residential' schools run by the Catholic and Anglican churches.

In many other countries Native children were forcibly sent to church boarding schools where they were horribly abused and even murdered. Natives continue to struggle with the immense damage done to them by the catholic church and other religious organizations.

Nun Abuse

A survey conducted in 1999 revealed that 34,000 U.S. Catholic nuns, or about 40 percent of all nuns in the United States, have suffered some form of sexual trauma. The survey was conducted researchers at the St. Louis University and was partially funded by Nuns. 20% of the Nuns said they had been sexually assaulted as a child.

In 2001, the Vatican admitted that it had received reports of the sexual abuse of nuns by priests and other nuns in 23 different countries. This is likely a tiny fraction of the actual cases since most are never reported.

Opus Dei - Fascist Catholic Cult

Made famous in the book and movie "The DaVinci Code", the secretive catholic cult, Opus Dei, uses scientology like tactics to recruit and enslave young catholics into a cult-like organization that is used to promote a fascist agenda. Infamous Opus Dei members include Tyco Looter Mark Belnick, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, convicted spy Robert Philip Hanssen, New York cop & mafia thug Al Carone and many other criminals. Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei was widely acknowledged as a ferocious woman hater, supporter of fascists such as Franco and Pinochet, yet was canonized by the church.

“Woman are so sinful…that they have been dislodged from the Garden of Eden. And the only possibility for them to lessen their guilt is by subordinating themselves... ‘You should be like a carpet where people can step onto.’” - from the Opus Dei in Austria

Manufacturing Suffering

Throughout the Catholic world the practice of birth control is deemed a mortal sin and many prostitutes and drug addicts will not practice safe sex for fear of going to hell. The lack of birth control results in tens of millions of unplanned and unwanted pregnancies each year and the needless spread of HIV and other venereal diseases. In countries with high HIV infections the church tells people that condoms can't prevent the spread of HIV, greatly increasing the number of new infections. Under Vatican influence the US bribed the govt. of Uganda to not distribute millions of condoms it already had.

The resulting overpopulation is the primary cause of poverty, crime and disease that grips so many Catholic countries. The poverty cheats entire nations of the hope for a better future and ensures the destruction of vital eco-systems.

In Brazil there are so many unwanted and homeless children that they run wild and are hunted down and killed by death squads paid by shop-keepers who are tired of getting robbed by the starving packs of kids.

Many of the unwanted children throughout Catholic countries end up in the clutches of pedophiles. A study in Guatemala found that nearly every brothel there had children working as prostitutes. Children are sold throughout Latin America for prostitution, pornography and to satanists for torture and sacrifice.

Popes

Some of the most perverse, violent and twisted people in history have been Catholic Popes. Most were gluttons and alcoholics and many were sexual deviants. Pedophilia is an ancient Catholic tradition going all the way back to the Roman emporers.

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 adultery."

Pope Sergius III - 904 - 911, Obtained his office by murder and fathered several illegitimate children by Marozia, who assassinated Pope Leo VI (928 - 929), and put her own teenage son (John XI) as Pope.  

Benedict V - 964, 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.

Pope Benedict IX - 1033 - 1045, Committed murders and adulteries in broad daylight, robbed pilgrims, and was regarded as a hideous criminal. The people drove him out of Rome: The Catholic encyclopedia says, "He was a disgrace to the chair of Peter."  

Pope Innocent III - 1198 - 1216, Promoted the Inquisition, surpassing all his predecessors in torturing and murdering.

Pope Boniface VIII - 1294 - 1303, One of the worst of all Popes. Dante visited Rome and described the Vatican as a "sewer of corruption" and assigned Boniface VII, Nicholas III and Clement V to the "lowest parts of hell."

Rodrigo Borgia - Pope Alexander VI - 1492 - 1503, Under his reign the "Vatican was again a brothel" (The Records of Rome, 1868, British Library) and his debauched papal court was compared to the ancient "fleshpots" of Caesarea in which St Augustine (d. 430) revelled. He was well known as a sexual pervert and was reported to have fathered children with his daughter.

Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti - Pius IX - 1846 - 1878, Was famous the kidnapping of a 6-year-old jewish boy and oppression of jews yet was deemed a Saint by Pope John Paul II. His beatification was questioned due to rumors that he sexually molested the boy.

Karol Wojtyla - John Paul II - 1978 - 2005, While Karol did apologize for many of the church's sins he also was a staunch supporter of catholic monsters such as Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ and known pedophile. Karol beatified and canonized more individuals than all his predecessors put together, many of the individuals were notorious pedophiles and other criminals yet Karol thought them all to be great catholics and saints.

Joseph Ratzinger - Pope Benedict XVI - 2005 to present, a member of Hitler Youth and member of the German army during WW II. He manned anti-aircraft guns at the BMW factory that used slave labor. As a former Nazi he is responsible for war crimes and the men he killed. In the early 80's he was made Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), formerly called Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition (aka "the Inquisition"). He has actively protected and supported known pedophiles and blocked investigations into the church's abuse of children.

Inquisition

The Catholic Church is infamous for its 'Inquisition' whereby it tortured and murdered millions of people. The Inquisitions started in the 1200s and didn't end until the late 1800s.

In his book, "History of the Inquisition", Canon Llorente, who was Secretary of the Inquisition 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."
 

Mother Teresa

Perhaps the greatest icon of Catholic charity, Mother Teresa (Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu) was not at all who she pretended to be or who the media portrayed her as. In reality she spent her life opposing cures to poverty such as birth control and empowerment of women. She took in vast sums of money for the poor and used it mostly to expand her religious order to 500 convents around the world. 

She was a supporter of criminals such as Charles Keating and mass murderers such as the Haitian Dictator François (Papa Doc) Duvalier who looted the country and killed over 30,000 people. For her loyal support of his family, Baby Doc Duvalier presented her with a Legion d'Honneur in 1981, which she graciously accepted from the mass murderer.

In 1989, Agnes traveled back to her native Albania to pay her respects to communist dictator Enver Hoxha and lay a wreath on his grave. Hoxha was one of the most repressive rulers of the 20th century. Under his reign of terror Albania was a virtual prison camp and almost every citizen had either been interrogated, tortured or imprisoned by the dreaded Sigurimi secret police. The country was impoverished by the lunatic policies of Hoxha and his rampant military spending.

Charles Keating was a good catholic who stole in excess of $252 million as part of an organized fraud in the Savings and Loan scandal of the 1980s. He gave $1.25 million of his loot to Mother Teresa. When Keating was facing prosecution she interceded on his behalf and wrote a letter to the court urging leniency. When the district attorney informed her that the money she had received was stolen money and needed to be returned, she refused to return the money and evaded the courts attempts to recover the money. Keating only spent a total of 4.5 years in prison. 

Mother Teresa did care for the poor, sick and dying but at the same time she promoted policies that cause poverty and disease and supported an institution that preys upon the poor and engages in wholesale abuse of children. Her legacy is an organization that feeds a few people while taking in vast sums of money and promotes the very causes of poverty. 

Catholic Satanism

A book published several years ago by retired catholic priest, Luigi Marinelli, detailed the misdeeds of greedy bishops, money-laundering prelates, sexual abuse and satanic rituals within the Vatican. Marinelli was no lone dissenter, the book was written by a group of Vatican prelates called the Millenari who seek to expose the corruption and satanism within the Vatican. (ISBN 1552631427)

"The smoke of Satan has entered the Sanctuary"- Pope Paul IV - 1963

"The cultic acts of Satanic pedophilia in the Catholic Church are considered by professionals to be the culmination of the rites of 'The Enthronement of the Fallen Archangel Lucifer' in the Vatican." - Fr. Malachi Martin - 1990

Given the Church's tremendous support of the most horrific forms of torture during the middle ages, its genocide against non-Catholics, its active participation in WW II, its manufacture of poverty and its wholesale sexual abuse of children around the world, how can the organization be anything but satanic?

Reviving European Fascism
The Church is once again taking over the country of Slovakia to create a new fascist stronghold. Despite the fact that they the Catholic party has few seats in Parliament they have been able to gain strategic control over key institutions.
They have mandated Catholic 'religious' education in all public schools, banned many competing religions as 'cults' while supporting mind control cults such as the Unification Church, Hare Chrisna, and Church of Scientology. The Slovak taxpayers are required to pay the salaries of priests. The largest land owner in the country, it pays zero taxes. In a special pact with the Vatican, Slovakia all but ceded its sovereignty over to the Church. 

The Church has not used its new power to help the poor or improve living conditions for the masses. Under Vatican rule the rich are getting richer and the poor are becoming more desperately poor. Schools and hospitals are forced to shut their doors as funding is cut. Food prices are skyrocketing and crime is flourishing. Many Slovaks feel they were better off under the Soviets and indeed many of them were. 

In March, 2005 the Slovak Archbishop, Jan Sokol, publicly blessed Marian Kotleba, the leader of the Slovak neo-Nazi organization Pospolitosti. The organization is- the resurrection of the Catholic fascist militia that rounded up Jews & Gypsies for Catholic priest Jozef Tiso to send to Hitler's death camps. So far their actions are mostly limited to distributing flyers promoting hatred against non-Catholics. Archbishop Jan Sokol doesn't care which type of thug he supports, state archives reveal that he was an agent for the Slovak secret police during communism.

Vatican Participation in World War 3?

Excess wealth creates lust for power. The more power a person has the more they want. The billionaires that currently control events want more power and have no loyalty to any nation. Their aspirations are global and they seek to establish a global corporate police state. In order to create such a state national boundaries must be dissolved. Just as the last two world wars were used to change national boundaries the next world war will be used to dissolve national boundaries and create corporate super-states. Just as war made it possible to create the UN and NATO, the upcoming war will be used to consolidate power further and unite more countries under the control of a single entity. Corporations are rapidly becoming the new governing force and will replace nations. 

War is almost always about power and money, even though religion is usually used as the driving force. The first large regional wars in Europe were funded by the Rothschild family and they have been involved in most every major conflict since. Many of the wealthiest families own stock in the Carlyle Group, which in turn owns stock in various military contractors. The rich stand to make more money in the event of a war - regardless of who wins or loses. Wars cause currencies to deflate and inflate and property to be devalued. In wartime the wealthy can more easily manipulate events to their advantage and then buy up the spoils for almost nothing once the dust has cleared and the blood has soaked into the ground. 

A world war isn't possible without the active support of the Vatican. While the new Pope has issued the standard bogus 'peace' messages, the real intentions of the church can be surmised by its past and present actions.

With the appointment of a new Pope who was a member of Hitler Youth, the head of the modern inquisition and known supporter of pedophiles, it is most likely that the Vatican is gearing up to support a return to dark times.

Another world war will require religious zealots on two sides. Without religious insanity, most people simply won't kill each other with enough gusto to keep a war going for long.

One one side there are muslims. Saudi Arabia's CIA designed mind control Wahabi religious schools have produced enough muslim zealots to keep a war going for awhile and with the resurgence of 'christian' fascism courtesy of the Vatican, there may be enough for another side.

Religious Insanity

Most Catholics never think of these aforementioned facts, just as most other religious followers rarely allow logic to penetrate into their minds. Religion was invented long ago by dark forces as a form of spiritual enslavement. It keeps humans from thinking and keeps them at each other's throats. 

The concept of worshipping some invisible entity is silly enough. The notion that a superior entity would even want to be worshipped is even more ludicrous. The idea that we are paying for the disobedience of someone who lived thousands of years ago is also silly. Even more nutty is the idea that God would send his only son (aren't we also his children?) to Earth to suffer a horrible death so that we pathetic humans might somehow be forgiven for something that we didn't even do.

One needn't be religious to be an honest and compassionate person. It doesn't take a stinking old pedophile to convince us that it is better to love than to hate. We don't need some invisible deity to keep us from making mistakes.

Catholics  share in the sins of their church and the blood of its many victims is on their hands.  If you are Catholic, please listen to your soul, follow your heart and do the right thing by not supporting evil.