Pope Francis allies accuse Trump White House of 'Apocalyptic Geopolitics'
The Guardian
Article vetted by the Vatican offers scathing critique of Steve Bannon, who is Catholic, the Trump White House and ‘evangelical fundamentalism’ in the US.
Pope Francis met with Donald Trump, Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump at the Vatican on 24 May 2017. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AFP/Getty Images
Thu 13 Jul ‘17 17.33 BST Last modified on Fri 18 Aug ‘17 20.01 BST
An explosive article written by two close associates of Pope Francis has accused Steve Bannon, the chief White House strategist, of espousing an “apocalyptic geopolitics” whose roots are “not too far apart” from that of Islamist extremism.
The article in La Civiltà Cattolica, which is vetted by the Vatican before publication, lays out a scathing critique of “evangelical fundamentalism” in the US, arguing that, on issues ranging from climate change to “migrants and Muslims”, proponents of the ideology have adopted a twisted reading of scripture and the Old Testament that promotes conflict and war above all else.
The piece was published just days after evangelical leaders met US president Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House and “laid hands” on him in prayer following discussions about religious freedom, support for Israel and healthcare reform.
Trump has never convincingly spoken of having religious faith, but won the overwhelming support of white evangelical Christians in the 2016 election.
Vatican experts said the article would have had the explicit backing of the church and Pope Francis. Its authors, Antonio Spadaro, the editor-in-chief of the publication, and Marcelo Figueroa, the editor-in-chief of the Argentinian edition of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, are known as confidantes of theArgentinian pope.
Bannon, the former editor of the rightwing Breitbart news website, is Catholic, and while he is only briefly mentioned in the article, the piece undoubtedly takes aim at the Trump White House.
It claims that fake religious arguments are being used to demonise segments of the population – particularly when it comes to migrants and Muslims – and to promote the US as a nation that is blessed by God, without ever taking into account the “bond between capital and profits and arms sales”.
Steve Bannon in Washington DC on 1 June 2017. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
“In this Manichaean vision [where the world is divided between good and evil], belligerence can acquire a theological justification and there are pastors who seek a biblical foundation for it, using scriptural texts out of context,” the authors write.
The article refers to the controversial evangelical theologist John Rushdoony as the father of today’s American Christian fundamentalism, and calls Bannon an exponent of this philosophy.
“Rushdoony’s doctrine maintains a theocratic necessity: submit the state to the Bible with a logic that is no different from the one that inspires Islamic fundamentalism. At heart, the narrative of terror shapes the worldviews of jihadists and the new crusaders and is imbibed from wells that are not too far apart,” the authors state. “We must not forget that the theopolitics spread by Isis is based on the same cult of an apocalypse that needs to be brought about as soon as possible.”
Nomination, announced days before Trump meets Pope Francis in Rome, marks the promotion of the wife of one of the president’s most vociferous defenders
One Catholic publication, Crux, called the article the “latest chapter in the tempestuous relationship between Francis and Trump”.
While the two leaders were seen as having a generally cordial – though somewhat joyless – meeting in May at the Vatican, the relationship suffered a significant setback following Trump’s decision to back out of the Paris climate accord just a week later. Argentinian bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, the head of the Vatican’s Academy of Sciences, called it a “slap in the face” to the Vatican.
Crux noted that La Civiltà Cattolica is reviewed by the Vatican’s secretary of state before publication, and that Spadaro has been “considered one of the foremost vehicles for understanding the views of the current Pontificate”.
The article says that Christian fundamentalism and Old Testament appeals to the apocalypse have shown themselves “not to be the product of a religious experience but a poor and abusive perversion of it”.
“This is why Francis is carrying forward a systematic counter-narration with respect to the narrative of fear. There is a need to fight against the manipulation of this season of anxiety and fear.”
It also criticizes conservative American Catholics who have aligned themselves with fundamentalist Protestants on issues like same-sex marriage and abortion, saying that what really united the groups was a “nostalgic dream of a theocratic type of state”.
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EVANGELICAL FUNDAMENTALISM AND CATHOLIC INTEGRALISM: A SURPRISING ECUMENISM
In God We Trust. This phrase is printed on the banknotes of the United States of America and is the current national motto. It appeared for the first time on a coin in 1864 but did not become official until Congress passed a motion in 1956. A motto is important for a nation whose foundation was rooted in religious motivations. For many it is a simple declaration of faith. For others, it is the synthesis of a problematic fusion between religion and state, faith and politics, religious values and economy.
Religion, political Manichaeism and a cult of the apocalypse
Religion has had a more incisive role in electoral processes and government decisions over recent decades, especially in some US governments. It offers a moral role for identifying what is good and what is bad.
At times this mingling of politics, morals and religion has taken on a Manichaean language that divides reality between absolute Good and absolute Evil. In fact, after President George W. Bush spoke in his day about challenging the “axis of evil” and stated it was the USA’s duty to “free the world from evil” following the events of September 11, 2001. Today President Trump steers the fight against a wider, generic collective entity of the “bad” or even the “very bad.” Sometimes the tones used by his supporters in some campaigns take on meanings that we could define as “epic.”
These stances are based on Christian-Evangelical fundamentalist principles dating from the beginning of the 20th Century that have been gradually radicalized. These have moved on from a rejection of all that is mundane – as politics was considered – to bringing a strong and determined religious-moral influence to bear on democratic processes and their results.
The term “Evangelical Fundamentalist” can today be assimilated to the “Evangelical Right” or “theo-conservatism” and has its origins in the years 1910-1915. In that period a South Californian millionaire, Lyman Stewart, published the 12-volume work The Fundamentals. The author wanted to respond to the threat of modernist ideas of the time. He summarized the thought of authors whose doctrinal support he appreciated. He exemplified the moral, social, collective and individual aspects of the evangelical faith. His admirers include many politicians and even two recent presidents: Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
The social-religious groups inspired by authors such as Stewart consider the United States to be a nation blessed by God. And they do not hesitate to base the economic growth of the country on a literal adherence to the Bible. Over more recent years this current of thought has been fed by the stigmatization of enemies who are often “demonized.”
The panorama of threats to their understanding of the American way of life have included modernist spirits, the black civil rights movement, the hippy movement, communism, feminist movements and so on. And now in our day there are the migrants and the Muslims. To maintain conflict levels, their biblical exegeses have evolved toward a decontextualized reading of the Old Testament texts about the conquering and defense of the “promised land,” rather than be guided by the incisive look, full of love, of Jesus in the Gospels.
Within this narrative, whatever pushes toward conflict is not off limits. It does not take into account the bond between capital and profits and arms sales. Quite the opposite, often war itself is assimilated to the heroic conquests of the “Lord of Hosts” of Gideon and David. In this Manichaean vision, belligerence can acquire a theological justification and there are pastors who seek a biblical foundation for it, using the scriptural texts out of context.
Another interesting aspect is the relationship with creation of these religious groups that are composed mainly of whites from the deep American South. There is a sort of “anesthetic” with regard to ecological disasters and problems generated by climate change. They profess “dominionism” and consider ecologists as people who are against the Christian faith. They place their own roots in a literalist understanding of the creation narratives of the book of Genesis that put humanity in a position of “dominion” over creation, while creation remains subject to human will in Biblical submission.
In this theological vision, natural disasters, dramatic climate change and the global ecological crisis are not only not perceived as an alarm that should lead them to reconsider their dogmas, but they are seen as the complete opposite: signs that confirm their non-allegorical understanding of the final figures of the Book of Revelation and their apocalyptic hope in a “new heaven and a new earth.”
Theirs is a prophetic formula: fight the threats to American Christian values and prepare for the imminent justice of an Armageddon, a final showdown between Good and Evil, between God and Satan. In this sense, every process (be it of peace, dialogue, etc.) collapses before the needs of the end, the final battle against the enemy. And the community of believers (faith) becomes a community of combatants (fight). Such a unidirectional reading of the biblical texts can anesthetize consciences or actively support the most atrocious and dramatic portrayals of a world that is living beyond the frontiers of its own “promised land.”
Pastor Rousas John Rushdoony (1916-2001) is the father of so-called “Christian reconstructionism” (or “dominionist theology”) that had a great influence on the theopolitical vision of Christian fundamentalism. This is the doctrine that feeds political organizations and networks such as the Council for National Policy and the thoughts of their exponents such as Steve Bannon, currently chief strategist at the White House and supporter of an Apocalyptic geopolitics.[1]
“The first thing we have to do is give a voice to our Churches,” some say. The real meaning of this type of expression is the desire for some influence in the political and parliamentary sphere and in the juridical and educational areas so that public norms can be subjected to religious morals.
Rushdoony’s doctrine maintains a theocratic necessity: submit the state to the Bible with a logic that is no different from the one that inspires Islamic fundamentalism. At heart, the narrative of terror shapes the world-views of jihadists and the new crusaders and is imbibed from wells that are not too far apart. We must not forget that the theopolitics spread by Isis is based on the same cult of an apocalypse that needs to be brought about as soon as possible. So, it is not just accidental that George W. Bush was seen as a “great crusader” by Osama bin Laden.
Theology of prosperity and the rhetoric of Religious Liberty
Together with political Manichaeism, another relevant phenomenon is the passage from original puritan pietism, as expressed in Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, to the “Theology of Prosperity” that is mainly proposed in the media and by millionaire pastors and missionary organizations with strong religious, social and political influence. They proclaim a “Prosperity Gospel” for they believe God desires his followers to be physically healthy, materially rich and personally happy.
It is easy to note how some messages of the electoral campaign and their semiotics are full of references to Evangelical fundamentalism. For example, we see political leaders appearing triumphant with a Bible in their hands.
Pastor Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993) is an important figure who inspired US Presidents such as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. He officiated at the first wedding of the current president. He was a successful preacher. He sold millions of copies of his book The Power of Positive Thinking (1952) that is full of phrases such as “If you believe in something, you get it”, “Nothing will stop you if you keep repeating: God is with me, who is against me” or “Keep in mind your vision of success and success will come” and so on. Many prosperity prosperous televangelists mix marketing, strategic direction and preaching, concentrating more on personal success than on salvation or eternal life.
A third element, together with Manichaeism and the prosperity gospel, is a particular form of proclamation of the defense of “religious liberty.” The erosion of religious liberty is clearly a grave threat within a spreading secularism. But we must avoid its defense coming in the fundamentalist terms of a “religion in total freedom,” perceived as a direct virtual challenge to the secularity of the state.
Fundamentalist Ecumenism
Appealing to the values of fundamentalism, a strange form of surprising ecumenism is developing between Evangelical fundamentalists and Catholic Integralists brought together by the same desire for religious influence in the political sphere.
Some who profess themselves to be Catholic express themselves in ways that until recently were unknown in their tradition and using tones much closer to Evangelicals. They are defined as value voters as far as attracting electoral mass support is concerned. There is a well-defined world of ecumenical convergence between sectors that are paradoxically competitors when it comes to confessional belonging. This meeting over shared objectives happens around such themes as abortion, same-sex marriage, religious education in schools and other matters generally considered moral or tied to values. Both Evangelical and Catholic Integralists condemn traditional ecumenism and yet promote an ecumenism of conflict that unites them in the nostalgic dream of a theocratic type of state.
However, the most dangerous prospect for this strange ecumenism is attributable to its xenophobic and Islamophobic vision that wants walls and purifying deportations. The word “ecumenism” transforms into a paradox, into an “ecumenism of hate.” Intolerance is a celestial mark of purism. Reductionism is the exegetical methodology. Ultra-literalism is its hermeneutical key.
Clearly there is an enormous difference between these concepts and the ecumenism employed by Pope Francis with various Christian bodies and other religious confessions. His is an ecumenism that moves under the urge of inclusion, peace, encounter and bridges. This presence of opposing ecumenisms – and their contrasting perceptions of the faith and visions of the world where religions have irreconcilable roles – is perhaps the least known and most dramatic aspect of the spread of Integralist fundamentalism. Here we can understand why the pontiff is so committed to working against “walls” and any kind of “war of religion.”
The temptation of “spiritual war”
The religious element should never be confused with the political one. Confusing spiritual power with temporal power means subjecting one to the other. An evident aspect of Pope Francis’ geopolitics rests in not giving theological room to the power to impose oneself or to find an internal or external enemy to fight. There is a need to flee the temptation to project divinity on political power that then uses it for its own ends. Francis empties from within the narrative of sectarian millenarianism and dominionism that is preparing the apocalypse and the “final clash.”[2] Underlining mercy as a fundamental attribute of God expresses this radically Christian need.
Francis wants to break the organic link between culture, politics, institution and Church. Spirituality cannot tie itself to governments or military pacts for it is at the service of all men and women. Religions cannot consider some people as sworn enemies nor others as eternal friends. Religion should not become the guarantor of the dominant classes. Yet it is this very dynamic with a spurious theological flavor that tries to impose its own law and logic in the political sphere.
There is a shocking rhetoric used, for example, by the writers of Church Militant, a successful US-based digital platform that is openly in favor of a political ultraconservatism and uses Christian symbols to impose itself. This abuse is called “authentic Christianity.” And to show its own preferences, it has created a close analogy between Donald Trump and Emperor Constantine, and between Hillary Clinton and Diocletian. The American elections in this perspective were seen as a “spiritual war.”[3]
This warlike and militant approach seems most attractive and evocative to a certain public, especially given that the victory of Constantine – it was presumed impossible for him to beat Maxentius and the Roman establishment – had to be attributed to a divine intervention: In hoc signo vinces.
Church Militant asks if Trump’s victory can be attributed to the prayers of Americans. The response suggested is affirmative. The indirect missioning for President Trump is clear: he has to follow through on the consequences. This is a very direct message that then wants to condition the presidency by framing it as a divine election. In hoc signo vinces. Indeed.
Today, more than ever, power needs to be removed from its faded confessional dress, from its armor, its rusty breastplate. The fundamentalist theopolitical plan is to set up a kingdom of the divinity here and now. And that divinity is obviously the projection of the power that has been built. This vision generates the ideology of conquest.
The theo-political plan that is truly Christian would be eschatological, that is it applies to the future and orients current history toward the Kingdom of God, a kingdom of justice and peace. This vision generates a process of integration that unfolds with a diplomacy that crowns no one as a “man of Providence.”
And this is why the diplomacy of the Holy See wants to establish direct and fluid relations with the superpowers, without entering into pre-constituted networks of alliances and influence. In this sphere, the pope does not want to say who is right or who is wrong for he knows that at the root of conflicts there is always a fight for power. So, there is no need to imagine a taking of sides for moral reasons, much worse for spiritual ones.
Francis radically rejects the idea of activating a Kingdom of God on earth as was at the basis of the Holy Roman Empire and similar political and institutional forms, including at the level of a “party.” Understood this way, the “elected people” would enter a complicated political and religious web that would make them forget they are at the service of the world, placing them in opposition to those who are different, those who do not belong, that is the “enemy.”
So, then the Christian roots of a people are never to be understood in an ethnic way. The notions of roots and identity do not have the same content for a Catholic as for a neo-Pagan. Triumphalist, arrogant and vindictive ethnicism is actually the opposite of Christianity. The pope on May 9 in an interview with the French daily La Croix, said: “Yes Europe has Christian roots. Christianity has the duty of watering them, but in a spirit of service as in the washing of feet. The duty of Christianity for Europe is that of service.” And again: “The contribution of Christianity to a culture is that of Christ washing the feet, or the service and the gift of life. There is no room for colonialism.”
Against fear
Which feeling underlies the persuasive temptation for a spurious alliance between politics and religious fundamentalism? It is fear of the breakup of a constructed order and the fear of chaos. Indeed, it functions that way thanks to the chaos perceived. The political strategy for success becomes that of raising the tones of the conflictual, exaggerating disorder, agitating the souls of the people by painting worrying scenarios beyond any realism.
Religion at this point becomes a guarantor of order and a political part would incarnate its needs. The appeal to the apocalypse justifies the power desired by a god or colluded in with a god. And fundamentalism thereby shows itself not to be the product of a religious experience but a poor and abusive perversion of it.
This is why Francis is carrying forward a systematic counter-narration with respect to the narrative of fear. There is a need to fight against the manipulation of this season of anxiety and insecurity. Again, Francis is courageous here and gives no theological-political legitimacy to terrorists, avoiding any reduction of Islam to Islamic terrorism. Nor does he give it to those who postulate and want a “holy war” or to build barrier-fences crowned with barbed wire. The only crown that counts for the Christian is the one with thorns that Christ wore on high.[4]
*Marcelo Figueroa, is Presbyterian pastor, Editor-in-chief of the Argentinean edition of L’Osservatore Romano
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FOOTNOTES
[1] Bannon believes in the apocalyptic vision that William Strauss and Neil Howe theorized in their book The Fourth Turning: What Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny. See also N. Howe, “Where did Steve Bannon get his worldview? From my book”, in The Washington Post, February 24, 2017.
[2] See A. Aresu, “Pope Francis against the Apocalypse”, in Macrogeo (www.macrogeo.global/analysis/pope-francis-against-the-apocalypse), June 9, 2017.
[3] See “Donald ‘Constantine’ Trump? Could Heaven be intervening directly in the election?”, in Church Militant (www.churchmilitant.com/video/episode/vortex-donald-constantine-trump).
[4] For further reflection see D. J. Fares, “L’antropologia politica di Papa Francesco», in Civ. Catt. 2014 I 345-360; A. Spadaro, “La diplomazia di Francesco. La misericordia come processo politico”, ib 2016 I 209-226; D. J. Fares, “Papa Francesco e la politica”, ib 2016 I 373-385; J. L. Narvaja, “La crisi di ogni politica cristiana. Erich Przywara e l’‘idea di Europa’”, ib 2016 I 437-448; Id., “Il significato della politica internazionale di Francesco”, ib 2017 III 8-15.
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CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
Founded in 1542 by Pope Paul III with the Constitution "Licet ab initio," the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was originally called the Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition as its duty was to defend the Church from heresy. It is the oldest of the Curia's nine congregations.
Pope St. Pius X in 1908 changed the name to the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office. It received its current name in 1965 with Pope Paul VI. Today, according to Article 48 of the Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia, "Pastor Bonus", promulgated by the Holy Father John Paul II on June 28, 1988, «the duty proper to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is to promote and safeguard the doctrine on the Faith and morals throughout the Catholic world: for this reason everything which in any way touches such matter falls within its competence.»
The congregation is now headed by a Prefect: His Excellency Msgr. Luis F. Ladaria, S.I.. It has a Secretary, an Assistant (Adjunct) Secretary His Excellency Msgr. Joseph Augustine Di Noia (Usa), a Secretary, Msgr. Giacomo Morandi, a Promotor of Justice Rev. Fr. Robert Joseph Geisinger, S.I, and a staff of 47, according to the "Annuario Pontificio" or "Pontifical Yearbook." It also has 23 members - cardinals, archbishops and bishops - and 28 consulters. Given the nature of its task, congregation work is divided into four distinct sections: the doctrinal office, the disciplinary office, the matrimonial office and that for priests.
The congregation, says the "Activity of the Holy See," in conformity with its raison d'être, promotes in a collegial fashion encounters and initiatives to «spread sound doctrine and defend those points of Christian tradition which seem in danger because of new and unacceptable doctrines.»
For several years the congregation, together with the Vatican Publishing House, has been issuing volumes containing the texts of its single documents, as well as articles relative to its work which appear in the daily edition of "L'Osservatore Romano". Annually, it holds plenary assemblies.
When bishops are in Rome for their quinquennial "ad limina" visit, they call on the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as they do with other dicasteries of the Roman Curia, «for an exchange of information and reciprocal concerns.»
There is also ample collaboration between the Pontifical Biblical Commission and the International Theological Commission. each of which has as president the Archbishop Prefect of Doctrine of the Faith. Weekly congregation meetings are held, usually on Wednesday, and are attended by officials and consultors.
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PAUL VI, Motu proprio "Integrae servandae" on the re-organization of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, December 7, 1965.
Roman Pontiffs, in union with the college of Bishops, have over the course of centuries and amidst human vicissitudes guarded the deposit of revealed Religion, entrusted to them by God to be preserved integrally, so that up to this day they have transmitted it intact, not without the intervention of Divine help, for through them the Holy Spirit acts, who is as the soul of the Mystical Body of Christ.
However, the Church, which is of divine institution and deals with divine matters, is made up of men and lives among people: thus, in order to fulfill her duties, she employs different instruments according to the various times and human cultures, having to treat numerous and important matters, because the Roman Pontiffs themselves and the Bishops, concerned innumerable matters, would not be able to provide for them alone. It is therefore from the very nature of things that administrative organs have come into being, i.e. the Curia: to them was entrusted the task of facilitating the government of the Church by supervising the observance of laws promulgated, by promoting initiatives in order to realize the Church's proper finality, and by resolving any controversies that might arise.
It is no wonder then, if, with time's changing conditions, modifications are introduced in such organisms: and in reality more than once in the past Roman Pontiffs, Our Predecessors, have taken pains to introduce reforms into the structure of the Roman Curia; in this respect those especially worth mentioning are the Constitutions Immensa Aeterni Dei of Sixtus V and Sapienti Consilio of Pius X, the provisions of which have been almost entirely incorporated into the Code of Canon Law.
However, after these Constitutions, even after the promulgation of the said Code, situations and times have changed greatly, just as We ourselves pronounced during a Discourse to the Cardinals and staff of the Roman Curia on 21 September 1963 (cf. AAS 55 (1963), p. 793ss.).
These things having been considered and the advice of Our Venerable Brother Cardinals and of Bishops having been sought, We have decreed that a certain reform of the Roman Curia be realized. And there is no doubt that the reform should begin with the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, for the reason that to this Congregation the most important matters of the Roman Curia are entrusted, as in truth are the doctrine concerning faith and morals and the causes most strictly related to such doctrine.
On 21 July 1542 Our Beloved Predecessor Paul III, with the Apostolic Constitution Licet ab initio founded the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Universal Roman Inquisition to which he entrusted as its proper end the duty of persecuting heresy and consequently of suppressing crimes against the faith, of prohibiting dangerous books and of appointing Inquisitors for the whole Church. Very often its power was extended to other matters, either because of their difficult nature or because of their singular importance.
In 1908, as the name Universal Roman Inquisition was not best suited to the conditions of the time, Saint Pius X with the Constitution Sapienti Consilio changed it to the “Congregation of the Holy Office”.
But, because there is no fear in love (1 Jn 4:18), the defense of the faith is now better served by promoting doctrine, in such a way that, while errors stand corrected and those who err are gently called back to the truth, heralds of the Gospel may find new strength. Moreover, the advance of human culture, whose the importance the religious field must not overlook, is that the faithful follow the directives of the Church with greater adhesion and love, if, insofar as in matters of faith and morals it is possible to make clear to them the reasons for definitions and laws.
So, that from now on this Sacred Congregation may more perfectly fulfill its role in promoting the sound doctrine and efficacy of the Church in the most important works of apostolate, in virtue of Our Supreme Apostolic Authority we have established the following norms to alter its name and its regulation:
1. That which was hitherto called the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office will become the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, whose duty it is to safeguard doctrine on faith and morals in the whole Catholic world.
2. It is presided over by the Supreme Pontiff and directed by the Cardinal Secretary with the help of an Assessor, of a Substitute and of the Promotor of Justice.
3. All questions which regard the doctrine on faith and morals or which touch upon the faith are within the competence of the Congregation.
4. It examines new teachings and new opinions in whatever way they are spread, it promotes studies in this area, and encourages the Congresses of scholars; it condemns those teachings found to be contrary to the principles of the faith, after, however, having heard the view of the Bishops of those regions, if they are specifically connected with the issues.
5. It carefully examines books that have been reported and, if necessary, condemns them, after, however, having heard the author, to whom is given the faculty to defend himself, also in writing, and not without having notified the Ordinary, as was already established in the Constitution Sollicita ac Provida by Our Predecessor of happy memory Benedict XIV.
6. Likewise it is its duty to deal legally or in fact with questions regarding the privilege of faith.
7. It is also its duty to judge delicts crimes against the faith, according to the norms of ordinary procedure.
8. It provides for the protection of the dignity of the Sacrament of Penance, by proceeding according to the amended and approved norms that will be communicated to the Ordinaries, giving the sinner the faculty to defend himself or to choose a defender from among those authorized by the Congregation.
9. It maintains appropriate relations with the Pontifical Commission for Biblical Studies.
10. The Congregation employs a group of Consultors whom the Supreme Pontiff appoints from men around the world who are distinguished for their doctrine, prudence and expertise. If the matter to be dealt with so requires, the Consultors can be added to the experts, chosen particularly from University professors.
11. The Congregation proceeds in two ways: either administrative or judicial, according to the diverse nature of the matters to be dealt with.
12. The internal regulation of the Congregation will be made public through a particular Instruction.
What has been decreed by us in this Letter Motu Proprio data, we command be observed and ratified notwithstanding anything to the contrary.
Given in Rome, at St Peter's, 7 December 1965, the third year of Our Pontificate.
PAULUS PP. VI
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"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." - Lord Acton
Vatican Prepares to Control Through Civil Law:
by Richard M. Bennett
Revelation 17:1-6 "And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration."
Dear Reader,
In mid the nineteenth century, Lord Acton one of the greatest Roman Catholic historians described the Papacy as "the fiend skulking behind the Crucifix."1 Acton, famous for his saying, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," clearly pinpointed Papal Rome as the academic and legal cause of the more than six hundred years of the Inquisition and other atrocities such as the St. Bartholomew's Massacre, which began in Paris August 24 1572, and spread throughout France. Quiet, calculated, and premeditated legal agreements between Papal Rome and [the] Civil Power made these horrors of history possible. In these dreadful centuries the Roman Catholic Church proclaimed that salvation was only by means of her sacramental system, and therefore of necessity, she needed a legally engineered force to silence the true Gospel. Her apostasy from the Gospel has not changed in the 193 years since the Inquisition as the Vatican Council II and the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994) clearly show.
The article below is intended to stimulate an interest in history so as not to repeat its misery and to inform believers of the calm deliberate and designed civil agreements taking place between the Vatican and most nations in our own day. "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." (James 1:5) Yours in the Lord' grace and truth, - Richard M. Bennett.
The Earth Charter and the United Religions Initiative are two instrumental pieces in the international networking of movements across the world that are leading to a one world religion. Because of the Vatican's worldwide authority through civil law and the number of Roman Catholic priests, nuns, and influential persons engaged in these movements (official sources remaining aloof), Bible believers need an informed perspective on where events are leading.
The Earth Charter: After eight years of planning, which has involved more than 25 global leaders and 100,000 people in environment, business, politics, religion, and education in 51 countries, the Earth Charter was formalized on March 15, 2000.2 It is a comprehensive document of global ethics and a political blueprint for world government. The Earth Charter process was initiated by a former Prime Minister of The Netherlands and was carried out under the direction of Mikhail Gorbachev and Maurice Strong, the Chairman of the Earth Council. The principles of the Earth Charter include built in global governance as defined by the United Nations (UN) Commission on Global Governance (1995) and other UN commissions. Something of the desire for legal power is seen in one of its statements, "In order to build a sustainable global community, the nations of the world must renew their commitment to the United Nations, fulfill their obligations under existing international agreements, and support the implementation of Earth Charter principles with an international legally binding instrument on environment and development."3
United Religions Initiative. (URI):
The philosophy behind the Earth Charter is fully incorporated into the United Religions Initiative (URI).4 URI is designed to evolve into a United Nations for Religions, with the United Religions Charter being signed on June 26, 2000, three months after the Earth Charter. URI to date has held three summit conferences, with the June 2000 conference marking the birth of a truly global organization that stands as a mother ready to embrace into her bosom all the religions of the world. While the whole emphasis is "spiritual" it is quite interesting that the desire for the same legal power club is as evident in the documents of URI as it is in the Earth Charter. For example, according to the Preamble to the Charter, URI plans a Worldwide Movement "... to support freedom of religion and spiritual expression, and the rights of all individuals and peoples as set forth in international law."
Power through Civil Law:
Control of civil law and law among European nations is what the Catholic Church thrived on through the Dark and the Middle Ages. This control was the primary underpinning of her power during the six hundred years of the Inquisition and in the growth of her religious power system generally throughout the centuries. Her ability to grow in strength and numbers is always in proportion to her legal agreements with any nation. In the nations where she has legal concordats with the civil governments, she succeeds both in holding down the Gospel and in simultaneously furthering her position as keeper of the ubiquitous, highly sensuous, and most effective sacramental system known to
modern man. The latent control mechanisms in international law that can be seen in The Earth Charter and in URI are of precisely the kind that enables Catholicism to thrive. In time past it was through legal agreements that Rome brought kings and princes to heel. Without the Gospel, Catholics through their fear of death were all their lifetime subject to her bondage, for RCC teaching both then and now is that there is no salvation outside the Church. Woe to the ruler who resisted the papal will! Subjects could be, were, and can still be released from their oaths of allegiance; whole states could be, and were placed under interdict. Since early in the 20th century under [Pope] Pius XII, however, the legal strategy has become even more autocratic.
Power Refined in Concordats:
A "concordat" is an international contract [or treaty], which legally binds the nation involved, and the Vatican. It guarantees the Roman Catholic Church and Catholics the right of freedom of religion and worship. A concordat also secures rights such as that of defining doctrine, establishing Roman Catholic education, negotiating laws regarding property, appointing bishops, and recognizing Roman Catholic law regarding marriage and annulment. Such legal issues are agreed on in civil law between the "Holy See" (as she in her position as a sovereign state is legally called) and the other nation.
Prior to 1989, the Holy See signed international agreements primarily with European and Latin American countries. Vatican control can be seen very clearly in those nations where concordats have long been established as, for example, in Germany under the extant concordat worked out between under Pius XII and Hitler. The Vatican's desire to maintain civil relations with other nations is now greater than ever. From 1950 to 1999, 128 concordats were signed between Rome and various states. In the course of nine years, 43 concordats were signed between the Holy See and other nations. Even nations of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa are entering juridical agreements with Rome. Moreover, the Church of Rome has much influence in national and international laws, particularly in the nations in which she has Papal Nuncios as ambassadors. At present she maintains diplomatic relations with 172 countries at embassy level. According to the Catholic Almanac, Papal representatives "receive from the Roman Pontiff the charge of representing him in a fixed way in the various nations or regions of the world." "An Apostolic nuncio has the diplomatic rank of ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary. Traditionally, because the diplomatic service of the Holy See has the longest uninterrupted history in the world, a nuncio has precedence among diplomats in the country to which he is accredited and serves as dean of the diplomatic corps on state occasions."5
The Vatican, desiring to maintain official diplomatic intercourse with all nations, woos Libya, all the while maintaining relations with Israel. She has had uninterrupted relations with Cuba while having great difficulties with China, Korea, and Vietnam. Some Islamic countries have failed as yet to sign agreements with the Holy See, although some of their reluctance now may be swept aside with the successful outreach to Islam through the Pope's latest Damascus trip during which he donned white cloth slippers to enter a Muslim sanctuary. Through her many Roman Catholic representatives in government, her own direct influence as a civil power, and in particular through her concordats, Rome is now able to influence substantially civil rulers and civil policy in many nations.6 Should she gain control of the International Criminal Court [ICC], she would be again fulfilling the Scripture,
"And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth."7
Effective legal structures:
To establish legal structures effective to her purposes is the goal of Rome. Understanding this, the remarks of Archbishop Martino, Rome's permanent observer to the United Nations, bear all the more weight, "As Pope John Paul has stated, 'Within the international community the Holy See supports every effort to establish effective juridical structures." 8 It can be argued that the Roman system has no official position in URI and other like organizations. This is true, but the Church of Rome has always worked in such a way so as technically to keep her hands clean while having her laws and mindset implemented by others, particularly civil power.
This is how she operated in the Dark and Middle Ages, particularly during the Inquisition when the civil powers in the name of civil law prosecuted millions under her murderous church law. The structure of the Roman system makes her capable not only of gaining a predominant position but also capable of maintaining the upper hand so that in fact "Holy Mother" takes all into herself. For example, "Holy Mother Church" is only one of 154 sovereign states participating in the International Criminal Court; yet she is much more. Her citizenry, whose allegiance is first to the Roman Catholic Church 9 , dwells within each of these nations. Many of her citizens have access to positions in the ruling structure of that nation where, as Roman Catholics, they are enjoined by the Roman Catholic Church to use their influence and position to bring that nation into line with Papal desires on any issue.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994) is very clear on the issue,
#899
The initiative of lay Christians is necessary especially when the matter involves discovering or inventing the means for permeating social, political, and economic realities with the demands of Christian [i.e., Roman Catholic] doctrine and life. This initiative is a normal element of the life of the Church: Lay believers are in the front line of Church life; for them the Church is the animating principle of human society. Therefore, they in particular ought to have an ever clearer consciousness not only of belonging to the Church, but of being the Church, that is to say, the community of the faithful on earth under the leadership of the Pope....
Due to the totalitarian nature of the Roman Catholic Church, however, none of the non-Catholic citizens of other nations have positions of power within her ruling structure. Thus, although the Holy See has formal diplomatic ties with the various states, Catholic power can be brought to bear covertly against that nation which refuses to defer to her views, particularly those regarding matters of faith and morals. So it is that such power over individuals, held in place by concordats that legally guarantee the teaching, for example, of Canons 752, 333, and #882 of the Catechism (see Footnote 8), eventually can hinder the freedom of religion and worship of those the Holy See deems to be false churches.
"Absolute power corrupts absolutely":
The Emperor Justinian in the sixth century was the main architect who established the foundation for Rome's ability to impose external unity. 10 Moreover, "During the ninth century, there was a concerted effort to renew society and centralize Western civilization. It is usually called the Carolingian Reform after its initiator, Charlemagne, who was crowned [Holy] Roman Emperor by the Pope on the feast day of Christmas in the year 800. Its intention was to stabilize the structures of Christendom, and one of its chief tools was reliance on Church law." 11
The famous Hildebrand Pope Gregory VII nailed down the legal power base of Papal Canon Law so that it became incorporated into Western civilization in the legal system of nations in the eleventh century. All this made possible the Inquisition from 1203 A.D. (in person of Pope Innocent III) until its dissolution in Spain and Portugal in 1808. The Vatican's persecution of believers they deemed heretics, was done by legal civil means. It involved incarceration, confiscation of property, torture, internment without trial, and death.
The present Pope, by means of the decree on infallibility of Vatican Council I, the 1917 adoption of the Code of Canon Law, and the revision of the Code under his authority in 1983, is able to work no less autocratically than Pope Pius XII. 12 Although kept in bounds presently by other forces, papal power now has become so consolidated that it is able to surpass what Hildebrand Pope Gregory VII did in his day. Then the known world was much smaller and the only international system was Rome herself and the Holy Roman Empire. Now the stage is set for a one world government.
Perplexingly, many Christians simply want to escape. While some Christians are well informed and aware of the seriousness of the present move to a world religion, nonetheless, most of what is published falls within the norms of political correctness in which Roman Catholicism is not mentioned. Many present day Evangelicals seem totally ignorant of the laws still standing in the Roman Catholic dogma.
For example the statement, "The Church is to be separated from the state, and the state from the Church." was condemned as an error by "His Holiness, our Lord Pope Pius XI" and still is.13 The extent to which Rome claims a right to judge and impose chastening has not changed since the days of the Inquisition. In present day canon law she states, Canon 1405 (Sect.1) "It is the right of the Roman Pontiff himself alone to judge in cases mentioned in Can. 1401: 1. those who hold the highest civil office in a state...." Not for nothing, then, is the interest with which the Church of Rome involves herself in promoting the International Criminal Court and like measures.
The power structure behind globalization:
The structure of the Roman Catholic Church is a totalitarian hierarchy. It must never be forgotten that the Roman Papacy is an absolute, unlimited, tyrannical monarchy, a worldly, secular government. It has its territorial dominions; it had its court, ambassadors, detective force, legislature, jurisprudence, advocates, prison, taxes, bank, concordats, ambitious plans and policy, is more widely spread than any secular nation and entrenched in many countries. Nonetheless, the Roman Catholic Church is also very different from other secular powers. Her spiritual commerce goes hand in hand with her civil power, claiming infallibility and international recognition. 14 Ignaz von Dollinger, a leading Roman Catholic historian in Germany, warned the world in his own day regarding the tremendous power of the Roman Pontiff, -
"The Pope's authority is unlimited, incalculable; it can strike, as Innocent III says, wherever sin is; it can punish every one; it allows no appeal and is itself Sovereign Caprice; for the Pope carries, according to the expression of Boniface VIII, all rights in the Shrine of his breast. As he has now become infallible, he can by the use of the little word, "Orbi," (which means that he turns himself round to the whole Church) make every rule, every doctrine, every demand, into a certain and incontestable article of Faith. No right can stand against him, no personal or corporate liberty; or as the [Roman Catholic] Canonists put it—"The tribunal of God and of the pope is one and the same."15
Wisdom from God needed (James 1:5):
The true believer must look to the Written Word of the Infinite All Holy, Unchangeable, All-Powerful, All Knowing, and All Wise God. The finger of God that clearly gives the Ten Commandments also gives a clear picture of the Bride of the Lamb, the true church, and a clear picture of the apostate church. Consistently in the words of Christ Jesus and of the Apostles Paul and Peter, the contrast between the true church and the apostate church is that those of the true church are few in number, those of the apostate church many.
The true church is described in Scripture as the "a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars"16 For those who know the history of the true church, Revelation 12: 6 is an apt summary, "And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days."
The apostate church is the woman who is seated upon the beast reigning "over" peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. The Scripture meticulously portrays the little flock, overcome, worn out, yet ever faithful while of the woman seated on the beast it says, "And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls." 17
Many of those who are the Bride of the Lamb have been slain by the 'woman drunken by the blood of the saints' as the history of the Inquisition shows. The blood of the martyred saints overcame the secular Roman Empire. In contrast, Papal Rome overcame the saints, as Scripture had foretold. Likewise as stated she was to become "drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus."18
No other kingdom or power has drunken so deeply of this blood as has "The Holy See". Thus, as streams may be traced to the fountain, and rays of light to the sun, so may these prophecies be traced to the Papacy, and applied to it alone. "And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth." 19 Is the Lord warning His flock to be prepared as were the Vaudois, Waldenses, Lollards, Bohemians and the faithful believers throughout the long Inquisition and Counter Reformation?
The Lord's true and righteous judgment of the Great Whore will finally come as He foretold. 20 In the meantime, His power is seen as His Gospel is boldly proclaimed, every individual who is saved "being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." 21 The Lord calls His flock to be wise, understanding both history and the times in which they live. "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." 22
Notes
1.Acton, Correspondence, 55; as quoted in Himmelfarb, Lord Acton, p. 15. 2.The Earth Charter can be read on the Internet at
http://www.earthcharter.org/draft/charter.htm
3.Bolding in any quotation indicates emphasis added in this report. 4.URI website is: http://www.united-religions.org 5.Our Sunday Visitor's Catholic Almanac, 2001, p. 277.
6.See Ecclesiastical Megalomania: The Economic and Political Thought of the Roman Catholic Church by John W. Robbins (USA: The Trinity Foundation, 1999) for in depth study. http://www.trinityfoundation.org
7.Revelation 17:18.
8.Catholic International August, 1998, Vol. 9, No. 8, p. 350.
9.Can. 752 "Although not an assent of faith, a religious submission of the intellect and will must be given to a doctrine which the Supreme Pontiff or the college of bishops declares concerning faith or morals when they exercise the authentic magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim it by definitive act; therefore, the Christian faithful are to take care to avoid those things which do not agree with it." Can. 333, Sec. 3 "No appeal or recourse is permitted against a sentence or decree of the Roman Pontiff." Code of Canon Law, Latin Eng. ed., New English Tr. (Wash. DC 20064: Canon Law Society of America, 1988) #882 "...the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered." Catechism of the Catholic Church (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1994). Also, #937 and elsewhere. 10.LeRoy Edwin Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers (Hagerstown, MD 21740: Review and Herald, 1950) Vol. I, pp. 505, 506.
11.The Code of Canon Law: A Text and Commentary, James A. Coriden, Thomas J. Green, Donald E. Heintschel, eds. (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press,1985) p. 2.
12.John Cornwell, Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (NY 10014: Viking, 1999) pp. 348, 361, 371.
13.The Sources of Catholic Dogma, Tr. By Roy J. Deferrari from the Thirtieth Edition of Henry Denzinger's Enchiridion Symbolorum, revised by Karl Rahner, S. J., published in 1954 by Herder & Co, Frieburg (St. Louis 2, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1957) # 1755 title "His Holiness, our Lord Pope Pius XI", p. 435.
14.Revelation 18:3.
15.Ignaz von Dollinger, "A Letter Addressed to the Archbishop of Munich"
1871; as quoted in MacDougall, The Acton Newman Relations (Fordham University Press) pp. 119,120.
16.Revelation 12:1.
17.Revelation 17: 4.
18.Revelation 17:6.
19.Revelation 17:9.
20..Revelation 19:2.
21.Romans 3:24.
22.Matthew 10:28.
--------------------------------
MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS
POPE JOHN PAUL II
FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE WORLD DAY OF PEACE
1 JANUARY 2004
AN EVER TIMELY COMMITMENT:
TEACHING PEACE
My words are addressed to you, the Leaders of the nations, who have the duty of promoting peace!
To you, Jurists, committed to tracing paths to peaceful agreement, preparing conventions and treaties which strengthen international legality!
To you, Teachers of the young, who on all continents work tirelessly to form consciences in the ways of understanding and dialogue!
And to you too, men and women tempted to turn to the unacceptable means of terrorism and thus compromise at its root the very cause for which you are fighting!
All of you, hear the humble appeal of the Successor of Peter who cries out: today too, at the beginning of the New Year 2004, peace remains possible. And if peace is possible, it is also a duty!
A practical initiative
1. My first Message for the World Day of Peace, in the beginning of January 1979, was centred on the theme: “To Reach Peace, Teach Peace”.
That New Year's Message followed in the path traced by Pope Paul VI of venerable memory, who had wished to celebrate on January 1 each year a World Day of Prayer for Peace. I recall the words of the late Pontiff for the New Year 1968: “It would be Our desire, then, that this celebration take place each year as a sign of hope and promise, at the beginning of the calendar which measures and guides the journey of human life through time, in order that Peace, with its just and salutary equilibrium, will dominate the unfolding of history yet to come”.(1)
Faithful to the wishes expressed by my venerable Predecessor on the Chair of Peter, each year I have continued this noble tradition by dedicating the first day of the civil year to reflection and to prayer for peace in the world.
In the twenty-five years of Pontificate which the Lord has thus far granted me, I have not failed to speak out before the Church and the world, inviting believers and all persons of good will to take up the cause of peace and to help bring about this fundamental good, thereby assuring the world a better future, one marked by peaceful coexistence and mutual respect.
Once more this year I feel bound to invite all men and women, on every continent, to celebrate a new World Day of Peace. Humanity needs now more than ever to rediscover the path of concord, overwhelmed as it is by selfishness and hatred, by the thirst for power and the lust for vengeance.
The science of peace
2. The eleven Messages addressed to the world by Pope Paul VI progressively mapped out the path to be followed in attaining the ideal of peace. Slowly but surely the great Pontiff set forth the various chapters of a true “science of peace”. It can be helpful to recall the themes of the Messages bequeathed to us by Pope Paul VI for this occasion.(2) Each of these Messages continues to be timely today. Indeed, before the tragedy of the wars which at the beginning of the Third Millennium are still causing bloodshed throughout the world, especially in the Middle East, they take on at times the tone of prophetic admonishments.
A primer of peace
3. For my part, throughout these twenty-five years of my Pontificate, I have sought to advance along the path marked out by my venerable Predecessor. At the dawn of each new year I have invited people of good will to reflect, in the light of reason and of faith, on different aspects of an orderly coexistence.
The result has been a synthesis of teaching about peace which is a kind of primer on this fundamental theme: a primer easy to understand by those who are well-disposed, but at the same time quite demanding for anyone concerned for the future of humanity.(3)
The various colours of the prism of peace have now been amply illustrated. What remains now is to work to ensure that the ideal of a peaceful coexistence, with its specific requirements, will become part of the consciousness of individuals and peoples. We Christians see the commitment to educate ourselves and others to peace as something at the very heart of our religion. For Christians, in fact, to proclaim peace is to announce Christ who is “our peace” (Eph 2:14); it is to announce his Gospel, which is a “Gospel of peace” (Eph 6:15); it is to call all people to the beatitude of being “peacemakers” (cf. Mt 5:9).
Teaching peace
4. In my Message for the World Day of Peace on 1 January 1979 I made this appeal: To Reach Peace, Teach Peace. Today that appeal is more urgent than ever, because men and women, in the face of the tragedies which continue to afflict humanity, are tempted to yield to fatalism, as if peace were an unattainable ideal.
The Church, on the other hand, has always taught and continues today to teach a very simple axiom: peace is possible. Indeed, the Church does not tire of repeating that peace is a duty. It must be built on the four pillars indicated by Blessed John XXIII in his Encyclical Pacem in Terris: truth, justice, love and freedom. A duty is thus imposed upon all those who love peace: that of teaching these ideals to new generations, in order to prepare a better future for all mankind.
Teaching legality
5. In this task of teaching peace, there is a particularly urgent need to lead individuals and peoples to respect the international order and to respect the commitments assumed by the Authorities which legitimately represent them. Peace and international law are closely linked to each another: law favours peace.
From the very dawn of civilization, developing human communities sought to establish agreements and pacts which would avoid the arbitrary use of force and enable them to seek a peaceful solution of any controversies which might arise. Alongside the legal systems of the individual peoples there progressively grew up another set of norms which came to be known as ius gentium (the law of the nations). With the passage of time, this body of law gradually expanded and was refined in the light of the historical experiences of the different peoples.
This process was greatly accelerated with the birth of modern States. From the sixteenth century on, jurists, philosophers and theologians were engaged in developing the various headings of international law and in grounding it in the fundamental postulates of the natural law. This process led with increasing force to the formulation of universal principles which are prior to and superior to the internal law of States, and which take into account the unity and the common vocation of the human family.
Central among all these is surely the principle that pacta sunt servanda: accords freely signed must be honoured. This is the pivotal and exceptionless presupposition of every relationship between responsible contracting parties. The violation of this principle necessarily leads to a situation of illegality and consequently to friction and disputes which would not fail to have lasting negative repercussions. It is appropriate to recall this fundamental rule, especially at times when there is a temptation to appeal to the law of force rather than to the force of law.
One of these moments was surely the drama which humanity experienced during the Second World War: an abyss of violence, destruction and death unlike anything previously known.
Respect for law
6. That war, with the horrors and the appalling violations of human dignity which it occasioned, led to a profound renewal of the international legal order. The defence and promotion of peace were set at the centre of a broadly modernized system of norms and institutions. The task of watching over global peace and security and with encouraging the efforts of States to preserve and guarantee these fundamental goods of humanity was entrusted by Governments to an organization established for this purpose – the United Nations Organization – with a Security Council invested with broad discretionary power. Pivotal to the system was the prohibition of the use of force. This prohibition, according to the well-known Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, makes provision for only two exceptions. The first confirms the natural right to legitimate defence, to be exercised in specific ways and in the context of the United Nations: and consequently also within the traditional limits of necessity and proportionality.
The other exception is represented by the system of collective security, which gives the Security Council competence and responsibility for the preservation of peace, with power of decision and ample discretion.
The system developed with the United Nations Charter was meant “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind”.(4) In the decades which followed, however, the division of the international community into opposing blocs, the Cold War in one part of the world, the outbreak of violent conflicts in other areas and the phenomenon of terrorism produced a growing break with the ideas and expectations of the immediate post-War period.
A New International Order
7. It must be acknowledged, however, that the United Nations Organization, even with limitations and delays due in great part to the failures of its members, has made a notable contribution to the promotion of respect for human dignity, the freedom of peoples and the requirements of development, thus preparing the cultural and institutional soil for the building of peace.
The activity of national Governments will be greatly encouraged by the realization that the ideals of the United Nations have become widely diffused, particularly through the practical gestures of solidarity and peace made by the many individuals also involved in Non-Governmental Organizations and in Movements for human rights.
This represents a significant incentive for a reform which would enable the United Nations Organization to function effectively for the pursuit of its own stated ends, which remain valid: “humanity today is in a new and more difficult phase of its genuine development. It needs a greater degree of international ordering”.(5) States must consider this objective as a clear moral and political obligation which calls for prudence and determination. Here I would repeat the words of encouragement which I spoke in 1995: “The United Nations Organization needs to rise more and more above the cold status of an administrative institution and to become a moral centre where all the nations of the world feel at home and develop a shared awareness of being, as it were, a family of nations”.(6)
The deadly scourge of terrorism
8. Today international law is hard pressed to provide solutions to situations of conflict arising from the changed landscape of the contemporary world. These situations of conflict frequently involve agents which are not themselves States but rather entities derived from the collapse of States, or connected to independence movements, or linked to trained criminal organizations. A legal system made up of norms established down the centuries as a means of disciplining relations between sovereign States finds it difficult to deal with conflicts which also involve entities incapable of being considered States in the traditional sense. This is particularly the case with terrorist groups.
The scourge of terrorism has become more virulent in recent years and has produced brutal massacres which have in turn put even greater obstacles in the way of dialogue and negotiation, increasing tensions and aggravating problems, especially in the Middle East.
Even so, if it is to be won, the fight against terrorism cannot be limited solely to repressive and punitive operations. It is essential that the use of force, even when necessary, be accompanied by a courageous and lucid analysis of the reasons behind terrorist attacks. The fight against terrorism must be conducted also on the political and educational levels: on the one hand, by eliminating the underlying causes of situations of injustice which frequently drive people to more desperate and violent acts; and on the other hand, by insisting on an education inspired by respect for human life in every situation: the unity of the human race is a more powerful reality than any contingent divisions separating individuals and people.
In the necessary fight against terrorism, international law is now called to develop legal instruments provided with effective means for the prevention, monitoring and suppression of crime. In any event, democratic governments know well that the use of force against terrorists cannot justify a renunciation of the principles of the rule of law. Political decisions would be unacceptable were they to seek success without consideration for fundamental human rights, since the end never justifies the means.
The contribution of the Church
9. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Mt 5:9). How could this saying, which is a summons to work in the immense field of peace, find such a powerful echo in the human heart if it did not correspond to an irrepressible yearning and hope dwelling within us? And why else would peacemakers be called children of God, if not because God is by nature the God of peace? Precisely for this reason, in the message of salvation which the Church proclaims throughout the world, there are doctrinal elements of fundamental importance for the development of the principles needed for peaceful coexistence between nations.
History teaches that the building of peace cannot prescind from respect for an ethical and juridical order, in accordance with the ancient adage: “Serva ordinem et ordo servabit te” (preserve order and order will preserve you). International law must ensure that the law of the more powerful does not prevail. Its essential purpose is to replace “the material force of arms with the moral force of law”,(7) providing appropriate sanctions for transgressors and adequate reparation for victims. This must also be applicable to those government leaders who violate with impunity human dignity and rights while hiding behind the unacceptable pretext that it is a matter of questions internal to their State.
In an Address which I gave to the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See on 13 January 1997, I observed that international law is a primary means for pursuing peace: “For a long time international law has been a law of war and peace. I believe that it is called more and more to become exclusively a law of peace, conceived in justice and solidarity. And in this context morality must inspire law; morality can even assume a preparatory role in the making of law, to the extent that it shows the path of what is right and good”.(8)
Down the centuries, the teaching of the Church, drawing upon the philosophical and theological reflection of many Christian thinkers, has made a significant contribution in directing international law to the common good of the whole human family. Especially in more recent times the Popes have not hesitated to stress the importance of international law as a pledge of peace, in the conviction that “the harvest of justice is sown in peace by those who make peace” (Jas 3:18). This is the path which the Church, employing the means proper to her, is committed to following, in the perennial light of the Gospel and with the indispensable help of prayer.
The civilization of love
10. At the conclusion of these considerations, I feel it necessary to repeat that, for the establishment of true peace in the world, justice must find its fulfilment in charity. Certainly law is the first road leading to peace, and people need to be taught to respect that law. Yet one does not arrive at the end of this road unless justice is complemented by love. Justice and love sometimes appear to be opposing forces. In fact they are but two faces of a single reality, two dimensions of human life needing to be mutually integrated. Historical experience shows this to be true. It shows how justice is frequently unable to free itself from rancour, hatred and even cruelty. By itself, justice is not enough. Indeed, it can even betray itself, unless it is open to that deeper power which is love.
For this reason I have often reminded Christians and all persons of good will that forgiveness is needed for solving the problems of individuals and peoples. There is no peace without forgiveness! I say it again here, as my thoughts turn in particular to the continuing crisis in Palestine and the Middle East: a solution to the grave problems which for too long have caused suffering for the peoples of those regions will not be found until a decision is made to transcend the logic of simple justice and to be open also to the logic of forgiveness.
Christians know that love is the reason for God's entering into relationship with man. And it is love which he awaits as man's response. Consequently, love is also the loftiest and most noble form of relationship possible between human beings. Love must thus enliven every sector of human life and extend to the international order. Only a humanity in which there reigns the “civilization of love” will be able to enjoy authentic and lasting peace.
At the beginning of a New Year I wish to repeat to women and men of every language, religion and culture the ancient maxim: “Omnia vincit amor” (Love conquers all). Yes, dear Brothers and Sisters throughout the world, in the end love will be victorious! Let everyone be committed to hastening this victory. For it is the deepest hope of every human heart.
(2) 1968: 1 January: World Day of Peace 1969: The Promotion of Human Rights, the Road to Peace 1970: Education for Peace Through Reconciliation 1971: Every Man is My Brother 1972: If You Want Peace, Work for Justice 1973: Peace is Possible 1974: Peace Depends on You Too 1975: Reconciliation, The Way to Peace 1976: The Real Weapons of Peace 1977: If You Want Peace, Defend Life 1978: No to Violence, Yes to Peace
(3) These are the themes of the successive twenty-five World Days of Peace: 1979: To Reach Peace, Teach Peace 1980: Truth, the Power of Peace 1981: To Serve Peace, Respect Freedom 1982: Peace: A Gift of God Entrusted to Us! 1983: Dialogue for Peace, A Challenge for Our Time 1984: From a New Heart, Peace is Born 1985: Peace and Youth Go Forward Together 1986: Peace is a Value with No Frontiers North-South, East-West: Only One Peace 1987: Development and Solidarity: Two Keys to Peace 1988: Religious Freedom, Condition for Peace 1989: To Build Peace, Respect Minorities 1990: Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All of Creation 1991: If You Want Peace, Respect the Conscience of Every Person 1992: Believers United in Building Peace 1993: If You Want Peace, Reach Out to the Poor 1994: The Family Creates the Peace of the Human Family 1995: Women: Teachers of Peace 1996: Let Us Give Children a Future of Peace 1997: Offer Forgiveness and Receive Peace 1998: From the Justice of Each Comes Peace for All 1999: Respect for Human Rights: The Secret of True Peace 2000: “Peace on Earth to Those Whom God Loves!” 2001: Dialogue Between Cultures for a Civilization of Love and Peace 2002: No Peace Without Justice, No Justice Without Peace 2003: “Pacem in Terris”: A Permanent Commitment
Computerizing Archives for the Holy Office, Inquisition
VATICAN, Dec 5, 02 (CWNews.com) -- The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has undertaken a project to computerize all of its historical archives, under the terms of a grant from the Italian government.
Father Ciro Benedettini, the deputy director of the Vatican press office, announced that the Congregation had entered an agreement with the Italian Ministry for Cultural Goods, allowing the creation of a complete set of electronic files, to be catalogued and made available to scholars. The collaborative agreement was signed by Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, the secretary of the Congregation, and by Salvatore Italia, the director general of the archives for the Italian cultural ministry.
The archives to be computerized will include the historical records of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and its predecessors: the Holy Office and the Inquisition of Siena. It will also include the Index of Prohibited Books, a list that was maintained from the 16th century until its abolition by Pope Paul VI in 1965.
The archives of the Congregation were made available to scholars in January 1998, and Father Benedettini reported that the "lively interest" among researchers sparked the effort to make these resources more readily available. He revealed that a team of young scholars, working in the archives, has already entered 2,500 documents, covering a period that stretches from the 16th to early 20th centuries. The Vatican observed that the documents being made available, which include "antique file folders and files, registers, parchments, designs, engravings and various documents," will shed light on "Italian, European, and world history, and the culture of modern times." For that reason, the Vatican's interest in encouraging scholarly research matched neatly with the Italian government's interest in preserving historical records, giving rise to the joint effort.
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Diplomatic Corps: Pope’s Wishes for Countries at War
Work for Integral Disarmament and Address the Causes of Poverty
During his annual meeting with the ambassadors of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See, on January 8, 2018, Pope Francis expressed his wishes for countries ravaged by conflicts. Among other things, he appealed for integral disarmament and the addressing of the causes of poverty.
In the course of his long discourse, he exhorted to “work actively for peace,” deploring the fact that “grave local conflicts continue to set ablaze several regions of the earth,” where collective efforts “always seem less effective in face of the aberrant logic of war.”
The Holy Father wants the international community to work to “combat injustice and to eradicate, in a non-violent way, the causes of disagreement that lead to wars.” However, it must also work for “integral disarmament.” The proliferation of arms, in fact, “clearly aggravates the situations of conflict and entails considerable human and material costs.”
Wishing “the limitation of resources to armed force in the management of international affairs,” the Pontiff encouraged “a serene and the widest possible debate,” avoiding polarizations of the international community on such a delicate subject.” “Every effort in this regard, no matter how modest it is, represents an important result for humanity,” he assured.
Deploring “the uninterrupted production of ever more sophisticated and ‘perfected’ arms,” the Pope appealed to “support every attempt at dialogue in the Korean Peninsula, in order to find new ways to surmount the present oppositions, to enhance reciprocal trust and to assure a future of peace to the Korean people and to the whole world.”
Reconstruct Hearts in Syria
He also supported “the different peace initiatives underway in favour of Syria, so that finally an end can be put to the long conflict that affected the country and caused frightful sufferings.” “Even more than the reconstruction of buildings what is necessary is the reconstruction of hearts, the re-weaving of the fabric of mutual trust, indispensable preconditions for the fulfilment of any society,” he added.
For the “taking up again of social life, where each citizen, regardless of his ethnic and religious membership, can take part in the country’s development, the Pontiff called for the protection of “religious minorities, among which are Christians, who for centuries have contributed actively to Syria’s history.”
He also called for the creation of “conditions in view of the repatriation of refugees from Syria,” applauding “the engagement and efforts” of neighbouring countries, particularly Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, which must continue to “be a ‘message’ of respect and coexistence as well as a model to imitate for the whole region and the entire world.”
“The will to dialogue is also necessary in beloved Iraq, so that the different ethnic and religious groups can rediscover the path of reconciliation and peaceful coexistence and collaboration, as well as in Yemen and in other parts of the region, including Afghanistan.”
Jerusalem, Sacred City for Christians, Jews and Muslims
Addressing “a particular thought to Israelis and Palestinians,” after President Donald Trump’s decision to transfer the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, the Holy Father exhorted to “ponder every initiative, in order to avoid exacerbating the oppositions.”
He invited “to a common engagement to respect, in keeping with the pertinent Resolutions of the United Nations, the status of Jerusalem, sacred city for Christians, Jews and Muslims.”
“Seventy years of confrontations make it more urgent than ever to find a political solution that makes possible the presence in the regions of two independent States, with internationally recognized borders, “ he stressed. “Even within difficulties, the will to dialogue and to take up again negotiations remains the principal path to arrive finally at the peaceful coexistence of the two peoples. “
Pope Francis also mentioned “beloved Venezuela,” calling to “respond without delay to the primary needs of the population” and to create “the conditions so that the elections foreseen for the year underway are able to contribute a solution to the existing conflicts.”
Eradicate the Causes of Poverty in Africa
“May the international community not forget either the sufferings of numerous parts of the African Continent, especially in South Sudan, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Somalia, in Nigeria and in the Central African Republic, where the right to life is threatened by the abusive exploitation of resources, by terrorism, by the proliferation of armed groups and persistent conflicts,” lamented the Bishop of Rome.
“It’s not enough to be indignant in face of so much violence,” he stressed. “It’s necessary, rather, that each one, in his own domain, work actively to eradicate the causes of poverty and to build bridges of fraternity.”
Finally, Pope Francis recalled the situation of Ukraine, where the conflict continues “to inflict great sufferings on the population, in particular the families that reside in the areas touched by the war and that have lost dear ones, often elderly persons and children.”
The Two Warnings of the Great War
On the occasion of the centenary of the end of World War I (1918-2018), the Pontiff drew “two warnings”: “The first warning is that to win never means to humiliate the defeated adversary. Peace is not built as an affirmation of power of the victor over the vanquished . . . It’s not the law of fear that dissuades future aggressions, but rather the force of gentle reason that encourages dialogue and mutual understanding to smooth the differences. From this flows the second warning: peace is consolidated when Nations can deal among themselves in an atmosphere of equality.”
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Inquisition Requires Calm, Objective AnalysisPope John Paul II
Holy Father asks historians to present the true facts in light of their cultural and historical context
From 29 to 31 October an International Symposium on the Inquisition, organized by the Central Committee for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, was held at the Vatican. Attending the meeting were about 50 internationally renowned historians from various countries of Europe and America. The purpose of the conference was not to discuss the well-known issue of forgiveness, but to provide elements for a reflection on the history of the institution.
During the symposium the various topics were presented and discussed with great scholarly rigour and full freedom, from a variety of historiographical, ideological and cultural standpoints. The proceedings of the conference will be published in the near future.
On Saturday, 31 October, the Holy Father received the participants in audience and gave them the following address in Italian. Here is a translation.
Your Eminences, Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate, Ladies and Gentlemen!
1. I am delighted to welcome you during the Study Conference on the Inquisition, sponsored and organized by the Historical-Theological Commission for the preparation of the Great Jubilee. I extend my cordial greeting to each of you. Thank you for your willingness to participate and for the contribution you have made to preparing for the forthcoming Jubilee by also addressing a theme which is certainly not easy, but of undoubted interest for our time.
I especially thank Cardinal Roger Etchegaray for the noble address he gave to open this meeting and for presenting the conference's objectives. the same time I express my deep appreciation of the efforts taken by the Commission's members in preparing the symposium and by the speakers who conducted the study sessions.
The topic you have dwelt on, as you can easily see, calls for careful discernment and considerable knowledge of history. The indispensable contribution of historians will certainly be a help to theologians in making a more accurate evaluation of this phenomenon which, precisely because of its complexity, must be analyzed in a scrupulously objective way.
2. Your conference on the Inquisition is being held a few days after the publication of the Encyclical Fides et ratio, in which I wanted to remind the men and women of our time, who are tempted by scepticism and relativism, of the fundamental dignity of reason and its innate ability to attain truth. The Church, whose mission is to proclaim the word of salvation received in divine Revelation, sees this yearning to know truth as an irrepressible prerogative of the human person, created in the image of God. She knows that a bond of mutual friendship unites knowledge through faith and natural knowledge, each with its specific object and its own rights (cf. Encyclical Fides et ratio, n. 57).
People and societies must know how to integrate their past
At the beginning of the Encyclical, I made reference to the inscription on the temple at Delphi, which inspired Socrates: know yourself. This is a fundamental truth: knowing oneself is something distinctively human. Man is distinguished from the other created beings on earth by his ability to ask questions about the meaning of his own existence. Because of what he knows about the world and about himself, man can respond to another command passed on to us by Greek thought: become what you are.
Knowledge, then, has vital importance for man as he advances towards the full realization of his humanity: this is particularly true as regards historical knowledge. Individuals, as well as society, become fully aware of themselves only when they know how to integrate their past.
3. In the Encyclical Fides et ratio I also expressed my concern about the phenomenon of the fragmentation of knowledge, which is one reason why knowledge loses its meaning and deviates from its true purpose. This phenomenon has a variety of causes. Progress itself has led to ever greater specialization, one consequence of which is the lack of communication between the various disciplines. For this reason I invited philosophers, men and women of learning to recover "the sapiential dimension as a search for the ultimate and overarching meaning of life" (cf. ibid., n. 81), because the integration of knowledge and action is a requirement inscribed in our spirit.
In this regard, it seems essential to stress the role of epistemological reflection for the integration of the different elements of knowledge in a harmonious unity that respects the identity and autonomy of each discipline. This, moreover, is one of the most valuable achievements of contemporary thought (cf. ibid., n. 21). Only if the scientist rigorously adheres to his field of research and to the methodology directing it, will he be a servant of the truth for that portion which is his concern.
Today, in fact, there is a widespread conviction that it is not possible to arrive at the whole of truth on the basis of a particular discipline. Collaboration between the representatives of different sciences, therefore, becomes a necessity. On the other hand, as soon as a complex matter is addressed, researchers feel the need for each other's explanations, while obviously respecting one another's expertise.
Question involves cultural and political context of the time
For this reason the Historical-Theological Commission for the preparation of the Great Jubilee rightly thought that it could not properly reflect on the phenomenon of the Inquisition without first hearing from universally recognized experts in the historical sciences.
4. Ladies and Gentlemen! The problem of the Inquisition belongs to a troubled period of the Church's history, which I have invited Christians to revisit with an open mind. As I wrote. in the Apostolic Letter Tertio millennio adveniente: "Another painful chapter of history to which the sons and daughters of the Church must return with a spirit of repentance is that of the acquiescence given, especially in certain centuries, to intolerance and even the use of violence in the service of the truth" (n. 35).
The question, which involves the cultural context and political ideas of the time, is precisely theological in origin and presupposes an outlook of faith regarding the essence of the Church 'and the Gospel requirements that govern her life. The Church's Magisterium certainly cannot perform an ethical act, such as asking for forgiveness, without first being accurately informed about the situation at the time. Nor can it be based on the images of the past spread by public opinion, since they are often charged with an intense emotionalism that prevents calm, objective analysis. If the Magisterium does not bear this in mind, it would fail in its fundamental duty of respecting the truth. That is why the first step is to question historians, who are not asked to make an ethical judgement, which would exceed their sphere of competence, but to help in the most precise reconstruction possible of the events, customs and mentality of the time, in the light of the era's historical context.
Only when historical science has been able to determine the true facts, will theologians and the Church's Magisterium itself be in a position to make an objectively well-founded judgement.
At this time I earnestly wish to thank you for the service you have offered in complete freedom, and I once again express all the Church's esteem for your work. I am convinced that it offers an outstanding contribution to the truth, and in this way makes an indirect contribution to the new evangelization.
Differences should be resolved through honest dialogue
5. In conclusion, I would like to share a thought with you that is particularly close to my heart. The request for forgiveness, which is much talked about at the time, primarily concerns the life of the Church, her mission of proclaiming salvation, her witness to Christ, her commitment to unity, in a word, the consistency which should distinguish Christian life. But the light and strength of the Gospel, by which the Church lives, can illumine and support more than abundantly the decisions and actions of civil society, with full respect for their autonomy. It is for this reason that the Church continually works in her own way for peace and the promotion of human rights. On the threshold of the third millennium, we may rightly hope that political leaders and peoples, especially those involved in tragic conflicts fueled by hatred and the memory of often ancient wounds, will be guided by the spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation exemplified by the Church and will make every effort to resolve their differences through open and honest dialogue.
I entrust this hope to your reflection and your prayer. And as I invoke God's constant protection on each of you, I assure you of a constant remembrance in prayer and am pleased to give you and your loved ones a special Apostolic Blessing.
Pope John Paul II
L'Osservatore Romano
Weekly Edition in English
11 November 1998, page 3
L'Osservatore Romano is the newspaper of the Holy See.
Romanism is now regarded by Protestants with far greater favor than in former years. In those countries where Catholicism is not in the ascendancy, and the Papists are taking a conciliatory course in order to gain influence, there is an increasing indifference concerning the doctrines that separate the Reformed churches from the Papal hierarchy; the opinion is gaining ground that, after all, we do not differ so widely upon vital points as has been supposed, and that a little concession on our part will bring us into a better understanding with Rome. The time was when Protestants placed a high value upon the liberty of conscience which had been so dearly purchased. They taught their children to abhor Popery and held that to seek harmony with Rome would be disloyalty to God. But how widely different are the sentiments now expressed!
The defenders of the Papacy declare that the Church has been maligned, and the Protestant world are inclined to accept the statement. Many urge that it is unjust to judge the church of today by the abominations and absurdities that marked her reign during the centuries of ignorance and darkness. They excuse her horrible cruelty as the result of the barbarism of the times and plead that the influence of modern civilization has changed her sentiments.
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Have these persons forgotten the claim of infallibility put forth for eight hundred years by this haughty power? So far from being relinquished, this claim was affirmed in the nineteenth century with greater positiveness than ever before. As Rome asserts that the "church never erred; nor will it, according to the Scriptures, ever err" (John L. von Mosheim, Institutes of Ecclesiastical History, book 3, century II, part 2, chapter 2, section 9, note 17), how can she renounce the principles which governed her course in past ages?
The Papal Church will never relinquish her claim to infallibility. All that she has done in her persecution of those who reject her dogmas she holds to be right; and would she not repeat the same acts, should the opportunity be presented? Let the restraints now imposed by secular governments be removed and Rome be reinstated in her former power, and there would speedily be a revival of her tyranny and persecution.
A well-known writer speaks thus of the attitude of the Papal hierarchy as regards freedom of conscience, and of the perils which especially threaten the United States from the success of her policy:
"There are many who are disposed to attribute any fear of Roman Catholicism in the United States to bigotry or childishness. Such see nothing in the character and attitude of Romanism that is hostile to our free institutions, or find nothing portentous in its growth. Let us, then, first compare some of the fundamental principles of our government with those of the Catholic Church.
"The Constitution of the United States guarantees liberty of conscience. Nothing is dearer or more fundamental. Pope Pius IX, in his Encyclical Letter of August 15, 1854, said: `The absurd and erroneous doctrines or ravings in defense of liberty of conscience are a most pestilential error -- a pest, of all others, most to be dreaded in a state.' The same Pope, in his Encyclical Letter of December 8, 1864, anathematized `those who assert the liberty of conscience and of religious
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worship,' also 'all such as maintain that the Church may not employ force.'
"The pacific tone of Rome in the United States does not imply a change of heart. She is tolerant where she is helpless. Says Bishop O'Connor: 'Religious liberty is merely endured until the opposite can be carried into effect without peril to the Catholic world.'. . . The Archbishop of St. Louis once said: 'Heresy and unbelief are crimes; and in Christian countries, as in Italy and Spain, for instance, where all the people are Catholics, and where the Catholic religion is an essential part of the law of the land, they are punished as other crimes.'. . .
"Every cardinal, archbishop, and bishop in the Catholic Church takes an oath of allegiance to the Pope, in which occur the following words: 'Heretics, schismatics, and rebels to our said lord (the pope), or his aforesaid successors, I will to my utmost persecute and oppose.'"--Josiah Strong, Our Country, ch. 5, pars. 2-4. [SEE APPENDIX FOR CORRECTED REFERENCES.]
It is true that there are real Christians in the Roman Catholic communion. Thousands in that Church are serving God according to the best light they have. They are not allowed access to His word, and therefore they do not discern the truth. [PUBLISHED IN 1888 AND 1911. SEE APPENDIX.] They have never seen the contrast between a living heart service and a round of mere forms and ceremonies. God looks with pitying tenderness upon these souls, educated as they are in a faith that is delusive and unsatisfying. He will cause rays of light to penetrate the dense darkness that surrounds them. He will reveal to them the truth as it is in Jesus, and many will yet take their position with His people.
But Romanism as a system is no more in harmony with the gospel of Christ now than at any former period in her history. The Protestant churches are in great darkness, or they would discern the signs of the times. The Roman Church is far-reaching in her plans and modes of operation. She is employing every device to extend her influence and increase her power in preparation for a fierce and determined
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conflict to regain control of the world, to re-establish persecution, and to undo all that Protestantism has done. Catholicism is gaining ground upon every side. See the increasing number of her churches and chapels in Protestant countries. Look at the popularity of her colleges and seminaries in America, so widely patronized by Protestants. Look at the growth of ritualism in England and the frequent defections to the ranks of the Catholics. These things should awaken the anxiety of all who prize the pure principles of the Gospel.
Protestants have tampered with and patronized popery; they have made compromises and concessions which papists themselves are surprised to see and fail to understand. Men are closing their eyes to the real character of Romanism and the dangers to be apprehended from her supremacy. The people need to be aroused to resist the advances of this most dangerous foe to civil and religious liberty.
Many Protestants suppose that the Catholic religion is unattractive and that its worship is a dull, meaningless round of ceremony. Here they mistake. While Romanism is based upon deception, it is not a coarse and clumsy imposture. The religious service of the Roman Church is a most impressive ceremonial. Its gorgeous display and solemn rites fascinate the senses of the people and silence the voice of reason and of conscience. The eye is charmed. Magnificent churches, imposing processions, golden altars, jeweled shrines, choice paintings, and exquisite sculpture appeal to the love of beauty. The ear also is captivated. The music is unsurpassed. The rich notes of the deep-toned organ, blending with the melody of many voices as it swells through the lofty domes and pillared aisles of her grand cathedrals, cannot fail to impress the mind with awe and reverence.
This outward splendor, pomp, and ceremony, that only mocks the longings of the sin-sick soul, is an evidence of inward corruption. The religion of Christ needs not such attractions to recommend it. In the light shining from the cross, true Christianity appears so pure and lovely that no
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external decorations can enhance its true worth. It is the beauty of holiness, a meek and quiet spirit, which is of value with God.
Brilliancy of style is not necessarily an index of pure, elevated thought. High conceptions of art, delicate refinement of taste, often exist in minds that are earthly and sensual. They are often employed by Satan to lead men to forget the necessities of the soul, to lose sight of the future, immortal life, to turn away from their infinite Helper, and to live for this world alone.
A religion of externals is attractive to the unrenewed heart. The pomp and ceremony of the Catholic worship has a seductive, bewitching power, by which many are deceived; and they come to look upon the Roman Church as the very gate of heaven. None but those who have planted their feet firmly upon the foundation of truth, and whose hearts are renewed by the Spirit of God, are proof against her influence. Thousands who have not an experimental knowledge of Christ will be led to accept the forms of godliness without the power. Such a religion is just what the multitudes desire.
The church's claim to the right to pardon leads the Romanist to feel at liberty to sin; and the ordinance of confession, without which her pardon is not granted, tends also to give license to evil. He who kneels before fallen man, and opens in confession the secret thoughts and imaginations of his heart, is debasing his manhood and degrading every noble instinct of his soul. In unfolding the sins of his life to a priest,--an erring, sinful mortal, and too often corrupted with wine and licentiousness,--his standard of character is lowered, and he is defiled in consequence. His thought of God is degraded to the likeness of fallen humanity, for the priest stands as a representative of God. This degrading confession of man to man is the secret spring from which has flowed much of the evil that is defiling the world and fitting it for the final destruction. Yet to him who loves self-indulgence,
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it is more pleasing to confess to a fellow mortal than to open the soul to God. It is more palatable to human nature to do penance than to renounce sin; it is easier to mortify the flesh by sackcloth and nettles and galling chains than to crucify fleshly lusts. Heavy is the yoke which the carnal heart is willing to bear rather than bow to the yoke of Christ.
There is a striking similarity between the Church of Rome and the Jewish Church at the time of Christ's first advent. While the Jews secretly trampled upon every principle of the law of God, they were outwardly rigorous in the observance of its precepts, loading it down with exactions and traditions that made obedience painful and burdensome. As the Jews professed to revere the law, so do Romanists claim to reverence the cross. They exalt the symbol of Christ's sufferings, while in their lives they deny Him whom it represents.
Papists place crosses upon their churches, upon their altars, and upon their garments. Everywhere is seen the insignia of the cross. Everywhere it is outwardly honored and exalted. But the teachings of Christ are buried beneath a mass of senseless traditions, false interpretations, and rigorous exactions. The Saviour's words concerning the bigoted Jews, apply with still greater force to the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church: "They bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers." Matthew 23:4. Conscientious souls are kept in constant terror fearing the wrath of an offended God, while many of the dignitaries of the Church are living in luxury and sensual pleasure.
The worship of images and relics, the invocation of saints, and the exaltation of the pope are devices of Satan to attract the minds of the people from God and from His Son. To accomplish their ruin, he endeavors to turn their attention from Him through whom alone they can find salvation. He will direct them to any object that can be substituted for the One who has said: "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and
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are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28.
It is Satan's constant effort to misrepresent the character of God, the nature of sin, and the real issues at stake in the great controversy. His sophistry lessens the obligation of the divine law and gives men license to sin. At the same time he causes them to cherish false conceptions of God so that they regard Him with fear and hate rather than with love. The cruelty inherent in his own character is attributed to the Creator; it is embodied in systems of religion and expressed in modes of worship. Thus the minds of men are blinded, and Satan secures them as his agents to war against God. By perverted conceptions of the divine attributes, heathen nations were led to believe human sacrifices necessary to secure the favor of Deity; and horrible cruelties have been perpetrated under the various forms of idolatry.
The Roman Catholic Church, uniting the forms of paganism and Christianity, and, like paganism, misrepresenting the character of God, has resorted to practices no less cruel and revolting. In the days of Rome's supremacy there were instruments of torture to compel assent to her doctrines. There was the stake for those who would not concede to her claims. There were massacres on a scale that will never be known until revealed in the judgment. Dignitaries of the Church studied, under Satan their master, to invent means to cause the greatest possible torture and not end the life of the victim. In many cases the infernal process was repeated to the utmost limit of human endurance, until nature gave up the struggle, and the sufferer hailed death as a sweet release.
Such was the fate of Rome's opponents. For her adherents she had the discipline of the scourge, of famishing hunger, of bodily austerities in every conceivable, heart-sickening form. To secure the favor of Heaven, penitents violated the laws of God by violating the laws of nature. They were taught to sunder the ties which He has formed to bless and gladden man's earthly sojourn. The churchyard contains millions of
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victims who spent their lives in vain endeavors to subdue their natural affections, to repress, as offensive to God, every thought and feeling of sympathy with their fellow creatures.
If we desire to understand the determined cruelty of Satan, manifested for hundreds of years, not among those who never heard of God, but in the very heart and throughout the extent of Christendom, we have only to look at the history of Romanism.
Through this mammoth system of deception the prince of evil achieves his purpose of bringing dishonor to God and wretchedness to man. And as we see how he succeeds in disguising himself and accomplishing his work through the leaders of the Church, we may better understand why he has so great antipathy to the Bible. If that Book is read, the mercy and love of God will be revealed; it will be seen that He lays upon men none of these heavy burdens. All that He asks is a broken and contrite heart, a humble, obedient spirit.
Christ gives no example in His life for men and women to shut themselves in monasteries in order to become fitted for heaven. He has never taught that love and sympathy must be repressed. The Saviour's heart overflowed with love. The nearer man approaches to moral perfection, the keener are his sensibilities, the more acute is his perception of sin, and the deeper his sympathy for the afflicted. The Pope claims to be the Vicar of Christ; but how does his character bear comparison with that of our Saviour? Was Christ ever known to consign men to the prison or the rack because they did not pay Him homage as the King of heaven? Was His voice heard condemning to death those who did not accept Him? When He was slighted by the people of a Samaritan village, the apostle John was filled with indignation, and inquired: "Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?" Jesus looked with pity upon His disciple, and rebuked his harsh spirit, saying: "The Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." Luke 9:54, 56.
How different from
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the spirit manifested by Christ is that of His professed Vicar.
The Roman Church now presents a fair front to the world, covering with apologies her record of horrible cruelties. She has clothed herself in Christlike garments; but she is unchanged. Every principle of the papacy that existed in past ages exists today. The doctrines devised in the darkest ages are still held. Let none deceive themselves. The Papacy that Protestants are now so ready to honor is the same that ruled the world in the days of the Reformation, when men of God stood up, at the peril of their lives, to expose her iniquity. She possesses the same pride and arrogant assumption that lorded it over kings and princes, and claimed the prerogatives of God. Her spirit is no less cruel and despotic now than when she crushed out human liberty and slew the saints of the Most High.
The Papacy is just what prophecy declared that she would be, the apostasy of the latter times. [2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4]. It is a part of her policy to assume the character which will best accomplish her purpose; but beneath the variable appearance of the chameleon she conceals the invariable venom of the serpent. "Faith ought not to be kept with heretics, nor persons suspected of heresy" (Lenfant, volume 1, page 516), she declares. Shall this power, whose record for a thousand years is written in the blood of the saints, be now acknowledged as a part of the church of Christ?
It is not without reason that the claim has been put forth in Protestant countries that Catholicism differs less widely from Protestantism than in former times. There has been a change; but the change is not in the Papacy. Catholicism indeed resembles much of the Protestantism that now exists, because Protestantism has so greatly degenerated since the days of the Reformers.
As the Protestant churches have been seeking the favor of the world, false charity has blinded their eyes. They do not see but that it is right to believe good of all evil, and as the inevitable result they will finally believe evil of all good.
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Instead of standing in defense of the faith once delivered to the saints, they are now, as it were, apologizing to Rome for their uncharitable opinion of her, begging pardon for their bigotry.
A large class, even of those who look upon Romanism with no favor, apprehend little danger from her power and influence. Many urge that the intellectual and moral darkness prevailing during the Middle Ages favored the spread of her dogmas, superstitions, and oppression, and that the greater intelligence of modern times, the general diffusion of knowledge, and the increasing liberality in matters of religion forbid a revival of intolerance and tyranny. The very thought that such a state of things will exist in this enlightened age is ridiculed. It is true that great light, intellectual, moral, and religious, is shining upon this generation. In the open pages of God's Holy Word, light from heaven has been shed upon the world. But it should be remembered that the greater the light bestowed, the greater the darkness of those who pervert and reject it.
A prayerful study of the Bible would show Protestants the real character of the Papacy and would cause them to abhor and to shun it; but many are so wise in their own conceit that they feel no need of humbly seeking God that they may be led into the truth. Although priding themselves on their enlightenment, they are ignorant both of the Scriptures and of the power of God. They must have some means of quieting their consciences, and they seek that which is least spiritual and humiliating. What they desire is a method of forgetting God which shall pass as a method of remembering Him. The Papacy is well adapted to meet the wants of all these. It is prepared for two classes of mankind, embracing nearly the whole world--those who would be saved by their merits, and those who would be saved in their sins. Here is the secret of its power.
A day of great intellectual darkness has been shown to be favorable to the success of the Papacy. It will yet be
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demonstrated that a day of great intellectual light is equally favorable for its success. In past ages, when men were without God's word and without the knowledge of the truth, their eyes were blindfolded, and thousands were ensnared, not seeing the net spread for their feet. In this generation there are many whose eyes become dazzled by the glare of human speculations, "science falsely so called;" they discern not the net, and walk into it as readily as if blindfolded. God designed that man's intellectual powers should be held as a gift from his Maker and should be employed in the service of truth and righteousness; but when pride and ambition are cherished, and men exalt their own theories above the word of God, then intelligence can accomplish greater harm than ignorance. Thus the false science of the present day, which undermines faith in the Bible, will prove as successful in preparing the way for the acceptance of the Papacy, with its pleasing forms, as did the withholding of knowledge in opening the way for its aggrandizement in the Dark Ages.
In the movements now in progress in the United States to secure for the institutions and usages of the church the support of the state, Protestants are following in the steps of papists. Nay, more, they are opening the door for the papacy to regain in Protestant America the supremacy which she has lost in the Old World. And that which gives greater significance to this movement is the fact that the principal object contemplated is the enforcement of Sunday observance -- a custom which originated with Rome, and which she claims as the sign of her authority. It is the spirit of the Papacy -- the spirit of conformity to worldly customs, the veneration for human traditions above the commandments of God--that is permeating the Protestant churches and leading them on to do the same work of Sunday exaltation which the papacy has done before them.
If the reader would understand the agencies to be employed in the soon-coming contest, he has but to trace the record of the means which Rome employed for the same
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object in ages past. If he would know how Papists and Protestants united will deal with those who reject their dogmas, let him see the spirit which Rome manifested toward the Sabbath and its defenders.
Royal edicts, general councils, and Church ordinances sustained by secular power were the steps by which the pagan festival attained its position of honor in the Christian world. The first public measure enforcing Sunday observance was the law enacted by Constantine. (A.D. 321; see Appendix note for page 53.) This edict required townspeople to rest on "the venerable day of the sun," but permitted countrymen to continue their agricultural pursuits. Though virtually a heathen statute, it was enforced by the emperor after his nominal acceptance of Christianity.
The royal mandate not proving a sufficient substitute for divine authority, Eusebius, a bishop who sought the favor of princes, and who was the special friend and flatterer of Constantine, advanced the claim that Christ had transferred the Sabbath to Sunday. Not a single testimony of the Scriptures was produced in proof of the new doctrine. Eusebius himself unwittingly acknowledges its falsity and points to the real authors of the change. "All things," he says, "whatever that it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord's Day." -- Robert Cox, Sabbath Laws and Sabbath Duties, page 538. But the Sunday argument, groundless as it was, served to embolden men in trampling upon the Sabbath of the Lord. All who desired to be honored by the world accepted the popular festival.
As the Papacy became firmly established, the work of Sunday exaltation was continued. For a time the people engaged in agricultural labor when not attending church, and the seventh day was still regarded as the Sabbath. But steadily a change was effected. Those in holy office were forbidden to pass judgment in any civil controversy on the Sunday. Soon after, all persons, of whatever rank, were commanded to refrain from common labor on pain of a fine for freemen and
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stripes in the case of servants. Later it was decreed that rich men should be punished with the loss of half of their estates; and finally, that if still obstinate they should be made slaves. The lower classes were to suffer perpetual banishment.
Miracles also were called into requisition. Among other wonders it was reported that as a husbandman who was about to plow his field on Sunday cleaned his plow with an iron, the iron stuck fast in his hand, and for two years he carried it about with him, "to his exceeding great pain and shame."--Francis West, Historical and Practical Discourse on the Lord's Day, page 174.
Later the Pope gave directions that the parish priest should admonish the violators of Sunday and wish them to go to church and say their prayers, lest they bring some great calamity on themselves and neighbors. An ecclesiastical council brought forward the argument, since so widely employed, even by Protestants, that because persons had been struck by lightning while laboring on Sunday, it must be the Sabbath. "It is apparent," said the prelates, "how high the displeasure of God was upon their neglect of this day." An appeal was then made that priests and ministers, kings and princes, and all faithful people "use their utmost endeavors and care that the day be restored to its honor, and, for the credit of Christianity, more devoutly observed for the time to come."--Thomas Morer, Discourse in Six Dialogues on the Name, Notion, and Observation of the Lord's Day, page 271.
The decrees of Councils proving insufficient, the secular authorities were besought to issue an edict that would strike terror to the hearts of the people and force them to refrain from labor on the Sunday. At a synod held in Rome, all previous decisions were reaffirmed with greater force and solemnity. They were also incorporated into the ecclesiastical law and enforced by the civil authorities throughout nearly all Christendom. (See Heylyn, History of the Sabbath, pt. 2, ch. 5, sec. 7.)
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Still the absence of Scriptural authority for Sundaykeeping occasioned no little embarrassment. The people questioned the right of their teachers to set aside the positive declaration of Jehovah, "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God," in order to honor the day of the sun. To supply the lack of Bible testimony, other expedients were necessary. A zealous advocate of Sunday, who about the close of the twelfth century visited the churches of England, was resisted by faithful witnesses for the truth; and so fruitless were his efforts that he departed from the country for a season and cast about him for some means to enforce his teachings. When he returned, the lack was supplied, and in his after labors he met with greater success. He brought with him a roll purporting to be from God Himself, which contained the needed command for Sunday observance, with awful threats to terrify the disobedient. This precious document-- as base a counterfeit as the institution it supported--was said to have fallen from heaven and to have been found in Jerusalem, upon the altar of St. Simeon, in Golgotha. But, in fact, the Pontifical Palace at Rome was the source whence it proceeded. Frauds and forgeries to advance the power and prosperity of the church have in all ages been esteemed lawful by the Papal hierarchy.
The roll forbade labor from the ninth hour, three o'clock, on Saturday afternoon, till sunrise on Monday; and its authority was declared to be confirmed by many miracles. It was reported that persons laboring beyond the appointed hour were stricken with paralysis. A miller who attempted to grind his corn, saw, instead of flour, a torrent of blood come forth, and the mill wheel stood still, notwithstanding the strong rush of water. A woman who placed dough in the oven found it raw when taken out, though the oven was very hot. Another who had dough prepared for baking at the ninth hour, but determined to set it aside till Monday, found, the next day, that it had been made into loaves and baked by divine power. A man who baked bread after the ninth hour
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on Saturday found, when he broke it the next morning, that blood started therefrom. By such absurd and superstitious fabrications did the advocates of Sunday endeavor to establish its sacredness. (See Roger de Hoveden, Annals, vol. 2, pp. 526-530.)
In Scotland, as in England, a greater regard for Sunday was secured by uniting with it a portion of the ancient Sabbath. But the time required to be kept holy varied. An edict from the king of Scotland declared that "Saturday from twelve at noon ought to be accounted holy," and that no man, from that time till Monday morning, should engage in worldly business.--Morer, pages 290, 291.
But notwithstanding all the efforts to establish Sunday sacredness, papists themselves publicly confessed the divine authority of the Sabbath and the human origin of the institution by which it had been supplanted. In the sixteenth century a Papal Council plainly declared: "Let all Christians remember that the seventh day was consecrated by God, and hath been received and observed, not only by the Jews, but by all others who pretend to worship God; though we Christians have changed their Sabbath into the Lord's Day."-- Ibid., pages 281, 282. Those who were tampering with the divine law were not ignorant of the character of their work. They were deliberately setting themselves above God.
A striking illustration of Rome's policy toward those who disagree with her was given in the long and bloody persecution of the Waldenses, some of whom were observers of the Sabbath. Others suffered in a similar manner for their fidelity to the fourth commandment. The history of the churches of Ethiopia and Abyssinia is especially significant. Amid the gloom of the Dark Ages, the Christians of Central Africa were lost sight of and forgotten by the world, and for many centuries they enjoyed freedom in the exercise of their faith. But at last Rome learned of their existence, and the Emperor of Abyssinia was soon beguiled into an acknowledgment of the pope as the vicar of Christ. Other concessions followed.
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An edict was issued forbidding the observance of the Sabbath under the severest penalties. (See Michael Geddes, Church History of Ethiopia, pages 311, 312.) But Papal tyranny soon became a yoke so galling that the Abyssinians determined to break it from their necks. After a terrible struggle the Romanists were banished from their dominions, and the ancient faith was restored. The churches rejoiced in their freedom, and they never forgot the lesson they had learned concerning the deception, the fanaticism, and the despotic power of Rome. Within their solitary realm they were content to remain, unknown to the rest of Christendom.
The churches of Africa held the Sabbath as it was held by the Papal Church before her complete apostasy. While they kept the seventh day in obedience to the commandment of God, they abstained from labor on the Sunday in conformity to the custom of the Church. Upon obtaining supreme power, Rome had trampled upon the Sabbath of God to exalt her own; but the churches of Africa, hidden for nearly a thousand years, did not share in this apostasy. When brought under the sway of Rome, they were forced to set aside the true and exalt the false sabbath; but no sooner had they regained their independence than they returned to obedience to the fourth commandment. (See Appendix.)
These records of the past clearly reveal the enmity of Rome toward the true Sabbath and its defenders, and the means which she employs to honor the institution of her creating. The word of God teaches that these scenes are to be repeated as Roman Catholics and Protestants shall unite for the exaltation of the Sunday.
The prophecy of Revelation 13 declares that the power represented by the beast with lamblike horns shall cause "the earth and them which dwell therein" to worship the papacy -- there symbolized by the beast "like unto a leopard." The beast with two horns is also to say "to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast;" and,
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furthermore, it is to command all, "both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond," to receive the mark of the beast. Revelation 13:11-16. It has been shown that the United States is the power represented by the beast with lamblike horns, and that this prophecy will be fulfilled when the United States shall enforce Sunday observance, which Rome claims as the special acknowledgment of her supremacy. But in this homage to the Papacy the United States will not be alone.
The influence of Rome in the countries that once acknowledged her dominion is still far from being destroyed. And prophecy foretells a restoration of her power. "I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast." Verse 3. The infliction of the deadly wound points to the downfall of the papacy in 1798. After this, says the prophet, "his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast." Paul states plainly that the "man of sin" will continue until the second advent. 2 Thessalonians 2:3-8. To the very close of time he will carry forward the work of deception. And the revelator declares, also referring to the papacy: "All that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life." Revelation 13:8.
In both the Old and the New World, the Papacy will receive homage in the honor paid to the Sunday institution, that rests solely upon the authority of the Roman Church.
Since the middle of the nineteenth century, students of prophecy in the United States have presented this testimony to the world. In the events now taking place is seen a rapid advance toward the fulfillment of the prediction. With Protestant teachers there is the same claim of divine authority for Sundaykeeping, and the same lack of Scriptural evidence, as with the papal leaders who fabricated miracles to supply the place of a command from God. The assertion that God's judgments are visited upon men for their violation of the
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Sunday-sabbath, will be repeated; already it is beginning to be urged. And a movement to enforce Sunday observance is fast gaining ground.
Marvelous in her shrewdness and cunning is the Roman Church. She can read what is to be. She bides her time, seeing that the Protestant churches are paying her homage in their acceptance of the false sabbath and that they are preparing to enforce it by the very means which she herself employed in bygone days. Those who reject the light of truth will yet seek the aid of this self-styled infallible power to exalt an institution that originated with her. How readily she will come to the help of Protestants in this work it is not difficult to conjecture. Who understands better than the Papal leaders how to deal with those who are disobedient to the Church?
The Roman Catholic Church, with all its ramifications throughout the world, forms one vast organization under the control, and designed to serve the interests, of the Papal See. Its millions of communicants, in every country on the globe, are instructed to hold themselves as bound in allegiance to the Pope. Whatever their nationality or their government, they are to regard the authority of the Church as above all other. Though they may take the oath pledging their loyalty to the state, yet back of this lies the vow of obedience to Rome, absolving them from every pledge inimical to her interests.
History testifies of her artful and persistent efforts to insinuate herself into the affairs of nations; and having gained a foothold, to further her own aims, even at the ruin of princes and people. In the year 1204, Pope Innocent III extracted from Peter II, king of Arragon, the following extraordinary oath: "I, Peter, king of Arragonians, profess and promise to be ever faithful and obedient to my lord, Pope Innocent, to his Catholic successors, and the Roman Church, and faithfully to preserve my kingdom in his obedience, defending the Catholic faith, and persecuting heretical pravity." --John Dowling, The History of Romanism, b. 5, ch. 6, sec.
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55. This is in harmony with the claims regarding the power of the Roman pontiff "that it is lawful for him to depose emperors" and "that he can absolve subjects from their allegiance to unrighteous rulers."--Mosheim, b. 3, cent. 11, pt. 2, ch. 2, sec. 9, note 17. (See also Appendix note for page 447.)
And let it be remembered, it is the boast of Rome that she never changes. The principles of Gregory VII and Innocent III are still the principles of the Roman Catholic Church. And had she but the power, she would put them in practice with as much vigor now as in past centuries. Protestants little know what they are doing when they propose to accept the aid of Rome in the work of Sunday exaltation. While they are bent upon the accomplishment of their purpose, Rome is aiming to re-establish her power, to recover her lost supremacy. Let the principle once be established in the United States that the church may employ or control the power of the state; that religious observances may be enforced by secular laws; in short, that the authority of Church and State is to dominate the conscience, and the triumph of Rome in this country is assured.
God's word has given warning of the impending danger; let this be unheeded, and the Protestant world will learn what the purposes of Rome really are, only when it is too late to escape the snare. She is silently growing into power. Her doctrines are exerting their influence in legislative halls, in the churches, and in the hearts of men. She is piling up her lofty and massive structures in the secret recesses of which her former persecutions will be repeated. Stealthily and unsuspectedly she is strengthening her forces to further her own ends when the time shall come for her to strike. All that she desires is vantage ground, and this is already being given her. We shall soon see and shall feel what the purpose of the Roman element is. Whoever shall believe and obey the word of God will thereby incur reproach and persecution.
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Tuesday, 15 June, 2004
Vatican 'dispels Inquisition myths'
By Verity Murphy BBC News
The Inquisition reached its peak in the 16th Century
The Vatican has published a new study on the abuses committed by the medieval Inquisition and come to a rather surprising conclusion - that in fact the much feared judges of heresy were not as brutal as previously believed.
According to the 800-page report, the Inquisition that spread fear throughout Europe throughout the Middle Ages did not use execution or torture to anything like the extent history would have us believe.
In fact the book's editor, Professor Agostino Borromeo, claims that in Spain only 1.8% of those investigated by the notorious Spanish Inquisition were killed.
Nonetheless, as the report was published, Pope John Paul II apologised once more for the interrogators' excesses, expressing sorrow for "the errors committed in the service of the truth by the recourse to non-Christian methods".
The recourse to torture and the death sentence weren't so frequent as it long has been believed
Professor Agostino Borromeo
But the Pope stopped short of breaking the age-old Vatican rule on not condemning your predecessors. Pope Gregory IX created the Inquisition in 1233 to curb heresy, or denial of truths of the Catholic faith, but he was not mentioned in the Pope's statement.
Hunting heretics
After the Roman Catholic Church consolidated its power across Europe in the 12th and 13th Century, it set up the Inquisition to ensure that heretics did not undermine that authority.
It took the form of a network of ecclesiastical tribunals equipped with judges and investigators.
The punishments meted out for wrongdoers ranged from being forced to visit churches and make pilgrimages, to life imprisonment or execution by burning at the stake.
The report is the result of six-years of investigation
A key component of the Inquisition was that it did not wait for complaints and accusations to be made, but actively sought out so-called heretics, who included witches, diviners, blasphemers and members of other sects.
The accused did not have the right to face and question their accuser and it was acceptable to take testimony from criminals and excommunicated people.
The Inquisition reached its peak in the 16th Century as it battled the Reformation, but its most famous trial was that of Galileo in 1633, condemned for claiming the earth revolved around the sun.
Death by burning
The Spanish Inquisition which became independent from the Vatican in the 15th Century, carried out some of the most infamous abuses under its "autos da fé" or act of faith, shorthand for death by burning.
They zealously tortured victims, held summary trials, forced conversions and passed death sentences.
If there are many or few cases, it doesn't matter. What's important is you don't say, 'I am right and you are wrong and I burn you'
Thomas Noffke, Waldensian Pastor
"There is no doubt that at the start, the planned procedures were applied with an excessive rigour, which in some cases degenerated into true abuses," the Vatican study simply says of this dark period.
But the Vatican report, the product of a six-year investigation, insists that the Inquisition was not as bad as often believed.
Professor Borromeo says for example that for 125,000 trials of suspected heretics in Spain, less than 2% were executed.
He says that often mannequins were burned to represent those tried in absentia and condemned to death and heretics and witches who repented at the last minute were given some sort of relief when they were strangled before being burnt.
Little comfort
But for those connected with victims of the Inquisition, Vatican claims that it was not as bad as thought carry little weight.
Galileo was the Inquisition's most famous victim
Among those targeted by the interrogators were the Waldensians, members of a Protestant sect declared heretical in the 12th Century.
"If there are many or few cases, it doesn't matter. What's important is you don't say, 'I am right and you are wrong and I burn you'," said Thomas Noffke, a US-born Waldensian pastor in Rome.
According to the study, in the Inquisition's heyday Germany killed more male and female witches than anywhere else, with some 25,000 people being put to death.
In Lichtenstein just 300 people were executed for witchcraft, but this amounted to 10% of the tiny state's population.
Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, who was at the news conference where the study was presented, said that the lessons of history never come to an end.
Acknowledging the past was all the more relevant given the continued use of torture in the 21st Century, most notably by US troops against prisoners held in Iraq, he said.
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Vatican Secret Archives:
Contains the records of the Inquisition, Treaties signed by the Vatican with monarchs, rulers and governments down through the centuries, and many other important Papal historical documents.
An 11-month FT investigation reveals the extent of mismanagement at the €5bn-asset bank Cardinals at the Vatican Conclave to elect the new Pope in March
FT Rachel Sanderson December 6, 2013 46
On June 28 this year, Italian police arrested a silver-haired priest, Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, in Rome. The cleric, nicknamed Monsignor Cinquecento after the €500 bills he habitually carried around with him, was charged with fraud and corruption, together with a former secret service agent and a financial broker. All three were suspected of attempting to smuggle €20m by private plane across the border from Switzerland. Prosecutors alleged that the priest, a former banker, was using the Institute for Religious Works – the formal name for the Vatican’s bank – to move money for businessmen based in the Naples region, widely regarded in Italy as a haven of organised crime. Worse still, Scarano (who, together with the other men, has denied any wrongdoing) had until only a month earlier been head of the accounting department at the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, the treasury of the Vatican. The arrest, and the headlines that screamed across the Italian press, was the latest shock for the Holy See. The year had already witnessed an emotional upheaval in the church with the resignation in February of the aged Pope Benedict XVI – the first time in 700 years a pope had stepped down voluntarily. But this new crisis demanded cold, hard resolve. For regulators and politicians in Europe who had pushed for change in the Vatican’s scandal-plagued bank over the previous four years – from the Bank of Italy under Mario Draghi to officials in Mario Monti’s government and in Brussels – it served as evidence of their concerns. Those worries also jolted a number of international financiers determined to press for reform. In early July, Peter Sutherland, non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs International and the former attorney-general of Ireland, flew into Vatican City. His mission – although described by some insiders as simply a “bit part” in the wider drive for change – was an illuminating one. Sutherland, a practising Catholic and an unpaid consultant to the Vatican’s treasury, had been asked by reformers in the church to speak with the council of cardinals, the most senior advisers to the pope. His message to the men who filed into a room near Doma Santa Marta, the plain-fronted residence of Pope Francis, was respectful but direct. The banker, who declined to comment for this story, added his voice to the many in and outside the church asking the world’s smallest city-state to change its ways. “Transparency is important and necessary,” Sutherland said, according to two people who were informed of proceedings in the closed-door meeting. The cardinals, known for long, contemplative consultations, were surprisingly receptive, said one of those informed. After a decade of paedophilia scandals, the allegations of financial impropriety seemed set to unleash another storm of criticism and had to be addressed. Outside auditors as well as financial risk consultants were already coming into the Vatican but the arrest of Scarano made the case for reform unavoidable. “We cannot have any more scandal. It is so shameful,” a senior member of the Vatican’s financial administration said. Audio Slideshow How the Vatican bank ended up as a financial penitent The Financial Times has investigated the extent of the mismanagement at the Vatican bank. In this audio slideshow, find out how the scandal erupted and what has been done to help strengthen the bank. How God’s bank ended up as a financial penitent this year is a bracing chapter in the history of financial reforms that have swelled up in the aftermath of the 2008 credit crisis. Untouchable havens such as Switzerland and Liechtenstein were forced to open their chocolate-box palaces to the probes of international regulators. This year the power of the popes was challenged. The FT interviewed two dozen bankers, lawyers, regulators and Catholic insiders over 11 months to understand how the murky operations of a bank with €5bn in assets, and which says its aim is to serve the global mission of the Catholic Church, had unnerved bankers, regulators and governments across Europe and the US. The reforms now under way at the Vatican have come about in part because of the pressure brought to bear by banks such as Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan and UniCredit, all of which found themselves in the sights of regulators because of their business relationships with the Holy See. About three dozen banks, including some of the world’s biggest financial institutions, were for years “correspondent” banks to the Vatican, providing services when the pope’s business went beyond the boundaries of Vatican City. As with other institutional clients, the banks gave the Vatican access to foreign financial markets. Correspondent banks moved as much as €2bn a year from the Vatican’s bank to other accounts across the globe, according to a Vatican spokesman. It was the bankers’ fear of being tarnished by their links with the Vatican bank after the credit crisis – and fears of fines from emboldened regulators – that led them to take steps that forced it to clean up its act. Appeal for transparency: Peter Sutherland, non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs International and unpaid consultant to the Vatican’s treasury Several financial professionals talked in detail to the FT about their dealings with Vatican staff and provided documents about the bank’s structure. None wanted to speak on the record, citing sensitivities in both their banking and religious worlds. All told the FT that they were speaking out in order to help the bank keep to its programme of reform. Senior executives from some correspondent banks had been questioned by regulators over the past two years and several had the same refrain about their dealings with the Vatican bank: it operated unlike any other bank they had encountered. Some who spoke to the FT reinforced what later emerged from reports by European officials on the bank’s workings. There were surprisingly few checks and balances on cash flow – and far less documentation than expected. The staff was small – 112 people, largely Italian until this year, with cardinals acting as supervisors. Many of the staff seemed unversed in customer due diligence, according to some. “They would not answer basic [Know Your Client] requests,” a senior manager at an international bank says. The Institute for Religious Works issued its first annual report in early October, which showed that the bank has 19,000 clients, from around the world, 33,000 accounts and €5bn in assets. Few loans are made; the bank holds deposits, transfers money and makes investments. Half the bank’s clients come from religious orders; another 15 per cent are Holy See institutions, 13 per cent are cardinals, bishops and clergy, 9 per cent are from Catholic dioceses around the world. The rest of the clients are split among those who have, or should have, some “affiliation to the Catholic Church”, the report says. Vatican insiders also revealed that the bank is awash in donations and cash, from Sunday collections and charitable giving. As much as 25 per cent of the bank’s business is done in cash – a feature that regulators said raised red flags for money laundering. About a third of its business comes from donations rooted in charities. Laura Pedio, a Milan anti-Mafia prosecutor who specialises in white-collar crime, was one of the few sources willing to speak publicly to the FT. Pedio, who had been investigating the bankruptcy of a Catholic hospital in 2011 and needed access to Vatican bank information, said she was astonished to find a complex system of proxies, the authorisations given to representatives to execute transactions on behalf of often unidentified beneficial account holders. She found multiple people often had proxies but details about the proxy holders were apparently not recorded anywhere in the bank. Some, she said, could be verbally identified by only a few people within the Vatican bank. There was, she said, literally no way to force an answer. “The issue was always: ‘Who is the ultimate beneficiary of this account?’” she says. One adviser to the Vatican, who lives hundreds of miles from the marble colonnades of Rome, says the pursuit by prosecutors and regulators of the Vatican created a shift in mood among bankers to the Holy See. Under pressure themselves from a clampdown by European regulators, the banks were no longer open for business with a secretive Vatican. “There was a no-nonsense approach from the correspondent banks,” this adviser says. “‘We are not here to cover the ass of the Vatican.’” Vatican City, a sovereign state that fiercely guards its privacy, has some of the trappings of a small town, with a supermarket, pharmacy, petrol station and a post office within its borders. But its hometown bank has the plummiest of addresses: the Apostolic Palace. Popes Benedict and John Paul II both had their bedrooms two floors above the bank. An elevator was installed in the Apostolic Palace for John Paul II when he became too infirm to take the stairs. The elevator’s ground-floor entrance is next to the back door of the bank. (Pope Francis has opted for a less palatial residence, notably on the opposite side of Vatican City to the bank.) Debate about what the popes knew about who came and went through the bank’s doors has occupied generations of Vatican watchers. The bank’s forerunner was created in 1887 as “an administration” to gather and use money for religious works. In 1942, in the chaotic war years, Pope Pius XII gave it a new name and a clear banking purpose. The Institute for Religious Works was to provide for “the custody and the administration of monies (in bonds and cash) and properties transferred or entrusted to the Institute itself by fiscal or legal persons for the purposes of religious works, and works of Christian piety”. In the decades that followed, questions about some of that work – notably relationships and business deals examined by David Yallop in his 1984 bestseller, In God’s Name – would stir intrigue about possible Mafia connections. A 1996 book, His Holiness by Marco Politi and Carl Bernstein, offered a more benevolent view of Vatican cash flow in the 1980s: Pope John Paul II had systemically sent money to Solidarity, the Polish resistance movement, through a papal discretionary account, in an effort to break the back of communism in eastern Europe. Mafia victim: Roberto Calvi? The most infamous publicity surrounded revelations about the Vatican bank’s dealings with Milan’s Banco Ambrosiano, one of the most high-profile bank collapses in Italy’s history. The Vatican bank was Banco Ambrosiano’s main shareholder. After its demise in 1982, Banco Ambrosiano’s chairman, Roberto Calvi, was found hanged under London’s Blackfriars Bridge. Prosecutors in Rome concluded that he was killed by the Sicilian Mafia but no one has ever been convicted of his murder. In recent years, the bank has again featured in media reports for its funding of religious and humanitarian activities across the world. Former and current Vatican officials have confirmed to the FT that the bank has been used to channel cash, often secretly or with limited information given to correspondent banks, to vulnerable Christian groups in Cuba and Egypt. But Vatican insiders, bankers and prosecutors admit that a system aimed at quickly getting money to difficult places has also potentially been open to abuse by tax cheats and by organised crime. “The issue is that once you start doing opaque transactions in an institution, people don’t know where to draw a line and to stop. What started in effect with moving money to Poland got out of control,” says a senior European banker at a US bank with a longstanding relationship with the Vatican. “There were no rules,” a Vatican insider commented. “So if you add to that someone with a criminal [motivation], you are finished.” Up until 2008, according to one former senior Vatican banker, regulation of the Vatican bank was “indulgent”. This person says that no pressure was brought to bear on the Vatican to clean up its act either by regulators overseeing its correspondent banks or by officials within the Holy See. But the euro crisis changed all that. Pressure from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Europe’s Financial Stability Board and the Financial Action Task Force led to a crackdown on states that failed to comply with international rules. At the same time, prosecutors in Rome were probing suspicious transactions that appeared to be emanating out of the Holy See into the Italian banking system. Their focus was a branch of UniCredit, Italy’s largest bank by assets, that sits on the road leading up to Vatican City. Flow of funds: Pope John Paul II is said to have used the Vatican bank to channel money to Poland's Solidarity movement A routine Bank of Italy anti money-laundering investigation at the branch had stumbled upon inconsistencies in its dealings with the Vatican bank, and it referred the issue to Rome prosecutors. According to a source familiar with the matter, payment slips from unnamed holders of Vatican bank accounts were found in the branch, ringing alarm bells for anti-money laundering investigators. The investigation was shelved later that year but not without consequences for the Vatican. UniCredit says it cut off all contact with the Holy See. It would not be the last bank to do so. Forcing change was a challenge. Part of the problem was that the European Union had no regulatory power over the Vatican’s bank. So it was decided that the Bank of Italy, at the time headed by Draghi, would put pressure on the banks that did business with the Vatican. A former Italian minister with direct knowledge says: “That is the way you do it in these situations, when you have a state that you do not have regulatory powers over but you want to enforce changes. You make their life very difficult. You tell the banks they are not allowed to do business with them.” By 2009, the Vatican bank was caught in various financial crosshairs. As prosecutors continued their line of questioning, the Bank of Italy was putting on the pressure by making life tough for the correspondent banks, according to several people with direct knowledge of events. The Vatican, with an increasingly frail Benedict at the helm, tried to put its own stamp on the probes by appointing a well-connected conservative banker, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, to take over the presidency of the bank. It also made a request to the Council of Europe for an investigation by Moneyval, the council’s Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism. Pope Benedict even gave his blessing to the creation of a financial supervisor within the walls of the Vatican. Gotti Tedeschi was well known to the central bank. He was the head of Banco Santander in Italy and considered to be the right-hand man of Santander’s powerful executive chairman Emilio Botín in the country. He also sat on the board of Italy’s giant state financing agency, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti. But according to people familiar with the events, Gotti Tedeschi was viewed with distrust among some members of the council of cardinals which he tried to encourage to be more transparent. Personal battles with the Vatican hierarchy took their toll as well: in May 2012 he was ejected from the presidency after a no-confidence vote by the board. He even faced criminal charges that were later dropped after an investigation by Italian prosecutors. That year, correspondent banks also grew increasingly worried. The Vatican’s failure to comply with international anti-money laundering rules had the potential to affect their own businesses. As regulators cracked down on tax cheats in offshore havens such as Switzerland, the banks feared regulators would turn on them for working with a Vatican that was still guarding its own banking secrets. In March 2012, JPMorgan closed the bank account it held for the Vatican because the Vatican bank was providing insufficient information about funds that it was asking the US bank to move around the world, according to two sources at two different financial institutions. Other banks started to push back against the Vatican. “We would say, ‘We need to answer the regulator on this matter.’ They would say, ‘We answer to God,’” says another manager at a large European bank. The EU’s Moneyval reinforced the sense of embattlement at the Vatican with its report in July 2012. Moneyval said that the Financial Information Authority, the regulator set up with Pope Benedict’s blessing, lacked the legal powers and independence needed to monitor and sanction the Vatican’s financial institutions. It had found that the regulator had no clear right to demand access to books or information. The Vatican bank was deemed to be compliant or largely compliant on only nine out of 16 core standards. Moneyval provided ammunition for other banks and the crunch came when regulators turned to Deutsche Bank, the German financial powerhouse. Its Italian subsidiary had managed the Vatican City’s 80 cash machines and credit card payment services since 1997.
In the summer of 2012, the Bank of Italy began questioning Deutsche about whether it possessed a licence to operate cash machines for the Vatican state. The central bank said that the Vatican was not compliant with international rules; was Deutsche breaking the law by servicing the ATMs? The Bank of Italy then sent another letter, seen by the FT, that ordered Deutsche Bank to close its accounts with the Vatican bank by the end of the year. Deutsche did what regulators had hoped it would. On January 1 2013, a peak holiday time, there were no ATMs functioning anywhere inside Vatican City. Lines of visitors to the Sistine Chapel were unable to enter unless they paid in cash.
“The message sent was simple: if you want to participate in the modern world, you have to adopt modern rules,” says a senior banker at another correspondent bank. In the waning days of his papacy, Benedict made appointments that would help steer the church towards some sort of financial resolution. He appointed Rene Bruelhart, a Swiss lawyer who made his name as the head of Liechtenstein’s financial intelligence unit, as head of the Vatican’s financial regulator. Among the pontiff’s last official decrees was to appoint a new Vatican bank chief, Ernst von Freyberg, a mergers and acquisitions banker and aristocratic German who in his spare time led pilgrims to the healing waters of Lourdes. Bruelhart, the younger of the two men, was involved in the return of assets owned by the regime of Saddam Hussein to the new Iraqi government. He also helped to uncover the Siemens contract scandal of 2006, which involved bribery of government officials. This legal profile, combined with his crisp good looks, led some in the media to dub the 41-year-old the James Bond of the financial world.
Pope Francis celebrates mass in St Peter’s Square in October
Bruelhart worked swiftly to restore ATM services in Vatican City.
By February 12, he had engaged Aduno Group, a Swiss company, to take over operation of the cash machines, neatly circumventing Italian and EU regulatory pressures. In March 2013, there was a new pope – a Jesuit evoking the poverty and humility of St Francis of Assisi – and he quickly set a tone on financial correctness. Pope Francis spoke out against the “idolatry of money”, “all-encompassing corruption” and “tax evasion that had reached global dimensions”. Behind the scenes, he sent out another sign: Pope Francis moved his personal residence away from the Apostolic Palace and the Vatican bank. Francis also began issuing Papal decrees that helped speed inspections and made changes within the upper ranks of the cardinals. According to Bank of Italy sources, the new pope “marked important steps toward real reform of the legal and institutional framework”.
Backed by Francis, the Financial Information Authority was strengthened with broader powers of supervision. The pope had also asked for a review of the bank’s activities and appointed two boards made up of senior clergy and lay bankers to give advice regarding the future of the institution so that “it was in harmonization with the mission of the Catholic Church”, according to Vatican statements. So far, Bruelhart and von Freyberg have complemented each other in their approach to reform, insiders say. Bruelhart quickly set up a crisis management team to review accounts and track money transfers. Within months of the two financial outsiders arriving, Sutherland flew in from London to discuss the virtues of transparency with the cardinals. Before the meeting, Sutherland went into the dining hall of the Doma Santa Marta. Pope Francis was also there, eating breakfast, according to a witness. “I could not believe my eyes. I thought this is impossible,” says this person. “The pope in one corner and one of the world’s best-known bankers in the other.” From left: Ernst von Freyberg, Vatican bank chief, and Rene Bruelhart, head of the Vatican’s financial regulator By this summer, von Freyberg had sought out Promontory Financial, a global risk-control group that specialises in regulatory and compliance issues. Promontory’s contract, according to von Freyberg, costs “well above seven digits”.
On a bright morning in late October, nine Promontory Financial employees sat in an office beneath a painting of the Crucifixion of Christ, sorting through computer scans of account holders’ passports. They were manually and methodically cross-checking the names and faces with newly filled-in bank forms. Promontory employees now comprise 25 per cent of the staff of the Vatican bank, according to the Vatican. Next door sat Rolando Marranci, a former chief financial officer for BNP Paribas’s Italian subsidiary and now the Vatican Bank’s new director-general. He was hired in the wake of the arrest of Scarano, the Vatican accountant. By next year, these new employees are expected to have closed hundreds of bank accounts listed in the Vatican ledgers, according to people familiar with the situation.
Vatican bank officials say it will take well into next year to review them all. Accounts are being targeted when a client has been found to no longer have links to the Holy See. Where accounts are missing basic information or a client is found not to have such links, those accounts have been handed over to Bruelhart and his team. Bruelhart then judges whether to close these accounts when he reviews them in the light of the Vatican’s new, stricter anti-money laundering rules, according to bank insiders. Both Bruelhart and von Freyberg have tried to calm internal fears about the Vatican’s suspected links to money laundering. Its volume of transactions – about €2bn in and out annually – is too small to be much of a threat, say people familiar with their thinking. But suspicions remain that the bank may have been a refuge for tax cheats from Italy, which European officials admit has a problem with tax evasion. Bankers familiar with the transition between popes describe the past year as marking an epochal change. The Vatican hierarchy is taking steps to appoint experienced regulators to head a new, prudential supervisor, Vatican insiders say. Big Four auditors are looking at its accounts. The Vatican bank staff was once dominated by Italians; now it is opening its doors to foreign bankers with global experience. The clean-up has also extended to enhanced oversight of the Vatican’s treasury, known as the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (Apsa), which controls the Catholic Church’s real estate portfolio and oversees holdings of government bonds. Sutherland and fellow international financier Bob McCann, chief executive of UBS Americas, are listed as two of five “consultors” or advisers at Apsa, according to a 2013 Vatican directory.
The Vatican announced in October that its consultors would become part of a newly created supervisory board. Neither man would respond to questions about the board but there is work to be done there as well. A handful of current accounts was recently discovered within Apsa – to the surprise of auditors and Vatican officials – and they are in the process of being moved to the Vatican bank, according to people with direct knowledge of the events. The very existence of these accounts is yet another sign, these people say, of how the financial system operated for years without any clear rules. More changes are ahead. Bruelhart has signed a memorandum of understanding to swap information on suspicious transactions with the US, Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Slovenia, and it has another 15 to 20 in the pipeline. He has also reached out to the Egmont Group, an informal network of national financial intelligence units that swaps information about suspicious transactions, according to the Vatican. There is a cautious sense of optimism among technical advisers in Rome and beyond. But they admit that there is still tension between the high priests of finance and the Vatican. “It is a case of political will in the end,” says an adviser to the bank. “Though what is happening here is surprisingly unpolitical. This is about IT and handbooks, and staff training and processes and fact-checking.”
Pope Francis in October in St Peter’s Square
How far the Vatican reforms go depends on the man at the top. Named after a saint who was plain-spoken and happy with simple pursuits, Pope Francis’s approach so far has inspired the bank investigators to work some long and late hours. For them, his early reflections on what banking should be – in this bejewelled city of saints and sinners, or anywhere in the world – is worthy of some meditation. “Some say the best thing is to have a bank, others say it should be a relief fund, other recommend it be closed down,” Pope Francis said in July. “I trust the work the [Vatican bank] team is doing . . . But whether it’s a bank, a fund, a whatever, it should be based on transparency and honesty.” In Italy, there is a sense that Pope Francis, a native of Argentina, was chosen in part because he was an outsider. He understands that the Vatican’s insular nature has hurt the image of the Catholic Church and raised concerns about its relevance. His papacy will be a mission to prove that the church remains a touchstone for morality – and, to some observers, he has defined the bank scandal as an opportunity. Massimo Faggioli, an academic and author from Bologna who has studied the Vatican for the past 20 years, says that other pontiffs in his lifetime had no reason to think that the bank was important to the outside world. But now it is – and Francis, by speaking out about it early, has signalled its importance.
“Pope John Paul II didn’t touch the bank because it served his purpose of funding Solidarity from the Vatican. Pope Benedict did not touch it because he had no interest in controlling it,” says Faggioli. “Pope Francis is different because he knows the damage that has been done to the credibility of the Church by this very small bank and its history of scandals.” More questions of modernity also will test the Church: ongoing paedophilia scandals, the role of women, the possibility that priests may marry. For now it seems the newest occupant of St Peter’s throne wants the church to set an example and do what most everyday people must: get its finances straight.
Rachel Sanderson is the FT’s Milan correspondent.
This article was amended on December 16 to correctly reflect the context of Banco Ambrosiano’s collapse
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Revealed: how British Cardinal fixed Vatican Conclave for his friend Pope Francis
Pope Francis in St Peter's Square in August 2017Credit: Giuseppe C/PacificPress/Barcroft
It is a tale every bit as intriguing as the plot of Conclave, Robert Harris’s best-selling thriller set during a fictitious Papal election.
In the days before the 2013 vote, Murphy-O’Connor co-hosted a reception at the British embassy in Rome to lobby support for Cardinal Bergoglio, the then progressive archbishop of Buenos Aires.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, who has died at the age of 85Credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
According to a new book, Murphy-O’Connor invited cardinals from the Commonwealth but deliberately left off the invitation list two powerful but conservative clerics - Cardinal Ouellet from Canada, who had been a frontrunner, and Cardinal Pell from Australia.
The plan, which succeeded, was to persuade the cardinals of the need for a liberal pope without interference from the senior conservatives.
The book by Catherine Pepinster, the former editor of The Tablet, details how embassy officials left the room to allow Murphy-O’Connor time to persuade the cardinals of the importance of voting for Bergoglio.
Murphy-O’Connor had been dismayed when Pope Benedict XVI was elected at the previous conclave and was determined to avoid another conservative Pope.
Ms Pepinster, whose book The Keys and The Kingdom: Britain and the Papacy from John Paul II to Francis is published next month, said: “Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor was a popular, genial man but beneath his jovial exterior was someone of great canniness who knew exactly how the Vatican worked.
“And that canniness meant he ensured his friend was elected Pope Francis - a pope who has made a huge impact on the Catholic Church and the world. There have been kingmakers in history; Cormac Murphy-O’Connor turned out to be a popemaker.”
Pope Francis was elected on March 13 2013, the second day of the conclave, on the fifth ballot. He need two-thirds of the 115 votes to win. It is thought the votes delivered by Murphy-O’Connor were instrumental. The two men became close friends after meeting for the first time when they were made cardinals on the same day by Pope John Paul II.
In 2013, Murphy-O’Connor was too old to vote under Vatican rules, but he travelled to Rome, like many other elderly non-voting Cardinals, to participate in talks, called Congregations, before the Conclave.
Shortly after his elevation, Pope Francis was overheard telling Murphy-O’Connor: “Tuo e colpevole”, translated as “you’re to blame”.
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