Pope Francis in mafia crosshairs

In our September 9, and October 20 posts we talked about the Vatican Bank and its dealings with terrorists and the mafia.  The cozy history of the vatican and the mafia is coming back to bite or do worse to pope francis.  Since the money laundering schemes have been in the news so often and because an investigation is ongoing by the European anti-money laundering committee Moneyval, pope francis has been verbal about how he will clean up the bank.

Francis called on the mafia to repent for “exploiting and enslaving people” in his sermons. Of course he “forgets” that under vatican protection abusive pedophile nuns and priests have been exploiting and enslaving children for 2,000 years. He never talks about those facts.

The pope’s defenses are supposed to be the best – he spends enough of our money on personal guards – but that might not be enough to prevent him from being a mafia target.

One of Italy's best known anti-mob prosecutors Nicola Gratteri, who has lived under police protection for nearly 25 years, said the “Jesuit Pope's” clean-up plans were upsetting powerful Italian crime organizations in Italy.

"I don't know if organised crime is in a position to do something, but certainly they are thinking about it. It could be dangerous (for the pope).” If the bosses could take him down they would not hesitate,” Gratteri told 'Il Fatto Quotidiano', an Italian daily newspaper.

The mafia donates money to the church, they sponsor catholic religious festivals and pay for local church repairs. They even pay to be buried on church property (see post August 10). So the mafia has always expected the church to keep silent and support their money laundering and other banking activities.

Asked if the mafia would dare try to assassinate the pope, Antonio Nicaso, an expert on organized crime in Italy told CNN, "There are so many ways to kill a pope. They have to be careful. But in the history of organized crime, whenever they had to remove an obstacle, they never thought about the consequences." 

What does the shooting spree at Los Angeles International airport have to do with pedophile catholic priests?

Today John (Kip) Heeney passed away. He was a survivor that lived a troubled life as a result of being sexually abused by a Catholic priest when he was a student at Salesianum High School in Wilmington, Delaware.  

Today a young man, 23 yrs. old shot and killed a transit officer at Los Angeles airport and wounded two others.  This what the article said about the killer:

He was identified later by the FBI as Paul Anthony Ciancia, a 23-year-old from Los Angeles. He graduated in 2008 from Salesianum School, an all-boys Catholic school in Wilmington, Delaware, according to school President Brendan P. Kennealey.

I wonder if going to that school had anything to do with what this person did.  It seems like more than a coincidence.  What do you think?

Leader of Poland’s Catholic Church blames children for being sexually abused by priests

Archbishop Jozef Michalik of Poland said that a child from a troubled family "seeks closeness with others and may get lost and may get the other person involved, too."  This is the mindset of the catholic hierarchy and it is not the first time the children have been blamed. How can we stop these crimes when their minds are warped?

Of course when there was an outcry from citizens and prominent politicians expressing outrage Michalik said he was misunderstood and apologized. According to reporters, Michalik had supported a parish priest convicted in 2004 of child sex abuse. One of the priest's victims said she was horrified by Michalik's latest remarks. "Archbishop Michalik's words make us feel fear and revulsion," Ewa Orlowska said.

Poland's church has been hiding cases of sex abuse since 2001. Some 27 Polish priests have been tried for sex abuse since 2001, but most of them had their prison terms suspended. Can victims get justice in Poland where there is no need to report priests to state investigators?

Over and over we hear a familiar cry from the church's defenders. They say that priests are being singled out for blame while teachers and sports coaches also sexually abuse children. Do they realize that statement is basically an admission that they are pedophiles? They are saying, “We do it but so does everyone else” – does that make it less of a crime?

The catholic clergy are experts at denial and lies. Dominican Republic investigators recently accused two Polish clergymen of child sex abuse: Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, the Vatican's ambassador who was then removed by the vatican, and Rev. Wojciech Gil, a parish priest. Gil denied sexually abusing children and said that the Dominican drug mafia was taking revenge on him for his educational work.

Do all these child molesters think that we are naive and out of touch with reality? Do they ignore the growing global network that now watches every move they make? They are on a slippery slope that can only lead down to where they belong.

 

Iran and Iraq and other high risk countries have accounts in the Vatican Bank

In the September 9^th  blog (below) I explained how the Vatican bank was laundering money and having dealings with criminals and other suspicious characters.  Now, we get more information from Reuters reporters that the scandals in the Vatican books are even worse than expected.

The Vatican bank is supposed to hold accounts only for organizations and individuals related to the catholic church or Vatican City. But there are accounts that should never have been opened: those of foreign embassies such as Iran, Iraq and Indonesia who regularly make large cash deposits and withdrawals. When the embassies of these high risk countries were questioned, they had vague explanation about why they were doing such transactions. In one case, a large cash withdrawal was said to be for "refurbishment" -- is that another name for supporting terrorists?

Iran, Iraq and Indonesia are classified by international institutions and governance bodies as countries at high risk of financial crimes. The Iranian and Iraqi embassies to the Vatican said they had no comment on the cash movements or the concerns raised by regulators. The Vatican bank also had no clear explanations.   I think these discoveries are only the tip of the iceberg – how many other “high risk” countries are involved with the Vatican bank and its political schemes?

 

Suffering and pain is an art form for the vatican

I was recently in an art museum that had an exhibit by artists that were commissioned (paid) to create art work by the vatican. Looking at a large number of paintings there seemed to be a common theme: people suffering.

In countries where the vatican did not support artists, the paintings showed people doing everyday things like baking bread, sewing and tending sheep.  Why was there so much suffering and punishment in the church-directed paintings?  It’s because the church wants to frighten everyone – children and adults. Then they can more easily rape and abuse the children and rob the adults.

They were arrogant enough to write down what they did. In 1578 the church’s Inquisitors Handbook stated that punishment is not designed to correct the behavior of the person being punished – it is done in public so others “may become terrified.” Nuns and clergy with the pope’s “blessing” made examples of children, beating them in front of other children so that they are all terrified. A terrified child will submit more easily to further abuse. Worship of God should be joyful and make people happy.  The vatican hides behind God to further its own interests:  the use of children for their perversions and the misuse of donations from the faithful.  Let’s terrify the church by exposing the criminals and bringing them to justice.

 

 

N.J. priest in sexting sting thought he was talking to 16-year-old boy

N.J. priest in sexting sting thought he was talking to 16-year-old boy, wanted to meet

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/09/priest_in_sexting_sting_thought_he_was_talking_to_16-year-old_boy_wanted_to_meet.html

Here's another news article about a bishop covering up for a pedophile priest.  The reason bishops cover up for pedophile priests is that they have cardinals as role models and these cardinals, like Joseph Ratzinger before he was Pope Benedict and Jorge Bergoglio before he was Pope Francis who also covered up for pedophile priests.  

Pope Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio) defended a pedophile priest just as Benedict (Joseph Ratzinger) did before him

Julio César Grassi is a priest convicted four years ago of molesting a 13-year-old boy in the late 1990s. He was sentenced to 15 years in jail. But until this week he was free. Why?  Because Pope Francis, the then cardinal Bergoglio headed up the Argentine bishops’ conference who secretly lobbied judges to allow Grassi to stay free while he appealed his conviction. Francis and his group said Grassi should go free and tried to discredit the victims.

Grassi founded Fundacion Felices los Niños (the Happy Children Foundation) in 1993, to rescue street children. The foundation cared for 6,300 children in 17 homes across Argentina from 1993 to 2002. Grassi did the opposite of caring for the children – he used the foundation to molest and rape them.

Grassi’s trial lasted for nine months, with testimony from 130 witnesses.  He was found guilty of two acts of aggravated sexual assault and corruption of minors in the case of “Gabriel.” He was acquitted of 15 other counts of abuse of two other boys.  Why was Grassi acquitted of so many counts of abuse? Right after he was found guilty in June 2009, Frances/Bergoglio approved the hiring of a leading criminal defense lawyer and legal scholar, Marcelo Sancinetti, and secretly authorized an extensive examination of Grassi’s prosecution.

Sancinetti’s report strongly stated Grassi’s innocence and denied that there was child sexual abuse. The report went to judges who had not yet given their decisions in the case.  It dismissed accusations against two of the victims and attacked the credibility of “Gabriel,” of whose abuse Grassi was convicted. The existence of this investigation and report commissioned by the bishops and Francis/Bergoglio was revealed in December 2011 by Juan Pablo Gallego, an attorney for the Committee for Oversight and Implementation of International Conventions for Children’s Rights, who had represented the victims at the trial. Gallego called the study a "scandalous instance of lobbying and exerting pressure on the Court" and accused the bishops of "further hindering a process that has outrageously granted the condemned priest a situation of almost unthinkable freedom."

Throughout the trial, Grassi said he was backed by many bishops, especially Francis/Bergoglio. Grassi said of Bergoglio that he “never let go of my hand [and] is always at my side.” Pope Francis has, for a long time, been a public supporter of the Happy Children Foundation, but he said little to defend Grassi publicly after his arrest. In a 2006 interview with Veintitres magazine, Bergoglio said that "justice will determine" Grassi's innocence, although "there is a media campaign against him, a condemnation in the media."  As usual, when the news is good, the Vatican praises the reporters. When they write something unfavorable they have a campaign against the pope

In 2010, the Criminal Appeals Court of Buenos Aires denied Grassi’s first appeal but again the local court ruled that he could remain free.  Although the prosecutor and victims’ attorneys tried to have Grassi detained, they were rejected twice in 2010 and 2011. In 2012, Grassi’s bishop Luis Eichhorn asked the court if Grassi could live a house with a swimming pool and large park, on the same block as the Happy Children headquarters, where Grassi had assaulted Gabriel. The Court granted Bishop Eichhorn's request.

Early in 2013, the Criminal Court ruled that Grassi had violated conditions of his freedom by mentioning one of his victims in a TV interview. Grassi’s lawyers again appealed and finally, (September 19, 2013), the Supreme Court of Buenos Aires rejected Grassi's appeal and ratified his 15-year sentence. On September 23, 2013, the Criminal Court ordered that Grassi immediately go to prison to begin serving his sentence. It had taken 11 years after his arrest and four years after his conviction for him to start serving his term but he is still a catholic priest. Francis hasn’t changed that.
 

According to BishopAccountability.org who documents the crisis of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church with more than 100,000 pages of church records, legal documents, and media reports it is disturbing that Francis lobbied for Grassi so recently (in 2009 and 2010).

 

Like BishopAccountability who summarized the case we are also wondering why Francis has talked publically about financial corruption in the church and the “poor and needy” but says nothing about the cover-up of clergy sex offenders by bishops and the suffering of the abused children. Like all the popes before him for 2000 years, will he continue to ignore the global issue of sexual abuse of children perpetrated by his priests and nuns?

 

 

 

 

Pope Benedict XVI denies covering up priest abuse

The first time we hear from Joseph Ratzinger (alias retired pope benedict) he denies covering up priest abuse. There is overwhelming evidence from reputable sources that massive cover up is exactly what he did -- so his statement is worse than a lie.

To make himself sound even less believable, Ratzinger/Benedict also said that the abuse by clergy was not worse than in other organizations that have access to children (boy scouts, school coaches, etc).  Is he saying that because others molest and rape children that it is acceptable that priests and nuns do the same? By saying, “we’re not the only ones” he is admitting his guilt.

Jeff Anderson, a Minnesota attorney who defends victims told the Religion News Service he considered Benedict's responses "alarming and disturbing." The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) issued a statement saying: "The opposite of 'covering up' is 'uncovering' or 'disclosing,' We cannot name one predatory bishop, priest, nun, brother or seminarian who was publicly exposed because of Benedict."

Benedict also denied a claim that abuse is widespread in the catholic church.  Where is the proof that this is another lie?  Read the news articles, the legal testimonies, the horror stories by the victims (www.amazon.com/author/g.barilla.book.smothered).  Just a few examples:

Before Ratzinger was pope he was a cardinal and head of the vatican’s congregation for the doctrine of the faith whose supposed job was to “defend those points of Christian tradition which seem in danger because of new and unacceptable doctrines.”  He spent his long career ensuring that the rape and abuse of children by clergy was never reported to the authorities.  It was his job to discipline pedophile priests. His “punishments” included giving them jobs away from children (promotions in some cases) or moving them to another parish. Those that were promoted had more opportunity to continue their abuse and hide other priests doing the same atrocities.

Peter Hullerman in 1980, was a known pedophile priest accused of kidnapping and raping an 11-year-old boy. Ratzinger sent him for psychiatric therapy and back to work within a few days. Ratzinger then personally oversaw the transfer of Hullerman from one diocese to another in Germany where he was later convicted for molesting boys in another parish.

Ratzinger knew about the sexual abuse of 200 boys from 1950 to 1974 at st. john's School for the Deaf outside Milwaukee. He called off internal punishment of the accused priest, Lawrence Murphy. These crimes are described in a documentary film, "Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God." Barbie Latza Nadeau of the Daily Beast reviewed the film (9/9/12) that “the Holy See doesn’t want you to see.”  She said:

“…it should be compulsory viewing for all Catholics, whether they blame or defend the church, for its clarity and insight into just who holds responsibility for decades of child abuse at the hands of clergy.” said Nadeau.  Of course the Vatican had no comment.

In Oakland, CA youth ministry priest Stephen Kiesle’s colleagues found him to be molesting children; they wanted him defrocked but the future pope benedict XVI would not act on the case  for six years, while Kiesle still worked with children. The vatican even confirmed that ratzinger's signature was on letters about the case.

 

The Seattle Times wrote (April 9, 2010) that the letter may be the strongest challenge yet to the vatican's insistence that benedict played no role in blocking the removal of pedophile priests during his years as head of the church's watchdog office. Do we know how many more children were molested during those six years?  In his letters, ratzinger asks for “very careful review and more time. Time to molest? Ratzinger said he was concerned about the "good of the universal church" and about the young age of Kiesle, that punishment would ruin his reputation. How young were the victims and did he care about their lives?

Finally, after leaving the priesthood, Kiesle was arrested and charged in 2002 with 13 counts of child molestation from the 1970s. All but two counts were thrown out after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a California law extending the statute of limitations. He pleaded no contest in 2004 to a felony for molesting a young girl in his home in 1995 and was sentenced to six years in state prison.

Was he ever sorry? More than a half-dozen victims reached a settlement in 2005 with the Oakland diocese saying Kiesle had molested them as children. "He admitted molesting many children and bragged that he was the Pied Piper and said he tried to molest every child that sat on his lap," said Lewis VanBlois, an attorney for six Kiesle victims who interviewed the former priest in prison. "When asked how many children he had molested over the years, he said 'tons.'”

There are many more instances of ratzinger/pope benedict refusing to take steps to protect children. According to Dave Altimari writing in The Hartford Courant (8/4/12), just days before joseph ratzinger was elected pope in 2005, the Norwich, CT diocese bishop requested that a priest, Thomas Shea, who sexually abused at least 15 girls in 11 different parishes be defrocked – Ratzinger did nothing about it. As a priest in good standing, Shea received a pension of about $15,000 a year and all of his health insurance costs, including his nursing home bills were paid for by the church.  Altimari included a quote: "No Catholic official on the planet has more power or knowledge about clergy sex crimes than Pope Benedict. Yet he still takes virtually no steps to help and sometimes, like this case, takes steps that hurt.''

You can decide whether Benedict/Ratzinger's words today reflect the documented history of what he previously said.