Vatican, a bastion of extravagance?

Edd Doerr (arinc.org) posted a comment to the Nov 4 Washington Post article, 

“Pair of books paint Vatican as a bastion of extravagance,” by Anthony Faiola and Stefano Pitrelli.

We do not need to wait for these two Italian books to be published in English. We have lawyer Gerald Posner's 2015 book, God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican (Simon and Schuster). 

Further, we have a report in this week's National Catholic Reporter by Jack Ruhl, "NCR research: Costs of sex abuse crisis to US church underestimated." 

Ruhl writes that "The US Catholic Church has incurred nearly $4 Billion in costs related to the priest sex abuse crisis during the past 65 years, according to an extensive NCR investigation of media reports , databases and church documents." 

Ruhl adds: "In addition, separate research recently published calculates that other scandal-related consequences such as lost membership and diverted giving has cost the church more than $2.3 Billion annually for the past 30 years." 

That's a total of $69 Billion! No wonder church officials have been pushing for tax aid for their shrinking private school system through vouchers and tax credits, a scheme of course overwhelmingly opposed by American voters. 

NCR research: Costs of sex abuse crisis to US church underestimated

Link provided by Edd Doerr

A three-month investigation of data by National Catholic Reporter (NCR) , including a review of more than 7,800 articles gleaned from LexisNexis Academic and NCR databases, as well as information from BishopAccountability.org and from reports from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops concludes that:

"The U.S. Catholic church has incurred nearly $4 billion in costs related to the priest sex abuse crisis during the past 65 years, according to an extensive NCR investigation of media reports, databases and church documents.

In addition, separate research recently published calculates that other scandal-related consequences such as lost membership and diverted giving has cost the church more than $2.3 billion annually for the past 30 years."

Edd notes that " NCR is the leading liberal Catholic newspaper in the US. NCR has published a number of my letters over the years. Let’s note also that Catholics tend to be more liberal than Protestants and that most Catholics are out of sync with the Vatican on many issues, such as contraception, abortion, marriage, divorce, clerical celibacy, ordaining women, and  the necessity to send kids to church schools. "

See NCR research: Costs of sex abuse crisis to US church underestimated for details.

Vatican hypocrisy

by Edd Doerr

The Vatican and top church leaders have a strange, even pathological obsession with pelvic matters. They are all bent out of shape over same-sex marriage, homosexuality, contraception, abortion, and clerical celibacy. The vast majority of ordinary Catholics, however, have no problem with contraception and the Catholic abortion rate is about the same as for non-Catholics. As for same-sex marriage, just look at what happened in Ireland in May. By 62% to 38% Irish voters approved of same-sex marriage, an obvious slam at the church hierarchy. And Ireland is probably the most Catholic country in the world.

Incidentally, we might note that Ireland has produced two hilarious comedy television series, “Moone Boy” and “Father Ted”, that scoff at Catholicism in ways that even the brashest American producers are too timid to attempt.

But to the point. If you have not already done so, you need to read Leah Mickens’s article “Theology of the Odd Body: The Castrati, the Church, and the Transgender Moment,” in the August/September Free Inquiry. Mickens brings to our attention the “castrati,” the 6 to 9 year old little boys in Italy who were castrated so that they could be trained to sing as adult sopranos in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel choir and other Catholic churches throughout the Papal States from the 16^th century to the end of the 19^th century. Of course many of the kids did not even survive the ugly, disgusting, inhumane procedure. All this was approved and encouraged by the top echelons of the Vatican and ended only when Italian nationalists took over the Papal States in 1870.

Then we have the ongoing worldwide clergy sexual abuse of minors scandals, only seriously exposed to light in the last 30 years or so in a flood of books in the US, Spain and other countries. See my review of lawyer and canon law trained author Kieran Tapsell’s 2014 book, Potiphar’s Wife: The Vatican’s Secret and Child Sexual Abuse, in my column in the August/ September Free Inquiry and in the current issue of Americans for Religious Liberty’s journal Voice of Reason. Tapsell concludes with citing a  2014 UN report showing that thr church hierarchy has long been involved with covering up the widespread abuse and shielding the clergy abusers. My review of Seton Hall University political scientist Jo Renee Formicola’s 2014 book, Clerical Sexual Abuse: How the Crisis Changed US Catholic Church-State Relations, will also appear shortly.

So the Vatican’s sustained attacks on contraception and abortion should be taken as clericalism at its worst, not only seen as attacks on women’s rights of conscience, health and religious  freedom but also contributing to the world human overpopulation that is driving climate change and environmental  degradation.

An Orwellian “selective manipulation of history”

by Edd Doerr

The Vatican announced on May 6 that Pope Francis has approved the decision to canonize Junipero Serra as a “saint”.  This move is viewed by many Native Americans and others as approval of Spanish colonialism and the mistreatment of Native Americans. Francis should give this further thought before proceeding.

And California politicians are part of the problem. Each state is allowed two statues in the US capitol. Theirs until rather recently were those of missionary Junipero Serra and Unitarian minister Thomas Starr King, who was credited by Abraham Lincoln for keeping California in the Union during the Civil War. But when California politicians decided to put Ronald Reagan’s statue in the capitol, they removed the one of Starr King and left the one of Serra, who never lived in the US and who died before California was even part of the US.

All this seems to be part of an Orwellian “selective manipulation of history”. Shame. Americans should speak out on this.

Thoughts on Hos' Three Part Post – Gangster's Lover, Bishop's Mistress

After reading the entire article, posted in 3 parts recently, which indicated that Ms. Minardi was under the influence of drugs at times, I realized that more research was in order to determine how true her observations were likely to have been. In addition to the details described in the article, this story definitely has other tentacles and serious implications.

One of the weightiest is the story of  Propaganda Due (P2).  This organization was originally a valid Masonic organization, but then was made illegal in Italy. It was strongly anti Communist, and given Pope John Paul II's activities in support of Lech Walesa leading to the destruction of the Berlin Wall, the link to Mafia money and related events is especially problematic. P2 also had branches in other countries included Argentina during the terrible period of repression and disappearances.

I came upon other questions that also beg for details and answers. For example: Why was Archibishop Marcinkus (from Chicago) wandering the Vatican halls the night John Paul I died suddenly? Besides using Mafia money to finance Lech Walesa and Solidarity in Poland was the Vatican also involved in the Iran/Contra affair? Ms. Minardi swears she saw the body of Emanuala Orlandi who was kidnapped to pressure the Vatican to return Mafia money from the failing Banco Ambrosiano. So, why does Ali Agca, the Turk who tried to assassinate John Paul II (and later forgiven by him), insist she is alive and he knows where she is? While the article relates that Roberto Calvi, who presided over the Banco Ambrosiano, was hung from the Blackfriars Bridge in London, it doesn't mention that his secretary died from exiting his office window—suicide or murder? And, finally, what did recently indicted Silvio Berlusconi, current Prime Minister of Italy, have to do with the P2 “masonic conspiracy”?

Perhaps this very large story will inspire others to research and post more about this topic which has so many implications even for the present day. If ever a case could be made that religiosity does not lead to ethics and morality, this story does that. In sum, if this has been the nature of the leadership, how can we be surprised by lascivious behavior by various parish priests.

For those who wish to explore further, here is a list names, organizations, and events, plus others already mentioned in Hos's posts that seem worthy of further research:

Banco Ambrosiano – conduit for Mafia investing in the IOR (Institute for religious Works), and still

under investigation

Propaganda Due (P2) – Illegal Masonic group linked with various people here, how and why?

Roberto Calvi – head of Banco Ambrosiano, assassinated

Enrico de Pedis (Renatino) – Mafia chief (Rome), buried in an important church, why?

Banda de Magliana – Rome Mafia organization

Archbishop Paul Marcinkus – bon vivant and womanizer, up to his eyeballs in everything

Michele Sindona – Mafia banker, poisoned in prison

Pippo Calo – Sicilian Mafia representative of Cosa Nostra in Rome

Emanuela Orlandi – 15 year old kidnap/murder? Victim

Raffaela Notariale – journalist/author the Minardi story and a book on the Banda de Magliana

Giancarlo de Cataldo – judge and writer about Roman criminals and scandals of this period

Last, but not least, Silvio Berlusconi, Italian Prime Minister, currently in court for a sex crime accusation

Posted for Leah Williams

Gangster's Lover, Bishop's Mistress Part III

(from elpais.com),  This is the final part of translated article.

Roberto Calvi (called God's Banker)

She continues: "One day Renatino came to eat at Pippo l'Abruzzese restaurant. He was accompanied by Sergio, the chauffeur, and they were carrying two bags. "This way we will make all the evidence disappear", they said". In one bag was Orlandi's body, she maintains, and in the other, "the body of an 11 year old boy who they killed on account of a vendetta. He was Domenico Nicitra, son of another gang member".

According to Minardi, this activity had one motive: to pressure the Vatican to return the mafia money invested in the IWR through the Ambrosiano Bank. The name Marcinkus became forever tied to the secret [illegal] Masonic Lodge, Propaganda Due (P2) and the financial scandals of those days like the crash of the Ambrosiano Bank. The Archbishop had solid relationships with figures like Michele Sindona, banker to the mafia, and Licio Gelli, master of the P2. "Renatino had a positive view of Masonry. And he knew Gelli", Minardi explains. "He was part of the secret membership list that was never discovered. He always said that being a Mason opens up a thousand new paths, not just for money, but because Masonic members would never be disgraced".

"Very likely", writes Notariale, "Renatino intervened in the negotiations opened between Vatican chiefs and the Cosa Nostra [Sicilian Mafia], to return the money the mafia had delivered to the Ambrosiano Bank through Calvi". She concludes, "it is certain” that he did this favor. “Otherwise, there is no explaning the treatment they gave him, burying him in St. Apollinaire". According to the journalist, the decision was made by the head of the Conference of Catholic Bishops: his Eminence Ugo Poletti.

But let’s go back to the happy time of the Minardi-Renatino love affair: "He showered me with a thousand gifts; Louis Vuitton suitcases full of 100,000 Lira bank notes, and would tell me: "spend it all; if you come home with money I won’t open the door."

Their romance lasted two years; Minardi thought Renatino was what he said he was, owner of a supermarket. This was partly true: he had invested drug traffic profits in various businesses. Reading the papers, Minardi found out that he was a boss of the feared Magliana Gang. She began to put two and two together, and she panicked. During those two years of cocaine and danger, she had seen many things, too many. "One day some thugs tried to kidnap my daughter Valentina, and Renatino told me: "If you forget everything you've seen, nothing will happen to her."

De Pedis would hug and kiss Pippo Calò, the notorious Sicilian gangster and representative of the Cosa Nostra in Rome; hung out with wheeler-dealer Flavio Carboni (who is now today in prison for Masonic conspiracy on behalf of [Italian prime minister] Silvio Berlusconi), had meetings with Archbishop Marcinkus and Calvi, and gave orders to judges who always managed to exonerate him…In reality, Renatino gave the appearance of a businessman, but he had been a criminal since his youth. Prophetically, soccer star Giordano, who would later play Maradona in Naples, warned Minardi never to let De Pedis hold her daughter in his arms: "If there is a shooting one day, she will get killed too. In the end, all bosses end up the same, face down on the sidewalk".

Indeed, seven thugs machine gunned Renatino on Via del Pellegrino, close to Campo dei Fiori, on February 2, 1990. He was 36. That day, Sabrina Minardi was with him, shopping in the neighborhood. She heard the gunfire from a notions store. Then, the bandit was buried in the Verano Cemetery and later, secretly moved to the Vatican basilica. Recently, the Holy See offered to the prosecutors the possibility of opening his tomb. For now, the latter have ignored the invitation.

[Final thought from Hos: I do not believe everything Sabrina Minardi says. A lot of it may be baseless conspiracy theories. On the other hand, if there is a grain of truth to her story (particularly regarding the kidnapping case), I think it does deserve attention.]

Posted for Hos

Scandal at the Vatican – Mafia, Sex, Money, Kidnapping, Murder



Vatican Museum



Many have been shocked and fascinated by the recent revelations of sexual abuse of minors by some members of the Catholic clergy. This was made worse by the Vatican's slow pace in acknowledging these abuses, disciplining the offenders, providing comfort to the injured, and finally being forced to give large monetary awards to them. This story has been followed closely by those who already had their doubts about organized religion.

Now, we at Secular Perspectives have been alerted to another scandal of shocking proportions involving the Vatican. Elements of this story involve Mafia money laundering, murder, suicide, kidnapping, the assassination attempt against the Pope, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and numerous other momentous events and activities.

If people think that the financial and sexual excesses that motivated Martin Luther's revolt so long ago are ancient history, it seems we are sadly mistaken. The Vatican is a powerful hierarchical organization and the Pope is said to be infallible. Alas, it appears that as Lord Acton so vividly noted, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Nothing could more vividly illustrate this axiom than a strange, convoluted story brought to us by Hos, a member of Beltway Atheists. It is a Spanish article which states (translated), “The ex prostitute Sabrina Minardi, mistress of deceased Mafia leader Enrico de Pedis, breaks her silence and details dark secrets of Italy in the 70s and 80s—Sex, Mafia and Vatican.” This long complex article by Miguel Mora can be read in Spanish at: http://www.elpais.com/articulo/reportajes/Amante/ganster/querida/obispo/elpepusoc/20101010elpdmgrep_7/Tes

Hos wishes to post this long, lightly edited English translation in several parts.

Posted for Leah Williams

Gangster's Lover, Bishop's Mistress

(translated from elpais.com) Part I

Mid-seventies, early eighties, Italy was a powder keg. The laboratory of the modern world. The cultural and political vanguard. Cold War, the years of gunfire. Palestinians and Israelis, the CIA and the KGB, the Red Brigades, and the black terror. The Communists making deals with Christian Democrats. The Sicilian Mafia pumping heroin and cocaine into the streets. Pasolini murdered in Ostia. Pope John Paul II, with Opus Dei, preparing the imminent collapse of the Soviet bloc. Aldo Moro kidnapped and killed. The massacre at the Bologna station. Andreotti, “El Divo”, supposedly kissing Toto Reiina, the bloodthirsty Mafia boss. Sordi and Gassman, Mastroianni, Fellini and Antonioni. Celentano and Archbishop Paul Marcinkus bringing financial joy to the Holy See. The collapse of Banco Ambrosiano. The murder of Roberto Calvi (Blackfriars Bridge, London). And that of Michele Sindona, banker to the Cosa Nostra, a little poison in the coffee.

Thirty years later and almost all those dark mysteries remain just that: mysteries. Or rather, secrets that were not revealed. Crimes, often very serious, for which the culprits have never paid, and never will. “A country without truth,” said Leonardo Sciascia. A black hole we would say today.

Four years ago, out of that hole, and in a most unexpected way, on an Italian TV show “Who knows Where”, returned a woman who knew those crazy and bloody years inside and out. Her name is Sabrina Minardi. Today she is 50. She was from a poor family, born in Rome's Trastevere neighborhood. She was attractive but not outstanding, not beautiful enough to become an actress. But she did become a prostitute. Pretty enough to become a high class escort.

Through her activities she came to know closely, sometimes too closely, many of the outstanding figures of those bloody years. She committed crimes; she witnessed them; she kept quiet; she used drugs; made tons of money, and squandered it; buried her friends, and then disappeared.

Her life, like many Italian youths of that period, started with promise and ended up hellishly. At 19, on June 26, 1979, she married the soccer star Bruno Giordano. Off the playing field, many of the players identified with the fascist thugs, and some carried guns and knives. Drunkenness was common, as were brawls. On the field they acted the same, bringing down anything standing before them.

Her relationship with her nasty husband of 23, who was worshiped by half of Rome did not last long. After two years their daughter Velentina was born, who is now 28. Soon she got sick of seeing him appearing in the press with actresses. They separated, but Minardi could not longer live without danger, luxury and champagne. Soon she met the man who would be her most ardent lover, Enrico de Pedis, better known as Renatino. He was one of the three bosses of the Magliana family, the gang that dominated Rome for almost a decade.

Now, after 25 years in hiding as a fugitive from justice (arrested for helping Renatino escape), she is back and talking. But she won't tell all, according to journalist Rafaella Notariale, the co-author of Minardi's memoir, “Criminal Secret, the True History of the Magliana Gang.” Notariale is the one who brought Minardi fame with a TV interview in 2006. She says she received an unexpected call from Minardi in October 2009, saying she wished to continue talking.

Through her legendary sheets had passed soccer stars, ministers, bishops, cardinals, mobsters, millionaires, police, spies, terrorists. Minardi, like De Pedis, showed up in all kinds of places, not least St. Peter's Square. Calvi, president of the Banco Ambrosiano, was crazy about her. Archbishop Marcinkus was not far behind. On page 114 of the book, Minardi claims to have slept with “God's Banker” several times. “You have no idea how many girls were brought to the Archbishop.”

Some Italian news media say Minardi has broken her silence because she needs money, and is cooperating with authorities to help her own legal problems. Notariale says she has never asked for money, that she is ill, that one of her arms is dysfunctional from a car accident, she has a history of drug abuse with a judicial sentence reduced to 6 months of mandatory treatment, and is trying to come to peace with herself and her past.

Minardi has been working actively with the authorities for some months and has become a star witness for Rome's prosecutor. Her cooperation seems to be crucial for clarifying one of those unsolved mysteries, perhaps the darkest of them all: the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, a Vatican citizen, and daughter of a church official, who disappeared on June 22, 1983, when she was 15.

(tune in for the next disturbing installment)

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/reportajes/Amante/ganster/querida/obispo/elpepusoc/20101010elpdmgrep_7/Tes

Posted for Hos