Lux Lucet

The Vatican on Trial in the UK

This is a bit of an odd story, one I just came across.

According to one report, “Vatican will face UK trial for the first time in history….” As it’s reported, a Briton named Raffaele Minicione and 10 others are facing charges of corruption in Vatican City.  In Minicione’s case, he’s been charged with fraud and abuse of power, at least in part due to a property in London purchased by the Vatican in 2018.  As it’s being reported, the price the Vatican paid, according to Bloomberg was $364 million, which was far more than the property was worth.  At least that’s what the Vatican is saying. 

Bloomberg reports that the same building sold for $129 million in 2012.  Interestingly enough, the property was just sold by the Vatican in June for $223 million to Bain Capital. That’s Mitt Romney’s old company.  That represents a loss to the Vatican of $141 million.

Now I’m not going to go into detail on this bit of alleged fraud by a Vatican official.   Fraud and the Vatican go together like peanut butter and jelly.  In fact, they’re inseparable.  But there are a few noteworthy implications of this case that are worth mentioning.

First, there’s the enormous financial power of the Vatican.  In Ecclesiastical Megalomania,  John Robbins noted, “In addition to being the world’s oldest, largest, most powerful and most influential politico-ecclesiastical institution, the Roman Church-State may also be the world’s wealthiest…It is very difficult to ascertain the assets of the Roman Church-State…researchers who have endeavored to discover its riches have found no limits to them, only to their ability to see the horizon…According to Canon Law, the control of all property of the Roman Church-State belongs to the pope…That property includes tens of thousands of buildings; millions of acres of land; tons of gold and silver, and precious stones; art collections; rare documents; and millions of shares in business corporations throughout the globe” (9).

Cincinnati, where I live, is a very Catholic town with a large German-Catholic population resulting from the big waves of Catholic immigration to the US in the 19^th century.  Doing a quick mental inventory of all the real estate holdings of the Catholic Church in this area is mind-blowing.  According to its website, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati consists of 211 parishes.  Just here in greater Cincinnati, there are at least 3 Catholic colleges and universities – Xavier (Jesuit), Mount St. Joseph, and Thomas Moore college across the river in Kentucky.  There are numerous large and expensive church buildings, schools, and other structures owned by the Archdiocese.  Doubtless, there are many real estate holdings that I don’t know about.  But just thinking about the obvious real estate holdings owned by the Archdiocese in one medium-sized midwestern town is mind-blowing.   

Second, how thoroughly Rome’s propaganda about itself has been absorbed by the media.  The Daily Mail story reports that “This is the first time the Vatican will face a UK court in its 2,000-year history.”  Well, that’s just nonsense. 

The Vatican would like us all to believe that it traces its lineage back to Peter, who it claims was the first pope.  But there’s no evidence for this, not in the Scriptures anyway, which is the only source of truth against which all other truth claims must be tested.  Yet this UK paper, in what was at least once a Protestant country, repeats the Romanist talking point about the age of the Church-State without comment.

Third, there’s the political aspect of the Vatican.  That the Vatican is, in fact, a foreign state, a foreign nation, is a fact not often considered.  But Vatican lawyers make the statehood of the Vatican very clear in the piece from the Daily Mail.  According to the Daily Mail, “Vatican lawyers argued that any UK hearing could interfere with criminal proceedings and ‘legitimate acts of a foreign state.”

Did you catch that?  The Vatican lawyers call the Vatican a “foreign state.”  This is why John Robbins called the Roman Catholic Church “the Roman Church-State.”  Rome is not just an ecclesiastical organization. It is a political one as well.  This implies that all the priests, nuns, monks, bishops, and cardinals are representatives of a foreign state and should be, according to American law, required to register as such. 

Further, the Roman Catholic Church-State has been a hostile actor against the United States before our nation’s inception.  A good case can be made that these representatives of a hostile foreign power should be thrown out of the country for their seditious activities, among which is their continued attempt to subvert our republic through mass, immigration, migration, and refugee resettlement.  This case is particularly strong against the members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, who never cease their subversive activities.

Disorder on the Border     

A very good case can be made that the Vatican is the primary actor behind the manufactured crisis on our southern border. 

Rome has been plotting to use immigration, migration, and refugee resettlement to advance her dream of world government since at least 1952, and probably much earlier.  I chose 1952 because that’s the date of Pope Pius XII (Hitler’s pope) published his Apostolic Constitution Exsul Familia Nazarathana, The Emigree Family of Nazareth. 

I’ve written extensively on Exsul Familia (see here for a summary of this document) and will not repeat the many, significant problems with this document in today’s post.  Suffice it to say that Rome wants to flood America with as many migrants, immigrants, and refugees as possible, not only to Romanize America but to wholly subvert it as an independent nations state and fold it into its planned world government, sometimes called the New World Order, the Liberal World Order, or the Great Reset. Rome could not care less how they do it. If a few, or if many migrants die in the process, well, there’s a price to be paid for everything.  

It’s quite an education to follow the Church-State’s various press releases and Twitter feeds related to immigration.  Take the most recent one from 6/29/2022 titled “U.S. Bishops’ Migration Chairman Mourns Migrant Deaths in Texas.”  This press release is related to the case of about fifty migrants found dead in a truck trailer in San Antonio.  Said the Bishops,

This is a tragic loss of life and a harrowing depiction of the extreme risks assumed by migrants out of sheer desperation. With deep sadness, I join Archbishop García-Siller in prayingŽ for strength, mercy, and understanding during this difficult time, especially for the survivors of this horrific incident. I also unite with Pope Francis in askingŽ the Lord to ‘open our hearts so these misfortunes never happen again.’

Unfortunately, this disregard for the sanctity of human life is all too common in the context of migration. As a Church called to build a culture of life, we cannot tolerate this injustice. Instead, we must recognize that we are brothers and sisters, each imbued with God-given dignity. To prevent further loss of life, we urge governments and civil society to promote access to protection, including asylum, develop new pathways for those compelled to migrate, and combat human trafficking in all its forms.

This is the typical putrid fake piety that you get from the USCCB every time their policies result in the deaths of migrants.  The blood of these migrants is on the hands of the USCCB, whose policies encourage migrants to make dangerous and illegal attempts to crash the borders of the United States.  If it weren’t enough that they deny their responsibility for the deaths of these migrants, the USCCB tries to shift the blame to the American people by writing “we urge governments and civil society to promote access to protection, including asylum, develop new pathways for those compelled to migrate, and combat human trafficking in all its forms.” 

Contrary to the socialism of the USCCB and the Catholic Church generally, it is not the responsibility of the American people to fork over their hard-earned money to pay for welfare benefits for the world.  This idea is based on Rome’s communist view of property – see this article on Rome’s unbiblical doctrine of the universal destination of all goods – and must be soundly rejected by Christian people.    

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