Sunday, October 13, 2013

Germany“Bling” Bishop’s 31 million Euros palace renovations…15 thousand Euros bathtub? Vatican Holy Shit!

Updated March 4, 2014

Read our latest  related article about New Jersey "Bling"  Bishop Myers http://pope-francis-con-christ.blogspot.ca/2014/02/new-jersey-bling-bishop-myers-wants-100.html

Germany “Bling” Bishop vs Oratory of Saint Joseph “Bling” Tower

Canada’s First Nations people have no running water!

Who is more “Bling” ?

Germany’s “Bling” Bishop or Montreal’s “Bling” Oratory of Saint Joseph?

Who is more Christ-like?

Germany “Bling” Bishop’s 42 million dollars palace renovation with a 15,000 dollars bathtub (already finished) … or the Oratory of Saint Joseph’s 70 million dollars tower renovations (to be finished by 2017)?

Who serves more the public?

Oratory of Saint Joseph’s 70 million dollars tower that will accommodate only a few paying tourists and visitors?

Read our full article here  

Oratory of SaintJoseph pedophile priests! Montreal: Second class-action suit targets Congrégation de Ste-Croix! Saints and Holy Cross cannot protect children!  http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/11/oratory-of-saint-joseph-pedophile.html


German Catholics are required to give 10% of their salaries to the Catholic Church (if they want to be buried in the Catholic cemetery).  Germany’s church tax, collected by the state and handed over to the churches, raised 5.2 billion euros for the Catholics in 2012.  Germany is one of the richest countries in the world.  So what does the Vatican Prince – German Bishop do with all that money coming into the Catholic Church treasury?  He renovates his Bishop’s Palace with 42 million Euros which includes a 15 thousand Euros bathtub!  Vatican Holy Shit!  Come to think of it, 42 million Euros is barely 1% of the annual 5.2 billion Euros income of the German Catholic Church!  Really Catholics should begin to give to Doctors without Borders, the Red Cross who are instantly in their disaster areas when needed... while those Catholic Princes Bishops and Cardinals and priests are nowhere to be found.  Read the Vatican assets here http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2011/03/vatican-billions-holy-mass-tourism-for.html
 
In 2008, Bishop Franz-Peter became Germany’s youngest bishop at the age of 48, handpicked and trained by the Opus Dei and Opus Dei number 2 Pope  Benedict XVI Ratzinger.  Two years later, in 2010, Bishop Franz-Peter began building a new residence next to the cathedral, see photos below. The original cost was estimated at €5.5m ($7.43m). But his dream Bishop’s Palace and Chapel cost skyrocketed to €31m or $42 million.  

Citing Mr. Riebel, the German news agency DPA itemized the work:

$474,000 for carpentry and cupboards

$610,000 for art

$135,000 for windows for a private chapel

$34,000 for a conference table

$20,000 for a bathtub

His bathtub cost €15,000 or $20,000.  Vatican Holy Shit!  

 $482,000 walk-in closets
$675,000 for wardrobe
Private chapel for 2.9 million euros

For his private chapel where he clones the flesh of the son of God the Christ daily in the Eucharist as a magician, he wanted the roof suspended from the ceiling that required the roof to be cut open, instead of simply resting an advent wreath on an iron frame hence jumping the cost from €10,000 to €100,000.   The art in the chapel is typical Opus Dei sen in many Opus Dei chapels produced by exclusive Opus Dei exclusive factories in Spain, see image below.

“For heaven’s sake!” the headline atop the nation’s largest-selling tabloid, Bild, screamed on Friday. Over a graphic that showed the bishop’s living quarters and offices, it asked, “Why does the bishop need a €783,000 garden?”  

Just imagine how many Catholic Bishops and Cardinals there are out there all over the world wasting Catholics’ hard-earned money in their hypocritical lifestyle as Christ-imposters and Christ-cloners in the Sacrament of the Eucharist!! 


The Bling Bishop and the Popes and all priests are magicians who clone the flesh of Christ instantly in the Sacrament of the Eucharist and 1.2 Billion Catholics should wake up to the Eucharistic Hoax and donate their money instead to the Red Cross who are instantly in their areas when disaster happens while those Bishops and priests are nowhere to be found. 

Catholics should stop giving to the Catholic Church and the Vatican and give instead to the poor of Africa and to the Third World countries and the face of the planet would change enormously for the better, read more in http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/

People demonstrate against the bishop of Limburg Franz-Peter Tebartz-van-Elst in front of his old residence in Limburg, Germany, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2013






P       People demonstrate against the bishop of Limburg Franz-Peter Tebartz-van-Elst in front of his old residence in Limburg, Germany, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2013






The bishop's residence pictured on October 13, 2013 in Limburg, Germany

The bishop's residence pictured on October 13, 2013 in Limburg, Germany

File photo of the ensemble of Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst's residence with the bishop's private chapel (2nd R) in Limburg October 14, 2013
The new residence includes a private chapel that reportedly cost 2.9m euros



The JP2 Army prayer: Children’s most important prayer  -- more important than the Eucharist and the Rosary

JP2 Army with me, JP2 Army before me, JP2 Army behind me,
JP2 Army in me, JP2 Army beneath me, JP2 Army above me,
JP2 Army on my right, JP2 Army on my left,
JP2 Army when I lie down, JP2 Army when I sit down
JP2 Army when I ariseSee origin of JP2 Army Prayer http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2011/12/eucharist-feeds-dysfunction.html
To remember the JP2 Army is protect children forever from predator pedophile priests and from all kinds of pedophiles so that they are able to pierce through their theological mask as "representative of Christ" and it will empower children to see through John Paul II writings which are heartless, read our related article Theology and John Paul II are heartless and together they made the immoral Fr. Marcial Maciel thrive... and they also made complicit Cardinal Bernard Law thrive, read our related article here http://jp2m.blogspot.ca/2010/05/theology-and-john-paul-ii-are-heartless.html
Victims in USA - Attackers - Responsible Leaders

WTC & 9/11 attacks - 3,000 victims - 19 Muslims - Osama bin Laden

JP2 Army – 100,000 victims - 6,100 pedophile priests (Los Angeles, Boston, etc)- John Paul II & Benedict XVI & Opus Dei, the new Vatican Trinity

Amnesty International Report Vatican “Torture, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment” on tens of thousands of children sexually abused by priests in Ireland
http://popecrimes.blogspot.com/2011/09/amnesty-international-report-vatican.html





Look deeply into this image of Our Lady of Guadalupe defending and protecting children from the Serpent ... compared to Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Cardinals, Bishops who coverd-up pedophile priests





http://jp2m.blogspot.ca/2008/07/letter-to-opus-dei-pope-john-paul-ii.html The names of the transferring or covering up Bishops and Cardinals are: Roll Call Please!
Pope
The Hague: Full text Criminal Charges against Dr. Joseph Ratzinger, Pope of the Roman Catholic Church http://popecrimes.blogspot.com/2011/05/full-text-of-criminal-charges-against.html

The black belt means she is pregnant

\.
The womb of the Immaculate Conception of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe carried Jesus this way
[30.jpg]





DOLLY THE CLONED SHEEP













The cloning process that produced Dolly http://www.youtube.com/embed/39BbcZVCx8I




BLACK MAGIC OF EUCHARIST

1-MINUTE black magic of the cloning of Christ by sinful Vatican pope and priests



Our comment: Transubstantiation or the Mass is a recent development . St. Peter and St. Paul and the Apostles never celebrated Mass and never “transubstantiation” the bread into the flesh of Christ, what they did was to preach about Christ. The Mass was a slow development from the 12th century through various liturgical reforms until the 20th century. It was only in 1215 at the Fourth Council of the Lateran that the Mass began to take form and in 1551 at the Council of Trent that transubstantiation became what it is today.

The Vatican has come to use it as its main crux of power on earth deceiving Catholics and peoples of all faiths that only Popes and men-priests have the exclusive power to transubstantiate - or clone - God’s flesh. Because of the Mass, the Vatican has gotten away with all kinds of heinous crimes, e.g. the Crusades, the Inquisition, the burning of women and witches http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2006/11/john-paul-ii-revived-inquisition.html “For the sake of the Eucharist” and because of the shortage of priests, John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger-Benedict XVI, the Opus Dei who controls the Vatican, the Cardinals and Bishops shuffled pedophile priests from one parish to another. The rest is history: the John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army committed Holy ES Eucharist-and-Sodomy of Biblical proportions see the John Paul II Millstone http://jp2m.blogspot.com/.


In the name of Hail Mary, we dare challenge and defy the Magisterium: No words pronounced by any finite-man can create an infinite-God! No words of the Pope and priests can re-create or re-incarnate Christ’s flesh. The words of sinful popes and priests are powerless and can never create God! Only Mary the Immaculate Conception deserved to bear God in her womb. No evil pope and evil priests is worthy to touch and hold God in their evil hands. The words of popes and Cardinals, Bishops and priests are mere clashing-cymbals of St. Paul see John Paul II the Great clashing cymbal of St. Paul http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2009/11/john-paul-ii-great-clashing-cymbal-of.html.

See Benedict XVI to beatify John Paul II is “brought to nothing” by St. Paul http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2009/11/benedict-xvi-to-beatify-john-paul-ii-is.html

No matter how we look at it, finite-man cannot create an infinite-God. Man can never create God’s flesh. Not in in-vitro fertilization of the scientific laboratories. Not in the sacred altars of holy Roman Catholic churches which by the way were the same pedophile altars of the John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army See the John Paul II Millstone http://jp2m.blogspot.com/


Rome, call us heretics and we don’t care because in Boston and in America, we have freedom of speech. It was our freedom of speech that got rid of criminal-Cardinal Bernard Law and sent him packing out of our sight and out of our land. But only you, Rome, you the Roman Catholic Church a.k.a. Magisterium would glorify criminals like Cardinal Bernard Law and John Paul II. No other American state has been able to replicate our courage as Bostonians who got rid of the first Cardinal caught guilty of the John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army in America. Yes, we caught the first SS officer of the Third Reich of the Roman Catholic Church … but he went into glorious exile in Rome because only in the Catholic Church are criminals glorified See The John Paul II Millstone John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army expands into Ireland &John Paul is elevated as "Venerable"... only in the Catholic Church are criminals glorified http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2009/12/john-paul-ii-pedophile-priests-army.html


Benedict XVI, from the Chair of Peter, thinks his papal letter will heal the victims and solve the problem of clergy abuse in Ireland. The fact is, Benedict XVI’s words are powerless. NO POPE has ever healed anyone. As this picture shows,







They came sick and they left sick.


There is NO "Apostolic" authority or succession here,

for NO Pope has EVER been able to heal like Peter or Paul did.


Opus Dei Goliath-bully Bill want to propagate Catholic Medieval Doctrine that all crimes of JP2 Army of pedophile priests are already forgiven and forgotten under the Sacrament of Confession that protects criminals and persecutes their victims, read here http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2012/11/sacrament-of-confession-protects.html

Sacrament of Confession protects criminals and persecutes their victims http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2012/11/sacrament-of-confession-protects.html

Vatican bank Bishop∕accountant caught money laundering €20M and it surpasses the Da Vinci Code intrigue. Vatican greedy Mammon never sleeps and never stops http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/06/vatican-greedy-mammon-vatican-banks.html

=============================

BISHOP BLING of Germany who can clone the flesh of Christ in the magical transubstantiation of the Eucharist!
Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, the bishop of Limburg, Germany


Doesn't he look so effeminate? Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, the bishop of Limburg, Germany is an Opus Dei Cooperator member - handpicked by the Opus Dei Vatican Bishops Factory and appointed by Benedict XVI, the last Tsar of the Vatican http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/01/vatican-terrorism-on-galileo-women-and.html


Bishop of Limburg Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst is shown in the chapel of his German residence, valued at $42 million, on Dec. 3, 2012. (Boris Roessler/AFP/Getty Images)
This artwork in his chapel is typical of Opus Dei chapels and is produced by Opus Dei factories in Spain.

German Outrage Swells Over a Bishop’s Spending

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/world/europe/german-outrage-swells-over-a-bishops-spending.html?emc=edit_tnt_20131012&tntemail0=y&_r=0

German Outrage Swells Over a Bishop’s Spending

Thomas Frey/European Pressphoto Agency
Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, the bishop of Limburg, Germany, has come under fire over a $42 million renovation of his residence.

By ALISON SMALE
Published: October 12, 2013

BERLIN — Since being elected in March, Pope Francis has quickly made a mark with his displays of modesty, eschewing lavish papal apartments for a spartan guesthouse in Vatican City, wearing simple vestments, carrying his own bag and preaching against a Roman Catholic Church hierarchy that he said was overly insular and too often led by “narcissists.”

Michael Probst/Associated Press
Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst
Apparently, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, 53, the bishop of Limburg, Germany, for almost six years, is not on the same page as his new boss.

Roman Catholic bishops rarely serve as Page 1 tabloid fodder or top the national television ratings. But the prelate of Limburg earned this dubious distinction in 24 hours last week as outrage swelled after the news media reported the cost of the renovation of his residence, about $42 million, and a state prosecutor in Hamburg charged him with lying in a legal case.

The bishop ordered up a palatial living room, and his apartment alone cost $3.9 million, according to Jochen Riebel, the spokesman for the body administering church property in Limburg. Mr. Riebel said the bishop lied last summer when confronted over the cost, estimating the renovation at just $13.5 million.

Citing Mr. Riebel, the German news agency DPA itemized the work: $474,000 for carpentry and cupboards, $610,000 for art, $135,000 for windows for a private chapel, $34,000 for a conference table, $20,000 for a bathtub.

“For heaven’s sake!” the headline atop the nation’s largest-selling tabloid, Bild, screamed on Friday. Over a graphic that showed the bishop’s living quarters and offices, it asked, “Why does the bishop need a €783,000 garden?”

By Friday, calls for the resignation of Bishop Tebartz-van Elst were multiplying.
The church exists to serve the weak, the sick and the poor, said Stefan Vesper, the leader of the country’s biggest organization of Catholics and among those calling for resignation. The bishop’s behavior “is not the Catholic Church,” he said.

In September, as thousands of Catholics signed petitions for and against him, the bishop, whose diocese of 682,000 believers includes rural Rhineland but also Frankfurt, the banking metropolis, begged forgiveness from all whom he might have “hurt and disappointed.”

After a visit from a Vatican envoy, Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, who was sent to investigate the growing furor, the bishop agreed to have the German church investigate his spending, which he has insisted incorporated 10 separate building projects and was mandated by preservation laws.

On Friday, the bishop scrapped a planned trip to Israel with a church choir, but remained silent, behind the walls of the controversial residence.

“He will have to step down; there is no alternative,” said Joachim Heidersdorf, chief reporter for Nassauische Neue Presse, a newspaper in Limburg, a picturesque small town whose cathedral dates from more than 800 years ago.

In a telephone interview, Mr. Heidersdorf marveled that the bishop, who he said communicates with just handpicked reporters, had chosen now to talk only with the influential Bild, which published his spirited defense on Thursday but went on the attack with Friday’s front page. Television reports about the Limburg case attracted top ratings Thursday night.

For many commentators, the case in Hamburg hurt even more than the ballooning bills for the residence. A senior state prosecutor, Nana Frombach, formally charged on Thursday that the bishop made false statements twice under oath during his legal action against the weekly newsmagazine Der Spiegel, which in 2012 reported that he flew first class on a visit to the poor in India.

If found guilty, the prelate could face a fine. Much worse than his spending, in the eyes of Claudia Keller, writing on Friday for the daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, is the formal charge that he lied and that “till today, he is sticking hard by that lie.”

“That is not just embarrassing and a violation of the Eighth Commandment,” she wrote. “It is the complete opposite of the life that Pope Francis imagines for his bishops.”

By late Friday, Bishop Tebartz-van Elst, who was appointed to Limburg by Francis’ predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, a German, was clearly embarrassing even the cautious leaders of the roughly 24 million registered Catholics in Germany.

Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, who said he was befuddled by the multimillions spent by the prelate when the figures emerged this week, said pointedly: “We bishops must ask ourselves, where and how we live. A new building represents a chance to send signals.”

“Pope Francis is preaching to us all of the simple life, humility and modesty,” the archbishop said, according to the newspaper Passauer Neue Presse. “We all feel how pressured the situation is,” he added, noting that it was the first time he had heard of a prelate being formally charged by prosecutors. “That upsets me greatly. If it is confirmed in court, then we have a new situation.”

The archbishop plans to be at the Vatican this week and said he would discuss the case with the pope. Bishop Tebartz-van Elst was reported to be flying to Rome on Saturday. Canon law experts quoted by the German news media said that only the pontiff could decide to remove the bishop.

Bishop Tebartz-van Elst, who was ordained in 1985 and studied in France and at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana in the late 1980s, was Germany’s youngest bishop when he was installed in January 2008.

His predecessor, Bishop Franz Kamphaus, had reached the church retirement age of 75, but was apparently a cleric more in the spirit of Francis. According to Christa Pongratz-Lippitt, a correspondent for The Tablet, a Catholic weekly in London, Bishop Kamphaus moved out of the bishop’s palace into a small apartment in the adjoining seminary, using the official residence to house refugees.

A version of this article appears in print on October 13, 2013, on page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: German Outrage Swells Over a Bishop’s Spending.

Bishop of bling

GERMANY
The Economist

THE faithful of Limburg, a diocese in Hesse, have been protesting in front of their Romanesque cathedral, a few even affixing “95 theses” to its door to make their views of their bishop unmistakable. But the prelate, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, had already gone to Rome, where he awaits a meeting with Pope Francis that will determine his future. The extent of his excesses is such that it is hard to say which detail most rankles Germans, and not only Catholic ones.
For some it is the petty lying. Last year the bishop flew first class to India to look at some do-goody projects. But when Der Spiegel, a news magazine, confronted him, he insisted that he had flown business class, even signing affidavits. On October 10th prosecutors in Hamburg indicted him for perjury.

For others it is the pomp and luxury. In 2010, two years after he became Germany’s youngest bishop at the age of 48, Bishop Franz-Peter began building a new residence next to the cathedral. The cost was estimated at €5.5m ($7.43m). Then his requests piled up. His bathtub cost €15,000. Instead of resting an advent wreath on an iron frame in his chapel, he wanted it suspended from the ceiling, requiring the roof to be cut open, at a cost of €100,000 instead of €10,000. In total, the cost estimates now run to €31m.

Germans usually expect to read about such clerical ostentation in history books about the Reformation. Pope Francis, who has chosen simplicity and modesty as his message, makes the incongruity even starker. In an increasingly secular Germany this latest scandal is disastrous for the churches.

Germany separates church and state much less clearly than does America but more explicitly than Anglican Britain or Orthodox Greece. Its post-war constitution, in a clause carried over verbatim from the Weimar constitution of 1919, favours no particular faith but lets all churches levy taxes on their members through the income-tax system (8% or 9% of a taxpayer’s bill, depending on the state). The state also finances churches directly. It still compensates them for expropriations dating back to 1803, when Napoleon demanded war reparations from German princes.

With this money the churches take on more tasks than in many other countries. One hospital in three, for example, is run by a church, as are many crèches and schools. The churches are Germany’s second-largest employers (after the government). This has drawbacks, says Eva Müller, author of a book critical of the system. A Catholic-run crèche, say, can fire a teacher who divorces and remarries, even though no secular German institution may do so. In one egregious case last December, a woman who had been raped was refused treatment by two Catholic hospitals because abortion was one option.

Aside from public funds, many churches also have half-hidden pots of money to play with. Bishop Franz-Peter, for example, built his compound with money from an endowment set up by a duke of Nassau two centuries ago. Hardly anybody knows what assets are in it. The churches urgently need to make such things transparent, argues Thomas von Mitschke-Collande, a former consultant at McKinsey who has written another critique of Germany’s Catholic church.

In the meantime ever more Germans respond by severing their affiliation with institutionalised religion. Church attendance, weddings and baptisms are all declining. The exodus would be faster still but for the many Germans who remain church members for pragmatic reasons, such as sending children to a church school. Even so, more than 100,000 Germans leave the Catholic and Protestant church every year. In Limburg exits usually run at one or two a day, but have now jumped to about a dozen.


Pope suspends German ‘luxury bishop’

Pope Francis has suspended indefinitely a German Roman Catholic prelate known as the “luxury bishop” from his diocese for spending $43m (31 million euros) of Church funds on his residence.

“The Holy See deems it appropriate to authorise a period of leave from the diocese for Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst,” the Vatican said in a statement on Wednesday.

But the pontiff, who has been stressing austerity, stopped short of dismissing him outright, a step which many German Catholics and the media had called for.

In a highly unusual move, Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of Limburg was ordered to leave his diocese while an investigation and audit into cost over-runs is held, the Vatican statement said.

The bishop, who met the pope on Monday, “was currently not in a position to carry out his episcopal ministry”.

The statement said he should stay outside his diocese “for a period,” and that it would be administered in his absence by a vicar-general.

It did not specify how long the bishop would have to stay away but added that this would depend on an analysis of the finances of his Limburg diocese and the responsibilities for its high costs.

The issue has proven a major embarrassment for the pope, who has called for a more austere Church that sides with the poor.

He has told bishops not to live like princes, and has also promised to clean up the murky finances of the Vatican bank.

Carelessness or misjudgment

The German media has dubbed Tebartz-van Elst “the luxury bishop” after an audit of his spending, ordered after a Vatican monitor visited Limburg last month, revealed the residence cost at least six times more than planned.

The Central Committee of German Catholics, which brings together all the Catholic lay associations in the country, said it was satisfied with the decision to suspend the bishop.

“Pope Francis’ decision offers a chance at a new beginning in the diocese of Limburg where the situation has become heavy in recent weeks both for believers there and for the Church in Germany as a whole,” its president Alois Glueck said.

He has apologised for any “carelessness or misjudgment on my part”, but denies wrongdoing.

The bishop flew to Rome last week with low-cost airline Ryanair to explain himself to Francis – following accusations he took an expensive ticket on a trip to India and squandered money.

German media, citing official documents, said the residence had been fitted with a free-standing bath that cost 15,000 euros, a conference table that cost 25,000 euros and a private chapel for 2.9 million euros.

The “luxury bishop” story has deeply embarrassed a Church enjoying an upswing in popularity thanks to Pope Francis’s mass appeal and following years of criticism for hiding sexual abuse cases among clergy.

Tebartz-van Elst, 53, is 22 years away from official retirement age in the Church and his saga represents an extraordinary management quandary for the Vatican.

Even if he eventually steps down from the diocese of Limburg, he would retain the title and rank of bishop, meaning the Vatican would have to find another post for him somewhere.

The scandal has also put pressure on German bishops for more financial transparency in the entire Church in their country, forcing them to scrap centuries of secrecy over the reporting the value of their private endowments.

Germany’s church tax, collected by the state and handed over to the churches, raised 5.2 billion euros for the Catholics and 4.6 billion euros for Protestants in 2012.

According to some media reports in Germany, the Limburg scandal has prompted more Germans to decide to formally leave the Church. 

http://africanedition.org/2013/10/23/pope-suspends-german-luxury-bishop/

Saturday, October 26, 2013


We Are Church on Bishop Bling-Bling: "Tebartz-van Elst Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg"

http://bilgrimage.blogspot.ca/2013/10/we-are-church-on-bishop-bling-bling.html
Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst --( he poses like a female model)
Speaking on behalf of the German branch of the group We Are Church, Christian Weisner comments on Bishop Bling-Bling, Limburg bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, he of the $20,000 bathtub and $482,000 walk-in closets:
Tebartz-van Elst is just the tip of the iceberg. There is a real clash of cultures between Germany’s current cardinals and bishops — nominated under John Paul II or Benedict XVI — and Pope Francis.
And that seems to me a salient reminder that bishops like Tebartz-van Elst didn't come from nowhere. They didn't fall from the skies.
They were put into their episcopal sees by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, for whom the overriding qualification--the only one that really counted--for becoming a bishop was that one had always said yes and yes and yes again to whatever the pope wanted. Pastoral skill or pastoral sensitivity or an exemplary life in conformity to the gospels was not what counted, as the two previous popes named bishops.
Absolute obedience was what counted. "Orthodoxy" construed in the most narrow way possible--as absolute obedience to papal statements about hot-button issues like contraception and same-sex marriage--was what counted.
And what we've gotten as a result is a church full of Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elsts. Our previous popes sowed the wind through their episcopal appointments, and we're now all reaping the whirlwind.
Whether the new pope, Francis, will reverse this trend remains to be seen, as far as I'm concerned.
===================
The Vatican Exposed: Money, Murder, and the Mafia
http://pope-ratz.blogspot.ca/2010/07/vatican-exposed-money-murder-and-mafia.html

There is no disputing the fact that the Vatican, the clerical bureaucracy which controls and leads the Roman Catholic Church, is a very powerful and secretive organization. There is also little disputing the fact that great power and great secrecy typically help an organization to become corrupt. Has the same occurred with the Vatican? Many believe so and there is quite a bit of evidence through the centuries of corruption at the Vatican which would rival that in any government or corporation.

Summary

Title: The Vatican Exposed: Money, Murder, and the Mafia
Author: Paul Williams
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 9781591020653

Pro:
• Very well written - much historical complexity is presented easily and clearly
• Detailed information on events and activities most people are unaware of

Con:
• Some might not believe the book is true - it is all very incredible

Description:
• Revelations about the Vatican's corruption and connections to organized crime
• Explores the things the Vatican has done in order to maintain power and money
• Shows how many sources of Vatican finances have had immoral and illegal origins

Book Review

It seems unreasonable to think that somehow the Vatican could have managed to escape the sorts of corruption that have afflicted every other human enterprise through history, especially considering just how long the Vatican has had in order to succumb to the temptations of greed and power. People who work at the Vatican are human, just like the rest of us, and there is nothing about working for a church which would cause a person to immune from the forces which cause corruption elsewhere. On the other hand, it's not enough to simply suggest that the Vatican is susceptible to corruption. Can a case be made that it has succumbed to corruption?

That's what Paul L. Williams tries to do in his book The Vatican Exposed: Money, Murder, and the Mafia. Williams, who holds a doctorate in philosophy and a masters of divinity in church history from Drew University and who has taught religion and philosophy at the University of Scranton and Wilkes University, argues that the seeds of corruption were planted very early on when Constantine made Christianity the state religion, thus linking the Catholic Church with political power. This was a difficult time for Pope Miltiades, but he managed to cope well enough:

Miltiades was befuddled. What was transpiring before him was too bizarre to be true! Two worlds had collided. The world of Caesar with its riches and power, its pomp and splendor, was a world to be shunned. The world of Christ was a world of poverty and service, of persecution and self-denial. ... Militades died in a regal bed, surrounded by attendants. The old bishop was succeeded by Sylvester, who reigned for nearly twenty-two years. During this time the pope came to wield secular power.

And so began a long, gradual slide away from principles of self-denial and towards the greed for power and money that accompany any sort of corruption. Today the extent of the Vatican's holdings are unknown, but a major shift occurred in 1929 when Pope Pius XI signed the Lateran Treaty with Mussolini — an act which did a lot to help Mussolini solidify his own power in Italy. At the time the Vatican was destitute, lacking sufficient funding to maintain its buildings or even get the rats out of the walls. Currently, conservative estimates put the gold reserves of the Vatican above those of some industrialized countries, and its real-estate holdings larger than the land area of some nations.

A deal with Mussolini was a deal with terror and fascism, but it wasn't all that different than the deal with Constantine. This is a pattern that the Vatican has not shied away from even today. The quest for financial power led to heavy investments in fascist Italy (effectively ending ancient bans on usury), a concordat with Nazi Germany that ended Catholic political organizations in exchange for the Nazis collecting massive amounts of taxes which flowed to the Vatican, not to mention deals with fascist Croats and Mafia hoodlums.

Today, the bulk of the financial power of the Vatican (not to mention its corruption) seems to lie in the Instituto per le Opere di Religione, commonly known as the Vatican Bank:

Despite its claims otherwise, the Vatican Bank is not a branch of the State of Vatican City. (Stato della Citta del Vaticano). It exists as an entity unto itself without corporate or ecclesiastical ties to any other agency within the Holy See. It is under the direct supervision of the pope. He is the one and only stockholder. He owns it; he controls it.

Unlike any other financial institution, the Vatican Bank is audited by neither internal nor outside agencies. Its worth remains a matter of conjecture, even for members of the College of Cardinals. There is not a scrap of its papers among all of the other bureaucracies of the Roman Church - not even ecclesiastical financial agencies - that attests to its assets or accounts. In 1996 Cardinal Edmund Szoka, the internal auditor of the Holy See, told investigators that he has no authority over the Vatican Bank and has no knowledge of its operations.

Much of Williams' book involves an investigation of the activities of the Vatican Bank and those who have represented it in the name of the pope. Murder, mobsters, fraud... the title of the book may be rather lurid, but if only a portion of what Williams writes is true, then the title is also quite accurate and fair.

http://atheism.about.com/od/bookreviews/fr/VaticanExposed.htm


===================



Opus Dei Bishop Finn (above image, see more here http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/01/criminal-bishop-finn-attacks-national.html) of Kansas City guilty of aiding and abetting 50 years in federal prison Reverend Father Ratigan - still cloning Christ in the Magid and Sorcery of the Eucharist



Opus Dei Golden Cow John Paul II statues worldwide vis-a-vis Paterno statue gone from Penn State. Only the Catholic Church glorifies criminals http://stella0maris.blogspot.ca/

BOYCOTT Oratory of Saint Joseph! CANDLES to giant Zeus statues of St. Joseph and Brother Andre cannot protect children from CSC pedophiles


Vatican Billions: its history, sources, and assets today worldwide. BOYCOTT the Vatican Museum and boycott ALL donations to the Vatican Catholic Church Reign of Terror

No comments: