Does a freemasonic lodge named "P2," which existed in Italy in the 1970s and was at that time linked to the Vatican bank scandal involving Archbishop Marcinkus, still exist? The American Catholic writer Michael Brown has written a passionate editorial on his popular "Spirit Daily" website suggesting this may be so, and asking the Pope to clarify the situation, if he can...
By Robert Moynihan ============================== =======
Yesterday and Today
Yesterday the news broke that the Vatican was under investigation by Italian authorities for "money laundering." Today, many are discussing this story, and trying to understand what is happening.
One interesting reflection is by Michael Brown, an old friend, who runs an interesting website which is visited by thousands every day, called "Spirit Daily." He provides important links to unusual and sometimes bizarre but generally interesting stories from around the world, and writes an occasional column of his own.
Here is the link to his reflection (click on the title of the story at the top of the page): http://www.spiritdaily.com ============================== ===========
PROBLEMS AT VATICAN BANK BRING OUT STRANGE THEORIES OF MASONS, MAFIA, AND ROTHSCHILDS
By Michael Brown
With the trip to England, the Pope has stepped fully into the papacy.
There were no major setbacks and he presented the Church as still the most dignified representative of humanity -- and did so in the secular heart of the secular continent (stepping into the belly of the beast, so to speak, and leaving unwounded; indeed, with new and well-deserved respect).
Thus far it is the high point of Benedict XVI's pontificate, coming at a time when Church credibility in Europe is in crisis and to a region that has been of special cause to him.
The British media admitted that Pope Benedict "succeeded in presenting himself as a lovable, elderly figure," as one news service stated. "What the visit accomplished above all was to unify Catholics and humanize a pope who has so often been perceived as cold, aloof and authoritarian," wrote Catherine Pepinster, editor of a Catholic newspaper called The Tablet. It was a huge victory, the product of courage, which means it was the product of faith. A Crucifix he held even seemed to radiate.
"This was a much more successful visit than the Roman Catholic hierarchy had dared to hope," said the Daily Mail newspaper. "The crowds were larger than had been forecast, if not as big as they were when the charismatic Pope John Paul II came to this country 28 years ago." The Sun added: "The pontiff's visit proved much more substantial than anticipated." Upon his return, the Pope was met by what may or may not turn out to be another scandal -- an investigation by Italian authorities of the Vatican bank's chief and the impounding of $30 million of Vatican assets.
It is too early to tell if there is merit to the investigation or whether the Italian authorities and media are playing it up as a little taste of persecution (perhaps the devil's response to the success in England).
The bank chief, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, says it was all caused by an error in procedure: money transfers from one account to another that were not "money-laundering," which is what authorities ostensibly are guarding against.
It was also a mistake and inexperience that some believe caused the indictment nearly thirty years ago of the late Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, an American who headed the Vatican bank who was charged as an accessory to fraudulent bankruptcy in a scandal over the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano in the 1980s in one of Italy's largest fraud cases.
Roberto Calvi, the head of Banco Ambrosiano, was found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982 in circumstances that still remain mysterious and some believe had the earmarks of a Masonic "hit" (P2 Masonic Lodge).
(In 1990, Archbishop Marcinkus told Robert Moynihan of Inside the Vatican, "Before I die, come talk to me. I will tell you things that will curl your hair." "He then retired to Sun City, Arizona," says Moynihan. "Early in 2006, I phoned him there. 'Would it be the right time now for me to come talk to you?' I asked him. He said, 'Not yet.' A week later, I called a second time -- I felt it was about time to see him, as 16 years had passed since our last meeting. 'Not yet, but soon,' he told me. A few days later, he died.") London investigators first ruled that Calvi committed suicide, but his family pressed for further investigation. Eventually murder charges were filed against five defendants, including a major Mafia figure, and they were tried in Rome and acquitted in 2007, notes another news website.
Some even believe that John Paul I was murdered (we don't accept such theories, at this point) because he was going to clean the bank of any such Masonic influence or corruption. In fact, Tedeschi was assigned as current bank chief by Benedict precisely to make sure its transactions are all totally aboveboard ("transparent").
The bank has long been a magnet for conspiracy theorists and Vatican detractors (including born-again sites that want to portray Rome as the seat of anti-Christ).
A few even accuse it of being under the thumb of the famous Rothschild family, which is associated not only with enormous European wealth but also with attempts at forming a new world order and single global government (it is very active with secretive groups such as the Bilderbergs). We see no definitive proof of the Rothschild theory either, but such has to be totally ensured.
Can the Vatican somehow better separate itself from financial dealings with all worldly groups -- especially investments? Let us repeat what we reported last week: When the great Thomas Aquinas visited the Vatican, it is said that an officer of Pope Innocent the Fourth brought in a bag of money. The Pope reputedly said to Aquinas, "You see, young man, the age of the Church is past, in which he said, 'Silver and gold have I none.'"
To which Aquinas replied, "True, holy father, but the age is also past, in which he could say to a paralytic, 'Rise up and walk.'" ( Note: There are links to sources for this article at the bottom of the article on Michael Brown's website.)
============================== ============
An Odd Deletion?
Then, just a few minutes ago, I received this email from a reader in Tokyo:
"I realized that the sentence 'A spokeswoman for the Bank of Italy said it been acting under European Union directives' which is quoted as the last sentence of the New York Times article by you, does not appear in the article as published on the New York Times
webpage. How come?"
Hmmm, I thought... How can that be? I clicked on that article myself and copied it into my yesterday's newsflash... So, I went back to Rachel Donadio's story at the New York Times website, at this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/world/europe/22vatican.html?_r=1
And I rubbed my eyes.
Lo and behold, the last sentence, which was there yesterday when I copied the piece for my newflash -- a text you all received -- was no longer there.
I then re-read the entire story, and I found that the story had been slightly edited, though the link is exactly the same.
The sentence "A spokeswoman for the Bank of Italy said it been acting under European Union directives" is, in fact, no longer the final sentence of the story.
But the reference to the "European Union directives" has not been deleted altogether.
Here is the relevant phrase, now inserted into an earlier sentence in the story:
"Officials said they had opened the investigation on Monday after the Bank of Italy, adhering to anti-money-laundering directives issued by the European Union, alerted them to two suspicious transfers on Sept. 6 from an account held by the Vatican bank at a Rome branch of Credito Artigiano S.p.A., a bank based in Northern Italy."
In other words, the final sentence was deleted, and a phrase was added at the spot where the text is bold-faced above.
So, yes, the story as posted today no longer ends with the sentence I quoted yesterday. But the information is still in the story, more or less.
I note that this is an example of how stories on the internet can shift and change, and even disappear.
You may have noted this yourselves in the past.
So, the internet is a wonderful, very powerful tool.
It is also a very rapidly shifting and sometimes unreliable tool.
This is one more reason for having a printed edition of a publication, where the texts cannot be changed, and where they can be preserved indefinitely -- though it is quite expensive to keep a print publication going in the current economic environment. ( See note below.)
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“He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God's providence to lead him aright.” —Blaise Pascal
(French mathematician, philosopher, physicist and writer, 1623-1662)
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