Posts tagged vatican
White Smoke At Sistine Chapel Signals Election Of New Pope
Mar 13th
BREAKING NEWS: VATICAN CITY (AP) – Argentine Jorge Bergoglio has been elected pope, the first ever from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium. He chose the name Pope Francis. source – AP
White smoke at Sistine Chapel signals election of new pope
The decision by 115 cardinal electors came sooner than many faithful expected because of the large number of possible frontrunners identified before the vote to replace Pope Benedict, who resigned in February.
The name of the new leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics was expected to be announced in around half an hour from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.
The secret conclave began on Tuesday night with a first ballot in the Renaissance splendor of the chapel and four ballots were held on Wednesday.
The white smoke indicated the new pontiff had obtained the required two thirds majority in the fifth ballot.
Following a split ballot when they were first shut away amid the chapel’s Renaissance splendor on Tuesday evening, the cardinal electors held a first full day of deliberations on Wednesday. Black smoke rose after the morning session to signal no decision.
Cheers arose from hundreds of people sheltering from incessant rain under a sea of umbrellas in St. Peter’s Square as the white smoke billowed from the narrow chimney. source – JPost
America’s Top Catholic Blogger Says Pope Benedict Is GAY
Feb 28th
Men living with men
Pope Benedict XVI will officially retire at 8 p.m. tomorrow, but his retirement package is raising a few eyebrows — and resurrecting rumors about his sexuality. Rather than decamp to some monastery in Germany as many expected, Benedict will instead stay living in the Vatican.
Are they partners for life…or Life Partners?
CNN reports he will be living in the Mater Ecclesiae (Mother of the Church) building, which formerly housed a cloistered convent in the Vatican gardens. He will be referred to as the “emeritus pope” and keep wearing the white — though he will lose his trademark red shoes, perhaps wearing a pair of “handcrafted brown loafers” instead, the WSJ reports.
One detail that has caused particular scrutiny is that the Pope will continue to live with his trusted secretary Archbishop Georg Ganswein, who will also be head of the new Pope’s household — from the sounds of it, working two jobs.
The Vatican denies that Ganswein working for both the old Pope and the new Pope will cause any conflict of interest. But there’s a more scandalous question as well, as put forward by Andrew Sullivan, perhaps the best-known Catholic blogger in America, today:
So Benedict’s handsome male companion will continue to live with him, while working for the other Pope during the day. Are we supposed to think that’s, well, a normal arrangement?
Sulivan, a gay man himself, has raised the question of the Pope’s sexuality before (he doesn’t suggest that the Pope has acted upon his sexual urges, we should note).
In 2010 he wrote that “it seems pretty obvious to me … that the current Pope is a gay man,” and went on to describe his reasoning:
When you look at the Pope’s mental architecture (I’ve read a great deal of his writing over the last two decades) you do see that strong internal repression does make sense of his life and beliefs. At times, it seems to me, his gayness is almost wince-inducing. The prissy fastidiousness, the effeminate voice, the fixation on liturgy and ritual, and the over-the-top clothing accessories are one thing. But what resonates with me the most is a theology that seems crafted from solitary introspection into a perfect, abstract unity of belief. It is so perfect it reflects a life of withdrawal from the world of human relationship, rather than an interaction with it. Of course, this kind of work is not inherently homosexual; but I have known so many repressed gay men who can only live without severe pain in the world if they create a perfect abstraction of what it is, and what their role is in it.
Sullivan isn’t exactly alone in his suspicions. He points towards a book by Angelo Quattrocchi (playfully titled “The Pope is Not Gay”) that he felt reached similar conclusions. In addition,former Benedictine monk-priest and author Richard Sipe claims to have spoken to a number of Roman clerics and members of the Roman press corps who were “convinced” that Benedict XVI was gay.
Of course, it doesn’t help the rumors that Ganswein has become something of a star in his own right. He’s been dubbed the “The George Clooney of the Vatican,” and appeared on the cover of the Italian Vanity Fair under the headline “It’s no sin to be good looking.” Donatella Versace has even dedicated a menswear collection to him. source – Yahoo
First Pope In 600 Years To Step Down
Feb 11th
“And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.” Revelation 13:1
He will be the first head of the Roman Catholic Church to resign in almost 600 years, with his departure expected to leave the post vacant for around three weeks.
The 85-year-old German’s resignation letter said: “After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.
“I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering.
“However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognise my incapacity to adequately fulfil the ministry entrusted to me.”
He will step down after almost eight years in the post, having been elected in April 2005. source – Sky
Vatican To Force Thousands To Take ID Cards With RFID Microchip Tracking
Dec 3rd
RELATED STORY: The Mark of the Beast
Vatican clergy and employees will be issued with an identity card complete with a microchip-tracking device in sweeping new security measures designed to prevent a repeat of the Vatileaks scandal.
Vatican introduces new security measures after Vatileaks scandal
Much tighter controls have already been introduced for anyone seeking access or photocopies of the Holy See’s archives, dossiers and documents.
The Papal Apartments, which include the living quarters of Pope Benedict XVI and the offices of his personal staff inside the Apostolic Palace, are totally off limits to anyone without strict authorisation.
Slovenian priest, Mitja Leskovar, an anti-espionage expert nicknamed ‘Monsignor 007′, is in charge of implementing the new security procedures with the identity cards expected to be introduced from January 1.
Leskovar, who grew up in the former Yugoslavia under Communism, is responsible for the transmission of confidential documents between the Vatican and its papal nuncios or diplomats inside the Secretariat of State and also supervises all requests for document photocopying within the secretariat.
Thousands of clerical and lay staff working inside the walls of the Vatican from the Apostolic Palace to the Secretariat of State will be affected by the tighter scrutiny that will also enable their superiors to monitor when they clock in and out.
The security shake-up was revealed after Claudio Sciarpelletti, the computer expert convicted of aiding and abetting the pope’s former butler Paolo Gabriele in the Vatileaks scandal, dropped his appeal on Saturday.
The move came as the three judges who assessed the case raised doubts about Sciarpelletti’s credibility and the friendship between the two men.
Sciarpelletti was convicted in November of aiding and abetting Gabriele, who himself was convicted of stealing the pontiff’s private documents and leaking them to an Italian journalist in an embarrassing security breach that rocked the Vatican earlier this year.
According to a report in the Italian daily La Stampa, Gabriele’s replacement – Sandro Mariotti known as ‘Sandrone’– is prohibited from carrying out any secretarial tasks or even sharing an office with the pope’s personal secretaries, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein and Monsignor Alfred Xuereb, as Gabriele did in the past.
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told The Daily Telegraph these kind of security measures had been talked about within the Vatican for years but declined to comment on any details and said he did not know the precise timing of the measures. source – Telegraph UK
Watch ‘Muslim Demographics’, The Video That’s Sending SHOCKWAVES Through The Vatican
Oct 16th
The coming One World Religion
The bible teaches that, during the time of the Great Tribulation, there will be a One World Government headed up by the Antichrist, and that he will also be the object of worship of the One World Religion that will also be set up. The last time that the Vatican was in world power was during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. This was a time of great persecution of bible believing Christians by the Catholic Church, with the killings and the slaughter carried out by Rome’s alliance with Spain. We believe that during the Great Tribulation, the Vatican in Rome will form an alliance with Islam, and the killings and slaughtering of bible believing Christians will once again be carried out.
Live Broadcast 10.21.12 On NTEB Radio: The Coming Alliance Between The Vatican, Islam And Mormonism
With that in mind, please note the story below. The Vatican has just realized how huge the world’s Muslim population is, and we say that according the bible, Rome will soon form an alliance with Islam and bring them in as their “muscle”. Once this happens, the Vatican will once again become a world theocratic power and will fulfill the prophecies about the Catholic church found in chapters 17 and 18 of the book of Revelation.
From Yahoo News: VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – A Roman Catholic cardinal has caused an uproar at the Vatican by screening a spurious YouTube video that makes alarmist predictions about the growth of Islam in Europe.
Reuters/REUTERS – A cardinal arrives to attend a mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI marking the opening of the Synod of bishops in St. Peter’s square at the Vatican October 7, 2012. REUTERS/Tony Gentile
The seven-minute clip, called “Muslim Demographics,” was the talk of an international gathering of bishops on Monday, two days after Cardinal Peter Turkson screened it during a free discussion period.
Turkson, a Ghanaian who is based in the Vatican and is president of its Council for Justice and Peace, sparked consternation among his fellow bishops over the clip.
“As we were arriving this morning I was asked several times ‘Who planned it? Whose was it? Who is behind it?” Father Thomas Rosica said at a briefing for journalists, who are not allowed to attend the synod sessions, the first since the screening.
He said the clip had sparked “the most animated” discussion so far at the three-week conference, and one bishop said he would rebut Turkson by presenting a report with contrary data.
The clip has brought Islam to the top of the agenda at the synod, attended by 262 bishops. “Islam is the buzzword,” Rosica said.
Turkson could not be reached for comment on why he chose to screen the video during the Vatican meeting, where the bishops are discussing ways of winning back lapsed Roman Catholics in developed countries.
The clip, which has been viewed over 13 million times on YouTube since it was uploaded by an anonymous user in 2009, combines dramatic music with skewed population statistics to make claims about various European countries such as “In just 39 years France will be an Islamic republic.”
Critics have pointed out that the fertility figures used in the video, which claim French women have an average of 1.8 children while French Muslim women have 8.1 children, cannot be genuine as France does not collect statistics by religion.
Watch The Muslim Demographics Video (full length):
According to a study by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center there were 2.18 billion Christians in 2010, half of which were Catholics. The total number of Muslims of all denominations was 1.6 billion and forecast to increase 35 percent to 2.2 billion by 2030, according to the research group.
The Holy See’s relations with Islam have not always been smooth. In 2006 Pope Benedict gave a speech in Regensburg which was perceived by some Muslims as an attack on Islam.
“It’s our shared responsibility as brothers and believers in the same holy God,” he said.
Asked about his reaction to the cardinal showing the video at the Vatican, Yahya Pallavicini, vice president of the Islamic Religious Community of Italy, warned against a numbers war based on scare tactics by any side.
“I think that we should focus, Muslims and Christians, on our common challenges, rather than challenging each other in scary attitudes on who is going to increase or decrease in numbers,” Pallavicini told Reuters. source – Yahoo News
Merging With Islam? Pope Prays In Arabic For First Time Ever
Oct 10th
The Coming One World Religion
“And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.” Revelation 17:7
AFP - Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday pronounced a blessing in Arabic at his weekly audience in front of 20,000 pilgrims on St Peter’s Square – the first time the language has been used at such an event.
Students of bible prophecy have long suspected that in the last days before the start of the Great Tribulation, that there would be a merger of the Vatican with Islam. Looks like we are well on our way to seeing that becoming a reality.
“The pope prays for all Arabic speakers. May God bless you all!” the pope said in Arabic at the audience, after a bishop read out an Arabic translation of the pope’s comments praising the results of the Second Vatican Council.
The landmark Council, which began 50 years ago this week, is a “compass” for the Catholic Church “in the middle of the storms”, the pope said.
As a young reformer, the then Joseph Ratzinger took part in the Council, better known as Vatican II, which revolutionised Catholic rituals.
The Council brought together 2,250 bishops and lasted from 1962 until 1965.
The pope has always defended the 15 “constitutions” adopted by the Council despite complaints from traditionalists in the Church over several reforms.
Benedict will celebrate mass on St Peter’s Square on Thursday to launch a “Year of Faith” on the exact anniversary of the start of Vatican II. source – France 24
The Palestinian Islamic-’Christian’ Alliance Is The Enemy Of Israel
Aug 29th
Stealing Jerusalem from the Jews
“And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” 2 Corinthians 6:16-18
Let me just say right off the bat that if you are a bible-believing Christian, this story will make you mad. Very mad. Let me also say that the so-called “christian” groups mentioned in this alliance of devils – mainly the Greek Orthodox, Anglican and Catholic churches – are not Christian churches by the bible’s definition, and in NO WAY speak for the hundreds of millions of actual bible-believing Christians across the globe. These groups are the ENEMY of Christ, the enemy of bible believers, and the absolute enemy of the state of Israel and every Jew that resides in it. The World Council of Churches is a pit of devils and they speak for no bible-believing Christian church that we know of. These groups are christian in name only, and are rejected by actual, bible-believing Christians around the world.
Jerusalem will always be the capital city of Israel, and all those who oppose her will be destroyed according the prophets.
We stand in complete and total solidarity with our Jewish brothers and sisters in Israel when we declare that Jerusalem is the now-and-forever-capital of Israel, declared to be so by God Almighty, and this is a covenant that shall never be broken.
From Arutz Sheva Op-Ed: The Temple Mount, the place where Avraham came to sacrifice his son to God, the site of the first and second Jewish Temples, where the Jewish people worshiped for hundreds of years and the focal point of every practicing Jew’s prayers, is under assault from the Islamic-Christian Committee.
This relatively new Palestinian institution has been able to win the support not only of the entire regional Christian leadership, but also of leading Christian personalities from abroad.
The Islamic-Christian Commission has just warned that the Israeli authorities are working to impose “a false Jewish history” in Jerusalem, “the occupied city”, especially “on the area known to Jews as the Temple Mount”. The Commission warned of new “Judaization”. Such fabricated lies help the Palestinians to conquer a seat in theinternational agencies like Unesco and to excite the Muslims against the Jews.
The Vatican’s former archbishop in Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, who is involved in advancing Islamic-Christian alliance, promoted an appeal to the European Union and United States to “stop the Hebraization of Jerusalem”. The new Latin Patriarch, Fouad Twal, took part in a meeting in London with Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, in which the Vatican envoy denounced the “more than 550.000 Israelis living in East Jerusalem and the West Bank” and “the demography of Jerusalem changing rapidly with the sacred space being threatened”.
The Islamic-Christian Committee was founded by the former Greek Orthodox Archbishop Atallah Hanna and enjoys the participation of Catholic leaders like Claudette Habesch, Secretary General of Caritas Jerusalem for the last 25 years, which is the most important Vatican humanitarian arm in the world. Hanna called for the creation of an Islamic-Christian union that would “release Palestine from the river to the sea”.
He also supported the suicide attacks against the Israeli civilians: “The suicide bombers who carry out their activities in the name of religion are national heroes and we’re proud of them”, Hanna said.
Along with Hassan Khater, who wrote the Al Quds and Al Aqsa Encyclopedia, the Christian-Islamic Committee also enjoys the participation of Sheikh Tamimi, the most high profile Islamic judge of the Palestinian Authority, deported by Israel temporarily in 1980 after terrorists killed six Jewish students in Hevron and a self-professed anti-Semite.
“Perhaps one day the world will awake and realize that these Zionist elements are the bloodletters who hang on the peoples, sucking their blood and consuming their resources”, Tamimi has said.
This Islamic-Christian Committee was pivotal during the Second Intifada in raising the false alarm on the “holy sites” endangered by Israel. In May 2000, Yasser Arafat met Islamic and Christian clergymen, led by Tamimi and Archimandrite Hanna, at the presidential offices in Ramallah. A few weeks later, before the Camp David summit, Jerusalem’s Christian patriarchs backed Palestinian sovereignty over Jerusalem.
Among the clergymen, Diodoros I, patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church, Torkom II, patriarch of the Armenian Orthodox Church and Catholic Patriarch Michel Sabbah. Officials from the Custody of the Holy Land, a Franciscan-Vatican order with special authority over Christian sites, were also present at the meeting.
PA’s President Mahmoud Abbas is now following in Arafat’s path. Speaking at theInternational Conference for Defense of Jerusalem in Doha, Qatar, Abbas recently said that “the Israeli occupation authorities are using the ugliest and most dangerous means to implement plans to erase and remove the Arab-Islamic and the Christian character of east Jerusalem”. The conference’s purpose, under the auspices of the Islamic-Christian Committee, is to combat the “Judaization of Jerusalem”.
There were many Christian figures attending the event, like Elias Awad of the Catholic Patriarchate of Jerusalem, Patriarch Gabi Hachem of the Liqa Center and Bishop Georgi Panossian, Primate of the Armenian Orthodox Church.
The United Nations also sent several high profile officials, Robert Serry, UN Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, and Filippo Grandi, Commissioner General of Unrwa.
Abbas denied Jewish history on the Temple Mount and stated that Israel plans to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque, a lie designed to incite Muslims to rise up against Jews.
Recently, the World Council of Churches also incited against the “occupation”, “settlements” and Jewish rights in Jerusalem.
As historian Bat Ye’or explained, in a large number of documents going back to the 1970s, the Organization of the Islamic Conference recommended “cooperation with Churches in the fight against Israel”. This emerged from a conference held in Amman in 2004 as part of the Muslim-Christian dialogue. The official theme was the protection against Israel of Muslim and Christian holy places in Jerusalem. At the Amman conference, the speakers emphasized the importance of “Muslim-Christian solidarity” in the fight to seize al Quds and to drive Israel out of it.
Their proposals included the adoption of the Muslim and Christian sites in Jerusalem by mosques, churches and monasteries, and by Muslim and Christian institutions worldwide. “Promoting al Quds would be done through films, television, songs, and festivals, under the supervision of a special Muslim and Christian cell that would be working with all the appropriate means”.
23 December, 1995, is the date of the turning point for the Islamic-Christian alliance against the Jews in Jerusalem. The Greek Orthodox patriarch of the holy land, Deodorus I, handed over the custody of Churches in Jerusalem to PLO leader Arafat. This was done in the presence of the Catholic, Anglican and Greek Orthodox archbishops.
The patriarch declared: “I am the heir of Sophronius and I am handing the keys (to Christian holy sites in Jerusalem) to the heir of Omar Ibn al-Khattab”. Omar, the caliph who claimed Jerusalem from Byzantine rule in 638, gave then Patriarch Sophronius custody of Churches and a pledge to safeguard them. The move was meant to put Christian holy places under the custody of Arafat, a Muslim, and strengthening the Arab-Islamic claim to Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.
Why did Arafat desire the mention of this 1,300-year-old story? He saw himself as conquering Jerusalem a second time in history for the Muslims.
Any reference to Omar simply means, “Jerusalem must be Judenrein”.
The final goal of this Muslim-Christian dialogue is to erase any Jewish presence in the so called “holy basin”, an alliance of the mosques and the sepulcher which will exclude the Jews from the Temple Mount.
As the early Christians had left the Temple deliberately in ruins, it’s now the turn of the Islamicized Mount to keep it that way. Will this new Islamic-Christian alliance able to convince the European Union, the UN and the US to baptize Jerusalem “Al Quds”? source – Arutz Sheva
