Tag: Vatican

  • Donations Tilt Vatican In Favor of Azerbaijan

    Donations Tilt Vatican In Favor of Azerbaijan

    In a lengthy article published in the Irpmedia.irpi.eu in Italian on March 27, 2024, titled, “How Vatican helped legitimize the Aliyev autocracy in Azerbaijan,” Simone Zoppellaro exposes Vatican’s pro-Azerbaijan tilt due to financial donations, despite Armenia being a Christian nation, while Azerbaijan is Islamic.

    On Feb. 22, 2020, the autocratic leader of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, and his wife, Mehriban Aliyeva, the country’s Vice President, paid a state visit to the Vatican. They were received officially by Pope Francis, Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and Secretary for Relations with States Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher. Mrs. Aliyeva was at the Vatican to receive the highest honor awarded to a lay person by the Holy See: “The Grand Cross.” The award is proposed by the Diocesan Bishops “as a sign of appreciation and gratitude for services to the Church or to society reserved for Heads of State, ministers, ambassadors, and royalty.” However, the driving force behind Vatican’s interest in Azerbaijan is the financial support provided by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation.

    Ironically, despite Azerbaijan’s intolerance of minorities, dissidents and other religions, the Holy See expressed its appreciation to “Azerbaijan’s openness and peaceful attitude towards different faiths.”

    Fearing the loss of Azerbaijan’s donations, the Vatican has been reluctant to allow any criticism of Baku, particularly by its own clergy. “Father Georges-Henri Russyen was expelled from the Pontifical Oriental Institute because he was critical of those who did not want to use the formula ‘Armenian genocide.’”

    Given the expectations of benefiting from Azerbaijan’s “Caviar Diplomacy,” the Vatican has not been willing to say anything more substantial than emphasizing “the importance of intercultural and inter-religious dialog in favor of peaceful coexistence among different religious and ethnic groups,” meaning Armenians and Azeris. The Pope prayed for the inhabitants of Karabakh, hoping “that the talks between the parties, with the support of the international community, will foster a lasting agreement that will end the humanitarian crisis,” Even during the 2020 War, “the Church was unable of going beyond generic appeals for moderation ‘to all the parties involved and to the international community’ to ‘lay down their weapons.’”

    On October 24, 2023, Prime Minister Nikol Pahinyan received from the Apostolic Nuncio José Avelino Bettencourt the same award given three years earlier to Aliyeva, Azerbaijan’s Vice President. However, there was a major difference. While Aliyeva received her award directly from the Pope, Pashinyan was honored by an Apostolic Nuncio. There were also other differences which “helped consolidate the power of the Aliyev family, despite human rights violations in Artsakh.”

    “Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, honorary president emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Culture and chairman of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology, is the highest Vatican official who has made the most efforts to open a dialog with Azerbaijan.” He was awarded the Order of Friendship in 2013 by the Azerbaijani authorities — a high honor offered for a “special contribution to the development of friendly, economic and cultural relations between Azerbaijan and a foreign state.”

    Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti is considered “the protagonist of the privileged channel” established between the Vatican and Baku. “Highly educated and polyglot, ambitious and lover of power, Cardinal Gugerotti has known the Aliyev family since 2002, when Pres. Heydar Aliyev, in power since 1969, was still alive.”

    “In the early 2000s, Gugerotti met with the Azerbaijani authorities as Nuncio for the Southern Caucasus, a position he assumed in 2001. Before then this nunciature for the Holy See included only Georgia and Armenia. Those were the years in which Russia guaranteed a ceasefire in the region, after Armenia had defeated Azerbaijan in the first conflict. The ethnic hatred that is still fuel for the conflict was beginning to settle, but Nuncio Gugerotti called Azerbaijan a ‘country [that] is a symbol of peaceful coexistence between people of different religions.’”

    “Ten years after he began his mission as Apostolic Nuncio in 2011, Gugerotti signed the historic agreement which, for the first time, regulated relations between Baku and the Catholic Church. At the time of ratification, recalls a 2019 book produced by the Foundation for the Promotion of Moral Values from Baku entitled ‘Christianity in Azerbaijan,’ Gugerotti expressed gratitude to the (Azeri) government for creating the conditions that made possible [the agreement], emphasizing that our country always remained committed to the principles of tolerance, and noting that the agreement was the first document of its kind, because the Vatican had never signed such an agreement with any state before.”

    According to Gugerotti, “Azerbaijan has once again demonstrated its tolerance. Now the whole world is witnessing it. I am sure that this document will receive a positive response in the international world and will be remembered as a great historical event. The reaction of the press from day one proves us right. On behalf of the Holy Throne and the Crown, I extend my deep thanks for all this to President Ilham Aliyev and the Government of Azerbaijan.”

    Since 2009, the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, headed by Mehriban Aliyeva, has funded various activities in the Vatican: restoration projects, exhibitions and concerts. Other projects funded by Azerbaijan included: the Roman catacombs, the Vatican Museums, the Vatican Apostolic Library, and Catholic churches in France and Azerbaijan. These donations amount to one million euros.

    In 2013, Gugerotti received the Movses Khorenatsi Medal — the highest Armenian honor — from the then president Serzh Sargsyan for his important contribution to Armenian studies, but also the effort aimed at strengthening relations between Yerevan and the Holy See.

    The author of the article concluded that the close relationship between the Vatican and Azerbaijan has had the effect, perhaps unintended, of strengthening the hegemonic role of the Azeri autocracy… which may contribute to a diplomatic normalization that would put in the background, or erase, crimes and aggressions committed by the Azeri autocracy.

  • Turkey’s 1500-Year-Old, $28M Bible Linked to Gospel of Barnabas?

    Turkey’s 1500-Year-Old, $28M Bible Linked to Gospel of Barnabas?

    By Clara Morris , Christian Post Contributor

    February 23, 2012|3:05 pm

    ancient bible turkey

    The Vatican has made an official request to gain access to a 1500-year-old Bible worth $28 million currently held by the Turkish government in Ankara, Turkey. There is speculation that the Bible may be a copy of the Gospel of Barnabas – a telling of Jesus’ ministry Muslims believe is part of the original Gospels.

    Photocopies of the holy book’s pages are reportedly worth about $1.7 million, but the relic isn’t so extremely valuable just because of its age, but also because of its construction and its contents. The Bible is handwritten in gold lettering on loosely strung together animal hide and written in Syriac. Syriac is a dialect of Aramic – Jesus’ native language. Aramaic itself is rarely present in today’s society, as it is now only spoken in a small village near Damascus.

    There is some speculation that this Bible is a copy of the Gospel of Barnabas – a Gospel version Muslims believe is part of the original Gospels. The Gospel of Barnabas is not included in the New Testament along side Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and in fact Barnabas opposes the New Testament and rather has clear similarities to the Muslim interpretation of Jesus. Barnabas even contains a story in which Jesus predicts the coming of Prophet Muhammad. Muslims believe this original gospel has been suppressed.

    However, theology professor Ömer Faruk Harman told Today Zaman, “Muslims may be disappointed to see that this copy does not include things they would like to see and it might have no relation with the content of the Gospel of Barnabas.”

    The Turkish government gained possession of the Bible back in 2000 when they caught a band of thieves and smugglers cutting through Turkey with the bible as well as other antiques, illegal excavations, and explosives.

    The tome has been kept at the courthouse until recently, and is set to make its way, under heavy security, to Turkey’s Ankara Ethnography Museum. But before it settles there the Vatican is hoping to get a chance to study and investigate the extremely valuable Bible.

    via Turkey’s 1500-Year-Old, $28M Bible Linked to Gospel of Barnabas?, Christian News.

  • Pope prays for victims of Turkey earthquake

    Pope prays for victims of Turkey earthquake

    Relatives of an earthquake victim are led away from ruins by a Policeman on October 25 2011 in Van Turkey Credit Ahmad Halabisaz Getty Images News Getty Images CNA World Catholic News 10 26 11Vatican City, Oct 27, 2011 / 05:54 am (CNA).- Pope Benedict XVI has asked for prayers and appealed for aid for the victims of Sunday’s earthquake in Turkey.

    “At this time, our thoughts turn to the people of Turkey hard hit by the earthquake, which has caused heavy loss of life, many missing and extensive damage,” the Pope said at his Oct. 26 general audience in Vatican City’s Paul VI Hall.

    “I invite you to join me in prayer for those who have lost their lives and to be spiritually close to the many people who have been sorely tried. May the Almighty support all those engaged in rescue work,” he prayed.

    The 7.2-magnitude quake killed at least 461 people and injured 1,350 in the Van region, the Associated Press reports. The disaster flattened many buildings and left thousands of people homeless or afraid to return to damaged houses.

    At least 20,000 tents have been sent to the quake zone, where the temperature drops below zero at night.

    Caritas Turkey reported that the earthquake was “very severe” and the region is not easily accessible. The Catholic organization has already sent 1,200 sleeping bags. It plans to send blankets, coats, plastic sheeting and other items.

    The Turkish government originally said Turkey could handle the disaster alone, but it has now asked 30 countries, including Israel, for emergency supplies like prefabricated housing, tents and containers.

    via Pope prays for victims of Turkey earthquake :: Catholic News Agency (CNA).

  • World War Nears After Vatican-Knights Templar Talks Fail

    World War Nears After Vatican-Knights Templar Talks Fail

    by THETOTALCOLLAPSE.COM on JUNE 11, 2011

    A shocking report prepared by the Russian General Staff to President Medvedev is warning today that World War III is “all but inevitable” after the Knights Templar spurned an initial payment offer of over €22.5 million against their €100 billion claim for the return of their seized assets filed in Spain against Pope Benedict XVI in 2008.

    At the outset of our reporting on this dire Russian General Staff report it is imperative that the reader understand that their knowledge of truthful history is woefully inadequate to incorporate the facts herein stated, but by following the links we’ve included should give one the ability to ascertain its veracity.  On the other hand, should any reader fail to follow-up our report by their own independent verification, the catastrophic events now unfolding will certainly come as the greatest shock of their lives.

    As a most basic of primers we suggest that the reader of this report first read our May 8th report “Knights Templar Prepare To Unite US-Iran For ‘Final’ World Battle” and our May 16th report “Obama Gives ‘Sacrifice’ To Ancient ‘Sun God’ Of Mound Builders”. Though not containing all of the information one would need to thoroughly understand this report, one should be able to grasp the larger issues involved for their further studies.

    Now the titanic battle currently underway in this century’s long war between the Knights Templar and the Vatican began in August, 2008 when this secretive, but very powerful, religious order filed a suit in Spain against Pope Benedict XVI for the return of the assets seized from them in 1307 by Pope Clement Vthat included more than 9,000 properties as well as countless pastures, mills and other commercial ventures and estimated to be worth today over €100 billion .

    The main basis of the Knights Templar suit against Pope Benedict XVI was information contained in what is called the Chinon Parchment discovered in the Vatican archives proving that Pope Clement V secretly absolved the last Grand Master Jacques de Molay and the rest of the leadership of the Knights Templar from charges brought against them by the Medieval Inquisition. [The parchment is dated Chinon, 1308 August 17 – 20th; the Vatican keeps an authentic copy with reference number Archivum Arcis Armarium D 218, the original having the number D 217]

    Spearheading the Knights Templar suit against Pope Benedict XVI was their UNESCO recognized branch located in Switzerland named the Ordo Supremus Militaris Templi Hierosolymitani, though this Russian General Staff reports the American “factions” of this order was the main cause behind this unprecedented attack on the Vatican.

    In early September, 2008, this report continues, the Vatican filed a counter-claim against the Knights Templar’s suit in Spain seeking its dismissal, which was denied and set off the current global economic crisis after the Knights Templar began a ‘wholesale’ withdrawal of billions, if not trillions, of their hidden assets from both American and European banks causing many of them to collapse.

    By June, 2009, the collapse of the global banking system was nearing catastrophic proportions that even the might of the United States could not forestall and leading the new US President, Barack Obama, to ‘order’ the Vatican to the negotiating table with the Knights Templar that he would personally oversee during his July, 2009 meeting with Pope Benedict XVI.

    Obama further ordered to the negotiating table between the Vatican and Knights Templar a “secured payment” against the religious orders claim against Pope Benedict XVI of $134 billion in US Treasury Bonds in a move he believed would quell the growing crisis.

    Unfortunately for Obama, however, the $134 billion in US Treasury Bonds bound for the meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and the Knights Templar were seized on 15 June under orders from the Vatican by Italian police and prosecutors and the two Japanese Jesuit couriers carrying the 249 US Federal Reserve bonds, each worth $500 million, plus the ten Kennedy bonds with face values of $1 billion were arrested too.

    This report says that Pope Benedict XVI used his “$134 billion leverage” over Obama to gain for Rome an additional seat on the US Supreme Court, which the Vatican was successful in maneuvering when shortly after Obama’s return to the US (August, 2009) he appointed Roman Catholic Sonia Sotomayor to the High Court thus assuring Rome’s control over all US laws. [Note: in the Protestant majority US, its Supreme Court contains 6 Roman Catholics(Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, Alito, Sotomayor) and 3 Jews (Ginsberg, Breyer, Kagan)]

    Important to note is this report further stating that besides Rome’s control over all American laws trough its “ownership” of the Supreme Court, the“defacto” US President is, in fact, its Jesuit “trained and controlled” Vice President Joseph Biden whose orders come directly from the German Nazi trained Pope Benedict XVI. [Note: No single Roman Catholic official was more responsible the Pope Benedict XVI for the massive global cover-up of child molestation by the Church.]

    Obama, however, this report continues, is not without his own allies as aside from Persian Iran; he is, also, supported by “certain elements” associated with the Knights Templar long-embedded within the US Military establishment along with many factions associated with former Soviet and present day Communists.

    Using these “allies”, this report says, and after being betrayed by Pope Benedict XVI, Obama’s communist allies in Italy launched a “counter-attack” on the Vatican by having the assets of the Catholic Church’s Institute for Religious Works (IOR) seized and their top bankers put under investigation in September, 2010.

    Important to note about the IOR (mistakenly referred to as The Vatican Bank) was it’s creation on 27 June 1942 by Pope Pius XII shortly after the 4-7 June 1942 Battle of Midway where American forces delivered a crushing blow against the Roman Catholic led Japanese Empire ensuring the defeat of the Axis Forces at the hands of the Capitalist West and Communist East and a blow to the Vatican’s centuries long goal of establishing their “Global Plutocracy”. [Note:The term plutocracy is generally used to describe these two distinct concepts: one of a historical nature and one of a modern political nature. The former indicates the political control of the state by an oligarchy of the wealthy. Examples of such plutocracies include the Roman Republic, some city-states in Ancient Greece, the civilization of Carthage, the Italian city-states/merchant republics of Venice,Florence, Genoa, and pre-WWII Empire of Japan zaibatsus.]

    This past week, however, and after “strident pleas” from the European Union whose economies are all crashing, Obama and his allies relented and allowed the release of $33 million in seized IOR funds to be paid to the Knights Templar as a “goodwill gesture” while negotiations continue, but which, this report says, this religious order refused as “all trust” between these warring entities have “completely and irrevocably” been broken.

    All that is left now, Russia’s top generals and strategists warn, is Total GlobalWar on an “unimaginable scale” that can only be described in the most apocalyptic of terms envisioned by the Christian Bibles Book of Revelation end-time battle when the forces of Gog and Magog, along with their Arab state allies, attack Israel.

    Even more grimly, Russia’s General Staff in this report further warns that the Motherland will “more than likely” have to, once again, come to the defense of the United States like she did in protecting America from its European enemies during the Civil War of 1861-1865. [Note: Unbeknownst to the vast majority of Americans, the alliance between President Abraham Lincoln and Russian Tsar Alexander II saved North America from French and British invasion on the side of the Confederates when the Motherland sent her vast fleet to protect them from the thousands of amassed troops assembled for a US invasion from Canada (British) and Mexico(France).]

    To the only apparent hope left for America in this coming Global Conflict appears to lie in the 2012 Presidential contenders Mitt Romney and John Huntsman, both of whom are of the Mormon religion, and as we detailed in our January 2nd report “2012 ‘White Horse Prophecy’ Warned Is Coming True In America” remain the only power left in America to counter Rome and its allies seeking the destruction of the United States.

    Interesting to note about the Mormon religions ties with the Knights Templar Order are the many legends that the “golden plates” discovered by their founder Joseph Smith Jr. and that began their religious order were, in fact, those discovered by the Knights Templar when they conquered Jerusalem.

    Even more interesting to note about all of these events were their being predicted with the 1912 publication in the US of the ex-Roman Catholic priest Jeremiah Crowley’s book “Romanism: A Menace to the Nation” wherein he laid plain for all to see how the Vatican planned to destroy the United States and the Western world….by the year…2012. [Note: This link to Father Crowley’s book goes to the complete 714 page version digitalized by the University of Southern California.]

    Most unfortunate in all of this report is how few American people even have the knowledge of their own past history to comprehend it and put it into context, leaving for them, instead, a future that is, and will remain, totally incomprehensible to them as they slide ever closer to the abyss.

    © June 5, 2011 EU and US all rights reserved. Permission to use this report in its entirety is granted under the condition it is linked back to its original source atWhatDoesItMean.Com.

    http://www.thetotalcollapse.com/world-war-nears-after-vatican-knights-templar-talks-fail/

     

  • Vatican to publish documents on Armenian Genocide

    Vatican to publish documents on Armenian Genocide

    The Vatican will open its archives in 2012, said Bishop Sergio Pagano, prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives.

    armgenThe exhibition entitled “Lux in Arcane: The Vatican Secret Archives unveiled” will be inaugurated in the Capitoline Museums in Rome in February 2012 and will display valuable documents held in the Vatican, from the eighth century to the twentieth century, Turkish Hurriyet Daily reports.

    Sergio Pagano noted that the archives include documents on the Armenian Genocide carried out by the Ottoman Empire in 1895-1921.

    “When I read documents about the torture practices used by the Turks against the Armenians, I feel an irrepressible sense of pain and horror. Some of the papers describe how Turkish soldiers bet and played dice to guess the sex of a child before stabbing him or her with a bayonet after extracting them out of the womb. This is merely inhumane,” Pagano said.

    Gianfranco Ravasi, President of Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture of Vatican recently said in Armenia that they intend to vivify cultural relations between Armenia and Vatican. To this aims exhibitions are planned to be opened in both countries.

    via Vatican to publish documents on Armenian Genocide .::. The Armenian News by A1+.

    Türkçe : https://www.turkishnews.com/tr/content/2011/07/08/bela-geliyor-vatikan-basimiza-dert-acacak/

  • Turkish Church remembers Mgr Padovese a year after his murder

    Turkish Church remembers Mgr Padovese a year after his murder

    A mass is set to take place in Iskenderun. Mgr Ruggero Franceschini will conduct the service in the presence of the nuncio. As Catholics keep a very low profile, an Istanbul medical commission finds the prelate’s murderer, Murat Altun, fit to stand trial after he was on his way to acquittal on …

    Ankara – The Turkish Catholic Church will remember Mgr Luigi Padovese on Sunday, a year after his murder. A mass will be celebrated in Iskenderun cathedral, where Padovese was bishop, in the presence of representatives of various Christians denominations and local authorities. Mgr Ruggero Franceschini, archbishop of Izmir and apostolic vicar to Iskenderun (Anatolia), will preside over the ceremony. Apostolic Nuncio Mgr Antonio Lucibello and a number of Vatican officials who flew in from Rome for that purpose will be present at the service, sources told AsiaNews.

    Catholics are keeping a very low profile in relation to the anniversary, fearing that the memory of the murder might stir controversy again just a few days before the 12 June parliamentary elections. Members of the local Catholic community report in fact a rise in nationalist and fundamentalist feelings that often turn violent against Christians.

    Mgr Luigi Padovese, a member of the Capuchin order, had his throat cut. His assassin, then 26-year-old assassin, Murat Altun, after his arrest, said he attacked the prelate because he was unfriendly towards Islam, was morbidly homosexual, crazy . . . (see Geries Othman, “Mgr Luigi Padovese assassinated in southern Turkey, in AsiaNews, 3 June 2010, and ibid., “Mgr. Padovese’s driver charged with murder. Doubts about his ‘insanity’,” in AsiaNews, 4 June 2010).

    After the murder, Mgr Franceschini has repeatedly called for truth to be told and an end to the lies (see Bernardo Cervellera, “Archbishop of Smyrna: The martyrdom of bishop Padovese we want the truth and not “pious lies,” in AsiaNews, 10 June 2010, “Mgr Franceschini: ultranationalist and religious fanatics behind Bishop Padovese’s murder,” in AsiaNews, 16 October 2010, and “Mgr Franceschini: The Turkish Church “can not intervene” against falsehoods on Mgr. Padovese,” in AsiaNews, 2 December 2010).

    Until recently, these requests have fallen on deaf years. Sources told AsiaNews that the assassin, who was the bishop’s driver, could have avoided trial on mental health grounds. Yesterday, an Istanbul medical commission ruled instead that he was fit to stand trial. A date for his day in court has not yet been decided.

    Padovese’s death is not an isolated incident. Other Christians have been attacked. Fr Andrea Santoro, a Catholic priest, was killed in 2006 in Trabzon; three Protestants had their throats cut in Malatya in 2007; Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink was murdered in Istanbul in 2007.

    In addition, other Christians have been wounded in murder attempts. The latest occurred in Adana (Anatolia), last Good Thursday, when a group of young people went inside a church to kill its priest, Father Francis, a capuchin from India.

    They were stopped by a group of young Catholics who locked the would-be murderers inside a room, and called police.

    Father Francis is currently in India waiting for tensions to lessen.

    via TURKEY – VATICAN Turkish Church remembers Mgr Padovese a year after his murder | Spero News.