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reaching back through the history of the
vatican there are some very dark moments
setting aside the abuse scandals you've
definitely heard about already
there are plenty of other gross things
the vatican would rather you not know
here are a few dark secrets of the
vatican revealed
when looking at the secrets held within
vatican city perhaps the most logical
place to start
is the vatican's secret archives the
name itself evokes mystery
and many theories have naturally popped
up about what might be held among the 53
miles of shelves and 12 centuries worth
of documents only available to a select
few
it doesn't take a lot of effort to find
people claiming the archives contain
evidence of extraterrestrial life proof
jesus never actually existed
or the true secret name of god which has
been handed down from pope to pope since
463 a.d
nobody knows exactly what's there
because it will be
impossible for the human brain to
understand
but the archives aren't really secret in
the sense of being hidden from people
the word secret in this case means
something closer to private
because they officially house paperwork
and correspondence relating to the pope
that said the archives are not fully
public they're only open to scholars who
have passed a strict vetting process
and journalists were not allowed to see
the contents of the archives until
2010 plus documents within the archive
only become available for viewing
even to this limited audience after 75
years
the vatican claims this is because of
the amount of time it takes to process
the massive quantities of documents
coming into the archive
that said this also means most documents
relating to the church's numerous abuse
scandals are still restricted from view
for now at least in this age of modern
psychology it would be easy to dismiss
exorcism as something from the middle
ages and horror movies
the truth is though that the practice is
alive and well within the catholic
church
in fact father gabriel ammorth the
former chief exorcist of the vatican who
died in 2016
claimed to have performed a staggering
130 000
exorcisms in his time father ammorth
wasn't the last of a dying breed either
the bbc reported in 2018 the vatican
welcomed 250 priests from around the
world to an
annual exorcism school because the
church believes there has been an uptick
in demonic possessions in recent years
despite the controversy tied to exorcism
the right is still carried out in modern
times
even by popes according to father emory
john paul ii
tried and failed to drive a demon out of
a woman who was brought before him in
2000.
father ammorth claims the woman was
still possessed when he saw her later
that day
and so he had to finish off what the
pope couldn't amorth
also claims benedict the 16th slammed
the devil
out of two guys in 2009 and some suspect
pope francis may have performed a public
exorcism on a man in a wheelchair in
2013.
the vatican bank is a financial body
riddled with scandal
the catholic church's primary financial
institution has been caught up in so
many scandals since its founding in 1942
that entire books have been written
about them
the bank was created during world war ii
to avoid restrictions placed on
financial transactions by the allies
since that time the vatican bank has
become pretty notorious for its
connections to organized crime
who use the vatican's sovereignty to
escape the scrutiny of world banks
in the 1970s the vatican allegedly tried
to purchase 900 million dollars in
counterfeit bonds and securities from a
mafia linked operation
in 2013 a priest was arrested for trying
to use the vatican bank to smuggle
millions of euros for the mob
the most famous the vatican mafia
scandals though is the collapse of banco
ambrosiano
the vatican was the main shareholder of
this italian bank
which was used to launder money for the
mafia after ambrosiano's collapse
the chairman was found hanged under a
bridge in what was apparently a mob hit
set up to look self-inflicted perhaps
needless to say
efforts to reform the vatican bank have
been motioned for several years
following allied victories in germany at
the end of world war ii
nazis suddenly found europe a pretty
rough place for them and began to seek
refuge elsewhere
thousands of high-ranking nazi officials
many of whom were war criminals
managed to escape across the atlantic to
a number of south american countries
including brazil chile and argentina
according to research some of the travel
documents that ended up in nazi hands
were given out by an overwhelmed
sometimes overly sympathetic red cross
many other nazi fugitives were knowingly
assisted by the vatican
while it's certainly likely that some
nazis were helped by an unwitting
vatican just trying to get catholic war
refugees to safety
the book nazis on the run argues the
vatican chose to help nazis
the catholic church had hoped for a
revival of european christianity
and had a significant fear of the
growing influence of the non-catholic
soviet union
whatever the reason the vatican refugee
commission without a doubt
knowingly provided nazi fugitives with
false identities
the vatican has consistently refused to
comment on these events
and the majority of the relevant
documents have still not been released
from the secret archives
pope francis plans to open the archives
from this period to qualified
researchers in 2020 so who knows what we
might learn then
in addition to smuggling actual nazis
out of europe and into south america
there is little doubt the vatican also
used its privileged sovereignty to help
smuggle nazi looted gold
art and other property belonging to
jewish families and other victims of the
holocaust
as gerald posner explained in the
washington post
efforts to get the vatican involved in
making amends or even to open their
archives from world war
ii have been rejected since the 1990s in
his book
god's bankers however posner
investigates the possibility that the
vatican's ties to the holocaust could be
even darker
the founder of the vatican bank and the
nazis allegedly hatched a scheme to use
vatican money
to invest in the life insurance policies
of jewish families
if true this would mean the vatican
directly profited from the mass
extermination of jewish families during
the holocaust
in 2012 italian journalist gianluigi
nutsy published a book called his
holiness the secret papers
of benedict xvi which was made up of
pieces of private correspondence and
other classified documents from the pope
leaked to nutsy by benedict's personal
butler the book revealed an inside look
at the inner workings of the vatican not
normally afforded to the public
including evidence of widespread
corruption and revelations the holy see
is home to rampant jealousy and
backstabbing tolerance
doesn't live here anymore it's been
evicted this leaked scandal became known
as vatileex many including pope
benedict's brother
believe the stress from these
accumulating scandals contributed to
benedict's decision to resign from the
papacy
you're the right person i'm going to
resign a second round of leagues hit in
2015
again with a book by nutsy at the center
of it whereas the original vandaliques
showed benedict is overwhelmed and
unable to control the cyclone of
corruption around him
the second set of documents focus on
pope francis as a bold reformer trying
to clean
house within the vatican bureaucracy
time will tell if he actually manages to
do it
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