A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

New Book Blasts Francis and His Wholesale Inappropriateness for the Chair of Peter December 5, 2017

Via Steve Skojec at One Peter Five comes a review of a short (141 pp) book on Francis, his seedy and troubling past life, his outlook, his philosophical and psychological shortcomings, and his disastrous agenda.  The review is quite long, about 4000 words, so I’ll only hit some high points.  In summation, however, the author of this book, who is anonymous (and has apparently caused a furious response in Rome and a search for his identity) but who goes by the deliciously Catholic name of Marcantonio Collona (the leader of the fleet of the Papal States at Lepanto), ties together much already known about Francis and his hard left agenda, while at the same time delving into his past and revealing a very great deal about Francis’ apparently nasty personality, his carefully crafted image as a great humble man (note the contradiction), and the mysterious twists and turns that led a man who was lambasted by his superiors in the post-conciliar Jesuit order as wholly unfit for high office (think about that) to become Pope. This naturally includes a great deal about the deceased Cardinal Martini, long-time leader of the leftist/anti-Catholic “Bologna School” of misfits and miscreants in the Church otherwise known as the “St. Gallen Mafia.”

The name of this new book is The Dictator Pope, and it is available for purchase online, but only in Kindle and similar e-formats.  I look forward to purchasing the book once it is available in print, if a publisher can be found (and believe me, with this pontificate, that will not be an easy task).

Taking up with some excerpts from Skojec’s review:

The book promises a look “behind the mask” of Francis, the alleged “genial man of the people,” revealing how he “consolidated his position as a dictator who rules by fear and has allied himself with the most corrupt elements in the Vatican to prevent and reverse the reforms that were expected of him.” [Indeed.  Whatever happened to the reform of the Vatican Bank (IOR), or the advancing of even stiffer penalties and interdictions against abusive priests, or men unsuited to the priesthood due to their addiction to perversion, or the financial reform of numerous corrupt Roman ministries, especially those associated with the disgustingly corrupt Cardinal Angelo Sodano and the entire group of high prelates and curial officials who were given enormous graft from Maciel Maciel to cover up his hideous abuses and double life?  And these barely scratch the surface.  In point of fact, after battling mightily to undo the tremendous power Sodano had accumulated under Pope JPII, Benedict has had to live to see this wholly corrupt and heterodox creature not just restored to his former power and influence, but perhaps more influential than ever.  These are the kinds of creatures Francis has chosen to surround himself with, since they will OK any ideological agenda so long as their nests continue to be feathered.]

The book promises a look “behind the mask” of Francis, the alleged “genial man of the people,” revealing how he “consolidated his position as a dictator who rules by fear and has allied himself with the most corrupt elements in the Vatican to prevent and reverse the reforms that were expected of him.”

OnePeterFive has obtained an advance copy of the English text, and I am still working my way through it. Although most of its contents will be at least cursorily familiar to those who have followed this unusual pontificate, it treats in detail many of the most important topics we have covered in these pages, providing the additional benefit of collecting them all in one place.

The author of the work is listed as Marcantonio Colonna — a transparently clever pen name laden with meaning for the Catholic history buff; the historical Colonna was an Italian nobleman who served as admiral of the papal fleet at the Battle of Lepanto. His author bio tells us he is an Oxford graduate with extensive experience in historical research who has been living in Rome since the beginning of the Francis pontificate, and whose contact with Vatican insiders — including Cardinals and other important figures — helped piece together this particular puzzle. The level of potential controversy associated with the book has seemingly led some journalists in Rome to be wary of broaching the book’s existence publicly (though it is said to be very much a topic of private conversation), whether for fear of retribution — the Vatican has recently been known to exclude or mistreat journalists it suspects of hostility — or for some other reason, remains unclear. Notable exceptions to this conspicuous silence include the stalwart Marco Tosatti — who has already begun unpacking the text at his website, Stilum Curae — and Professor Roberto de Mattei, who writes that the book confirms Cardinal Müller’s recent remarks that there is a “magic circle” around the pope which “prevents an open and balanced debate on the doctrinal problems raised” by objections like the dubia and Filial Correction, and that there is also “a climate of espionage and delusion” in Francis’ Vatican.

Some sources have even told me that the Vatican, incensed by the book’s claims, is so ardently pursuing information about the author’s true identity that they’ve been seeking out and badgering anyone they think might have knowledge of the matter. The Italian version of the book’s website has already gone down since its launch. The reason, as one particularly credible rumor has it, is that its disappearance was a result of the harassment of its designer, even though that person had nothing to do with the book other than having been hired to put it online.

If these sound like thuggish tactics, the book wastes no time in confirming that this pope — and those who support him — are not at all above such things. Colonna introduces his text by way of an ominous portrait of Francis himself, describing a “miraculous change that has taken over” Bergoglio since his election — a change that Catholics of his native Buenos Aires noticed immediately:

Their dour, unsmiling archbishop was turned overnight into the smiling, jolly Pope Francis, the idol of the people with whom he so fully identifies. If you speak to anyone working in the Vatican, they will tell you about the miracle in reverse. When the publicity cameras are off him, Pope Francis turns into a different figure: arrogant, dismissive of people, prodigal of bad language and notorious for furious outbursts of temper which are known to everyone from the cardinals to the chauffeurs.

Colonna writes, too, of the “buyer’s remorse” that some of the cardinals who elected Bergoglio are experiencing as his pontificate approaches its fifth anniversary: “Francis is showing,” writes Colonna, “that he is not the democratic, liberal ruler that the cardinals thought they were electing in 2013, but a papal tyrant the like of whom has not been seen for many centuries.”  [Gee, a hardcore leftist ideologue who is also an out and out tyrant.  Who would have known?  I thought these Vaticanistas and high cardinals were political sharpshooters?  How could they be so naïve?  Maybe they are not so sharp as they like to think.]

Colonna then transitions to an opening chapter exposing the work of the so-called St. Gallen “Mafia” — the group of cardinals who had been conspiring for decades to see to it that a pope of their liking — a pope like Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was capable of becoming — would be elected. Formed in 1996 (with precursor meetings between progressive European prelates giving initial shape to the group as early as the 1980s) in St. Gallen, Switzerland [notice how leftists, supposed friends of the common/downtrodden man, always seem to ensconce themselves in luxury when given the chance], the St. Gallen Mafia was originally headed up by the infamous late archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini. The group roster was a rogue’s gallery of heterodox prelates with a list of ecclesiastical accomplishments that reads more like a rap sheet than a curriculum vitae. (In the case of Godfried Danneels, implicated in some way in about 50 of 475 dossiers on clerical sexual abuse allegations that mysteriously disappeared after evidence seized by Belgian police was inexplicably declared inadmissible in court, this comparison transcends analogy.)[Yep.  Look, the Leftists in the Church thought they were electing a fellow-traveler, at least, in naming a relatively unknown from Poland – a product of the sainted “Ostpolitik “ of Paul VI – as pope in 1978.  But he turned out to be much more conservative (relatively) than they wished.  So they began an illicit, illegal (in Church law) conspiracy, basically, to make sure a pope to their liking would be elected after JPII.  They didn’t quite succeed in 2005, but managed to send Benedict XVI running for fear of the wolves (under threat of the financial ruination of the Church?) and finally got their man in 2013.  The fact that any such collusion prior to an enclave automatically invalidates that enclave AND results in the excommunication of the participants didn’t bother them a whit. Why would it?  They’d have the power if their man got in, and the media would always have their back if they didn’t.  It was low-risk for them.  And since when has a pontiff had the stones to cast out large swaths of the episcopate for being heretics/schismatics, anyway?  The last time was 1908-10, wasn’t it?]

The names of some of the most prominent members of the group — many of which would have been unknown to even relatively well-informed Catholics just a decade ago — have become uncomfortably familiar in recent years: Cardinals Martini, Danneels, Kasper, Lehman, and (Cormac) Murphy O’Connor have all risen in profile considerably since their protege was elevated to the Petrine throne. After a controversial career, Walter Kasper had already begun fading into obscurity before he was unexpectedly praised in the new pope’s first Angelus address on March 17, 2013. Francis spoke admiringly of Kasper’s book on the topic of mercy — a theme that would become a defining touchstone of his pontificate. When Kasper was subsequently tapped to present the Keynote at the February 14, 2014 consistory of cardinals, the advancement of his proposal to create a path for Communion for the divorced and remarried thrust him further into the spotlight. The so-called “Kasper proposal” launched expectations for the two synods that would follow on marriage and the family and provided the substrate for the post-synodal apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, around which there has been a theological and philosophical debate the likes of which has not seen in the living memory of the Church. For his part, Danneels, who retired his position as Archbishop of Brussels under “a cloud of scandal” in 2010, even went so far as to declare that the 2013 conclave result represented for him “a personal resurrection experience.” [What kind of creature would frame anything like that, let alone the election of a pope, and most of all, this pope?  Oh, right, the same kind of man that would at least cover up, if not directly participate in, mass boy rape for decades]

And what was the goal of the St. Gallen group?

Originally, their agenda was to bring about a “much more modern” Church. That goal finally crystalized around opposition to the anticipated election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the papacy — a battle in which they were narrowly defeated during the 2005 conclave, when, according to an undisclosed source within the curia, the penultimate ballot showed a count of 40 votes for Bergoglio and 72 for Ratzinger. Colonna cites German Catholic journalist Paul Badde in saying that it was the late Cardinal Joachim Meisner — later one of the four “dubia” cardinals — who “passionately fought” the Gallen Mafia in favor of the election of Ratzinger. After this loss, the Gallen Mafia officially disbanded. But although Cardinal Martini died in 2012, they staged a comeback — and eventually won the day — on Wednesday, March 13, 2013. For it was on that day that Jorge Mario Bergoglio stepped out onto the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica, victorious, as Pope Francis the First. Those paying attention would take note that one Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Belgium stood triumphantly by his side.

———-End Excerpt————-

There is much more at the link, but I’ve taken too much already. Skojec will take a tire iron to my shooting hand if I take anymore.

But he goes into quite a bit about Francis’ emulation of his youthful political paramour, Juan Perón, and how, aside from a sort of reflexive populist leftism, little informed that man’s career save for his own lust for power.  Readers should take from this a cold shot of reality against any hopes that Franky George Bergoglio will follow his predecessor into abdication.  Quite the contrary, having access to power will probably lengthen his life by 5-10 years.  That’s how these things seem to go.  Look at finally deposed 94 year old Robert Mugabe.

Also reviewed are the synods, which I would argue were doctrinally meaningless, and the subsequent deconstruction of the Church’s moral edifice through Amoris Laetitia.

Sounds like an excellent book. I look forward to reading it, even as I wonder, just what, if anything, of the human element of the Church will be left if Francis lives another 10 years?  I fear the Franciscans of the Immaculate are our guide for the future of the Church under Francis.