Infiltration
Page 8
DIETRICH VON HILDEBRAND: I fear the Church has been infiltrated.
BELLA DODD: You fear it, dear professor; I know it! When I was an ardent Communist, I was working in close contact with four cardinals in the Vatican working for us; and they are still very active today.
DIETRICH VON HILDEBRAND: Who are they? My nephew Dieter Sattler is a German stationed at the Holy See.49
“But Bella, who was under the spiritual guidance of Archbishop Sheen, declined to give him this information,” Alice Von Hildebrand explained.50
Who were these active Vatican cardinals?
We can construct a limited pool of cardinals by noting that Dodd was active since the 1930s and that she converted in 1952. Moreover, these cardinals were “active” as late as 1966 or 1967. These historical restrictions yield only twenty-six possible cardinals who could be the four Communist cardinals claimed by Dodd:
Krikor Bedros XV Aghagianian
Benedetto Aloisi Masella
Clemente Micara
James Charles McGuigan
Carlos Carmelo de Vasconcelos Motta
Norman Thomas Gilroy
Francis Joseph Spellman
Jaime de Barros Câmara
Enrique Pla y Deniel
Josef Frings
Ernesto Ruffini
Antonio Caggiano
Thomas Tien Ken-sin
Augusto Álvaro da Silva
Pietro Ciriaci
Maurice Feltin
Carlos María Javier de la Torre
Giuseppe Siri
James Francis Louis McIntyre
Giacomo Lercaro
Stefan Wyszynski
Benjamín de Arriba y Castro
Fernando Quiroga y Palacios
Paul-Émile Léger
Valerian Gracias
Alfredo Ottaviani
Some of these cardinals, such as Siri and Ottaviani, can be removed from consideration due to their orthodoxy. Among the most likely would be Cardinal Spellman (reputed sodomite and ecclesial patron of the young Theodore McCarrick), Cardinal Lercaro (the leading liberal candidate for pope in the 1963 conclave that went to Cardinal Montini instead), and Cardinal Frings (important German leader at Vatican II and sponsor of the young Joseph Ratzinger).
Another case of infiltration involves the mysterious contents of a left-behind briefcase. In 1975, Archbishop Annibale Bugnini left his briefcase unattended in a Vatican conference room. Bugnini was the chief architect of the Novus Ordo Mass, published in 1969 and 1970, and we shall thoroughly cover his influence over Pius XII and Paul VI in the pages to come. Suffice it here to state that Bugnini was an infiltrated priest and a Freemason. A Dominican priest discovered the unattended briefcase and opened it, in order to discover the identity of its owner. Inside he found documents addressed “to Brother Bugnini,” with “signatures and place of origin [that] showed that they came from dignitaries of secret societies in Rome.”51 This became a scandal in Rome and Pope Paul VI was forced to send his chief liturgist and recently minted archbishop to Iran as pro-nuncio, a surprising and obvious demotion and exile. Respected theologian Father Brian Harrison also testifies to the veracity of the discovery of Bugnini’s Freemasonic documents: “An internationally known churchman of unimpeachable integrity has also told me that he heard the account of the discovery of the evidence against Bugnini directly from the Roman priest who found it in a briefcase which Bugnini had inadvertently left in a Vatican conference room after a meeting.”52 When the Italian Masonic Registry was released in 1976, Annibale Bugnini’s name was found on the Masonic register along with his Freemasonic codename, “Buan.”53 He had joined the Masonic Lodge on the feast of Saint George, 23 April 1963. This was less than two months before the death of John XXIII.
Clearly, high-ranking priests and bishops before and during Vatican II were infiltrated Freemasons. The testimonies provided by Bella Dodd and Manning Johnson, along with the guilt and expulsion of Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, reveal that infiltration of the Catholic clergy had been accomplished before and after 1940. Yet before examining the Second Vatican Council, we must return to the historical timeline leading up to the election of Pope Pius XII and then Pope John XXIII after him.
44 Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1948), 24–25.
45 Bella V. Dodd’s testimony in United States House Committee on Un-American Activities, Investigation of Communist Activities in Columbus, Ohio (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1953), 1741–1777.
46 Alta Vendita, 7.
47 Bella Dodd, “Lecture at Fordham University in 1953,” recorded audiotape; lecture referenced in C. P. Trussell, “Bella Dodd Asserts Reds Got Presidential Advisory Posts,” New York Times, March 11, 1953.
48 Manning Johnson’s testimony in United States House Committee on Un-American Activities, Investigation of Communist Activities in the New York City Area (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1953), 2278.
49 “Alice von Hildebrand Sheds New Light on Fatima,” One Peter Five, May 12, 2016.
50 Ibid. In 1973, a book entitled AA-1025 was published, purporting to be the memoirs of a Communist who had infiltrated the Church and brought about many of the unfortunate changes in the Church that followed Vatican II. As its front matter includes a disclaimer saying that it is only a “dramatized presentation,” many have contested its authenticity, so I have not included here materials from it.
51 Piers Compton, The Broken Cross: The Hidden Hand in the Vatican (Australia: Veritas Publications, 1984), 61.
52 Father Brian Harrison, “A Response to Michael Davies’ Article on Archbishop Bugnini,” AD2000.com, June 1989.
53 Most Asked Questions about the Society of Saint Pius X (Kansas City, MO: Angelus Press), 26.
10
1939 Papal Conclave: Pius XII
Pope Pius XI had stipulated that the College of Cardinals wait longer in order to allow the cardinals from North and South America to arrive in Rome for the election of the pope. He said that the conclave should wait as long as eighteen days in expectation of their American brothers. For the first time in a long time, every single living cardinal participated in the conclave of 1939 — all sixty-two of them.
Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli was the undisputed choice, and he won on the first day of voting, on the second ballot. As mentioned previously, Pacelli had been consecrated a bishop on 13 May 1917, the very day that Our Lady of Fatima first appeared to the three children. Pius XI had made subtle indications that he desired Pacelli to succeed him. Cardinal Pacelli was the camerlengo, or papal chamberlain, and oversaw the election. When elected, he accepted by saying, “Accepto in crucem” (I accept it as a cross). He took the name Pope Pius XII “as a sign of gratitude towards Pius XI.”54
Pope Pius XII was born as Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli in 1876. His family had deep roots in the nobiltà nera, or “black nobility” — those deriving from the aristocratic Roman families that sided with the pope against the invasion of Rome in 1870.55 His grandfather, Marcantonio Pacelli, had been undersecretary in the Papal Ministry of Finances, and then secretary of the interior under Pope Pius IX from 1851 to 1870. His grandfather was also partly responsible for the founding of the newspaper L’Osservatore Romano in 1861. His father, Filippo Pacelli, had served as the dean of the Roman Rota, and his brother, Francesco Pacelli, served as a canon lawyer negotiating the Lateran Treaty of 1929 between Pope Pius XI and Benito Mussolini.
Pius XII was raised in Rome and within the corridors of the papal court. Their family attended Mass at the Chiesa Nuova. It was here that the young Eugenio made his First Communion and served as an altar boy to the Oratorian priests. He seems to have received special dispensations in the seminary, due to his family’s prestige in the papal court. For example, his fellow seminarians were ordained together in the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, but Pacelli was ordained a priest privately on Easter Sunday 1899 in the personal chapel of a family friend, the vi
cegerent of Rome, Monsignor Paolo Cassetta. His first priestly assignment was curate at the family’s parish, Chiesa Nuova. In 1901, Pope Leo XIII personally asked Pacelli to deliver condolences on behalf of the Holy Father to King Edward VII of England after the death of Queen Victoria.
Pacelli was already an international man when he earned his doctorate in 1904, writing his dissertation on the nature of concordats and the function of canon law when a concordat falls into abeyance. In 1908, he accompanied Cardinal Merry del Val to London, where he met Winston Churchill. In 1911, he represented the Holy See at the coronation of King George V. On 24 June 1914, just four days before Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo, Pacelli and Cardinal Merry del Val were present, representing the Holy See, when the Serbian Concordat was signed.
As mentioned previously, Pope Pius X died that same year on 20 August. His successor, Pope Benedict XV, as he promised, appointed as secretary of state Cardinal Gasparri, who chose Pacelli as his undersecretary. In 1915, Pacelli traveled to Vienna in negotiations with the Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria regarding Italy.
Pope Benedict XV appointed Pacelli nuncio to Bavaria in 1917, consecrating him as titular archbishop of Sardis in the Sistine Chapel on 13 May 1917. Since there was no nuncio to Prussia or Germany, Pacelli effectively became the ambassador of the Holy See to all the German Empire, where he met with King Ludwig III and Kaiser Wilhelm II. It was during this time that he was joined by Mother Pascalina Lehnert — a Bavarian nun who would serve him for the rest of his life as his housekeeper and secretary. Mother Pascalina serves as our primary source for the personal life and details of the life of Pacelli, both before and after he became Pope Pius XII.
In Germany Pacelli was threatened repeatedly, and once at gunpoint, according to Mother Pascalina. The pope officially appointed Pacelli as nuncio to Germany in 1920. For the next decade, Pacelli would watch with disgust as Nazi beliefs emerged. He made forty-four speeches as apostolic nuncio to Germany, and forty of them spoke against Nazism.56 Due to his placement in Germany, Pacelli also became the de facto nuncio to Russia during the 1920s. Through unofficial and secret negotiations, he negotiated food shipments and relief to Catholics in Russia, until Pope Pius XI ordered off all talks with Moscow in 1927.
After Pope Pius XI signed the Lateran Treaty and settled the “Roman Question,” he recalled Pacelli to Rome and named him a cardinal before Christmas of 1929. Pope Pius XI then raised Cardinal Pacelli to cardinal secretary of state — the highest post in the Church, second only to the pope. Since the Vatican had been deprived of international political status since the fall of the Papal States in 1870, the new Vatican City State created in 1929 meant that Pacelli, as secretary of state, would need to reestablish the lost ties. He visited Franklin Roosevelt and reestablished official diplomatic relations with the United States. Having served so long in Germany during the 1920s, he had the unique role of warning the world of the growing Nazi threat of the 1930s, especially after 1933, when Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor. With Pacelli’s help, Pope Pius XI issued an encyclical in German, Mit brennender Sorge, which condemned Nazism as inhuman and pagan in ideology. It was smuggled into Germany and secretly delivered to each Catholic church so that priests could read it aloud to the faithful on Palm Sunday of 1937.
Observing the world torn apart by alliances and impending war, Cardinal Pacelli lamented that the dangers prophesied by Our Lady Fatima were about to come to pass:
I am concerned by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to Lúcia of Fatima. Mary’s persistence about the dangers that menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith, in Her liturgy, Her theology, and Her soul. . . . I hear all around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject her ornaments, and make her feel remorse for her historical past.
A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God. In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene, weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask, “Where have they taken Him?”57
It was well established that Pacelli was the uncontested candidate for the papacy after Pius XI, and Pacelli knew it. As he looked toward the future, perhaps he foresaw the attacks against Mother Church and against “Her liturgy, Her theology, and Her soul.” What’s more startling is that he seems to have foreseen the removal of the tabernacles from the Church, so that the faithful would look in vain for the red lamp signifying the Real Presence of Christ our Lord. “The Church will doubt as Peter doubted.”
54 Joseph Brosch, Pius XII: Lehrer der Wahrheit (Trier: Kreuzring, 1968), 45.
55 After the Lateran Treaty in 1929, the black nobility received dual citizenship in Italy and Vatican City. Pope Paul VI abolished the status and honors of the black nobility in 1968.
56 David G. Dalin and Joseph Bottum, The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010), 17.
57 Some doubt this quote, but it is found in Georges Roche and Philippe Saint Germain, “Pie XII devant l’Histoire” (1972), 52.
11
Pius XII as the Pope of Fatima
Therefore the whole and entire Catholic doctrine is to be presented and explained: by no means is it permitted to pass over in silence or to veil in ambiguous terms the Catholic truth regarding the nature and way of justification, the constitution of the Church, the primacy of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, and the only true union by the return of the dissidents to the one true Church of Christ.”
— Pope Pius XII, Instruction On the “Ecumenical Movement”
There seems to be only one apparent error in the message of Fatima. The Lady in white told Lúcia, “The war is going to end, but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI.” Pius XI died on 10 February 1939, and World War II didn’t officially begin until the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 — during the Pontificate of Pius XII. Was Lúcia wrong about the beginning of World War II?
Lúcia did not release this information until 1941, so she could have easily fudged or corrected the mistake. One might argue, however, that the “worse war” foretold by Our Lady of Fatima did begin prior to 1939, when Germany annexed Austria and made claims over parts of Czechoslovakia in 1938, during the pontificate of Pius XI. The chess pieces were already moved into position.
Regardless of the precise trigger date, Pope Pius XII is known as the pope of Fatima and the pope of World War II. Pius XII was devoted to Our Lady of Fatima and understood that his episcopal consecration occurred in conjunction with her first apparition on the same day of 13 May 1917. Lúcia revealed the First and Second Secrets of Fatima in 1941 and Pope Pius XII took notice of the Second Secret, which described both an “unknown light” and the consecration of Russia:
This war is going to end but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pope Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that He is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the Consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.58
Regarding the “unknown light,” something like the aurora borealis appeared on the night of 25–26 January 1938. From 8:45 p.m. until 1:15 a.m. these northern li
ghts oddly extended as far south as Spain, Austria, and Portugal, where Lúcia herself witnessed them as a sign. Pope Pius XI in Rome was rumored to have seen the “unknown light,” as well. The New York Times of 26 January 1938 reported:
The Aurora Borealis, rarely seen in Southern or Western Europe, spread fear in parts of Portugal and lower Austria tonight while thousands of Britons were brought running into the streets in wonderment. The ruddy glow led many to think half the city was ablaze. The Windsor Fire Department was called out thinking that Windsor Castle was afire. The lights were clearly seen in Italy, Spain, and even Gibraltar. The glow bathing snow-clad mountain tops in Austria and Switzerland was a beautiful sight, but firemen turned out to chase nonexistent fires. Portuguese villagers rushed in fright from their homes fearing the end of the world.
A little over a year later, Pope Pius XI died, on 10 February 1938, and Pope Pius XII was elected on 2 March 1939. But it was too late: “When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that He is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.”
While World War II burned through the world “for its crimes,” Pope Pius XII attempted to obey the Blessed Virgin of Fatima. In 1942, he performed the Fatima consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for the entire world. This would set the pattern for many more papal consecrations to the Immaculate Heart of Mary that would not specify Russia in their formulas. This has given rise to decades of debate over the consecration of Russia. Does “consecrating the world” properly “consecrate Russia” in the way that Our Lady of Fatima asked?
An analogy might be helpful in answering this dispute. If a father asked the pope to bless his terminally ill son, and the pope replied, “Yes, I will be happy to do this blessing. I bless all the children in the world in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” Did the pope bless the man’s sick son? Yes, he did bless the boy, but in a general mode and not in a specific mode. And there is a key difference. The Catholic Church, in her blessings and liturgy, requires specificity in her rites. A priest may not baptize several people simultaneously with a bucket of water or a hose. Each person must be baptized individually. When the priest consecrates the Eucharist, he consecrates only those hosts on the corporal — not those nearby in the sacristy. In exorcism, a specific person is exorcised, not a group.