The Passion of Pope Pius XII

by T. Stanfill Benns | Aug 10, 2023

© Copyright 2023, T. Stanfill Benns (All emphasis within quotes added by the author)

It will soon be 65 years since Pope Pius XII breathed his last and ended the juridical Church’s time on this earth. In an attempt to shed greater light on what the last true pope faced during his tempestuous papacy, we offer the following.

Both in my 2018 book The Phantom Church in Rome and in articles featured on this site, I have stated that I believe, based on the observations of those familiar with the papacy of Pope Pius XII, that Pope Pius was the victim of a cult-type situation in his final days, which may explain some of the decisions he made or failed to make. Recently some readers have questioned the use of the phrase “at the mercy of” his inner circle in reference to Pope Pius XII’s control by his Jesuit “handlers,” discussed in a previous blog, attempting to make it appear that I was inferring that Pope Pius XII’s will was completely subjugated by these individuals, who acted and spoke in his name. But this is not what I was referring to. Here I offer this phrase as defined in the dictionaries: “Wholly in the power of; with no way to protect oneself against — Merriam-Webster; If one person or thing is at the mercy of another, the first person or thing is in a situation where they cannot prevent themselves being harmed or affected by the second (Collins Online Dictionary). But what exactly did I mean when I said it?

When I state that Pope Pius XII was “at the mercy” of his advisors and even closest confidantes, I mean he was in a situation where he was unable to help or defend himself from his inner circle, because he was not fully aware they were not who they pretended to be — his loyal advisors and friends. They exercised power over him yes, but they never overpowered him. Pius XII most likely was the victim of a subtle form of brainwashing known as coercive persuasion. “Coercive persuasion attempts to force people to change beliefs, ideas, attitudes or behaviors using psychological pressure, undue influence, threats, anxiety, intimidation and/or stress… In coercive acts, deceptive or harmful methods propel the intended changes, not reason.” (In other words, there is always an element of fraud involved.) Strong and cook contrasted the two: “Persuasion uses argument to compel power to give way to reason while coercion uses force to compel reason to give way to power” (Strong & Cook, 1992). Below an attempt will be made to explain how such techniques may have been used to co-opt Pius XII.

Stages of coercive persuasion

This form of brainwashing does not completely take over the will but in certain cases — and to varying extents — bends it in a certain direction that favors the intent of the one exerting the malicious influence. And there are stages to its application. In writing his Combatting Cult Mind Control (1988), ex-cult member and exit counselor, Steven Hassan first studied the work of the pre-eminent expert on mind control, Robert Jay Lifton, who wrote Thought Control and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of “Brainwashing” in China. Hassan states that there are three initial steps to gaining control of the mind, developed by the Communist Chinese: unfreezing, or the complete breakdown of the person’s reality, including both physical and mental health, which involves a) sensory overload, which certainly happened with Pope Pius XII during the war years and following the Communist takeover of China, Southeast Asia and eastern Europe. All of Pius XII’s biographers mention his great fear of Communism. And b) Sleep deprivation, which is one of the most common and powerful techniques for breaking a person down. Also mentioned is dietary change, or lack of proper nutrition, which certainly applied to Pope Pius during his extended illness in 1953-1954.

The next step is changing, which occurred following Pope Pius XII’s recovery from that grave illness in 1955. And the final step is refreezing, which is the making of the “new man” or ideal cult member; docile, obedient, unquestioning, eager to please. As will be seen below, Pope Pius XII was subjected to all these steps and the coercion proceeded to a certain point. But his handlers could never obtain his complete cooperation, and so the refreezing process envisioned for the papacy and the Church would not happen until after his death. Traditionalists have portrayed Pope Pius XII as a willing cooperator in the destruction of the Church, making changes that easily “led in” to the revision of the liturgy and the false Vatican 2 council. But he cooperated only as far as he dared to keep himself alive, and Traditionalists neither give him credit for holding the line nor appreciate the agonizing mental struggle he endured to protect the Church he loved. And that struggle began before he ever became pope.

(Coercive persuasion as used in subtitles below has been abbreviated to CP.)

CP stage one, readjusting reality: 1939-1953

In 1939 there were indications that Pope Pius XI, who authored the official condemnation of Communism, did not die of natural causes. In writing his final but unpublished encyclical Humani Generis Unitatis, author Antoni Gronowicz maintains in his work The Hidden Encyclical of Pope Pius XI, it was clear that Pope Pius XI had become a “disillusioned man…(He) was convinced that Mussolini’s Fascism and Germany’s Hitlerism were no better than Russian Bolshevism,” (God’s Broker: The Life of John Paul 2). Gronowicz revealed that despite all attempts to keep the existence of the papal encyclical that condemned the Nazi’s persecution of the Jews a secret, news of its impending release reached Hitler, who ordered Nazi intelligence operatives to “poison the pope as soon as possible.” On Feb. 9, 1939, as Pope Pius XI worked to complete his last encyclical, Gronowicz reported that the pope collapsed after eating breakfast, “roll(ing) on the floor in tremendous pain. The next day, he was dead.” According to accounts contained in the memoirs of Eugene Cardinal Tisserant, a physician called in to attend Pius XI administered an injection that Tisserant claims caused the Pope’s death. And the Cardinal identified this physician as the father of Mussolini’s mistress. Pope Pius XII would suffer the same fate.

As Pope Pius XI’s Secretary of State, Eugenio Pacelli (Pius XII) could scarcely have been unaware of what transpired. Moreover, it is most likely that he wrote in part, or at least contributed his own thoughts to his predecessor’s final encyclical. In his 2013 work Soldier of Christ, Robert Ventresca writes: “As Secretary of State… Pacelli oversaw the drafting of Mit Brenunder Sorge,” the papal condemnation of Nazi theory and practice, specifically anti-Semitism. Pius XI reportedly told a group of German bishops visiting the Vatican a few days after the encyclical was issued ”Not one line leaves this office which [Pacelli] does not recognize’” (Ibid.). Many have wondered why Pius XI’s final encyclical was never released by Pope Pius XII during the war, but seeing how even the prospect of its release ended for Pius XI, one can certainly excuse Pius XII for being cautious in issuing any further condemnation of the Nazis. And some of the hidden encyclical was echoed in Pope Pius XII’s own Humani generis.

When his health began drastically declining in 1954, Pius XII had no choice but to minimize his activities and delegate many of his duties. It was the onset of this illness, as first reported in August of 1953 by his physician Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi, that casts a decided pallor over his last years in the Vatican and creates unease concerning just how much Pius knew and how freely he was able to act. Galeazzi-Lisi treated then monitored the gastric illness that began in the late summer of 1953 and left the pope close to death in 1954. The complaint was attributed to his scrupulous use of a chromic acid preparation left in the papal bathroom “accidentally” by his dentist, a dentist to whom Galeazzi-Lisi himself had referred the pope. Intended for a one-time application only, it is suggested that the preparation caused the hiccups and inability to eat, resulting in weight loss and the general weakness then troubling the Pope. But not so coincidentally, other factors were at work that also greatly affected Pius’ mental health as well and apparently destroyed his confidence in Montini and Montini’s close friends.

Montini’s father,  Giorgio, was active in the Christian Democrat party founded in 1919 but suppressed under Fascist rule in Italy. Although the party had won a decisive victory in 1948, defeating the Communists, Pope Pius XII was displeased over the direction the Christian Democrats had taken following the 1948 elections. When the Christian Democrat De Gasperi assumed leadership of the Italian government in 1945, it did not take long for Pius XII to realize that concessions, however gradual, would be made to the Communists. He urged Luigi Gedda, head of Catholic Action to form committees to counteract this imperceptible slide. It is said by some that he even suggested courting Italian neo-fascist elements to help stem the leftist leanings of De Gasperi. The Pope suspected that Montini leaned toward the left wing of the Christian Democrats as well, when the Vatican had never relented in its stand against atheistic Communism. And moreover, De Gasperi and Montini were close friends, as might be expected. Pope Pius found himself politically stalemated and faced with a difficult situation that would not be easily remedied.

Another scandal rocked the Vatican in April 1953, with the discovery of 21-year-old Wilma Montesi’s body on the beach at Ostia (see the Time magazine article HERE). Her untimely death exposed a side of Italy most embarrassing to the Holy See, one that would finger clergy, government officials and others as members of an occult group given to black masses, orgies and drug use. The scandal implicated Don Luigi Sturzo, co-founder of the Christian Democrat party and members of Rome’s “Black Nobility,” historically Roman aristocrats supporting the papacy. The Mafioso named as the host of these sacrilegious ceremonies was Ugo Montagna, styled the Marquis of San Bartolomeo, possibly a distant relative of Giovanni Montini. “The Brescia family from which Montini derives his nobility and original (Hebrew) lineage is an outgrowth of the original Bartolome (Bartolino) of Benedictis (family),” (Rev. Saenz-Arriaga,The New Montinian Church). But many of the details of this scandal would not become public until nearly a year later, during the throes of Pope Pius XII’s health crisis, when Montagna’s mistress, Anna Maria Caglio, began to tell her story.

Those frequenting Montagna’s lodge reportedly included his landlord, Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi, Pope Pius XII’s personal physician; his half-brother and director of Public Works for Vatican City, Count Enrico Galeazzi; Pope Pius XII’s nephew, Prince Carlo Pacelli; Montagna’s “close friend,” Luigi Gedda, head of Catholic Action and other Vatican City officials. Gedda allegedly was involved in purchasing a car through Vatican City administrative channels for Montagna’s mistress, Anna Maria Caglio, according to Caglio. It was Galeazzi-Lisi who would insist on using the experimental embalming procedures following the Pope’s death that caused Pius’ body to turn green and emit an intolerable stench; this despite the reportedly strenuous objections of Sr. Pasqualina that Pope Pius XII never would have approved of such a procedure, (Paul I. Murphy, La Popessa, 1983). Pope Pius XII later dismissed Galeazzi-Lisi in 1955 for peddling unauthorized versions of his diary. He mysteriously reappeared during the pope’s final illness, but following the embalming disaster, he was censured and dismissed by the cardinals Oct. 20, 1958 (Wikipedia).

In his work, All Rome Trembled, Melton S. Davis reported that long before ecumenical restructuring in the Church, post-war Italy was only nominally Catholic and clamoring for change, especially concessions to the workers. These changes were actually facilitated by the Montesi affair, which put on display the corruption of the nobility, their involvement with organized crime and resulted in an Italy unified against that corruption and economic largesse. Supporting his fellow countrymen in their pursuit of a more democratic Italy was, predictably, Msgr. Giovanni Montini, then Vatican pro-secretary of state. Montini condemned himself at the time of the scandal with the following words: “The Church will have to reconcile Catholic tradition with the humanism of modern times,” (All Rome Trembled). Cardinal Lercaro was of the same mind, for he stated: “The Church will be ruined if it does not go along a new path.”

Already the eagles were gathering around the corpse of the papacy. But Msgr. Montini’s intrigues and insubordination did not end with his Christian Democrat affiliations. At about the same time the Montesi scandal erupted in Rome, he was busy siding with his friends Roncalli and Rev. Congar in the worker-priest affair. This scandal erupted in France while Roncalli was nuncio, a position Montini had secured for him by pressuring Pius XII. For evangelization purposes, Cardinal Suhard allowed Catholic priests to use a novel approach to effect conversions by working alongside lapsed Catholics in the factories and markets in hopes of attracting them to religion. Instead, many of them began neglecting their priestly duties and joined in with Marxists and Communists agitating for social and political changes. Some even left the priesthood to marry. Roncalli sat on the situation and failed to address it. Montini endorsed a book, Lay People in the Church, written by Rev. Yves Congar, sympathizing with the movement. (The photo insert above was taken from a 1970s issue of the Kentucky publication Veritas.)

The proverbial straw came when he discovered Montini had been embroiled in conciliatory correspondence with the Soviet Union. Pius XII became aware of Montini’s misbehavior in 1954 during his illness (resulting from use of the toothpaste preparation “accidentally” left in his bathroom). By the time Montini’s activities were uncovered, the Pope was in precarious health, and such a discovery could not help but worsen his condition. According to Piers Compton’s The Broken Cross, Montini met with his childhood friend Togliatti (then head of the Communist Party in Italy) and certain members of the Christian Democrat party in July of 1944. A Protestant Archbishop from Sweden advised the Pope of Montini’s breach after gaining access to certain intelligence reports. Pius immediately opened an enquiry into the matter, which revealed that Montini’s private secretary, the Jesuit Tondi who later abandoned the priesthood, was the Russian agent responsible for notifying the KGB concerning the identities of priests and bishops secretly sent behind the Iron Curtain by Pope Pius XII. The incident was obliquely mentioned in the 1973 work The Jesuit, a fact-based novel written by former Jesuit John Gallahue.

As the head of Vatican intelligence, Montini certainly knew the whereabouts of clergy secretly sent into Russia or could easily track them through his contacts. And a copy of a purported Office of Strategic Services document declassified in the 1980s confirmed his activities and stated that the meeting between Montini and Togliatti was held at the home of a Christian Democrat minister in July of 1944, (Montini’s brother Lodovico? Or Don Luigi Sturzo?) This meeting, the document states, initiated the alliance of the Christian Democrats with the Socialists and Communists in Italy in order to obtain a majority vote in the 1948 Italian election, won by the elder Montini’s Christian Democrat party. Also drafted during the meeting, according to the document, was a plan for a “practical understanding” between the Vatican and the Holy See establishing an era of “new relations.” But the document is dated July 13 of 1944, so apparently Pius XII only become aware of this betrayal some 10 years later. If this is the case, it is roundabout proof that Pius XII was not privy to the true nature of Montini’s correspondence with the various intelligence services or any other operations launched through the auspices of an organization known as Pro Deo.

Rev. Felix Morlion established the intelligence agency, The Center of Information Pro Deo, in Lisbon, Portugal just prior to World War II. Wemhoff reports that Montini was co-founder of the organization. However, “Morlion’s propaganda and espionage empire was [first] set up in Brussels before the war and went on to include the Pro Deo University in Rome, now known as LUISS. Funded by the CIA and by Fiat president Vittorio Valletta – [another] Bilderberger – Morlion’s “journalistic” establishment provided US intelligence with information on the Vatican and from a worldwide network of correspondents,” (https://www.italianinsider.it/?q=node/3133). After Morlion was driven into Portugal by the Nazis in 1941, OSS head William Donovan brought him to the U.S. Shortly after the Allied victory in Europe, Donovan and Morlion succeeded in establishing Pro Deo in the Vatican itself, with the help of Montini. In 1944, Pope Pius XII even inaugurated Donovan as a Knight of St. Sylvester for his service to the Church. Later, the U.S. branch of Pro Deo was headed up by Francis Cardinal Spellman (Wemhoff, p. 367). Spellman also was the de facto head of the Knights of Malta, its “protector and spiritual advisor” (Messianic Legacy).

“Cardinal” Montini would later be on hand for the signing of the Vatican-Moscow agreement in October 1962, the long-awaited culmination of his initial bid for détente. The occasion was the deal struck by President Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev and Roncalli to back Russian missiles out of Cuba following the Cuban missile crises, resulting in “dialogue” with the Vatican and Soviet Russia. Morlion was one of the negotiators assigned to deal with Russia. All this occurred during the course of Vatican 2, providing a living illustration of how all monuments of the past must be bulldozed. In April of 1963, the release of Pacem in Terris sealed the “opening” to the left, with Roncalli clearly teaching religious liberty and the brotherhood of man. This document, according to Montini’s biographer, William Barrett, smacked of Montini’s ideology and style, (Shepherd of Mankind). Later Morlion, (also “Cardinal” Bea) would figure into the Novus Ordo church’s change of heart concerning its characterization of the Jews in the liturgy, (“How the Jews Changed Catholic Thinking,” Time magazine, 1966). Also in 1963, the Christian Democrats formally signed a coalition with the Italian Socialist Party.

It is not hard to understand the extent to which Pope Pius XII must have felt betrayed by Montini, considering his endorsement of Donovan and the trust he placed in his then Pro-Secretary. After all, Montini had access to funds from the Vatican Bank, and could easily have financed any number of covert and hard-to-trace operations that compromised the Church and Her interests. It appears that Pius’ faith in his own judgments was shaken, and he may have become convinced that the Church would end with him. After his death, Time magazine reported: “In his preoccupation with the world at large and with his diplomat’s tendency to avoid sharp edges, Pope Pius often neglected the Vatican itself. He seemed to shrink from making much-needed appointments to the central machinery of the church. Result, at the time of his death: 15 vacancies in a superannuated College of Cardinals, no Secretary of State, no governor for Vatican City, no camerlengo (see The Succession). Said one of his closest advisers sadly last week: ‘He provided badly for his successor’”.

America wages war on the Church

In The Phantom Church of Rome, quoted above in part, I went into great detail regarding the extent of the doctrinal warfare the American government conducted against Catholics, first implemented in 1953. In his book John Courtenay Murray, Time/Life, and the American Proposition, international attorney David Wemhoff described this warfare as a “planned attack against a basic hostile doctrinal system” combined simultaneously with a propaganda-style campaign to promote socially acceptable religious ideals. Originally developed as a program to combat Communism, it was redesigned to primarily target (religious) “decision makers and their staffs.” It grew “out of the propaganda agencies of World War II,” agencies that were later coordinated from the Vatican by then pro-secretary of state Giovanni Montini. Using Montini’s contacts, priests and other clergy engaged in teaching positions were employed to pump neo-Modernist poison into the veins of the Catholic intelligentsia.

And who was one of those well-versed in at least the Catholic media’s campaign to combat the spread of Communist ideology? None other than Felix Morlion and his Apostolate of Public Opinion, developed during the war years in Belgium. This  journalistic approach helped mold American opinion to  accept the American Proposition, much as today’s media was used to sell Progressivism to the American public. A later-released 1957 intelligence document reveals that: “Felix A. Morlion, O.P., is a Belgian who became a Dominican after engineering studies at Louvain. He served for Psychological Warfare Activities in the United States from 1941-44 with other leaders of anti-totalitarianism. He was first on the Nazi blacklist for his Brussels International Pro Deo Center. The impact of the American way of life brought him and his associates to plan the creation of a university to apply the philosophy of the American Founding Fathers to the international promotion of democracy under God.”

It was Morlion, Wemhoff relates, who first hosted the promulgation of the American Proposition at Pro Deo University in November of 1953 during Pius XII’s illness. American Jesuit John Courtenay Murray, with the help of Time/Life had written about it at length for years and Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton, also Rev. Francis Connell, had diligently opposed him in American Ecclesiastical Review articles all those years. What exactly was the American Proposition? Crisis magazine wrote in 1999: “Murray claimed that America was a pluralistic society divided into four disparate camps: Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and secularist [as also described in Protestant, Catholic, Jew by the Jewish theologian Will Herberg in 1955]. For all Americans, the First Amendment’s clauses amounted to “articles of peace” that enabled them all to coexist. Murray wanted more than mere coexistence, though. He hoped that Americans would rediscover the natural law and use it.”  It was a much-awaited “reversal” of Pope Leo XIII’s condemnation of Americanism, seemingly coming from the Church Herself.

Murray’s errors as reflected in the propositions included the denial that the Catholic state was the true ideal to be pursued by society, the belief that full-blown religious liberty in a democracy is a valid political principle, the teaching that it is enough that the democratic state generally guarantee the Church full freedom of religion and nothing more, and the implication that Pope Leo XIII’s Immortale Dei can be interpreted in such a way that it denies God His supreme right to be worshipped. His book was thoroughly denounced by Msgr. Fenton in an October 1961 American Ecclesiastical Review article. There Fenton pointed out repeatedly that while Murray invoked Pope Leo XIII and other pontiffs as supportive of his theories, Murray understood their teaching in a way never intended by those popes and not consistent with the constant teaching of the Church. Fenton stated in closing his article:

“It is not a matter of Catholic politic or of Catholic tactic, but a matter of Christian doctrine, that in itself and objectively the state or the civil society is obligated to give public and corporate worship to God, to pay to God the debt of acknowledgement due to Him because of His supreme excellence and because of our complete dependence upon Him…. God Himself has signified clearly that He wants to be worshipped. In the final analysis, this and this alone is the reason why the Church has refused to accept the separation of Church and state as a thesis. This is the basic and the essential reason why it is the Catholic thesis that objectively every community, every state, as well as every individual, should recognize and acknowledge the Catholic Church for what it truly is, the one and only supernatural kingdom of the living God on earth. And this information comes from the explicit statement of Pope Leo XIII.

“The Church cannot cease to preach these truths until the end of time. Certainly it would be more fashionable on the part of the Church and on the part of its members to speak and to write as if the Church, objectively, had no right to anything more than freedom from oppression on the part of the various states that go to make up the world society in which we live. Likewise it would please liberals both outside of and within the Church’s membership if the magisterium could teach that, in these enlightened days, a truly democratic state has no objective obligation or ideal higher than that of granting true liberty to the Catholic Church and to all the other religious organizations within its borders.

“…It is imperative that, in these most dangerous times, the teachers of the Catholic Church should not lose sight of the fact that the Church exists in order to glorify God through the salvation and the sanctification of human souls. We who have been privileged to assist in the teaching of Catholic truth will fail most abjectly if we, by our carelessness, or our sympathy for the liberalism of the day, in any way obscure the truth that every man and every society must be considered as objectively bound to worship God and His Son ACCORDING TO THE RITE OF THE TRUE RELIGION, which is the religion of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ.” And once Vatican 2 declared Murray’s dogma as their church’s credo, society lost forever the opportunity to worship Our Lord as He desires to be worshipped in the Latin Mass. And this occurred only because they had already lost the only guarantor of that worship‘s validity and integrity, the fount of all Catholic truth — Christ’s Vicar on earth.

Embattled as the Church was, it then appeared that She endorsed democracy as the savior of the world and a governmental system that would be acceptable to, and even protective of, the Catholic faith. But as Wemhoff explains in his work, all of this was an intricate web of deceit woven by the CIA and its collaborators to pretend to protect the Church while corrupting Her doctrines. The very mention of psychological warfare in itself indicates that much preparation had gone into this program and that it operated on multiple levels. It is naïve to think that the pope himself was not directly targeted by U.S. intelligence because this is exactly what Msgr. Montini was doing as Pope Pius XII’s pro-secretary. And that this devious plan went even beyond Montini’s eventual dismissal as Pope Pius XII’s pro-secretary and confidante is not hard to imagine.

“Tensions within the church of Pius XII over doctrinal matters intensified through the late 1940s and reached a crescendo after the publication of the papal encyclical Humani Generis, (August 1950). In it, Pius XII condemned what he saw as the “false theories” of modern philosophies that were affecting the work of Catholic thinkers — whose adherents were labeled by critics as exponents of a nouvelle théologie, a “new” theology that threatened to undermine the very foundations of the Church’s teaching… Some critics at the time agreed that Pius XII perhaps was speaking too frequently and too expansively on matters far beyond his competency. The result was not so much the inflation of papal words as their trivialization…Many of Pius XII’s advisors and admirers admitted that in the latter part of his pontificate especially the papal court exhibited a tendency toward inertia, stagnation, and reaction. For… Jacques Maritain, it was especially lamentable that Pius XII gave free rein to the “archaic methods” and mentality of the men of the Holy Office’”  (Soldier of Christ, Robert Ventresca, p. 272)

And this is why Maritain, an ardent promoter of the American Proposition and a close friend of  friend of Montini, also Msgr. Fenton’s arch-enemy John Courtenay Murray, were on the list of those to be formally condemned before Pope Pius XII died. But they were only two of several already silenced. In a Forbes magazine online review of Ventresca’s work in 2014, writer John Farrell quotes Prof. Don O’Leary as follows: “Catholic scholarship was severely curtailed in the latter half of Pius’s pontificate. Some theologians were forbidden by Vatican authorities to teach or publish on the basis of guidelines such as those laid down in Humani Generis. Those who were censured for their views, or who were very restricted in expressing their views, included, most notably the French Dominicans Yves Congar and Marie-Dominique Chenu, and the Jesuits Henri de Lubac, Karl Rahner, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Jean Daniélou, [Joseph Ratzinger] and John Courtney Murray.”

This also is noted by Ventresca and is supported by Rev. Robert Nugent’s work Silence Speaks, which details communications between the censured theologians and the ecclesiastical authorities and describes how the disciplinary actions taken against these men affected them both personally and spiritually.”  So Pope Pius XII WAS doing something to counteract these abuses; but in the eyes of his critics he wasn’t doing enough. Already the war years and his doctrinal battles had taken their toll, and the Communist menace continued to haunt him. He also was faced with the many difficulties that arose with reconstruction in the countries devastated by war, following World War II. This adds up to the sensory overload that contributes to unfreezing, mentioned above. And then, his health began to slowly deteriorate.

End of CP stage one: the Pope gets sick; 1953-1954

Paul I. Murphy reports in his work on Sr. Pasqualina, (La Popessa, 1983) that Pope Pius XII was recovering from “a severe cold in late December of 1949,”  and it was then that Sr. Pasqualina began to detect “…subtle, troubling changes in the pope’s physical health.” Ventresca relates that the German Bishop Aloysius Muench recorded in his diary in October of 1953 that Pius XII’s ”… illness of last winter took much of him,” meaning he had again been ill in 1952, early 1953. But we know already that he began having severe symptoms from his chromic acid poisoning by the end of August 1953, as reported by his doctor, Ricardo Galeazzi-Lisi. These included severe hiccupping and constant gastric pain and distress.

In a year’s time, Pope Pius XII lost some 40 pounds. Alden Hatch and Seamus Walshe report in their work Crown of Glory, The Life of Pope Pius XII (1957) that by the time he returned to the Vatican from Castel Gondolfo in the summer of 1954: “He could eat very little and was suffering from extreme pain… He was literally a wraith… From a normal 145 pounds his weight was down to 105 pounds…The pope’s physicians were in despair.” His violent hiccupping and chronic pain undoubtedly made it next to impossible for him to sleep. This is the equivalent of the dietary and sleep deprivations used in the “unfreezing” process mentioned earlier, to disorient those who are to be subjected to coercive persuasion.

Even after Pope Pius XII recovered in December of 1954, Ventresca says in his work: “Each successive health scare left the aging pontiff weaker and dependent physically and emotionally on a small and increasingly restricted circle of attendants and confidants. The narrow and rarified world of the papal court grew much more insular with competing agendas and petty jealousies combining to accentuate the dawning awareness of a pending transition in power… Although Pius XII maintained a full and active schedule with no signs of altering his routine of constant work until the early morning hours, the effects of age and declining health were readily evident” (Ibid, pgs. 290, 293). And this is when the second step used in mind control began to take shape: the “changing,” a reinterpretation of the targeted victim’s reality.

William Barrett, in his Shepherd of Mankind: A Biography of Pope Paul VI, (1964; pgs. 234-35), wrote that during the severe illness the pope suffered in 1954, only certain individuals were allowed to attend to him or consult with him. These included his housekeeper Sr. Pasqualina, his doctor, Ricardo Galeazzi-Lisi, Galeazzi-Lisi’s half-brother, Count Enrico Galeazzi, head of Vatican City Public Works and Pius XII’s two nephews. Some say it also included Fr. Tardini. “The people around the Pope were honestly motivated, no doubt. To them his health was more important than anything he was called upon to do, anything he was required to sign, anybody he was supposed to see. Granting the truth of all that, the Holy Father himself had made intrusion upon even his time of illness necessary. He had delegated no authority not even in the all-important secretariat of state.

“Giovanni Battista Montini had to challenge the sick room coterie in order to clear matters that had to be cleared to obtain signatures which had to be obtained. He made enemies in doing so and even Pius the XII cooled toward him. A man who is ill likes those who see to his comfort  and is antagonized by anyone who disturbs or upsets him. Monsignor Montini was the disturber, the upsetter and the five people close to the ailing pontiff were the dispensers of comfort. A rift developed which was never named nor acknowledged but which existed without the naming nor the acknowledgement.” Montini was dismissed as pro-secretary am and on November 3, 1954, he received word that Pius XII was sending him to Milan as its Archbishop, a position that usually came with the cardinalate.

But Montini received no red hat in Pius XII’s 1953 consistory, his last appointment of cardinals, nor would he receive one as Archbishop of Milan. This was interpreted as a rebuke for his Communist affiliations by Vatican officials. In 1953, both Montini and Fr. Domenico Tardini held positions as Pope Pius XII’s pro-secretaries of state. At that time, Tardini also was bypassed as a recipient of the red hat. Did the pope think perhaps that Montini had something to do with the poisoning? We will never know. But Pope Pius XII’s reality surely deteriorated even further with the discovery, prior to Montini’s dismissal, that his own pro-secretary, his right-hand man heading intelligence operations during the war, with easy access to Vatican funds, was in league with the Communists. This after Pope Pius XII had condemned them in a manner binding on all Catholics in the July 1949 Holy Office instruction on Communism.

Some might be tempted to suggest that Pius XII reacted to Montini’s betrayal as he did only as a sort of cover-up for his own actions, slapping Montini’s wrist by exiling him to Milan versus formally disciplining him.  But if Pius XII was complicit in Montini’s dealings, why the attempt to poison the pope which very nearly succeeded? And if he was truly involved in the plot to modernize the Church, why did he cut himself off from the Curia after 1954? Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton reports in his Diaries that one Hungarian monsignor commented that there were only four members of the Curia, at most, who were true Catholics, and others strongly suggested a reform of the Curia. Fenton privately questioned Pope Pius XII’s failure to openly condemn the traitors in the Church, but in his American Ecclesiastical Review articles, praised and defended Pius until he left the Catholic University of America in the early 1960s.

According to Paul Murphy, Pius XII “snubbed” the Curia in his final years and one Cardinal described his ruling style as “Byzantine and weird.” Murphy quotes Fr. Tardini as condemning Pius XII for his “lack of trust in others” and his “incapability of working with the hierarchy…” Tardini accredited the pope’s failures to an “inability to open his spirit and confide with the clergy.” Cardinal Tisserant is said to have pronounced before his death, “The Church appears to be dying with him” (Ibid. Murphy, La Popessa). The author further observes: “Cardinals and bishops throughout the world, responsible for vast congregations and faced with problems of great urgency, found that they could not obtain access to the Pope when they visited Rome and were forced to make their own separate deals with Curia officials. The hierarchy considered Pius’s actions a direct slap… One cardinal, after waiting in vain for several months to be received by Pius, finally gave up in utter disgust. ‘Let’s all dress up as football players.’ he said sarcastically at a meeting of fellow prelates. ‘Then we will certainly be received right away.’”

The perpetrators of the great betrayal

The remaining years of his papacy following his recovery seems to have been dedicated to liturgical matters and addresses and encyclicals concerning Our Lady and Our Lord, the problems in Hungary with Cardinals Mindszenty and Wyszinski, Catholic Action, lay organizations, youth, health, the faithful and social problems, to seminarians and religious and various other secular topics. One can find binding doctrinal statements in those writings, entered into the AAS, but they certainly did not have the substance of those constitutions and encyclicals issued in the early part of his pontificate. It should be noted here that all of Pius XII’s major doctrinal decisions, with the exception of Ad apostolorum principis were executed prior to 1955. Si diligus on the canonization of Pope Pius X in 1954 and Ad Sinarum Gentum on the Chinese bishops in October of 1954 were the only other two strictly doctrinal instructions issued between 1950 and 1954, and the occasions for these were the correction and instruction of the hierarchy, for all the good it did the pope.

I think it’s fairly obvious Pope Pius XII was held hostage from statements made by people such as Fr.  Eilers, who died while undertaking a journey to Rome to investigate the claim that Pius XII was basically being held captive in the Vatican in the mid 1950s. (This was first reported by Yves Compton in his The Broken Cross,1984, available for reading HERE.) And then there’s also the statement of Msgr. Fenton from his diaries: ‘Have the Commies any monopoly on brainwashing? Think of Pasqualina and the Count” (Journal 4, 1956-1958). Not everyone believes that Sr. Pasqualina was a part of the coercive persuasion process, although it is possible, even likely, that she was. But who was this “Count”? Some believe it could have been the architect Pope Pius XII was close friends with —  Enrico Galeazzi, Administrator of Vatican City, head of the Knights of Columbus in Italy and half-brother of Pope Pius XII’s physician Galeazzi-Lisi.

Now the significance of this, of course, is that in 1953 Pope Pus XII, according to his doctor Galeazzi-Lisi announced that he had been poisoned by a chromic solution used as toothpaste that was prescribed by a dentist to whom Galeazzi had referred him. I think it’s pretty obvious that the enemy tried to cripple him and get rid of him on numerous occasions. If there was any “inertia,” as mentioned above, in the latter half of his papacy it was due to one thing: he was being controlled by a cabal of Jesuits and other Vatican officials who did not have his best interests at heart  — and that is putting it mildly. They more or less kept him on house arrest and had access to him at all times for various projects they were working on, shall we say, for lack of a better word. But most of what they were really doing was well hidden from the pope.

Count Galeazzi, along with Mafioso and Freemason Michele Sindona, of Vatican banking scandal fame, also were close friends of Pope Paul 6 according to some reports.  Their organization helped fund Paul 6’s father’s political organization, the Christian Democrats. “Cardinal Francis Spellman… was intimately associated with Bernardino Nogara. [Nogaro was] the mastermind behind the Vatican bank and with Count Enrico Galeazzi [director of Public Works for Vatican City], who with Michelle Sindona watched over Vatican investments and banking in the early 1960s” (Messianic Legacy, Lincoln, Leigh and Baigent, 1986). Compton writes in his The Broken Cross: “The management of the Generale Immobiliare was in the hands of Count Enrico Galeazzi, the director of an investment and credit company (estimated capital twenty-five billion lire), who could so freely come and go at the Vatican that he was known as the lay pope.” Galeazzi is described in several places as Pius XII’s friend and personal confidante.

Bugnini and the liturgy

Traditional “Catholics” — who abandoned the Divine institution of the papacy safeguarding the integrity of the Lain Mass to champion the liturgy — demonize Pius XII for paving the way to the liturgical renewal that became the Novus Ordo Missae following the false Vatican 2 council. But given the time frame in which this occurred, it is highly likely that the pope was already being unduly pressured and deliberately misguided and misinformed in making what they term as these “introductory” concessions. As mentioned HERE, both Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII considered calling a council to correct the modern errors plaguing the Church, but Pope Pius XI was warned by no less than Louis Cardinal Billot that such a gathering would be dangerous, since “Resuming the Council is desired by the worst enemies of the Church, the modernists,” who, he warned, were already preparing to overthrow the Church.

John Vennari, in his booklet, The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita, despite noting that the changes intended by the enemies of the Church would target the liturgy, does not hesitate to blame Pope Pius XII for failing to call a council, as requested by Cardinal Ruffini and others. He claims, as does Bro. Michael of the Trinity in his The Whole Truth about Fatima, Vol. III, that  that “progressive elements” in the Church “tragically,” dissuaded the pope from convening the council. But this is totally illogical. If the Church was already compromised under Pope Pius XI when Card. Billot issued his warning, how could anyone believe that the situation had magically improved by the 1950s?! Pius XII already knew he was outmanned; and his illness alone prevented him from moving forward.

Those who accuse him of paving the way for liturgical change need only read the essay HERE to learn that In both sets of the preparatory council documents proposed by Popes Pius XI and XII, there is not one mention of the liturgy or the Mass as a possible focal point; almost the entire focus was on doctrinal matters and a few social issues. No, what few entirely permissible  “concessions” were made were the work of a Vatican 2 architect later discovered in the 1960s to be a practicing Freemason.

In May of 1948, Pope Pius XII appointed Fr. Annibale Bugnini secretary to the Commission for Liturgical Reform, a post he held until 1960. Three years after his appointment by Pope Pius XII, when the pope’s pre-disposition to ill-health first became noticeable, the Easter Vigil changes came in 1951. But the rest of the Holy Week reforms were not instituted until 1955, following Pope Pius XII’s near death in December of 1954. Then came the changes to the Eucharistic Fast and the allowance of Evening Mass, which somewhat coincided with each other. “You” replaced “Thee” in certain missals used by the faithful beginning in 1957; also “Holy Spirit” was substituted for “Holy Ghost” even earlier. And on September 3, 1958, the instruction from the Sacred Congregation of Rites, De Musica Sacra Liturgica (Sacred Music and the Liturgy) was released, one month before Pope Pius XII’s death.

This instruction, while legitimizing some secular music and the responses in Latin to be made by the people attending the Dialogue masses, does not otherwise depart in any way from  the basic form of the Mass. One Dialogue mass card (The Catholic Press, Inc., 1960) reads in the preface to the prayers: “Many parishes now regularly schedule Dialogue Masses. The people participate vocally by giving the Latin responses and joining with the celebrant in reciting certain parts of the mass. (The degree of participation is usually announced beforehand.)” So it appears that the Dialogue Mass was first proposed in “many parishes” as an option only, not as a replacement for the regular Mass, just as Latin “masses” are now offered as an alternate service in Novus Ordo churches. It later, however, became the norm. The instruction issued by the Sacred Congregation states in para. 29:

“Those who use a small missal, suitable to their own understanding, and pray with the priest in the very words of the Church, are worthy of special praise. But all are not equally capable of correctly understanding the rites, and liturgical formulas; nor does everyone possess the same spiritual needs; nor do these needs remain constant in the same individual. Therefore, these people may find a more suitable or easier method of participation in the Mass when “they meditate devoutly on the mysteries of Jesus Christ, or perform other devotional exercises, and offer prayers which, though different in form from those of the sacred rites, are in essential harmony with them” (Mediator Dei (https://adoremus.org/MediatorDei.html), AAS 39 [1947] 560-561). The instruction also encourages parishes to train choirs and participants properly in the practice of Gregorian chant.

So according to Mediator Dei, even the Dialogue Mass is optional; the faithful are not required by the instruction itself to participate, only encouraged to do so. If this is truly the case, then why is it that beginning in 1959, these offensive missalettes, widely distributed by the Benedictines through Collegeville Press in Minnesota and the Paulist Press, to name just a few, make it the norm? And why was the language in these books significantly altered and modernized in all parts of the Mass, as advocated by Mass reformers Frs. Michel and Ellard, not just the alteration of the consecration to “for all men”? For this certainly was not Pope Pius XII’s intent in approving the Dialogue Mass as reported at the end of the instruction, where it reads:

“This instruction on sacred music and the sacred liturgy was submitted to His Holiness Pope Pius XII by the undersigned Cardinal Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. His Holiness deigned to give his special approval and authority to all its prescriptions. He also commanded that it be promulgated and be conscientiously observed by all to whom it applies.” But the very instruction itself indicates it does not apply to everyone, everywhere. And while the instruction indicates that a more complete participation in the Mass is accomplished by active participation, it yet allows for those types of participation as described in Mediator Dei.

As one Catholic writer would later observe, many practices initially approved by the popes in the past were later abandoned or revoked by succeeding pontiffs. There is nothing to say that this new practice was written in stone; it was simply a concession to the laity, one which I am sure had been presented to Pope Pius XII as the general desire of the faithful, when in fact it was the ardent desire of clerics avidly promoting liturgical renewal — Montini, Roncalli, Bugnini, Dom Lambert Beauduin and Dom Virgil Michel, Frs. Gerald Ellard, Pius Parsch, Odo Casel and others among them — who had been steadily advancing toward this goal since the 1920s.  The history of their efforts will be covered elsewhere on this site under the heading on the Study the Faith/Articles page, Latin Mass, Liturgical Reform.

So while Pope Pius XII is painted as beginning the Vatican 2 reforms by changing the Easter and Holy Week rites and relaxing the fasting and Mass attendance laws, none of this ever came close to touching on the subject of the Eucharist or the Consecration; all the so-called concessions he made were permitted to him as pope. He went as far as he could to satisfy what he believed to be the wants and needs of the faithful, hoping to draw them closer to the faith by granting what he perceived to be their overwhelming desire to a more active participation in the Mass. But was this truly the desire of the majority of Catholics, or was it merely the perception that had been conveyed to him by his limited circle of advisors?

CP stage two: the Pope in isolation, 1955-58

Having accomplished the unfreezing that destabilized the pope, Hassan’s changing phase now continues in earnest. This begins in 1955, following Pope Pius XII’s vision of Christ in December 1954 and his miraculous recovery. In this phase, the desired alternative behaviors are established and enforced, and Pope Pius XII’s “new behaviors” included, obviously, the absence of his pro-secretaries and an increasing reliance on a small group of advisors, several of them Jesuits. Among these were Sr. Pasqualina, Francis Cardinal Spellman; to some degree, Count Enrico Galeazzi and Fr. Tardini; his confessor, Augustin Bea, S.J., his personal assistant Robert Leiber, S.J., (who according to Pius’s biographer Susan Zuccotti, was, “throughout his entire papacy, his private secretary and closest advisor”), also other Jesuit advisors.

Bea and Leiber had been his advisors since the pope’s days as nuncio in Germany and remained his primary sources of information and advice. According to Wikipedia, Leiber: “… assisted Pius XII in researching the topics for his speeches and radio messages. [He] was one of an “impromptu band of willing Jesuits” whom Pius XII employed “checking and double-checking every reference” in his written works. Gone by then was Galeazzi-Lisi, who Pius XII dismissed as his physician shortly after his recovery, Ventresca reports. Gone also was Ivo Zeiger, S.J., who passed away in 1952. Zieger had been most helpful to Pope Pius XII in organizing post-war German relief efforts. So Zieger, a possibly benign personality, also Montini and Galeazzi-Lisi disappear from the scene.

It is quite clear that the pope’s attitude is a reflection of his belief that the bishops and even members of the Curia were either plotting against him or were so hopelessly liberal there was little sense in wasting any time with them. The deadly Modernist infiltration of the Church had been so successful, even Msgr. Joseph C. Fenton would comment in his diary, while attending the first session of the false Vatican 2 council: “The sense or feeling of this gathering seems to be entirely liberal. I am anxious to get home. I am afraid that there is nothing at all that I can do here. Being in the council is, of course, the great experience of my life. But, at the same time, it has been a frightful disappointment. I NEVER THOUGHT THAT THE EPISCOPATE WAS SO LIBERAL…” (Oct. 31, 1962). Monsignor Fenton wrote further that he had no respect for Fr. Tardini, had seen him with “gangster-like” individuals while in Italy and thought he was “mixed up in simony” (Journal 4, p. 77). Others associated Cardinal Ruffini with the Sicilian mob. Fenton said both Cardinals Pizzardo and Ruffini were being courted by the Progressives.

Monsignor Fenton also noted, after a lengthy conversation with the Jesuit Coffey in Rome in the late 1950s, that “men like Coffey are in control of the pope at the present time.” He described Sr. Pasqualina as “a disgrace” and her control over the pope “a great scandal.” But at least one American prelate believed that Sr. Pasqualina’s fierce protectiveness of Pope Pius XII, (interpreted by many, including Fenton, as highly manipulative), was justified. Murphy quotes  Archbishop Cushing as commenting during Pope Pius XII’s last days that Sr. Pasqualina “…knew [the hierarchy] was waiting anxiously to take control of Pius ‘s throne… to besmirch his beliefs and standards,” and of course they were. There also is something else to consider.

“According to Wikipedia (and other sources), “[Pope Pius XII] underwent three courses of cellular rejuvenation treatment administered by Paul Niehans, the most important in 1954 when Pius was gravely ill. Side-effects of the treatment included hallucinations, from which the Pope suffered in his last years. These years were also plagued by horrific nightmares. Pacelli’s blood-curdling screams could be heard throughout the papal apartments… Fresh cell therapy (also known as cellular therapy or live cell therapy), developed in the 1930s by Niehans, involves harvesting fresh cells from sheep (New Zealand Black Sheep, is the breed he used) embryo and injecting them directly (intramuscular) into the person’s buttocks. There is no evidence it is useful for any health problem. There have been several instances of severe adverse effects including death.” Other recipients of the therapy reportedly included Charles de Gaulle, Winston Churchill and Charlie Chaplin.

The above is very disturbing. It demonstrates both that Pope Pius XII was gravely concerned about what would happen to the papacy after he died and that he was even willing to take risks to prolong his health. But it also poses questions. Was someone attempting, once again, to hasten Pius XII’s demise, coercing him to take such risks? Is it possible that his vision of Christ was only an hallucination? As to the latter, it seems that Pius XII would have been aware that it could have been a side effect of the treatments and was careful to distinguish between the two. He did reveal the vision to several of his assistants, insisting it was “…not just a sick man’s hallucination,” (Ventresca), and it eventually became public, contrary to his wishes. Isn’t it odd, then, that it was precisely following the vision and his miraculous recovery that he more or less halted the usual affairs of the Vatican, refusing to make any additional appointments, hold his usual consultations with the hierarchy or even provide a camerlengo necessary for the election of his successor?

Could it also be possible that’s Pope Pius XII was subjected to experimental drugs then in vogue at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), especially since Montini was essentially an agent for the CIA? Henry and Clare Boothe Luce, ambassador to Italy, also the Jesuit John Courtney Murray, are said to have experimented with LSD in the late 1950s, according to David Wemhoff. We should remember MK-ULTRA, which was an attempt by the CIA to control the human mind using psychoactive drugs vs. the current Communist tactics of coercive persuasion. This is chronicled in Stephen Kinzer’s book Poisoner in Chief, where he profiles the work of CIA chemist Richard Gottlieb, responsible for the implementation of MK-ULTRA. Kinzer notes that Gottlieb ultimately decided that one could empty the mind with these drugs but could not successfully implant a “new mind.”

Kinzer writes: “Gottlieb wanted to create a way to seize control of people’s minds, and he realized it was a two-part process,” Kinzer says. “First, you had to blast away the existing mind. Second, you had to find a way to insert a new mind into that resulting void. We didn’t get too far on number two, but he did a lot of work on number one.” Because records of Gottleib’s experiments were destroyed, it was not possible to know just how far he came to achieving part two. But after the CIA successfully flooded the U.S. with LSD, having bought up the entire world supply, according to Kinzer, the consciousness of an entire generation was successfully altered, preparing the way for the New World Order religion and government. Peace and love were its mantra, and that is exactly what we find expressed, ad nauseum, in the “encyclical letters” of Angelo Roncalli.

If coercive persuasion was not the quickest way to effect mind control, then perhaps the agents of chaos hoped it could definitely be expedited, at least, by the use of psychoactive drugs. And whether this was the case with Pope Pius XII or not, certainly his entrapment by certain influencers had an adverse effect on the decisions he made or failed to make. And this is easy to demonstrate, as will be seen below.

Pius XII’s personality and the use of mind control

Was Pope Pius XII, given his particular sort of personality, a prime target for coercive persuasion? An estimation of the pope’s character as reported by Msgr. Domenico Tardini in his controversial work, Memories of Pope Pius XII (1959) suggests that the pope may have been an easy target for his captors. Tardini was once a pro-secretary of state for the pope, together with Giovanni Montini, and is later said to have assisted Pope Pius XII in composing papal documents. His description of the pope, however, must be viewed with somewhat of a jaundiced eye, since Tardini was elevated to the cardinalate by Angelo Roncalli in December 1958, alongside Giovanni Montini, after both men were passed over for pronation to the cardinalate by Pius XII. Tardini also played a key role in implementing the preparations for the false Vatican 2 council before his death in 1961. He wrote in his book:

“Pius XII had a gentle and rather timid temperament; he was not made for struggle. In this he was very different from his great predecessor Pius XI, who seemed apparently at least to relish a struggle. Pius XII, on the contrary, visibly suffered from them. This inclination, which led him to prefer solitude and calm, disposed him to avoid rather than face the battles of life.”

Comment: Vulnerability comes in many packages: life transitions, ill health, loss of a loved one, divorce – all are pre-requisites that con men and cult recruiters look for to spot the most likely victims. The pope, still recovering from his illness and the shocks received from the defection of Montini and possibly others, found it difficult to face these painful defections, choosing to take a defensive position and retreat. Pius’ fear of Communism and betrayal, also his isolation, increased his vulnerability.

“His great goodness led him to displease everybody and irritate no one; to prefer the ways of mildness to those of severity, persuasion to force. The candor of his soul did not even permit him to suspect a lack of veracity or sincerity in somebody else. Humble as he was, he believed that everyone was like him — just as devoted to truth just as selfless as he was… In his exquisite amiability the Pope desired to see those whom he received in audience leave him with a grateful memory… At certain moments he was unable to say no.

Comment: Those exercising coercive persuasion work very hard to earn the trust of their victims. They find especially fertile ground in individuals who are unable to see them for who they truly are, see only the good in them, and for this reason are willing to accept their advice, direction and assistance. Those charitable and forgiving in nature are their most desirable acquisitions.

“Sometimes, at the most difficult moments, his penetrating intelligence applying itself to the situation made him see promptly and clearly all the possible solutions. Immediately there appeared to him the pros and cons, the advantages and disadvantages, the possible favorable or unfavorable consequences. Then he would remain uncertain, hesitant, as if he were not sure of himself. Then he had to be left to reflect and pray.”

(Ventresca, in his work, quotes other Vatican officials who also criticized the pope as having become “an absolute dictator,” but in a benign and mild sort of way. Others saw him as “sensitive and hesitant” … “deliberately careful to the point of procrastinating” … “detached from the day-to-day life of the Church.”)

Comment: Those remaining within Pius’ tight inner circle had complete control of all the information he was receiving from the outside world on which he must base his decisions. They had the ability to present these situations in whatever light suited their own purposes and to present, portray in a favorable light, or suppress and/or negate whatever information made the pope’s decisions most favorable to their own ends. Perhaps Pope Pius XII sensed this and was determined to at least try to backcheck what he was being presented. Difficulty making decisions and procrastination plagues many people, but these also can be symptoms that one is the subject of mind control.

“But not everyone acted in this way. One person suggested one thing, another person suggested something else. Everyone — as often happened — claimed to have found the just solution, the only solution, the solution the Pope had to follow. All that troubled him.”

Comment: This type of behavior can occur in any group situation, but it also is found in cults and is deliberately perpetrated to disorient and confuse. This obviously had an adverse effect on Pope Pius and made it even more difficult for him to arrive at certainty in important matters.

“Once the decision was made, it had to be executed. This too was a delicate step, especially if the decision was by its nature displeasing to some. In this case Pius XII loved — as he himself used to say — to “sweeten the pill,” A question can be asked here: is it possible for a man not only to conquer himself but to destroy, even annihilate his own natural dispositions? I don’t think so. Given human frailty, something of the temperament remains in the depths of the psychic structure of man and at certain moments emerges at the surface once more.

Comment: Those engaging in coercive persuasion play on every personality defect and character weakness possible to achieve their goals. It is not a matter here of Pope Pius XII “giving in to his weaknesses” — he had plenty of help in making it difficult to overcome his own personal foibles and act decisively. And his state of mind, due to advancing age and chronic illness, made it even more difficult to resist outside pressure.

“Moreover a person who occupies an elevated post very frequently encounters among those who approach him somebody clever enough to exploit his weak side. The interests of the exploiter, his ideas or his friends, profit from the superior’s weak side. Pius XII himself cannot be entirely exempted from the common law of human existence.”

Comment: Brother Michael of the Trinity asks: “In writing these terrible lines, was… Tardini thinking of the influence Msgr. Montini exerted on Pope Pius XII? it is very probable, for the lively tensions between the popes two closest collaborators reveal that Tardini did not appreciate his colleague’s encroachments and hazardous initiatives” (Brother Michael of the Trinity, The Whole Truth About Fatima, Vol. III). Well Tardini himself was also a danger, Msgr. Fenton notes, and this was later proven by his criticism of Pius XII in his book. Perhaps Tardini chronicles here for us just how easily the pope was manipulated, as a sort of sadistic mockery and final insult.

One other factor must be taken into consideration here as well. Pope Pius XII had a confessor, and that confessor had the right to command obedience. The pope has no one else as a superior except in the spiritual realm, in way of a confessor. One can only imagine the many ways that such a man as Bea could hamstring the pope in making decisions, meting out punishments, judging doctrinal errors, and a host of other possible situations that daily presented themselves to the pontiff. In the silence of the confessional, hypnosis, a state more easily induced than some might think, could occur “in a matter of minutes” (Stephen Hassan, Combatting Cult Mind Control). And even if hypnosis never factored in, Pius XII must certainly have believed he would be committing a serious sin if he did not strictly follow his confessor’s orders, which is what moral theology teaches.

A rosy future for the traitors

What later became of those surrounding the pope in his final days? It is enough to say that Pius XII’s closest advisors went on to become Vatican 2 movers and shakers. Enrico Galeazzi would later work with Roncalli and Montini, also Sindona and Marcinkus; Bea, made “cardinal” by Roncallli, figured heavily at the false Vatican 2 council and was a key figure in the drafting of Nostra aetate, condemning the Church’s supposed anti-Semitism. Bugnini would oversee all the liturgical reforms undertaken by Roncalli and Montini, serving as Secretary of the Pontifical Preparatory Commission on the Liturgy (1960-1961); Peritus, Conciliar Commission on the Liturgy (1962-1964); Secretary, Consilium for the Implementation of the Constitution of the Liturgy (1964-1969); and Secretary, Congregation for Divine Worship (1965-1975). This despite the fact he was exposed as a Freemason and was supposedly “disciplined” for it by Montini.

The Jesuit Robert Leiber turned down the offer of a position from John 23, recommending Augustin Bea for the post instead. Leiber died in 1967. Wemhoff reports that Lieber was a CIA collaborator and that to this day, the agency refuses to release any records concerning him. Ventresca quotes Leiber as criticizing the pope for being “overly sensitive and a perfectionist.” Francis Cardinal Spellman, spiritual advisor for the Knights of Malta and the group’s unofficial American head, had run into problems in November of 1951 after Pope Pius XII refused to appoint a Grand Master for the group. The pope ordered that an investigation be conducted to determine if the K of M had been infiltrated by Freemasonry. For as long as Pius lived, the order remained without a head. But the Knights received a new head under Angelo Roncalli in 1961 and were officially welcomed into the Vatican.

Then there was Msgr. Tardini, who became John 23^rd’s secretary of state and helped implement the false Vatican 2 council, after Ruffini, accompanied by Ottaviani, first proposed the council to Roncalli prior to his election. But Tardini died in 1961, before the first session of the council could be convened. Both Cardinals Ruffini and Ottaviani would later give way to the false Vatican 2 teachings, as would all the others. And given what has been demonstrated above, Tardini dared to criticize Pius XII for not trusting anyone?!  All the rats abandoned ship and watched from pre-arranged positions of security as the captain went down with St. Peter’s Barque. Pope Pius XII was clearly compromised. He was being pressured, he was being hounded, his confidence was being undermined, he was being coerced. And he was just the type of soul that that would have been most vulnerable to such coercion, if we can believe Tardini’s description of him as well as that of others; the very type of personality most easily malleable in the hands of whatever miscreants surrounded him.

CP stage three: intransigency, not refreezing

The final step in effectively completing coercive persuasion, refreezing, never happened in the case of Pope Pius XII. And from all appearances Pius XII’s inner circle knew that process could never be completed. Why else would they have gone to all the trouble of trying to poison him (and I believe this happened on several different occasions, including the rejuvenation therapy), if they really thought that they could corrupt him in in any meaningful way? It can’t be proven, but there’s some indication that even his final illness was brought on by another poisoning attempt No; they had to get him out of the way in order to implement everything they had already done; the best they could do to prepare the way for the New World religion. As mentioned above, Pope Pius XII took everything as far as he could take it — in all good conscience and to the extent of his papal power — to satisfy whoever was exerting the most pressure and to do what he thought might help the faithful; but that was all.

Proof of this is the fact that the moment he died they must have had those missalettes already in production knowing that he probably wouldn’t make it this final time. In those days it took a lot longer to produce these materials. So obviously they were already ready to go before he ever died, because they had to be submitted to the proper authorities for the imprimatur and nihil obstat, (which was never validly granted under Roncalli). So everything was in motion long before he passed away; all they were doing was waiting for the actual event. It’s unfortunate that so many people look at this, especially in retrospect when it can be seen more clearly, yet don’t see how deliberate it all was. Even those around Pius were saying he was being controlled. Monsignor Fenton noted it, Ventresca commented on it in his work and concerned clergy here in the United States were even going to send Fr. Eilers to Rome to investigate the situation — it wasn’t any secret. So why should it now be considered unethical or perhaps unreasonable to suggest it?

Two things that people knew about Pope Pius XII — he was a very reserved person and when it came to doctrinal matters, he wasn’t giving an inch. His faith had to have been immensely stronger than anyone has ever given him credit for in order to survive being not only poisoned and gravely ill, for an extended period of time, but continually monitored and misinformed. This while being surrounded by people he believed he could implicitly trust, but who were intent only on using him as a way to further their own evil machinations. It is a wonder he ever survived it as long as he did. But he doesn’t get any credit for that — people are still blaming him for not speaking out about the Jews. As noted in Ventresca’s work, Pius XII refers to one official who had said something critical of the Germans killing Jews, resulting in the death of 60,000 of them, pointing out that if they killed 60,000 over that remark, what makes people think that if he said something they wouldn’t kill 200,000 or more?

Conclusion

All that is written here is only speculation about how Pope Pius XII was affected and how all of this fell out, but it is well-founded speculation, proven in full by the defection of the cardinals and bishops welcoming Roncalli and his council. I think there was a battle going on regarding Pius XII that no one at the time could understand and many will never be able to fully appreciate. The mental difficulties endured by this poor pope must have been brutal: that’s why this article is entitled The Passion of Pope Pius XII. There’s a saying I keep on my desk that a friend once sent to me which reads: “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about,” and this is so true. Historians can say what they like about Pius XII. But there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that he was a white martyr for the faith, and, as stated elsewhere, may very well have been a willing victim soul. Even Protestants recognized him as a man to be admired, in contrast to those among his own who would later stoop to denigrate him.

“Only by the most strenuous means had Pius XII, an extraordinary being, maintained the prestige of the Church. This tall, frail man with piercing black eyes had for 25 years conducted an almost incredibly arduous reign. He had literally thrown open the huge bronze doors of the Vatican and invited people to come to him. No longer was the Vicar of Christ unapproachable. Particularly in Rome, this had a strong effect since the Rome-born pope, and the Bishop of Rome and Primate of Italy, had a particular interest in the capital of his native country. He had made a good start towards adapting ancient principles to modern times. He had seen to it that for the first time since the 14th century, foreign Cardinals outnumbered Italians in the Sacred College and he had severely condemned racialism, anti-Semitism and totalitarian doctrines” (news correspondent Melton S. Davis, author of All Rome Trembled, 1957) Davis also wrote that following the 1949 condemnation of Communism and the failed worker-priest movement, “…the Pope may well have felt that the Church had gone far enough” in pandering to everyone’s wants.

And this from Fr. Senan, O.F.M., Cap.: “Our Holy Father has at his command the invincible power of the Spirit, against which the gates of hell shall never prevail. And while we have confidence in the Holy Father, admire and revere him, feel proud of him and thank God for him, we must never forget to pray for him that He may preserve him and give him length of days and deliver him not into the hands of his enemies” (Angelic Pastor, 1950). It was Pope Pius XII himself who said: “History gives clear evidence of one thing: the gates of hell shall not prevail (Matt. 16:18). But there is some evidence on the other side too; the gates of hell have had partial successes” (“Preaching the Word of God,” Sept. 14, 1956; The Pope Speaks, Vol. III). And here, perhaps, he may have been speaking of his own experiences as pope.

Pius XII’s last words were reported to have been: “Pray,” he said. “Pray that this regrettable situation for the Church may end.” And it ended indeed, with him. Another (lengthy) quote might be included here, one from a double-agent and disgraced Jesuit who nevertheless knew exactly what would happen following Pope Pius XII’s death:

“There died then with Pacelli in Rome the charisma of power. With the burial of its last bearer, there was buried forever any substantive hope that such regnancy, legitimacy and rightness would ever again characterize a Pope as Pope. Jesus on his second coming would achieve all three but on a supernal plane and as a matter of course… Never again would there be a Prince of power as Pope, for despite appearances, power no longer enjoyed an effective ascendancy throughout Roman Catholicism. And the world at large needed only death to unshield its eyes once blinded by the brilliance of any great man.

“Pacelli had chosen only a little love with his tragedy and had spiced his history with only a little wit. Catholicism at his apogee was spent in its humanism. Its people were weary of formulary holiness and stamped passports to a Roman heaven for Romans. Since the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, 300 years of happiness on command, of morality by ukase, of holiness by licensed rubber-stamping, of salvation by tight-fisted bureaucrats had left a huge debt to be paid off in human understanding and an almost impossible void to be filled with warmth, welcome and willingness. This debt and that void [was] Pacelli’s failure… At the moment of his death, compassion was needed. In October 1958 the hour of its need was later, much later than anyone guessed.” (Three Popes and the Cardinal, Malachi Martin, 1972).

And so a traitor to Jesus Christ, hailed by Traditionalists, announced the ending of Christ’s Church on earth and the dark and dreadful reign of Antichrist and his Satanic religion of man.

ADDENDA:

Charges that Pius XII and his various predecessors were heretics

There are those, particularly among some of the more detestable Feeneyite factions, who have charged these popes with heresy on the count of “outside the Church no salvation” and related topics. They shamelessly take papal statements entirely out of context to justify their outrageous claims and demonstrate a most deplorable lack of knowledge regarding even basic Catholic theological principles and teachings. They refuse to acknowledge the fact that since the Vatican Council decree, no pope can be said to ever commit heresy unless it can be certainly proven beyond any doubt that he was never validly elected, owing to pre-election heresy. This as taught by Pope Paul IV in Cum ex Apostolatus Officio. To find anything close to what we are dealing with regarding Pope Pius XII, we must resort to the papacies of Popes Liberius and Honorius, who also reigned in times that were occasioned by those exercising threats or undue influence over them. We read from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

“No one pretends that, if Liberius signed the most Arian formulæ in exile, he did it freely; so that no question of his infallibility is involved. It is admitted on all sides that his noble attitude of resistance before his exile and during his exile was not belied by any act of his after his return, that he was in no way sullied when so many failed at the Council of Rimini, and that he acted vigorously for the healing of orthodoxy throughout the West from the grievous wound. If he really consorted with heretics, condemned Athanasius, or even denied the Son of God, it was a momentary human weakness which no more compromises the papacy than does that of St. Peter.” Just as with Pope Pius XII, the truth cannot be certainly known regarding the circumstances surrounding his supposed “fall.” But one thing is certain: He did not formally teach heresy to the faithful.

And then there is the papacy of Honorius II, whom the Vatican Council determined was not guilty of heresy ex cathedra. The Catholic Encyclopedia tell us: “Honorius was not condemned by the council as a Monothelite, but for approving Sergius’s contradictory policy of placing orthodox and heretical expressions under the same ban… The fault of Honorius lay precisely in the fact that he had not authoritatively published that unchanging faith of his Church, in modern language, that he had not issued a definition ex cathedra. The letter [to the Patriarch of Constantinople, Sergius] cannot be called a private one, for it is an official reply to a formal consultation. It had, however, less publicity than a modern Encyclical. As the letter does not define or condemn and does not bind the Church to accept its teaching, it is of course impossible to regard it as an ex-cathedra utterance. But before, and even just after, the Vatican Council such a view was sometimes urged, though almost solely by the opponents of the dogma of Papal Infallibility.”

Abbot John Chapman (Dublin Reviews, 1906-07; The Vatican Council, Cuthbert Butler), opined:

“The authenticity of the documents [on Pope Honorius] is above suspicion… No Catholic has the right to deny that Honorius was a heretic, in words if not in intention…His letters, treated as definitions of faith, are obviously beyond doubt heretical, for in a definition it is the words that matter…Today we judge the letters of Pope Honorius by the Vatican definition and deny them to be ex cathedra, because they do not define any doctrine and impose it on the whole Church.”

Undue influence or not, nothing in any of Pope Pius XII’s binding decrees could ever be pointed to as contrary to Catholic doctrine. No one may judge the pope — THAT is an infallible decision, one the papal naysayer heretics have certainly committed themselves. Only competent ecclesiastical authority, (and this does NOT include the laity) could accuse him of error, as happened with Pope John XXII concerning the Beatific Vision and the council accusing Liberius and Honorius. Even Pope Pius XII’s own enemies recognize him as the last true Prince of the Church, and the vanguard of doctrinal integrity. The hierarchy who abandoned their flocks following the death of Pope Pius XII, also those who dare to depose these popes are only continuing the traditions of the Gallicanists, Modernists and ultimately Freemasonry, their driving force. And after meeting St. Peter barring their entrance to heaven’s gate, they  will answer to the awful Judge for their betrayal.

The Stated Intent of Pope Pius XII Concerning the Liturgy

by T. Stanfill Benns | Jun 27, 2023

© Copyright 2010, T. Stanfill Benns (This text may be downloaded or printed out for private reading, but it may not be uploaded to another Internet site or published, electronically or otherwise, without express written permission from the author.)

Several years ago, I made a thorough study of the decrees and circumstances surrounding the liturgical “innovations” allowed by Pope Pius XII. I referred to numerous sources, among them all those decrees mentioned in articles on my website/message board at www.betrayedcatholics.com. I also have undertaken a thorough study of Mediator Dei and available commentaries made on this encyclical in the late1940s, the annual reports on the National Liturgical weeks from 1940 to 1958, and other material available in the Canon Law Digests. To relate all that is pertinent in these sources would require lengthy research, which I cannot undertake at this time and others can conduct just as easily, and should, since they are making these allegations. So I will summarize the gist of what is contained in these works as best I can.

Mediator Dei was not “disastrous for the liturgy,” and it did NOT open the floodgates for the Vatican 2 changes and abrogation of the Latin rite Mass. Pope Pius XII carefully enumerates the various heresies he hopes to eradicate by issuing Mediator Dei, and provides the faithful with what THEY have indicated are tools to foster greater understanding of the Mass, the Liturgical Year and a more tender devotion to the Holy Eucharist. Pope Pius entertained a fervent devotion to the Sacrament himself and many of his allocutions are centered on this. Pope Pius XII was facing an epidemic of apathy and quietism among the faithful worldwide, a condition he mentions in Mystici Corporis and other decrees, addresses and encyclicals.  The ship was already slowly sinking and the captain broke out the lifeboats and the emergency rations. A good example of this apathy is contained in Peter Michaels’ This Perverse Generation, written in 1949.

Among those changes certain Trads consider innovations are the ceremonies of Holy Week in general, especially those of Good Friday and Holy Saturday. The other practice, the Dialogue Mass was not initiated, only continued, by Pope Pius XII. All of these changes are not actually changes at all, but a return to previous practices in the Church approved by the Holy See. This is well documented from numerous sources. The Dialogue Mass was first celebrated in the early Christian centuries. It was introduced once again by Pope Benedict XV personally, then was continued by Pope Pius XI and XII. So these cannot be referred to as actual changes, since reverting and changing are two separate words which are not synonymous.

As for the altar facing the people, Mass was said in this manner during the early centuries. Ten Roman basilicas have always celebrated Mass in this fashion. I do not favor it, most Traditionalists do not favor it, but Pope Pius XII allowed it under certain circumstances only because it brought more people into the churches. Around 25 percent of the churches in France set up altars in this fashion during the 1940s, apparently. This after Card. Suhard received permission, possibly from then-Nuncio Angelo Roncalli to celebrate Mass facing the people for special events. It was this same Card. Suhard who embarked on the experimental worker-priest project, later condemned by the Vatican, which alienated so many French Catholics, a project conducted under the supervision of both Montini and Roncalli. Pope Pius XII insisted that whether the altar faced the people or not, (and this, like the Dialogue Mass, was used optionally, and not by papal mandate) the tabernacle was to be permanently fixed to the altar, visible for all to see. If it could not be so done then the priest had to celebrate facing the altar.

Nor can it be said that there was not sufficient basis for these adjustments to the liturgy or that they in any way violated doctrine. It is clear that all these proposed practices were carefully studied and monitored before their implementation and were indeed requested by the faithful as well as their pastors in various parts of the world over a fairly lengthy time period. Cardinal Micara stated all of this in his Feb. 9, 1951 letter prefacing the return to the former observance. The Holy Week services were then conducted on a trial basis for four years before their promulgation. As regards the Eucharistic fast, all who were yet able to fast from midnight on are URGED BY POPE PIUS XII TO CONTINUE TO DO SO (Christus Dominus, 1953), since “only those who need these concessions can enjoy them according to the nature of their need.” Those who use the three-hour concession are urged to make up for the favor by performing acts of charity and increasing prayer and penance. The fast was never “REVOKED.” The controversy over omitting “perfidious Jews” in the Good Friday service and the Vatican interpretation of the Latin to English as “faithlessness,” sounds like a semantic affair to me. “Faithlessness” is precisely the first definition offered in Cassell’s Latin-English and English Latin Dictionary, (1923 edition) for “perfidi.”

The vernacular allowed in the administration of the Sacraments in France was negligible and favored the lay understanding of the Sacraments where it was allowed. The reading of the Gospel and Epistle was an indult allowed for Agar, India, a mission territory. It stipulated that the celebrant OR a “competent lay server” could read the Gospel and Epistle only after they had first been read in Latin by the priest. Pope Pius XII, in a separate monitum on altar servers, lays down strict rules for when a priest is allowed to celebrate Mass without a server. No “altar girls” are ever allowed; Pope Pius XII says the unanimous opinion of the theologians (held to a certain degree of infallibility) says this would be a mortal sin. Women are the last choice for “servers,” and must make the responses from afar, never stepping foot on the altar.  And as concerns the praise Pope Pius XII reportedly had for the liturgical innovators, this is proven false in an article written by Rev. Albert Kaiser in the December 1953 and January 1954 American Ecclesiastical Review. In his articles Kaiser clearly states that Mediator Dei was specifically aimed at the excesses of these very liturgists and names the heresies contained in their works that are condemned in the encyclical. Kaiser’s articles are a true revelation, since they shed much-needed light on the excesses in one direction that became the NOM and the excesses in the opposite direction that resisted even legitimate adjustment to those parts of the liturgy subject to ecclesiastical law, for reasons deemed serious by the lawgiver.

What would you say of what Tito Casini relates in his “The Torn Tunic” about Pope John VIII? Quoting from De Maistre, Casini writes: “In the ninth century Pope John VIII over-indulgently allowed the Slavs their own tongue in the celebration of the liturgy. But on reading a later letter of the Pontiff’s, the 95^th, one hardly wonders at his admission of the many drawbacks of such a dispensation. In fact Gregory VII revoked it — but too late — too late to save the Russians — with what ultimate results only became evident in the course of time; Russia’s separation from Rome and the people falling under the sway of a succession of ‘popes’ all of whom, Stalin included, succeeded in being at the same time heads of state and heads of Church, despotically ruling Godless multitudes.” How much more concise and profound an explanation of all this is needed?!

Casini continues: “Schisms and heresies have always been against Latin — always pro-vernacular, nationalistic — except insofar as Latin has always at the same time been envied, for the evident barrenness of the branches cut off from the Vine compared with those that remained joined. National languages, national liturgies, are but the first step toward national churches, admitted, favored, fostered and desired, with enticements and threats…Cardinal Midszenty, Cardinal Beran, Cardinal Wyszinski and so many others …would not be impeded or in prison but free, honored and salaried, had their Catholicism not spoken Latin…” Pope Pius XI, as quoted by Casini wrote: “The Church, embracing all peoples and enduring until time shall have an end, by the very nature that is hers, has need of a language that is universal, immutable, non-vernacular…The Church, one in language in her universality and one in her worship, was thereby always seen by the world’s peoples — today more than ever weary of warring, more than ever hankering for union and peace — as anti-Babel.” It is prophesied that great Babble-on will fall in St. John’s Apocalypse, and this by necessity for the preservation of the Church. Of course in Mediator Dei itself, Pope Pius XII called Latin “a clear and noble mark of unity and an efficacious antidote to all corrupting influences on pure doctrine.”

And here we arrive at the entire heart of the matter. Once again I will state: show me where Pope Pius XII violated doctrine. Explain to me why his reservation to make adjustments to the liturgy was, in any way, harmful to the Church in themselves. Perhaps we should indict John VIII as well, and have done with the entire second millennia of popes; this the Feeneyites and certain individuals wishing to take control of the Church plot to do even now. If one teacher is able to keep my son Tommy from certain disciplinary disaster by bending the rules as far as possible yet keeping him in line, am I going to blame her when the next teacher allows him to run wild? Someone must give PERMISSION to relax the previous rules. If the faithful were so intent on getting what they wanted from Pope Pius XII, then those who objected to what he did to Holy Week et al should and could have been just as vocal. So where were they? Why was it up to Pope Pius XII to “turn things around” when he had done what he did at the request of the bishops and the faithful, it met with success, and all was doctrinally sound?

The Church does not forbid her Vicars to make changes to liturgical practices as long as they do not touch the substance of the Sacraments. This Cyril B. Andrade, M.D., using the words of the popes themselves outlined clearly in his “The New Mass Is Invalid” almost four decades ago:

“(1) In the letter Super quibusdam (Sept.29,1351), Pope Clement VI taught: “The

Roman Pontiff, regarding the administration of the Sacraments of the Church, can tolerate and even permit different rites of the Church of Christ….always without violating those things which pertain to the integrity and necessary parts of the Sacraments.”

“(2) Council of Trent, Session III, Chap.2 : “It (the Council) declared furthermore that this power has always been in the Church, that in the administration of the Sacraments, without violating their substance, she may determine or change whatever she may judge to be more expedient for the benefit of those who receive them or for the veneration of the Sacraments, according to the variety of circumstances, times and places.”

“(3) Pope St. Pius X in the letter, Ex quo nono (Dec.26, 1910): “It is well known that to the Church there belongs no right whatsoever to innovate anything touching on the substance of the Sacraments.”

“(4) On November 30, 1947, Pope Pius XII issued the apostolic constitution, Sacramentum Ordinis, which reiterates and clarifies the same principle. “As the Council of Trent teaches, the seven Sacraments of the New Law have been instituted by Jesus Christ, Our Lord, and the Church has no power over the substance of the Sacraments; i.e., over those things which, with the sources of divine revelation as witnesses, Christ the Lord Himself decreed to be preserved in a sacramental sign.”

And in Mediator Dei itself, Pope Pius XII stated that no one but the Pope may decide what elements in the liturgy are human and may be changed: “The Sacred Liturgy does include Divine as well as human elements. The former, instituted as they have been by God, cannot be changed in any way by men… The Sovereign Pontiff alone enjoys the right to recognize and establish any practice touching the worship of God, to introduce and approve new rites, as also to modify those he judges to require modification…No private person has any authority to regulate external practices of this kind, which are intimately bound up with Church discipline and with the order, unity and concord of the Mystical Body, and frequently even with the integrity of Catholic faith itself.”

So please explain how Pope Pius XII did anything whatsoever to touch on the substance of the Sacraments, even though he lawfully exercised his papal power to change minor details of the liturgy?

What in truth so many disagree with is not any “unlawful” changes, but the supreme jurisdiction of the papacy that allows a matter so dear to so many hearts to be reserved to the Pope alone for a decision. Some have dared to criticize Pope Pius XII for lack of any solid historical background for his Holy Week revision, when as the vicar of all he needed none. Those sharing this mindset paint the man as a reformer favorable to all the changes that went after him. In short, they set themselves up as a judge of this Pope when NO ONE CAN JUDGE THE POPE, unless he is clearly guilty of manifest heresy. These are the bitter fruits of the Great Revolt and Traditional unrest and discord.  Many now believe they have the right to scrutinize every word and action of past Popes, weigh them, then obey only what seems good to them. Gone is the respect and obedience, the reverence for the papacy. “The Church has said it and I believe it” is not an option when all must be sifted for error at personal discretion, be the sifters clergy or lay. This is the great chasm separating Traditionalists, not the liturgy, and it was one envisioned by Pope Pius XII at the time he wrote Mediator Dei and made these concessions. In my opinion this discussion should be continued under a new title: Doctrine and the liturgy. For as Pope Pius XII clearly taught in Mediator Dei, the liturgy is to reflect the doctrines of the Church but is not the sum total of Catholic existence; it is not just the “Mass that matters.” As Adrian Fortescue points out in the Catholic Encyclopedia, it was the Reformers who first advanced this phrase as a slogan, not Catholics, and we can see what happened to THEIR church. They nationalized their religion in all its heretical variations. Now we face the universalization of all these nationalized churches under a one-world church, a danger warned against by Pope Benedict XV.

The recent documents circulated by certain individuals claiming that Pius XII is said to have authorized additional changes have not been — and cannot be — authenticated. If they appear to run contrary to what he officially taught in the extraordinary or his ordinary magisterium we have every reason to believe that his official teachings on these matters stand as a clear manifestation of the mind of the Church. We have his orders in Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis that NOTHING is to be changed, adjusted, re-interpreted or adapted in any way during an interregnum, which has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt to exist. And if such changes are made, the pope uses his infallible authority to declare them null and void. This alone ends any controversy that he could possibly be said to approve what was introduced following his death. John VIII remained pope and was never censored and Pope Pius XII never allowed the vernacular liturgy far less the bastardized canon of the NOM mass. Do we destroy what is left of Catholicism by tearing down what little remains, condemning the “overindulgence” of Benedict XV, Pius XI and Pius XII as complicit, even heretical? Only at the price of judging these popes and forfeiting our membership in the very Church we profess to love.

(A list of complete quotes and references referred to in this article is available upon request.)

Why Guiseppe Siri Was Never Pope

by T. Stanfill Benns | Jun 27, 2023

© Copyright 2009, T. Stanfill Benns (This text may be downloaded or printed out for private reading, but it may not be uploaded to another Internet site or published, electronically or otherwise, without express written permission from the author.)

Introduction

Certain Traditionalists appear to be mesmerized by intrigue and suspense. For over two decades they have been following the perpetually evolving tale of “Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, pope in bondage and exile.” This fiction unfolds very much like any other soap opera and also like these serial tales, it keeps its followers coming back for more. In fact the very same story was circulated about Paul 6 in the 1970s, serving as a prelude to the “mystical appointment” of the Palmerian pretender pope, Clemente Dominguez-Gomez. (This is something that the younger crowd, still children in those days, may not even know.) Sadly, the Siri fiction trades on the hope of those following this fairy tale that there indeed is a painless and thought-free solution to the crisis in the Church and all they must do is accept it, without looking too closely at the facts. The privileged members of this “hidden” Church, dependent on the news of its actual workings from those “in the know,” must find the truth quite boring by comparison.

For those who do choose to check out the facts in this case, it soon becomes apparent that the “evidence” Siri promoters present as positive proof is fatally flawed. The “Siri facts” they expect inquirers to believe — inquirers referred to as “lunkheads” by one Siri researcher — somehow keep changing. Independent fact-finding easily confirms that Siri promoters did not even know the true identity of the senior conclave official on which their entire premise is based. That premise is: a) that Siri was elected, not Roncalli; b) that “white smoke,” (initially white streaked with grey, which later turned black, indicating that the necessary 2/3rds plus one majority had not been achieved) was sent up as a “sign” that Siri was elected; c) that Siri was prevented from accepting and threatened with death and the death of innocent Catholics if he made his election known and d) that the official who relayed this information to one “Prince Chigi” was none other than a “Msgr. Santoro,” who Siri chroniclers report told Chigi he must get the “white smoke” information to Vatican Radio immediately. Really?

The problem is, Msgr. Santoro was the chief conclave official at the 1939 election of Pope Pius XII; Msgr. Alberto Di Jurio was the senior conclave person officiating at Roncalli’s “election.” This is a matter of historical fact, documented in the Acta Apostolica Sedis and reported in newspapers written at the time of the 1958 election. So how could Santoro be said to have told Chigi any such thing? Chigi himself explained the problem with the smoke, a malfunction accredited to the stove used to send up the signal, at the time of the election. This malfunction was mentioned in later works on Roncalli, but is dismissed by Siri supporters as part of the “conspiracy” to hide the fact that Siri was actually elected. And once the conspiracy card is played, all bets are off and anything goes. Everything contrary to the “facts” of the case as stated, whether these facts are true or not, is dismissed as the work of enemies, and an enemy is anyone who dares to prove they have erred. This is true not only of the Siri bunch but of Conclavists and Traditionalists generally. Much like republicans and democrats, the various Trad groups forever butt heads in true partisan style. Discover an error and it is seldom addressed, far less corrected. And this is true regardless of whether the hole in the boat sinks their arguments or not. They proceed full steam ahead and even step up their pace with every error discovered and every point made by the opposing side. They bank on the fact that they have spun an appealing and even irresistible tale, one that those buying into their nonsense will be loathe to abandon. And amazingly many remain enthralled even in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary. But this cannot make Siri pope, and it does not satisfy the rules laid down for presenting evidence that will allow those truly searching for the truth to arrive at the necessary certainty.

Scholastic proofs

Although the philosophical system of St. Thomas Aquinas has been recklessly redefined by those outside the Church, Scholastic theology remains the same today as it was at the close of Pope Pius XII’s reign. It is a system of deductive reasoning from the truths of faith as defined by the continual magisterium and the various discussions of scholastic theologians. Much space has been dedicated on this board to the necessity of proceeding from scholastic principles, so there is no need to belabor this point. Needless to say, those promoting Siri as pope have not proceeded from scholastic principles. Private prophecy, media hype and other secular proofs do not appeal to the authority of the Church teaching throughout the ages, (unless one wishes to include the testimony of heretical NO “authorities” as Catholic). The determination of who is the true Pope lies demonstrably in the realm of dogmatic facts. It therefore clearly lies outside the matter of merely circumstantial evidence, since it must be determined by and be in agreement with dogma. While circumstantial evidence is always an adjunct to such inquiries, it can scarcely be used as the basis to determine the value of doctrinal matters themselves.

St. Thomas clearly taught that theology and philosophy are two separate sciences, “yet…they agree. They are distinct because…philosophy relies on reason alone [while] theology uses the truths derived from revelation, and also because there are some truths, the mysteries of Faith which belong [only] to theology. They must agree because God is the author of all truth, and it is impossible to think that He would teach in the natural order anything that would contradict what He teaches in the supernatural order. The recognition of these principles is the crowning achievement of Scholasticism,” (Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XIII). The two elements must be joined, then, in order to make sense out of any situation, They must be joined using the reasoning process — logic and common sense — where the actual circumstances of the matter are concerned. But the final determination can only rest on that evidence required and mandated by the Church Herself. If we apply logic to the Siri situation, things simply do not compute. That Siri was Pope for 30 years, and never made this known, all the time publicly appearing as a functioning and faithful member of the Novus Ordo church, is absurd. It is theologically impossible and reason immediately detects this.

When a few true priests yet existed to opine on the Siri matter, they were all in favor of investigating the “possibility” that “recent papal conclaves involved irregularities.” (Ya think?!) They lambasted all others trying to do responsible research, and threw their weight behind Gary Giuffre and those funding him. One priest even warned against following “gurus” possessing Gnosis-like “secret knowledge,” or those who “take their cues from dubious apparitions and revelations…false mysticism in general.” And yet these are the very things that have emerged from what this priest described as the “responsible and serious scholarly study” of Mr. Giuffre. If priests themselves could not even manage to judge these things from the Church’s own teachings and practices, and themselves erred in a conspicuous way by supporting those who ignore these very teachings, why hasn’t anyone questioned this? The errors in Giuffre’s study make it incumbent on those wishing to sort this out to not only ask questions but to demand answers based solely on Church teaching. After examining what constitutes evidence, discrepancies existing in Giuffre’s arguments and those of others, from the beginning, will be examined.

Evidence and its worth

Giuffre says he possesses declassified U.S. government documents proving conclusively that Siri was elected in 1958. But others have been unable to locate these same documents. It hardly needs saying that the collusion of various British and U.S. government agencies with the NO church and especially with Giovanni Montini (Paul 6) — during and shortly after World War II and up to the present, as demonstrated in various modern historical works — place these declassified documents in serious doubt. While Can. 1814 states that civil documents are to be presumed genuine unless the contrary is proven by evident arguments, it would seem that the basis of such an argument can be found in the proofs of Montini’s covert operations, unknown to Pope Pius XII; also his suspected collusion in poisoning the pope in 1953. It also should be noted that the Freedom of Information Act did not come into existence until after Vatican 2. Therefore it seems highly improbable that the true Church would willingly accept as solid evidence documents proceeding from espionage and intrigue, especially when such documents can easily be the product of falsehood, forgery and elicitation by force or sheer chicanery.

So obviously such documents cannot be used as canonical proof, especially when they are questionable from the outset. Can. 1813 §1 lists as principle ecclesiastical documents those acts of the Supreme Pontiffs, Roman Curia and Ordinaries. The judge in an ecclesiastical court must pronounce in favor of the party whose contention is proved by these first-class public documents, upheld by the court. While reliable public documents may be admitted into evidence as stated in Canon Law, (Can. 1813, #2), documents of this nature are admissible only in the proper forum, i.e., in ecclesiastical courts over which the Roman Pontiff ultimately presides. The judge must pronounce in favor of the party whose contention is proved by papal and Curial documents verified by the court. Moreover, as in any civil court, wherever there exists considerable lag time between the crime and the presentation of the evidence and/or testimony of the witnesses, the evidence loses much of its value. Nearly all if not indeed all the principals in Siri’s purported election and the subsequent issue of these civil documents are now deceased and any remaining evidence is merely secondhand or amounts to hearsay. And in reality, only a general or at the very least an imperfect council could decide the true status of a serious claimant to the papacy. Such a claimant would need to be at least a priest who has not compromised the faith, elected by eligible cardinals or remaining faithful bishops. A general appeal to “Catholics,” who are not competent judges in such matters, or to the civil courts will not suffice.

Cases are thrown out of civil courts on a daily basis for lack of sufficient evidence and general councils often have deposed papal claimants as antipopes. Even the aspiring politician and Siri supporter Jim Condit has admitted that the evidence for Siri as Pope would not withstand the scrutiny of a judge and jury. So it scarcely would fare any better in an ecclesiastical court. Another problem Siri supporters ignore is the trustworthiness of their sources of information, (Giuffre, the U.S. government, Peter Tran Van Khoat, now a proven con-man who was never even a priest; certain dignitaries in Rome). As a schismatic, the supporter of a Church not in communion with the Roman Pontiff, and someone who has taken funds he did not use for the purpose intended, Giuffre’s testimony would be useless in an ecclesiastical court. Even Hutton Gibson, who funded Giuffre’s book presenting the case for Siri’s election, could not vouch for Giuffre. The July, 2005 issue of Gibson’s The War is Now describes an unfinished book (14 years in progress) and clearly registers Gibson’s misgivings about the Siri “papacy” and Giuffre’s recourse to questionable priests, even those ordained in the new rite, at St. Jude’s Shrine. But here even Gibson does not go far enough.

Gibson does not accept the Church’s teaching on jurisdiction, which would forbid even those ordained in the old rite functioning after the death of Pope Pius XII from ministering to the faithful. Peter Tran Van Khoat was one of those “priests” who once said Mass at St. Jude’s. Heir apparent to the Siri “legacy,” Khoat claimed he was ordained in 1967 by a bishop who could not grant him jurisdiction, since the usurper Paul 6 could not transfer such jurisdiction to the bishops. Later it was discovered he ran a secret business empire and was married with children (see here). Therefore Khoat was incapable of administering the sacraments because he was a lay person. And he was one of Giuffre’s major “go to” authorities.

To summarize this section, do those researching Siri’s “election” really think that the conspiracy they claim prevented him from reigning openly as pope simply blew up overnight? Do they not realize that for years this conspiracy had operated covertly within Rome itself and was poised to seize power the minute Pius XII breathed his last? So how do they think that “declassified documents” would ever be the equivalent of those documents issuing from the Holy Office, (when it really was the Holy Office), since these documents carry the greatest weight?

Which conclave: 1958 or 1963?

The major mix-up mentioned earlier concerning who was truly the senior conclave official at the 1958 election is enough to place the entire Siri affair in question. But even before this grave error was revealed, Siri supporters changed their minds on dates. And before one can even begin to make an analysis of the situation, it would need to be known which conclave allegedly elected Siri, and what circumstances during this conclave point to his supposed election.

1.) The original date for Siri’s election, provided by Giuffre, was the 1963 conclave. Abbe Henri Moreaux of France first suggested the 1963 date in an article published in the April, 1989 edition of Dan Jones’ Sangre de Cristo Newsnotes, Moreaux’s original article having appeared in 1984. In his “Keys of This Blood,” Malachi Martin also gives Siri’s election date as June of 1963. If 1963 is the correct date, Siri already had participated in the election of antipope Roncalli. The cardinals that participated in this election according to “Cum ex” could not have validly designated him. The smoke incident places Siri at the 1958 election, or rather is used to claim he was elected in 1958. Ugo Groppi and Julius S. Lombardi provided an alternative explanation for the white smoke that issued in the 1958 conclave without the usual announcement a pope had been elected. These authors state that an individual phoned Osservatore Romano from the “the Loggia delle Dame above the entrance of the bronze portal leading into Vatican City…From this vantage point it would not have been impossible to hear, if the voices were loud enough, something being confidentially discussed behind the windows of the conclave enclosure. The news of Cardinal Ottaviani’s “election” was sent out by the press agencies but then prudently stopped,” (“Above All A Shepherd”). It appears that this episode may have been “borrowed” by Siri proponents and used as the basis for the Siri theory, Siri’s name being substituted for Ottaviani’s. So why was no one investigating the election of Ottaviani? Why Siri? All this proves is that election irregularities probably existed in 1958 and that whatever the nature of these irregularities were, they did not point to Siri.

The 1963 date, however, magically changed to 1958 after “Will the Catholic Church Survive…?” proved that John 23 was a heretic in March, 1990, and it became apparent to Siri supporters that those promoting a “papal election” would see it through. It is not inappropriate to comment here that several Traditionalists at that time themselves suggested that the sudden push to prove Siri was pope, despite his demise in May of 1989, was adversely impacted by the approaching “election.” Not that it was not proper and necessary for Traditionalists to oppose this false election, for it certainly was. But in dismissing it out of hand, they jumped from the frying pan into the fire. The resultant haste that subsequently fueled the gathering of the documentation necessary to prove Siri was a possible pope-elect may account for many mistakes that were made in its collection, including the melodramatic ad in the Houston paper summoning Siri’s “cardinals and Cardinal Camerlengo.”

If “Cum ex…” had been used as a standard for determining Siri’s orthodoxy (and it was readily available); if all the same criteria used to declare the V2 usurpers as antipopes had been used to determine Siri’s status and eligibility, even after his alleged 1958 “election,” wouldn’t this alone have disqualified him? Of course it would have; for both the 1958 election (after the fact) and the1963 election. And now we have discovered a second reason why the Siri crowd, after running a series of articles in Sangre de Cristo Newsnotes for over a year claiming Siri was elected in 1963, suddenly did an about face and changed that date to 1958. It then was necessary for them to backtrack and re-confabulate. For with the 1958 date, there was no question of Siri’s acceptance of John XXIII as a valid pontiff, no signing of documents at the first session of the false V2 council to deal with; Siri’s “line” could be said to continue untainted directly from Pope Pius XII. Siri supporters even admit Roncalli was a false pope, as they would need to do once the date was changed, to prove their man “pope.” No, there was something else at work here, something not yet understood.

2) There can be no doubt that Siri participated in the election of the proven heretics, John 23 through JP2, AS A CARDINAL. He thereby disqualified himself from voting in any subsequent elections or presenting as papabile at said elections, (Can. 2391 #1). It was no secret that Pope Pius XII labeled Roncalli ‘s Vatican file with the tag “Suspected Modernist,” as reported in “Pope John XXIII,” by Paul Johnson and elsewhere. And Siri could have separated himself easily from Roncalli without fear of censure, since “Cum ex…” states that those who separate from the obedience of such heretics will not be penalized and may even call upon the secular authorities to unseat the usurper. So why did Siri not cite this document and proceed to inveigh upon any sympathetic civil authority? It is reported that he had at his beck and call a potent coterie of “wealthy industrialists and…powerful right-wing elements,” which he mysteriously failed to mobilize in defense of his supposed papacy and to publicly condemn the false VII doctrines he at first protested, (“Vatican II,” Xavier Rynne, pg. 571). Why would a Cardinal not know of “Cum ex’s” existence, when it is the basis for some of the most important legislation in the Code? And if the document was not known to exist in 1958, why did Siri not jump at the chance to use “Cum ex…” once it was discovered in the early 1970s?

Gary Giuffre’s bosom buddy, Dan Jones knew it existed in the late 1970s and Giuffre’s boss, Hutton Gibson, also knew the bull existed in the early 1980s. So since this is the case, why wasn’t Siri familiar with this document? Is it possible that, as Veritas stated in its Feb.-March 1977 “A Packet from Mexico” issue, Rev. Saenz already had spoken with Siri? “We did hear that Fr. Saenz went several times to Rome to talk with the older Cardinals familiar with Montini’s…background and who are in the sensitive position to legally assemble a conclave to depose the usurper Paul 6,” Veritas staff wrote on page eight of this issue. “But Fr. Saenz was not successful in his effort.” In a flyer issued by “Catholics Forever” to promote Rev. Saenz’ book “The New Montinian Church,” the editor also verified Saenz’ contact with these “older cardinals.” If Siri truly had been chosen in any of the elections that followed the death of Pope Pius XII, wouldn’t Rev. Saenz have relayed this somehow? Would it not have prevented him from writing his “Sede Vacante”? Or was there some reason that certain Traditionalists wished to distance themselves from Rev. Saenz-Arriaga?

Which Khoat story: 1988 or 1989?

Peter Tran Van Khoat initially told Gary Giuffre and certain clerics at St. Jude’s Shrine that Siri denied three times that he was pope during a visit to Rome Khoat made in the spring of 1988, where he met with Siri. Yet in a conversation with Jim Condit a year later, at one time published online, Khoat told Condit that not only was Siri elected, but that he had been elected in 1958. How convenient that these claims are made after Siri’s death, and also after the publication and circulation of “Will the Catholic Church Survive…?” Khoat also apparently made claims of some sort that the Church either would soon have or already had a true pope issuing from Siri’s “line.” This claim insinuated, as evidenced by the advertisement placed in the Houston Post in the summer of 1990, that Khoat was the “Cardinal Camerlengo” or in charge of a new election (or was at least a cardinal), and was summoning and did summon other “Cardinals” for a supposed “election.” This is verified by the publication and circulation of Khoat’s “New Event of Man’s History” In Dan Jones Sangre de Cristo Newsnotes, July 1990 issue. So even though Siri’s “line” had not been officially established as valid, according to the teachings of the Church, and the details not even released that would establish it, the “Siri fact” was “proven.”

One witness priest overseas, pointed to by the Siri camp itself, said that Siri declined his election because he did not feel worthy to follow in Pope Pius XII’s footsteps. This strengthens the evidence that Siri declined and did NOT ever accept the election. But Khoat later denies this, and based entirely on his say-so, without any signed and witnessed documents from Siri, on the strength, instead, of hearsay testimony and rumor, the Siri theory became what it is today. In 20 years it has remained only an unsubstantiated theory simply because the many contradictions surrounding its major premise cannot be explained: that Siri’s confirmed election and his resultant acceptance of that election, which alone could make him pope, actually occurred and can be proven to have occurred. Also, that he was able to accept such an election as an indisputable member of the Church. His supporters adamantly refuse to consider Siri’s orthodoxy in relation to his “election,” even in light of irrefutable proofs. The very criteria which allowed Traditionalists to clear the field for Siri — the arguments used initially to prove the V2 popes invalid — were never applied to Siri himself. Siri’s denials of the faith are easily accessible via the Internet, for those who really seek the truth. The fact that he signed V2 documents alone, the factor used in judging the orthodoxy of every other V2 cardinal or bishop, is proof enough. In fact far from being orthodox, Siri was definitely a cardinal of the Novus Ordo church, not the Catholic Church. Siri’s “supporters,” (or at least those who support his shadowy and equally dubious “successor”), are truly chasing phantoms, and to prove this, the following is provided.

Siri and the Nazi “ratlines”

It was well known in Roman circles that Siri hated Communism. But did this hatred propel him in directions that placed him in collusion with Giovanni Montini?

In the last days of WWII, Cardinal Maglione, in charge of Pontifical assistance to refugees died and was replaced by Montini. Montini then entered into cooperation with one Bishop Alois Hudal, of Austria, a Nazi sympathizer stationed in Rome. In his 1976 book Romanische Tagebucher, Hudal admits that he helped war criminals, but never claims he did so with Pius XII’s knowledge or encouragement. While, many writers have alleged that Hudal and Pius XII were close, Hudal complains about Vatican officials in his book, Pius XII included, accusing them of favoring the Allies. According to the blog Commonwealth, the Vatican has always acknowledged that “Bishop Alois Hudal of Austria, a Nazi sympathizer stationed in Rome, and a Croatian priest named Krunoslav Draganovic, helped some war criminals.” But there is no evidence that Pius XII knew about or cooperated with these activities. “It is this Austrian bishop who, more than any other figure, did so much to give the Catholic Church its reputation as a Nazi conduit,” (“Hunting Evil,” by Guy Walters). “The good news for Catholics,” Walters said on his website in August 2009, “is that Pius XII must be treated as innocent.” Walters makes it clear, however, that he personally believes the Pope knew the ratlines existed.

The Croatian, Mgr. Krunoslav Draganovic and Hudal were the main players in the rat line operation, a series of tunnels that reportedly ran right up to the vicinity of the Vatican. Draganovic was a chaplain at the Jasenovac concentration camps in Croatia, where many atrocities took place during the war. According to John and Mark Aarons in their work “Unholy Trinity,” where they quote the Nazi Ladislaus Farago, “It was Montini who allowed Hudal access to Vatican passports and other identity and travel documents, which he then used to aid his Nazi friends…There is some circumstantial evidence in the American diplomatic records to support the claim that Montini was deliberately aiding Hudal’s Nazi-smuggling…” (Ibid.; pp. 34-35.)” Nazi war criminal Walter Rauff was a close friend of Hudal’s. The Aarons report that writers for the French magazine “Cercle Noir” (with ties to the Priory of Zion, according to authors Lincoln, Leigh and Baigent) link Rauff to “Archbishop Giuseppe Siri of Genoa…a key player in the Nazi smuggling operation.”

Rauff was probably the moneyman behind the smuggling endeavor, which was directed by British Intelligence operatives James Angleton and John Dulles. One of Siri’s secretaries is said to have helped fund the smuggling operation. But the Aarons’ speculate that this only augmented the funds Rauff already had in his possession from various money laundering and counterfeiting operations. The Aarons write: “Some of the most wanted Nazi war criminals passed from Rauff in Milan, to Bishop Hudal at the Anima in Rome and then on to Archbishop Siri in Genoa. Here they boarded ships and left for new lives in South America…” (Ibid.; pp. 39-40.) Clearly the operation was one arranged by Montini with the help of British Intelligence, who he worked for throughout WWII according to many different sources. This operation later resulted in a suit against the Vatican by Holocaust survivors to recover money made on properties owned by Croation Jews, sold for profit by the Nazis, with the profits then deposited in the Vatican Bank.

The publicity about the ratlines and this lawsuit is what fueled the accusations against Pope Pius XII concerning collaboration with the Nazis. And yet the blame for this cooperation with Hitler’s former SS rested instead on Montini, Hudal, Siri, and a pack of criminals, surprising bedfellows to say the least. Is it possible that Siri’s powerful right-wing industrial friends were Nazi sympathizers, that their friendships were forged, perhaps, during and after the war? Why would Siri have agreed to become involved in such an enterprise? And why was he involved with Montini on any level if he was a true “Traditionalist”? It should be duly noted here that if Siri researchers use declassified and like documents to support his election, they also must consider equally these documents on the existence of the ratlines, a fact NO officials have already confirmed.

Siri was deposed for heresy “pre-election”

At the beginning of the false Vatican II council, Siri and 18 others addressed a letter to John 23 “expressing their ‘disquietude over false doctrines’ being aired at the council,” (Vatican Council II, Xavier Rynne, pg. 125). Eventually five bishops withdrew their signatures from the letter and Siri was among the 14 who remained. Nothing, however — no standing protest, no withdrawal from participation in the council, no public outcry by this group — ever marked Siri and his conservative faction as truly orthodox and willing to defend the Faith at all costs. In fact, at the council’s conclusion, despite Siri’s known old-school stance, Siri and his friend, fellow conservative Ruffini sat quietly and submissively at the right hand of Paul 6 as the antipope spoke to the Italian bishops during a semi-private audience. “His talk…dealt principally with the attitude [the bishops] would be expected to adopt after the council was over…It was obvious from the Pope’s tone that he expected compliance also from [Siri and Ruffini]…” (Rynne, pg. 571). Another Italian bishop (Carli), an aide to Card. Ottaviani, had threatened mutiny at one of the closing sessions, but was silenced by the soothing words accredited to Siri in an earlier conference a week prior to the bishop’s meeting. Siri reportedly told a priest at this conference that the council decisions “are not definitions; they will never bind us.” According to Rynne, even after the council closed Carli remained distressed, threatening to light himself on fire Buddhist-style in protest to all that the council destroyed.

But Siri remained silent. As mentioned above, friends in high places would have supported him had he really wished to challenge the powers that be. And his stated assumption that the faithful would not be bound by Vatican II decrees later was exploded by Paul 6. In a general audience Jan.12, 1966 Montini announced that the Council’s teachings always enjoy at least “the authority of the supreme ordinary Magisterium. This ordinary Magisterium, which is so obviously official, has to be accepted with docility and sincerity by all the faithful, in accordance with the mind of the Council on the nature and aims of the individual documents.” Siri had to be aware that a group of bishops had rejected Paul 6’s interdenominational prayer service with all council attendees at the end of the council as heresy and communicatio in sacris. He was most likely aware of the comment made during the council by Msgr. Antonio Piolanti, Rector Magnificus at the Lateran University, that “there are rationalist theologians going about Rome seducing innocent foreign bishops,” or the comment Piolanti made to one of his classes: “Remember, the pope can be deposed if he falls into heresy,” but Rynne dismisses this remark as a joke. Time magazine’s “Man of the Year” article for Jan. 4, 1963 reported both these comments, so they were widely read.

Siri had support; he had allies to rely upon both before and after the council. Siri knew, but he failed to deliver; and so did his constituents. And finally there is the matter of Pope Pius XII’s failure to name a Cardinal Camerlengo, the head cardinal who, after the death of the pope organizes and calls the next papal election. Siri supporters have seized upon this fact as an indication that Pius XII, whose last appointed cardinal just happened to be Siri was signaling the world that Siri was his choice as a successor. But this does not follow. The best indication of who will succeed the Pope is whoever reigns as Vatican (Pro-) Secretary of State. Rampolla was Leo XIII’s secretary, and was very nearly elected. Pacelli served in this position under Pope Pius XI. Montini was Pope Pius XII’s secretary until his dismissal in 1953, and there have been other instances of this throughout history. None of the biographies written on Pope Pius XII name Siri as his successor-in-grooming, or for that matter mention Siri at all. Paul Murphy, who wrote the biography of Pope Pius XII’s dear friend and assistant, Sr. Pascalina, relates that the nun discussed potential successors of Pius with Cardinal Spellman the day of Pius’ death. Siri was never mentioned as a possible successor, nor Ottaviani, although Ruffini, Siri’s friend, was mentioned as a possibility. Sr. Pascalina had no use for Ruffini, who was known to be the intimate friend of Don Calgaro Vizzini, head of the Sicilian Mafia and one of the most powerful men in Italy, (Murphy, pg. 233).

Siri’s name is nowhere to be found in the book. Sr. Pascalina did not feel that anyone could replace Pacelli. Murphy himself noted that certainly no successor could “be trusted to carry on the strictly doctrinaire ecclesiastical policies of Pius XII,” (pg. 283). A generation raised on fairy tales with happy-ever-after endings would understandably hope that despite all indications to the contrary, the knight in shining armor soon will arrive to rescue them from the dungeon and restore the kingdom. Siri’s “successor” is either waiting in the wings, prepared to appear on cue, or Siri theorists will revert to Bd. Anna Maria Taigi’s revelation that Sts. Peter and Paul will appoint the true Pope following the three days darkness. It is even possible that Bp. Pintonello, who some maintain participated in the election of Victor von Pentz, (Linus II) will be identified as the man appointed “pope” by Siri before his death. Siri supporters will sweetly explain that Pintonello resigned as “pope” in favor of Linus’ 1994 election and then consecrated Linus bishop following his election. The clue to the solution of this puzzle lies in Hutton Gibson’s comment concerning Giuffre’s refusal to consult Countess Elizabeth Gerstner concerning the likelihood of Siri’s election in 1958. Gerstner worked in the Vatican prior to Pope Pius XII’s death, founded the Una Voce movement in Europe and later orchestrated Linus’ election, (after requesting a copy of the book “Will the Catholic Church Survive the 20th Century?”)

Canon 1325, 1917 Code: “The faithful are bound to profess their faith publicly, whenever silence, subterfuge or their manner of acting would otherwise entail an implicit denial of faith, a contempt of religion an insult to God, or scandal to their neighbor.”

Cum ex Apostolatus Officio, para. 6: “If ever at any time it becomes clear that any…Cardinal, or likewise any Roman Pontiff…before their promotion or elevation…has strayed from the faith or fallen into heresy…his promotion or elevation shall be null, valid and void.”

It is clear from what is presented below that Joseph Siri publicly accepted John 23 and all the other antipopes as true popes, thereby committing public heresy and incurring deposition from his office as cardinal, (Can. 188§4). Therefore he was never “pope” himself, nor could he even have been considered papabile. Remember that one instance of heresy is enough to incur deposition and ipso facto excommunication.

“Holy Ideals and Celestial Presence,” by Card. Joseph Siri, Rome 1965: “The great mission assigned by Providence to John XXIII of holy memory…was that of bringing back among men a more comprehensive, brotherly and trustful opening in their relationships with each other…He, the Pope, always spoke of faith, hope, humility, obedience…He put up with honors, but only in as far as they were attributed to Christ’s Vicar…”

“In God’s Name,” by David Yallop: “It is a matter of record that Siri presided over the nine-day funeral observances or “Novemdiales” for antipopes Roncalli, Montini and Luciani. Yallop notes in his work: “During the series of nine memorial masses [for Paul 6]…homilies were delivered by, among others, Cardinal Siri. The man who had blocked and obstructed Pope Paul at every turn pledged himself to the aims of the late pontiff.”

“The Catholic Counter-Reformation in the 20th Century,” No. 304, December 1997:”If one were to identify in the early ’60s one event – and one only! – that marked the approach of the spiritual chastisement predicted in the third Secret, it would clearly have to be the opening speech of Vatican II, which assigned the Council as its programme the Reform of the Church herself, rather than the correction of the errors and faults of her members. The reaction of the renowned Cardinal Siri – or, to be more exact, the absence of his reaction on this occasion – clearly illustrates the failure of the hierarchy predicted in the third Secret. On the following day in fact he wrote in his private diary, “I did not understand very much in the Pope’s speech. In the little I did understand I found an excellent opportunity of making a great act of mental obedience… This evening I carefully analyzed the Pope’s speech so that I might align [sic] my way of thinking with that of the Vicar of Christ.”

“The Church, the Council and the Unconscious: How Hidden Forces Shaped the Catholic Church,” by James Arraj: “Cardinal Giuseppe Siri wrote in his diary of the need to study the ‘historical propaedeutics’ of the errors that are resurfacing. He suggests not only looking at what Benigni had to say about them, but adding reflections on ‘the pathology that affects theological studies when various methodologies derived from idealism, historicism, rationalism are introduced. For modernism is creeping in and is supported by historical criticism.’” And when, we would like to know, did Siri ever stand up and denounce this “modernism”?!

“Twelve Council Fathers,” by Walter Abbot, S.J., (quoting Siri):

“It may take 50 years before the full achievements of the Council are discerned.” (Is this the true but falsely re-written statement made by Siri and generally circulated by his supporters that it would take 50 years to undo the work of the council?!) “But certain fruits are evident already, and they are important. First, the Church sees more clearly now the work that is cut out for it for the next 100 years. And, as the Holy Father himself has indicated, the approach is a pastoral one…It was a wise and provident thing that we began the work of the Council with the liturgy. It struck a very positive note. It went to the heart of things.”

Other considerations

Whether Siri was elected or not, he violated his sworn oath to Pope Pius XII who made him a cardinal. The oath reads: “For the praise of Almighty God and the honor of the Apostolic See, receive the red hat…By this you are to understand that you must show yourself fearless, even to the shedding of blood, in making our holy Faith respected, in securing peace for the Christian people and in promoting the welfare of the Roman Church. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” Whether during or after the Conclave, Siri showed himself unworthy of the cardinalate he received. He also, then, would be a candidate considered unworthy for election to the papacy. In his 1939 work “Canonical Elections,” Rev. Anscar Parsons described as unworthy for election those whose lives are “sinful or scandalous.” Violating a solemn oath dependent upon receiving a particular office is definitely scandalous, and is a mortal sin according to Rev. McHugh and Callan’s two-volume work on moral theology. “There is no doubt that a mortal sin is committed when one…unjustly refuses to live up to a sworn engagement made under oath, for this is irreligion and injustice in a serious matter.” This is true especially when it entails the welfare of the entire Church of Christ and the expulsion of a proven heretic.

Cardinal Siri’s non accepto of the papacy, if indeed it ever occurred, may have been the result of force and/or fear. But Siri had sworn to divest himself of this fear and be injured or die rather than damage the reverence owed to Holy Faith and the welfare of the Church. Canon 1317 (1917 Code) states: “The person who has freely sworn to do something is bound by a special obligation of religion to accomplish what he has promised under oath…An oath, taken without violence and deceit, by which a person renounces some private good or favor given him by law itself, must be observed whenever it does not involve the ruin of the soul,” and obviously holding to his oath would have been the only way to prevent the ruin of Siri’s soul. Siri may well have denied his loyalty to the Church of Pope Pius XII and declared his allegiance to the anti- Church in violating his oath. Canon 1321 declares that: “An oath must be strictly interpreted according to law and according to the intention of the person taking the oath — or, if the latter should act deceitfully, according to the intention of him to whom the oath was made.”

There can be no doubt that Pope Pius XII wished to bind Siri absolutely by this oath. Neither, then is there any doubt that if he indeed was elected and chose to remain “hidden” in violating his oath, Siri grossly insulted and denied the “praise of Almighty God and the honor of the Apostolic See.” This being the case, it would seem that he may have committed the most grievous act of treason possible against his own Church, and thereby forfeited his status as a member of that Church. Siri was a Cardinal, and in “Cum ex,” Pope Paul IV holds Cardinals, bishops and priests to a far higher standard than the laity in matters of faith. He cannot be accorded diminished capacity, because in freely surrendering his right to be intimidated by force or fear in his oath to Pope Pius XII, he voluntarily removed this factor mitigating his guilt, (Can. 2199). Canon 2200 states that “Given the external violation of a law, the evil will is presumed in the internal forum.”

Siri was required by Canon Law to establish juridical documentation of his election prior to his death. Such documentation cannot of its nature be kept a secret. According to Giuffre, Siri said he could not discuss the papal elections in question because “I am bound by the secret.” This comment was a veiled indication of the answer to all Giuffre’s research, but it was an answer he did not understand. This is an admission that Siri had participated in the elections only as a cardinal and considered himself still a cardinal, under the obedience of the NO church. All the cardinals participating in the election are bound by the secret save the one elected. Siri was never elected; either that or he declined election and never accepted within the specified time period. Had he indeed accepted, official notice of this would have been made. Woywod-Smith write: “The acceptance of the office and the choice of a name are then certified by document,” (commentary on Pope Pius XII’s “Vacantis Apostolica Sedis”). The pope-elect receives universal jurisdiction upon acceptance of his election and may immediately exercise it. The Church must always establish the personal identity of the new Pontiff and his chosen name, as these constitute dogmatic facts. To date, no pope ever has reigned in secret, unknown to the majority of his subjects, and the history of the papacy is one of persecutions, invasions, captivity, imprisonment and martyrdom.

Something also should be said here concerning the numerous revelations used to support Siri’s putative “election.” Rev. Adolphe Tanquerey writes that the assent given to private revelations is “not an act of Catholic faith but one of human faith, based upon the fact that these revelations are probable and worthy of credence,” (“The Spiritual Life”). Pope Benedict XIV states in his teaching governing beatification that such an assent is to be made “according to the rules of prudence,” for these rules dictate that such revelations are “probable and worthy of pious belief.” These teachings say nothing concerning the actual application of various prophecies to a certain event or individual. Such an application would be prudent only if the individual in question was unquestionably Catholic. If not such application is impossible. To employ the extensive use of prophecy to “document” anything dependent on the laws and teachings of the Church for belief is to circumvent those laws and teachings and make an appeal to the imagination and emotions rather than the intellect. The Church does not condemn the use of intuition in certain matters provided that such a use is secondary to the application of Catholic teachings concerning the faith. But when those norms determining what is to be believed concerning faith have excluded such an application, it is contrary to faith itself to apply them to those who lack it.

Conclusion

Any researcher can make mistakes, even in matters concerning faith. In these times the confusion surrounding the crisis in the Church, the absence of reliable instruction in the faith, differences in language and culture and the false teachings that abound all work against the efforts of anyone seeking the truth. The problem doesn’t lie in making the mistake; the problem lies in admitting and correcting it. Anyone can fall, but not all rise after falling. It is never too late to dust oneself off and stand up, but few choose to do so. Fear of being discredited and losing face are usually the reasons they don’t. They are not valid reasons. We all have an obligation to make the truth known no matter the cost. And we are bound to save others from any errors we may have spread, even if we had no intention to deliberately deceive them. Siri supporters can scarcely condemn the NO on one hand and endorse Siri on the other. Siri was undeniably a part of the V2 church. He had less excuse than even Lefebvre, Thuc or other “bishops” by far for his actions, exceeding them in dignity. Siri’s case was worth investigating, but that investigation has only produced more questions and precious few answers. Pope St. Pius X taught that the assent of Faith cannot rest ultimately on “an aggregation of probabilities,” (DZ 2025). One must be able to arrive at certitude in such a serious matter as whether a man is truly pope. Sadly, the Siri affair has succeeded only in proving that certitude can be reached — certitude that Siri abandoned the Catholic faith long ago.

In unquestionably recognizing Roncalli as pope in his public writings; in delivering Paul 6’s funeral oration and pledging himself to fulfill this antipope’s agenda, long after the destruction in the Church was painfully clear, Siri left no doubt that he embraced the heretical teachings of the false Vatican II Council, the institution of the Novus Ordo Missae and the heretical changes in the rites of the Sacraments instituted by Christ. Roncalli’s insertion of St. Joseph in the Canon violated the Divine Traditions of the Church. The insertion of “for all” into the Canon likewise violated these Traditions, contradicted the Council of Trent and falsified the very words found in Divine revelation as defined by a Council of the Church. That a true Pope, bound to guard the flock against the very wolves that consumed it, could somehow consider his own life more precious than his lambs’ is not only preposterous — it is contrary to Divine revelation. Was it not Christ Himself who told us: “The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep,” later fulfilling this prophecy with His Passion and death? And did He not also predict that once the pastor has been stuck the sheep would be scattered? We will know the voice of the Good Shepherd when he comes. Until then, we can only pray and watch.