The following is from

"The Pope and the New Apocalypse",
by Stephen D. Mumford

"The Vatican acts in part, often soundlessly and most effectively, through a relatively small number of Americans who give the Church their loyalty for reasons unrelated to religious practice, but rather for advancement, power and privilege. This is accomplished with great skill and subtlety through secret organizations such as Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta.

While Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed : "And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God." ( John 3:19 - 21) "Holy Mother the Church" (as the Catholic Church calls itself) can't seem to find enough things to hide not just from the world at large, but from the vast majority of its own members as well.

According to Father Andrew Greeley, "Opus Dei is a devious, antidemocratic, reactionary, semi-fascist institution, desperately hungry for absolute power in the Church and quite possibly very close now to having that power. Calling the group "authoritarian and power-mad:" the American Catholic priest and author said, "Opus Dei is an extremely dangerous organization because it appeals to the love of secrecy and the power lust of certain kinds of religious personalities. It may well be the most powerful group in the Church today. It is capable of doing an enormous amount of harm. It ought to be forced to come out into the open or be suppressed:'
        In a recent Church & State, Religious News Service's Rome correspondent Eleni Dimmler estimates that worldwide there are 74,000 in the most devoted membership categories (1300 are priests) and 700,000 Opus Dei "cooperators:" "With this international 'army' of devoted members, Opus Dei has created an impressive network of activities in countries around the world ... According to a 1979 memo, members of the movement work, among other things, at 487 universities and schools, 694 newspapers and periodicals, 52 TV or radio stations, 38 publicity agencies and twelve film companies.-
        The March 19, 1984, issue of U.S. News and World Report examined these two secret Catholic elite religious societies: the Knights of Malta with one thousand U.S. members who are prominent in government, business, or professional life and Opus Dei with three thousand U.S. members of widely varied backgrounds. The number of U.S. members in the "cooperator" category has not been revealed but could run more than 100,000.
        The central tenet of Opus Dei is to "help shape the world in a Catholic manner" and its American members include "priests, middle and upperclass businessmen, professionals, military personnel and government officials:"
        The Knights of Malta dates back to the time of the Crusades; its present members are reported to include some of our nation's most prominent Catholics: CIA Director William Casey; William Wilson; Vernon Walters; Senators Denton and Domenici; Alexander Haig; William Sloan; and William F Buckley, creator and leader of Young Americans for Freedom, from which many of the Reagan administration team have been drawn. According to members, the order serves "as an international defender of the Church * - In June of each year a ceremony is held in Rome for Knights of Malta which includes the "swearing of allegiance to the defense of the Holy Mother Church:" Herein lies the problem for population growth control and its recognition as a national security issue. The Knights are committed to defending the Church. Only the most devout and obedient are invited to join the Knights and Opus Dei (which its detractors have compared to mind-controlling cults). If the Vatican has determined that population growth control threatens the Holy Mother Church, the members of these societies are obliged to counter this threat by thwarting the development of population growth control government policies and their execution.

the Vatican vs. humanity

So it was inevitable, it seems to me, that the interests of the Vatican and those of the United States would clash on the issue of curbing population growth. No one can swear and abide by complete allegiance to both the United States and the Roman Catholic Church. The reported acts and attitudes of the Knights of Malta in the Reagan Administration seem to reflect complete allegiance to the Pope rather than our country. If these reports are true, should the members of these societies be considered traitors to our country?
        As long as this conflict of allegiance exists in our midst, the U.S. cannot act with the leadership it exercised until recently to assist other nations in curbing population growth. The real problem is not convincing people that they must have small families, or delivering family planning services to them. This we could most certainly achieve by the end of the century (these words were published in 1986) for most of the world's people at a price we can well afford. The profound problem right now is the conflict between the priorities of the Pope and his Church and his hierarchy and the desperate need of humanity to control its fertility.
        All American Catholics are certain to pay a high price for this intrusion of their Church leaders into American sovereignty. In 1969, the so-called Soccer War was fought between El Salvador and Honduras. This was the first war ever directly attributed to overpopulation, a determination made by the Organization of American States. 5 The war was prompted by massive illegal immigration from grossly overpopulated El Salvador into Honduras. Fifteen years later, the overpopulation problem continues to be all but ignored in El Salvador. The population in 1984 is growing at the rate of 2.6 percent per year, giving the country a doubling time of 27 years! The results of this continued growth have been the illegal immigration of more than 500,000 Salvadorans to the United States (1 in 9 of that country's native population) a breakdown in social order and destruction of the economic, social and political structures of the country.
        This climate of turmoil is bound to invade the U.S. itself, I'm convinced, if we allow continued illegal immigration of tens of millions of Latin Americans and others into our country. This approach to assuming control over the once most powerful nation on earth appears to be what the Vatican has in mind. Meanwhile, the Catholic hierarchy remains by far the most significant opposition to illegal immigration control. " (pp. 46-47)

troubling questions
about "Opus Dei"

"Meanwhile, Banco Ambrosiano, Calvi's massive, privately-owned bank, collapsed on the news of his death, revealing a huge 'black hole' in the balance sheet amounting to $1.3 billion. A large proportion of the missing money was later located in accounts owned by the Vatican bank. The connections that unfolded in the wake of the Calvi 'affair' were to link Masons with Mafiosi, Monks with Murder, and Spies with wanted Nazi war criminals.
        Faced with certain discovery and even more certain consequences, Calvi rushed to London to negotiate a loan from Opus Dei - a highly secretive and fabulously wealthy Catholic faction described by one authority as 'sinister, secretive and Orwellian.' A highly credible and knowledgeable source told this writer that Calvi met with the Treasurer of Opus Dei who had agreed to purchase a minority stake in Calvi's Banco Ambrosiano. The deal, had it proceeded would have provided the essential funds needed to repay the Mafia, and stave-off an imminent investigation into his affairs by Italy's Central bank.
        Opus Dei - which translates as 'God's work,' had long sought to take effective control of the Vatican. Their cause had been advanced by the sudden (and some say very suspicious) death of the reformer pope, John Paul the First, and the election of a keen O.P. supporter, John Paul II. (See CatholicArrogance.Org/murderedpope). With Machiavellian insight, senior figures of Opus Dei reasoned that with Calvi dead, the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano would surely follow. This, in turn, would shake loose powerful enemies inside the Curia, opening the way for them to gain total dominance of the Vatican. Consequently, Roberto Calvi was thrown to the Wolves.
        According to critics, Opus Dei is aggressively right wing in its teachings, and operates a form of thought control. Disciples undergo bouts of agonising self-inflicted torture, allegedly designed to clarify thought and cleanse the spirit. They are also taught to avoid natural human feelings, being admonished instead to have a 'reticent and guarded heart.'  Likewise, disciples are not permitted to read certain books, including those authored by communist ideologist Karl Marx.  Detractors believe it a religious faction that shares numerous values similar to the neo-nazis that people the Masonic P2 lodge.  Until recently - and for hundreds of years previously - any member of the Catholic church who was found to be a Freemason was automatically ex-communicated.  Despite this many members of the Curia were discovered to be covert members of P2.  Subsequently, in 1983, a new Canon Law announced that this would cease.  Thereafter, any member of the Roman Church was free to become a Freemason.
        Following the Calvi affair, the Vatican sought to diminish increasingly poor publicity by establishing a commission of enquiry.  One of the so called 'Four Wise Men' who sat on this enquiry was Dr. Herman Abs, a senior German banker.  During the war years Abs headed Deutsche Bank and was one of the principal financiers of Adolf Hitler.  He also sat on the board of I G Farben, the massive Nazi conglomerate that used slave labour until they dropped.(sic)  Farben also manufactured Zyklon B - the poisonous gas used with such devastating effect in the extermination camps.  Arrested for war crimes at the end of WW11, Abs was quietly released following the intervention of the Bank of England."

"Malta knighthoods are awarded to many leading individuals who are part of the military and intelligence community.  The CIA's Bill Casey, for example, was a Knight of Malta.  Former NATO General and later US Secretary of State Alexander Haig is also a Malta Knight.  Another is General Vernon Walters, the former Deputy Director of the CIA under DCI George Bush, and later appointed a roving ambassador during the Reagan Administration.  The legendary head of the OSS (the WWII precursor of the CIA), 'Wild' Bill Donovan, was made a Knight along with his wartime compatriot and later CIA Chief of Counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton.  And John McCone, another prominent member of the US 'spook' agency, was also distinguished with a Malta knighthood.  The list goes on.  Most interesting is Reinhard Gehlen, the former Nazi intelligence expert recruited by the US in 1945-46 to head the Gehlen Org - a secret, German-based intelligence arm of the United States that was composed of former SS and Gestapo agents, many of whom, including Klaus Barbie, were wanted Nazi war criminals.-nbsp; The foregoing names amount to a listing of some of the most powerful and influential members of the Western intelligence community over the last five decades.
        One Vatican group that has extremely close ties to the Knights of Malta is the ultra-right-wing Opus Dei.  This is an immensely powerful faction in the Vatican today, and its public 'do good' activities eclipse a plethora of the darkest political and financial machinations known to man."

troubling questions about SSPX,
the Society of St. Pius X

According to an article about the Society of St. Pius X" SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson openly denied the Holocaust, adding that he did not believe Hitler purposefully gassed Jews to death or that any gas chambers existed.
        "Bishop Richard Williamson, a British-born convert, said in a recent interview: "I believe that the historical evidence is hugely against six million having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler ... I believe there were no gas chambers." He was elaborating on something he said 20 years ago at Notre-dame-de-Lourdes church in Sherbrooke, Quebec: "There was not one Jew killed in the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies. The Jews created the Holocaust so we would prostrate ourselves on our knees before them and approve of their new state of Israel ... Jews made up the Holocaust, Protestants get their orders from the devil, and the Vatican has sold its soul to liberalism."
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6C9BuXe2RM )

Bishop Williamson isn't an exception in this ultra-conservative group, he is simply it's most outspoken spokesperson when it comes to the Society's antisemitism, as this article makes clear:
Southern Poverty Center's Intelligence Report (Summer of 2009)

"It's obvious that this is an extreme right-wing group. They deny the Holocaust, are extremely negative toward homosexuals, and express a number of racist attitudes,"
        This group takes the claim seriously.that the Catholic Church to be the same one true church that it has always been It rejects practically everything the church has tried to change at least from the Second Vatican Council on.

Pope Reinstates Four Excommunicated Bishops
By Rachel Donadio
Published in N.Y. Times: January 24, 2009
Vatican City — Pope Benedict XVI, reaching out to the far-right of the Roman Catholic Church, revoked the excommunications of four schismatic bishops on Saturday, including one whose comments denying the Holocaust have provoked outrage."

troubling questions
about the Legionaries of Christ

Take it from Stephen;
there is much more where
this came from, at my
website

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