Café Bohemia speech on Empires, Chrislam & the Catholic Church (P#11)

This transcript and record of source documents commences from 4:40 after preliminaries.

Preamble

My book Speaking Management: How to Spot Language Traps and Resolve Contested Management Terms (which I see as being about conflict dissolution!) can be searched and portions read for free on Google Books at

https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Speaking_Management/rg1YEAAAQBAJ?hl=enandgbpv=1anddq=mcgrath+speaking+managementandprintsec=frontcover . Springer sells it at  https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-16-2213-7 . It was all about removing linguistic confusion, increasing productivity by averting the ‘Tower of Babel’ circumstances we often find ourselves in. Little did I realise that confusion is actually good for business; it feeds capitalism’s ‘broken window’ syndrome and Nothing does that better than war. So, wars are really good for (some big) business. It stimulates production, and principles count for nothing when there are profits to be made! Never mind the misery and loss of life generated!

I never dreamed then that what I was doing in sorting out linguistic confusion could be in any way political at all or have anything at all to do with world peace!

However, in spite of my book not being mass market accessible because of its high price, it has had 3670 accesses at 16/1/23. My paper on stakeholders has also had 75,000 reads and the paper on accountability and responsibility has had 25,000 world-wide. This has placed them on the permanent academic record (book burning type, computer chip/ internet access destroying EMP attacks notwithstanding) and so they may affect the thinking of scholars in the future.

But this is not much use if the kids controlling the world are about to accidentally kill us all now!

 Introduction

All the world’s militaries train hard to defeat ‘the enemy’. That gives great power to whoever gets to define who the enemy actually is. Control of that is way above the average person’s pay grade and is not hard to imagine that would be a honeypot to large commercial interests and those seeking control of populations.

And if supra-national interests can control that for one ‘side’ of a conflict, it’s not hard to imagine the temptation to do that for both sides or to widen it by bringing in other players. When considered from that perspective, the previous speaker’s (Jim Taousanis) Jesuit and secret services theory becomes rather credible and perhaps even unsurprising, while probably being obvious to the ex-military intelligence people here tonight.

This notion is further supported by what happened to me after sending my first blog post on the capture of the medical profession by the pharmaceutical industry to only Norman Swann, Leigh Sales, the AMA and the Queensland Premier. Despite having no profile attached, my real Linkedin profile was visited within the following fortnight by people from Pfizer, Merk and the US Army.

Even worse, who or how do you fight if you don’t even know who ‘the enemy’ really is and can’t find them?

My approach is to look at the basics of human nature to see how we ended up where we are, irrespective of ‘whodunnit’ in the hope that we may figure out things we all habitually do that we would be best not to and things we don’t habitually do that it would be good to start doing.

But that will not be the focus of my talk tonight. Tonight’s 3 main topics are The Fate of Empires, Chrislam and the Catholic Church

PART 1: THE FATE OF EMPIRES and SEARCH FOR SURVIVAL 1976

Sir John Glubb From 1939 to 1956 he commanded the famous Jordan Arab Legion, which was in reality, the Jordan Army. Following his retirement he published seventeen books, chiefly on the Middle East, and has lectured widely in Britain, the United States and Europe.

‘The only thing we learn from history,’ it has been said, ‘is that men never learn from history’

First, our historical work is limited to short periods—the history of our own country, or that of some past age which, for some reason, we hold in respect.

Second, even within these short periods, the slant we give to our narrative is governed by our own vanity rather than by objectivity.

The nation Dates of rise and fall Duration in years

Assyria 859-612 B.C.             247

Persia 538-330 B.C.                208

(Cyrus and his descendants)

Greece 331-100 B.C.              231

(Alexander and his successors)

Roman Republic 260-27 B.C.            233

Roman Empire 27 B.C.-A.D. 180 207

Arab Empire A.D. 634-880    246

Mameluke Empire 1250-1517            267

Ottoman Empire 1320-1570   250

Spain 1500-1750                     250

Romanov Russia 1682-1916   234

Britain 1700-1950                   250

250 years emerges as the average length of national greatness. This average has not varied for 3,000 years.

Immense changes in the technology of transport or in methods of warfare do not seem to affect the life-expectation of an empire.

Stage 1: The Age of pioneers – the outburst/

These sudden outbursts are usually characterised by an extraordinary display of energy and courage. The new conquerors are normally poor, hardy and enterprising and above all aggressive. The decaying empires which they overthrow are wealthy but defensive-minded.

Stage 2: The Age of conquest

Other peculiarities of the period of the conquering pioneers are their readiness to improvise and experiment. Untrammelled by traditions, they will turn anything available to their purpose. If one method fails, they try something else. Uninhibited by textbooks or book learning, action is their solution to every problem.

Poor, hardy, often half-starved and ill-clad, they abound in courage, energy and initiative, overcome every obstacle and always seem to be in control of the situation.

When a great empire was in control, commerce was freed from the innumerable shackles imposed upon it today by passports, import permits, customs, boycotts and political interference.

In the eighth and ninth centuries, the caliphs of Baghdad achieved fabulous wealth owing to the immense extent of their territories, which constituted a single trade bloc. The empire of the caliphs is now divided into some twenty-five separate ‘nations’. [Centralised vs distributed]

The present infatuation for independence for ever smaller and smaller units will eventually doubtless be succeeded by new international empires.

Stage 3: The Age of Commerce

 The conquests resulted in the acquisition of vast territories under one government, thereby automatically giving rise to commercial prosperity. The proud military

traditions still hold sway, but gradually the desire to make money seems to gain hold of the public. During the military period, glory and honour were the principal objects of ambition. To the merchant, such ideas are but empty words, which add nothing to the bank balance.

In the 1^st half of this age, boys schools are rough – to produce strong, hardy, fearless men. Heavy emphasis is placed on truthfulness as lying is cowardice.

Stage 4: The Age of affluence

Money replaces honour and adventure as the objective of the best young men… and gradually silences the voice of duty. The object of the young and the ambitious is no longer fame, honour or service but cash. Education undergoes the same gradual transformation. No longer do schools aim at producing brave patriots ready to serve their country. Parents and students alike seek the educational qualifications which will command the highest salaries. Greed for money gradually replaces duty and public service. Indeed the change might be summarised as being from service to selfishness. The nation… is no longer interested in glory or duty, but is only anxious to retain its wealth and its luxury. It is a period of defensiveness, from the Great Wall of China to Hadrian’s Wall on the Scottish Border, to the Maginot Line in France in 1939. Money being in better supply than courage, subsidies instead of weapons are employed to buy off enemies.

The weakness of pacifism is that there are still many peoples in the world who are aggressive. Nations who proclaim themselves unwilling to fight are liable to be conquered by peoples in the stage of militarism… nations do not normally disarm from motives of conscience but owing to the weakening of a sense of duty in the citizens, and the increase in selfishness and the desire for wealth and ease.

Stage 5: Decline – The Age of Intellect

The merchant princes of the Age of Commerce seek fame and praise, not only by endowing works of art or patronising music and literature. They also found and endow colleges and universities. It is remarkable with what regularity this phase follows on that of wealth, in empire after empire, divided by many centuries.

In the eleventh century, a small number of universities in the great cities had sufficed the years of Arab glory, now a university sprang up in every town. In our own lifetime, we have witnessed the same phenomenon in the U.S.A. and Britain. When these nations were at the height of their glory, Harvard, Yale, Oxford and Cambridge seemed to meet their needs. Now almost every city has its university.

The ambition of the young, once engaged in the pursuit of adventure and military glory, and then in the desire for the accumulation of wealth, now turns to the acquisition of academic honours. The spread of knowledge seems to be the most beneficial of human activities, and yet every period of decline is characterised by this expansion of intellectual activity. 12 intellectual arguments rarely lead to agreement. Thus public affairs drift from bad to worse, amid an unceasing cacophony of argument. But this constant dedication to discussion seems to destroy the power of action. Amid a Babel of talk, the ship drifts on to the rocks.

Perhaps the most dangerous by-product of the Age of Intellect is the unconscious growth of the idea that the human brain can solve the problems of the world. Even on the low level of practical affairs this is patently untrue. Any small human activity, the local bowls club or the ladies’ luncheon club, requires for its survival a measure of self-sacrifice and service on the part of the members. In a wider national sphere, the survival of the nation depends basically on the loyalty and self-sacrifice of the citizens. The impression that the situation can be saved by mental cleverness, without unselfishness or human self-dedication, can only lead to collapse.

Thus we see that the cultivation of the human intellect seems to be a magnificent ideal, but only on condition that it does not weaken unselfishness and human dedication to service. Yet this, judging by historical precedent, seems to be exactly what it does do. Perhaps it is not the intellectualism which destroys the spirit of self-sacrifice—the least we can say is that the two, intellectualism and the loss of a sense of duty, appear simultaneously in the life-story of the nation.

Indeed it often appears in individuals, that the head and the heart are natural rivals. The brilliant but cynical intellectual appears at the opposite end of the spectrum from the emotional self-sacrifice of the hero or the martyr. Yet there are times when the perhaps unsophisticated self-dedication of the hero is more essential than the sarcasms of the clever.

The heroes of declining nations are always the same—the athlete, the singer or the actor. The word ‘celebrity’ today is used to designate a comedian or a football player, not a statesman, a general, or a literary genius.

An increase in the influence of women in public life has often been associated with national decline. The later Romans complained that, although Rome ruled the world, women ruled Rome. In the tenth century, a similar tendency was observable in the Arab Empire, the women demanding admission to the professions hitherto monopolised by men. Many women practised law, while others obtained posts as university professors. There was an agitation for the appointment of female judges, which, however, does not appear to have succeeded. Soon after this period, government and public order collapsed, and foreign invaders overran the country. The resulting increase in confusion and violence made it unsafe for women to move unescorted in the streets, with the result that this feminist movement collapsed.

When I first read these contemporary descriptions of tenth-century Baghdad, I could scarcely believe my eyes. I told myself that this must be a joke! The descriptions might have been taken out of The Times today. The resemblance of all the details was especially breathtaking—the break-up of the empire, the abandonment of sexual morality, the ‘pop’ singers with their guitars, the entry of women into the professions, the five-day week. I would not venture to attempt an explanation!

Stage 6 Collapse

The belief that their nation would rule the world forever, naturally encouraged the citizens of the leading nation of any period to attribute their pre-eminence to hereditary virtues. They carried in their blood, they believed, qualities which constituted them a race of supermen, an illusion which inclined them to the employment of cheap foreign labour (or slaves) to perform menial tasks and to engage foreign mercenaries to fight their battles or to sail their ships.

In recent years, the idea has spread widely in the West that ‘progress’ will be automatic without effort, that everyone will continue to grow richer and richer and that every year will show a ‘rise in the standard of living’. We have not drawn from history the obvious conclusion that material success is the result of courage, endurance and hard work

When the welfare state was first introduced in Britain, it was hailed as a new high-water mark in the history of human development. History, however, seems to suggest that the age of decline of a great nation is often a period which shows a tendency to philanthropy and to sympathy for other races.

As long as it retains its status of leadership, the imperial people are glad to be generous, even if slightly condescending. The rights of citizenship are generously bestowed on every race, even those formerly subject, and the equality of mankind is proclaimed.

The impression that it will always be automatically rich causes the declining empire to spend lavishly on its own benevolence, until such time as the economy collapses, the universities are closed and the hospitals fall into ruin.

It may perhaps be incorrect to picture the welfare state as the high-water mark of human attainment. It may merely prove to be one more regular milestone in the lifestory of an ageing and decrepit empire.

Historians of periods of decadence often refer to a decline in religion… Thus the Age of Conquests often had some kind of religious atmosphere, which implied heroic self sacrifice for the cause. But this spirit of dedication was slowly eroded in the Age of Commerce by the action of money. People make money for themselves, not for their country. Thus periods of affluence gradually dissolved the spirit of service, which had caused the rise of the imperial races.

In due course, selfishness permeated the community, the coherence of which was weakened until disintegration was threatened. Then, as we have seen, came the period of pessimism with the accompanying spirit of frivolity and sensual indulgence, byproducts of despair. It was inevitable at such times that men should look back yearningly to the days of ‘religion’, when the spirit of self-sacrifice was still strong enough to make men ready to give and to serve, rather than to snatch.

Decadence is the disintegration of a system, not of its individual members. The habits of the members of the community have been corrupted by the enjoyment of too much money and too much power for too long a period. The result has been, in the framework of their national life, to make them selfish and idle. A community of selfish and idle people declines, internal quarrels develop in the division of its dwindling wealth, and pessimism follows, which some of them endeavour to drown in sensuality or frivolity. In their own surroundings, they are unable to redirect their thoughts and their energies into new channels.

Decadence is a moral and spiritual disease, resulting from too long a period of wealth and power, producing cynicism, decline of religion, pessimism and frivolity.

Ten generations of human beings suffice to transform the hardy and enterprising pioneer into the captious citizen of the welfare state.

History is not an attempt to ascertain the truth, but a system of propaganda, devoted to the furtherance of modern projects, or the gratification of national vanity. Men can scarcely be blamed for not learning from the history they are taught. There is nothing to learn from it because it is not true.

Perhaps if the pattern of the rise and fall of nations were regularly taught in schools, the general public would come to realise the truth, and would support policies to maintain the spirit of duty and self-sacrifice, and to forestall the accumulation of excessive wealth by one nation, leading to the demoralisation of that nation.

If we could accept these great movements as beyond our control, there would be no excuse for our hating one another because of them. However varied, confusing and contradictory the religious history of the world may appear, the noblest and most spiritual of the devotees of all religions seem to reach the conclusion that love is the key to human life. Any expansion of our knowledge which may lead to a reduction in our unjustified hates is therefore surely well worthwhile.

History should be taught as the history of the human race, though of course with emphasis on the history of the student’s own country.

Deductions from Glubb’s book

We can recognise Hitler, Lenin, Klaus, Harari and ourselves in all of that.

So there’s nothing new in the NWO except for the technology and possibly the scale of the deceit, fraud and hubris. 

Part 2: Chrislam

Has anyone heard of Chrislam and know what it is? It has not attracted msm attention, so I’ll read from a release on the ‘nowtheendbegins’ website.

It’s official, Chrislam has now been codified and ratified in the Kazakh capital Nur-Sultan, with approval at the (14 and 15 September 2022) 7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, of the Human Fraternity document created by Pope Francis of the Vatican, and financed and promoted by Mohamed bin Zayed of the UAE, also signed by His Eminence the Grand Imam of Al Azhar and Chairman of the Muslim Council of Elders, Dr. Ahmed el-Tayyeb.

Some highlights from the 7th World Congress of Religions:

• We note that pluralism in terms of differences in skin color, gender, race, language and culture are expressions of the wisdom of God in creation. Religious diversity is permitted by God and, therefore, any coercion to a particular religion and religious doctrine is unacceptable.
• We recognizethe importance and value of the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together between the Holy See and Al-Azhar Al-Sharif (adopted by the UN General Assembly in resolution A/RES/75/200 of December 21, 2020), and the Makkah Declaration (adopted in Mecca in May 2019), which call for peace, dialogue, mutual understanding and mutual respect among believers for the common good.
• We call upon religious leaders and prominent political figures from different parts of the world tirelessly to develop dialogue in the name of friendship, solidarity and peaceful coexistence.
• We appeal to all people of faith and goodwill to unite in this difficult time and contribute to ensuring security and harmony in our common home – planet Earth.

 The closing statement of the congress, which was attended by over 108 religious and world leaders, underscored the historical significance of the Human Fraternity Document, stressing that it helps promote peace, dialogue and mutual respect among people.

Question – Guess who they forgot to invite to the festivities? Answer – Jesus Christ. His Name appears nowhere and is never mentioned. Whether or not Pope Francis retires as some are suggesting, or whether or not he will be the biblical Antichrist is, at this point, rather immaterial. Because he has now put into place, and set into motion, the functional political, religious and financial framework on which the One World Religion of Chrislam will operate. Pope Francis could die tomorrow, but what he has created will live on into the time of Jacob’s trouble. Of course, all this prophetic fulfillment could not have taken place without his very generous patron and backer, Mohamed bin Zayed. Is he the “prince of the covenant”? Time will tell, but this is a giant step forward. We warned you for the past 13 years Chrislam was coming, now it’s here. Are you ready to fly?

It now seems that the Pope, the Vicar of Christ, seems to have forgotten to preach about him. The article concludes with an exhortation:

But whatever you do, don’t do nothing. Time is short and we need your help right now… The war is REAL, the battle HOT and the time is SHORT…TO THE FIGHT!!!

 The Headquarters For Chrislam, The Abrahamic Family House In Abu Dhabi, Is Now Nearly Complete And Should Be Operational In Just A Few Weeks from when that was published  3 weeks ago.

You will no doubt be encouraged to hear that On Sunday November 13th, The Chrislam ‘Climate Repentance Ceremony’ was held On Mount Sinai In Egypt As The United Nations Holds COP27!

Chrislam has positioned itself to be the driving religious force of our day, combined leaders from all the world’s religions under the banner of the Vatican. Chrislam is the basis on which the Abraham Accords were created, brought to life by the same person who sold Pope Francis’ Declaration of Human Fraternity to the Muslim world back in 2019. Now at the UN COP27 climate conference in Sinai, Egypt later this month, Chrislam will again take center stage as interfaith leaders unveil their ‘Climate Justice: Ten Universal Commandments’ and repent of their climate sins to Mother Earth.

The creator of the Abraham Accords, Mohamed bin Zayed, is working overtime to bring to life the One World Religion of Chrislam, and now it has a soundtrack. Promoting the ‘holy trinity’ of Peace, Love and Tolerance, the Abrahamic Symphony. No expense has been spared to create a work that is visually beautiful, musically lush, and quite terrifying if you believe what your King James Bible has to say about the end times. It was commissioned and produced by Abu Dhabi Festival, is the world’s first interfaith symphony composed by David Shire (USA), John Debney (USA) and Ihab Darwish (UAE).

We also learn from an interview Pope Francis did with Fr Malone (a Jesuit) last November that he is a communist. (16:28)

PART 3: The Catholic Church

The Catholic Church is the modern day remains of the Roman Empire.

You may well not be aware but there are 3 Papal Bulls still in force declaring the Pope:

1 owns all the land on earth ROMMUS PONTIFEX (1455) (all land is crown land)

2 owns all bodies on earth AETERNI REGIS (1481) (sale of the birth certificate as a Bond to the private national central bank) and

3 owns all souls and can collect ‘lost souls’ CONVOCATION (1531) (law of the sea)

In my university undergraduate years following the faith and living in a Catholic residential college, I came to the conclusion that ecclesiastical politics was the dirtiest type of politics there was. This was partly due to the participants having their bodies, minds, souls, employment and indeed their very existence ‘owned’ by the Church, such that the consequences of losing any game of internal politics were so comprehensively dire that losing was not an option. But I will base my remaining remarks on the statements of others.

A) Dr Taylor Marshall

Catholic commentator Dr Taylor Marshall reflected that in 2012, Pope Benedict’s private papers were being published in newspapers and books. The mole turned out to be his butler, Gabriella. The papers spoke about sodomy in the clergy as well as male prostitutes with Bishops and Cardinals. Benedict commissioned an investigation of 3 Cardinals. That found there had been a cocaine fuelled orgy at the congregation for the doctrine of faith, with priests, bishops and maybe a cardinal engaging in sodomy inside Vatican City. The investigation reported back in Dec 2012. This is detailed in his (Dr Marshall’s) book Infiltration.  Within 2 months, in Feb 2013, Benedict announced he would resign the Papacy and lightning struck the Vatican. He then rode away in a helicopter. Soon after (March 2013), Bergoglio (Pope Francis) was elected.

We learned from Cardinal DeNeals who had covered up paedophilia allegations and who spoke about the St Gallen Mafia and about making the Catholic Church more progressive/ woke. Francis has been surrounded by cardinals involved in bank scandals and cover-ups.

Viglione deserves wide visibility also for showing the overall vision on the simultaneous and coherent strategy and action of the deep state and the deep church. At a time when discrimination against the unvaccinated is also adopted by the Bergoglian church, it is our duty and responsibility to resist with the utmost determination, raise our voices, denouncing what is happening and revealing what is being prepared.

Dr Taylor Marshall revealed Cardinal Pell was Demos – fiercely critical of Pope Francis, Cardinals involved in dodgy financial dealings and the spread of homosexual influence in the Vatican, recommending steps for appointment of the next Pope. Pell also said we are living in a toxic nightmare.

He quotes Pope Benedict as saying: As one sees the power of the anti-Christ spreading, one can only pray that the Lord will give us mighty shepherds to defend his church against the power of evil in this hour of need.

B) Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano

Vigano was a former Apostolic Nuncio to the US and former Secretary-General of Vatican City State, who exposed financial corruption in the Vatican and confronted sexual abuse by Pope Francis and other Church leaders an extraordinary call to international resistance from.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1133424474045810

He said: There is a global Coup de Tat of governments and private and public institutions, politicians, judiciary and religious leaders. All have become enslaved to these new masters. Rights are being trampled to date for a health emergency, tomorrow for an ecological emergency, then an internet emergency. It deprives citizens of any possibility of self-defence since the executive, judicial powers are complicit. It is a world-wide attack against citizens. It’s a world war where the enemies are all of us, including those who have not yet understood the significance of what is happening. It is a war fought not with weapons but with illegitimate rules, wicked economic policies and intolerable limitations of natural rights.

Supranational organisations are interfering in the government of nations and in the lives and relationships of billions of people. They are doing it for money and to centralise power so as to establish a planetary dictatorship. It is the Great Reset of the WEF and Agenda 2030 of the UN for a universal Republic which enslaves everyone and establishes a religion of humanity that cancels faith in Christ. We have no intention of becoming slaves to a faceless power.

He calls for people to form an international anti-globalist alliance and unite and resist.

He wants to launch an anti-globalist manifesto, refuting point by point the errors and deviations of this dystopia of the NWO and proposing concrete alternatives for a political program inspired by the common good, the moral principles of Christianity, traditional values, the protection of life and the natural family, the protection of business and work, the promotion of education and research and respect for creation. This international alliance will have to bring together nations that intend to escape the infernal yoke of tyranny and affirm their own sovereignty, forming agreements of mutual collaboration with nations and peoples who share the principle and common yearning for freedom, justice and goodness.

It will have to denounce the crimes of the elites, identify those responsible, denounce them to international tribunals and limit their excessive power and harmful influence. It will have to prevent the action of the lobbyists above all by fighting against the corruption of state officials and those who work in IT and by freezing the capital used to destabilize the social order. In nations where the government is subservient to the elite, they will be able to establish popular resistance movement and committees of national liberation, including representatives of all sectors of society who propose radical reform of politics, inspired by the common good and fervently opposed to the neo-Malthusian project of the globalist agenda. It needs to leave aside the old system of political parties and the logic imposed by a system enslaved to power and money. We need to disrupt the old system, putting aside the hostility designed by the enemies of humanity in the name of ‘divide and conquer’.

We do not accept our adversary’s rules because they are made precisely to prevent us from reacting and organising in an effective and incisive opposition. Let us free humanity from a totalitarian regime that brings together in itself the horrors of the worst dictatorships of all time.

If we continue to delay, if we do not understand the threat that looms over us all, and organise ourselves into a firm and courageous resistance, this infernal regime that is establishing itself everywhere will not be able to be stopped.

See also https://taylormarshall.com/vigano 

C) William Langley  – The Vatican’s “trial of the century” uncovers a spy network

This appeared in the Australian Women’s Weekly of 12 January 2022.

In a hushed courtroom in the heart of the Vatican, Angelo Becciu, once the most powerful cardinal in Rome, is listening to a tale of plunder, passion and Prada handbags. Smooth-featured, and still handsome at 73, Becciu strokes his rosary and occasionally glances across at the slender, well-dressed woman seated on a bench nearby.

In the gossipy back corridors of the Holy See, Cecilia Marogna, 41, is known as the ‘Cardinal’s Lady’ – the key figure in an extraordinary scandal that has cost the Vatican hundreds of millions of dollars and destroyed the reputation of a man tipped as a future pope.

Cecilia and the cardinal are jointly on trial for a string of offences including embezzlement, fraud and money-laundering. But as the testimony unfolds, the question consuming Italy is: what is the true relationship between the pair? While Becciu has enjoyed a stellar rise through the ranks of the Catholic hierarchy, Cecilia is portrayed as a shadowy femme fatale, who came from nowhere to insinuate herself into the older man’s life and exploit the connection for personal gain.

Both deny they were lovers, but around them swirl awkward accounts of exotic holidays, luxury spa visits, and large bills run up in expensive restaurants and top Italian fashion boutiques including Fendi, Missoni and Prada.

Investigators have found evidence of numerous visits Cecilia made to the cardinal’s official residence in the Vatican’s 16th Century Apostolic Palace. On one occasion, according to court testimony, she arrived carrying a suitcase and did not leave until the next morning: “The circumstances of the encounter, and the observed behaviour of the woman suggest a relationship,” noted the investigators.

The court was shown social media posts from Cecilia, containing photographs taken inside the Cardinal’s private rooms with captions such as: “Feeling at home here” and “this is my paradise.”

According to Vatican Police Commissioner, Stefano De Santis, the cardinal – when confronted with the evidence – “held his head in his hands, and pleaded that the name of Cecila Marogna not be made public as it would cause great damage to himself and his family.”

The trial has its beginnings in a disastrous €350 million (AUD$536 million) investment in a building in London. Auditors later discovered the property, located in upscale South Kensington, was worth nowhere near the sum paid, and the subsequent inquiry led directly to Becciu, then serving as the Vatican’s Secretary of State.

Prosecutors allege that a sprawling web of financial fraud gradually emerged, leading to the arrests of 10 people, most prominently Becciu himself, who was last year stripped of his post and privileges by Pope Francis. As they waded through a morass of financial records, investigators began to notice a recurring but unfamiliar name – Cecilia Marogna.

Who was she? No one in the Vatican seemed to know. But when it emerged that she had been paid over $800,000 in ‘consultation fees’, the questions became more urgent. The cardinal cited her as an ‘intelligence and security consultant’ who, he said, had provided him with expert help after the 2017 kidnapping of a Catholic nun in Mali.

Quite what qualifications Cecilia possessed for the task remain unclear, but over the next few years the couple appear to have developed a close relationship. And in Cecilia’s case an extremely lucrative one.

Rather than the lawless wastes of Mali, she seems to have spent a lot of time on the Via del Corso, Rome’s luxury shopping thoroughfare. Investigators have recovered more than 120 receipts for items, ranging from a $12,000 Chanel sling bag to a $3,500 Montblanc pen, along with records of stays at grand hotels in the spa town of San Pellegrino and the ritzy Alpine resort of Bormio. Her cash withdrawals alone totalled $100,000.

Mystery Woman

A bespectacled brunette whose last known job was as a sales manager at a mobile phone company, Cecilia would have grown up well aware of the cardinal’s eminence.

Both of them come from Sardinia, a large, rugged island off Italy’s western coast. Cecilia was raised in Sorso, a quiet seaside town on the north shore, later moving to the capital, Cagliari, where she attended college, but left before completing her diploma.

In the early 2000s, for reasons that remain unclear, she spent time in Lebanon. The Middle Eastern country was ablaze with feuding factions and foreign-backed militias fighting for dominance. Assassinations and kidnappings were rife, and in this perilous milieu, Cecilia seems to have first sensed the allure of playing power games.

Returning to Cagliari, she found a job with the local Nokia phone sales franchise, but her social media posts from the time suggest she already had other things in mind. In 2005, she described herself on the professional listings site, Linkedin, as: “Geopolitical analyst, parallel diplomacy and strategy consultant and problem solver.”

She also found a boyfriend, Alessandro Calleni, the manager of a local hair products store, with whom she moved into a flat in the busy heart of the old city. Alessandro remembers their life together being happy and largely uneventful apart from the birth of a daughter in 2011. Two years later they broke up.

Alessandro says he was stunned by the news of Cecilia’s arrest, and the scabrous tales that have since spilled out of the Vatican courtroom: “I feel like I’m hallucinating,” he says. “It’s a nightmare. I can’t sleep at night. She never spoke to me about any of these things.”

He insists she never showed any interest in espionage or global security matters while they were together. “We never once talked about it. I’m an ordinary guy. I don’t even know what ‘geopolitics’ is. They say she learned about these things herself, but how? From books? Where? Sitting on the sofa in our apartment? I don’t understand any of it. I can only hope it ends well for our daughter’s sake.”

Spies and subterfuge

However ill-acquainted Cecilia really was with the world of spies, subterfuge and dirty dealing, she had clearly looked into the subject, and knew of a man who could teach her everything. At which point the tale – described by an Italian magazine as “Ian Fleming meets Dan Brown” – takes another extraordinary twist.

The name of Flavio ‘The Icy Fixer’ Carboni – friend of mobsters, crooked tycoons, bent judges and corrupt politicians – hangs like a dread shadow over his native Sardinia. For more than 50 years, Carboni was a central figure in some of the biggest scandals in Italian history. He seemed to have something over everyone, and although there was barely a time when he wasn’t on trial or under investigation, he enjoyed a Houdini-like ability to escape justice.

Flavio’s most infamous role was in the still-unsolved murder of Roberto Calvi, the high-profile Milanese financier known as ‘God’s Banker’. At the height of his career, Calvi ran one of Europe’s richest private banks, with a client list that included the Vatican and the Mafia. He tried to take them both for a ride, and in 1982 was found hanging from a rope under London’s Blackfriars Bridge, with house bricks in his suit pockets and gravel stuffed into his underpants.

To this day, nobody knows exactly how Calvi met his death. What is certain is that Carboni was the last man to see him alive, having flown to London with two mob associates, Pippo ‘The Paymaster’ Calo, and Francesco ‘Frankie the Strangler’ Di Carlo. All three men were later acquitted of murder.

Reasoning that there was no one better to explain the dark arts of statecraft than the semi-retired Icy Fixer, Cecilia made contact, and according to investigators, studied at his knee. Carboni, who died last year, aged 90, had been deemed too ill to give evidence at trial.

Enthused by what she had heard and learned, Cecilia’s descriptions of the skills she offered became ever more extravagant. In various posts she describes herself as a: “Geo-social-economic-political analyst”, as well as a “mentalist, globe-trotter, and expert in esotericism”. What she didn’t have were any clients, but a big chance was about to come her way.

Hostage nun

In February 2017, Gloria Narváez, a Columbian-born nun working as a missionary in central Mali, was seized by jihadists in the run-down central town of Koutiala. No ransom demands or communiqués were received, and after a search by local security forces found nothing, the case landed on the desk of the much-admired Cardinal Becciu.

Born into a religious farming family in the small town of Pattada, celebrated for its pungent sheep cheeses, Becciu had joined the church in his early teens, entering the priesthood at 23. Already marked out as an accomplished scholar with high ambitions, he was sent to the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, an elite Vatican college that trains priests for service overseas.

For much of his subsequent career, he worked under the Holy See’s diplomatic arm, serving in Sudan, New Zealand, the United States and Cuba. Tough-minded and plain spoken, he won a reputation for tackling potentially sensitive issues head-on. While in Angola, he denounced the widespread belief in sorcery, which he argued led to child abuse. “These practices are too common on the African continent,” he declared, “and must be stopped.”

In 2011, having built a formidable reputation as a doer and sorter, ‘Don Angelino’ as he was affectionately known back in Sardinia, was recalled to be deputy head of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State – the governing bureaucracy of the Catholic Church. In effect, he ran the inner machinery of the Holy See, directing its affairs and speaking to the Pope on a daily basis.

This was a huge promotion, and many insiders saw it as a fast-tracking for Becciu to become a future pope. Cecilia already had ‘Don Angelino’ on her contacts list. The pair had first met in 2016 after she wrote to him asking for a meeting. The cardinal seems to have been impressed. “I immediately appreciated her expertise in geopolitics and intelligence,” he told the court last year in May. “The lady suggested a professional collaboration. I didn’t take this as a request for employment, but simply an offer of discussions and exchanging ideas, and at other meetings we had I became impressed by her competence.”

When Sister Gloria went missing, it was to Cecilia that Becciu fatefully turned. Assuring him of her “invaluable experience and close contacts with organised criminals and insurgent groups in Central Africa,” she suggested working in tandem with a British security company. Her own fee would be $800,000, which she wanted paid into a bank account in Slovenia.

Incredibly, Becciu not only signed off on this, but claims the deal was personally approved by Pope Francis. “I remind you,” he wrote to a senior Vatican administrator, “that I talked about this to the Holy Father, and he wants to keep the provisions in deep secrecy.” An upfront payment of around $20,000 in cash was delivered to Becciu on the morning of April 9, 2018, and an hour later handed to Cecilia, who deposited the bulk of it into a bank located immediately outside the Vatican walls. The rest was paid in large tranches into a corporate account Cecilia had set up at a bank in Slovenia.

Much of the money seems to have been blown on expensive luxuries and high living, and investigators admit they are nowhere near tracing all of it. Nor are they sure of how far the relationship between the cardinal and his lady really went. In court Becciu indignantly denied that anything improper had happened between them: “Here and now I must express a strong and vibrant exception to the way this relationship has been distorted with the most offensive inferences,” he said. “These suggestions are the lowest nature, and damaging to my priestly dignity.”

Asked to explain what Cecilia was doing in his apartment overnight, Becciu cited a passage from one of Italy’s most famous novels, The Betrothed, by 19th century writer Alessandro Manzini: “Remember how Father Cristoforo welcomes Lucia (the ill-starred heroine) to the monastery, when she is in need? Signora Marogna came to me in the evening. We talked a lot and it grew late. When she was going to leave, the nuns who assist me said: ‘The lady is too afraid to go to the hotel, because there is Covid. Can we put her up?’ I said yes, and I found her the next morning at breakfast, and that was all.”

In a prison interview given to an Italian magazine after her arrest, Cecilia took a similar line. “All these things are falsehoods,” she declared. “It is absurd to say that I am the cardinal’s lover. I am an intelligence expert, who works hard and pays her way in life.”

She claimed that her fee was to be spread over four years and included travel, accommodation and living expenses. What about the Prada handbags? “Maybe they were gifts for other people who could help,” she said. “You do something for someone, and perhaps they do you a favour back.”

Even $800,000 only goes so far on the Via del Corso. Today Cecilia seems to be broke. Bailiffs have taken possession of her flat in Cagliari, her car has been sold, and her lawyer, Riccardo Sindoca, describes her as “crushed between the power of money and the Church.”

Sister Gloria was freed unharmed in November 2021 after what was described as a joint diplomatic effort by the governments of Mali and Columbia. Before returning home, she flew to Rome to be received by Pope Francis.

The cardinal and his lady were otherwise engaged. And as we go to press, the Vatican’s so-called “trial of the century” continues.

Observations

We have inadvertently adopted attitudes that don’t work:

1. Placing our comfort and safety above what is moral,
2. Basing what is right and wrong on what it is for me,
3. Allowing those who are more dominant to rule us,
4. Allowing them to decide right and wrong and who should live and procreate and who shouldn’t.

Silence is consent, ignorance is consent and stupidity is consent.

Appendix

This Appendix comes from various articles by Geoffrey Grider at the following URL and links available from it.

https://www.nowtheendbegins.com/7th-congress-of-leaders-of-world-religions-adopt-human-fraternity-chrislam-document-pope-francis-mohamed-bin-zayed/

CHRISLAM CONFIRMED: Led By Pope Francis, Leaders Of The World’s Religions Formally Adopt Human Fraternity Document At 7th Congress

 September 17, 2022 By  Geoffrey Grider 

 With the adoption this week by the 7th World Religions Congress of the Human Fraternity document created by Pope Francis and Mohamed bin Zayed, Chrislam is now the official One World Religion.