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Post by auntym on Jul 4, 2011 12:10:13 GMT -6
Absolutely beautiful! Be sure to note the + and - keys on the left side of the screen so you can zoom in and out. A VISUAL TOUR OF VATICANAWESOME! A visual tour of the Vatican ! INSTRUCTIONS: After you link on the site below and select an image and it appears, then
HOLD DOWN THE LEFT MOUSE BUTTON AND SLOWLY MOVE THE CURSOR AROUND THE ROOM. Scroll the mouse button to zoom.
You can move more slowly by keeping the pointer close to centerline.
Move the pointer up or down to look up or down. AMAZING! To exit the current selection and return to the original screen use the BACK ARROW of your browser.www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_giovanni/vr_tour/index-en.htmlOnce you get the hang of it, you can easily spend hours on this site!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 6, 2011 17:37:27 GMT -6
Certainly shows their wealth at work.
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Post by auntym on Jul 9, 2011 12:53:46 GMT -6
www.foxnews.com/world/2011/07/05/vatican-opens-archives-for-unprecedented-exhibit/?test=latestnews
Vatican Opens Archives for Unprecedented Exhibit[/color] Published July 05, 2011 Associated Press VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican will display 100 select documents from its Secret Archives at an unprecedented exhibit next year that includes previously unpublished papers from its World War II papacy. "Lux in Arcana: The Vatican Secret Archives Revealed" opens in February at Rome's Capitoline Museums and marks the first time such precious documents, manuscripts and parchments have been allowed out of the Vatican vaults for view by the general public. The occasion is the archive's 400th anniversary. On view will be the acts of Galileo's trial for heresy as well as the letter from members of the British Parliament asking Pope Clement XII to annul the marriage of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon -- one of the key events that led to England's break with the Roman Catholic Church. Organizers said some of the previously unseen documents concern the papacy of Pope Pius XII, accused by some of failing to do enough to stop the Holocaust. Those documents normally wouldn't have been released for another three or four years since Vatican librarians slowly catalog the archives in chronological order and are still working on Pius' papacy. CONTINUE READING: www.foxnews.com/world/2011/07/05/vatican-opens-archives-for-unprecedented-exhibit/#ixzz1RdT7rOBl
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 10, 2011 9:38:23 GMT -6
I think..Mormon, Lutheran, Methodist & Hari Krishna..all should have equal time here. You've got your work cut out.
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graveyardhound
New Member
No I am not jerking your chain, beg all you like.
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Post by graveyardhound on Jul 11, 2011 9:29:29 GMT -6
Nice place to visit, been there, wish they would do something about the "Shroud" issue, maybe bringing it back to Rome would do something for more motivation to study.
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Post by auntym on Jul 20, 2012 19:03:14 GMT -6
www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=46976 Contact with Extraterrestrial Life Imminent? What about God?[/color] By Marshall Connolly 7/18/2012 Catholic Online (www.catholic.org) What are the implications of discovering extraterrestrial life?[/color] Scientists are atwitter over the notion that we may discover life in elsewhere in the universe sometime within the next century after Jocelyn Bell Burnell, a British astrophysicist, spoke at a conference in Dublin, Ireland. LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - "I do suspect," Burnell told the conference, "we are going to get signs of life elsewhere, maybe even intelligent life, within the next century." Burnell bases this conclusion on anticipated technological advances and current success in identifying planets that could harbor life around nearby stars. For most astronomers, the thought that life exists elsewhere in the universe is a foregone conclusion - they're just waiting for the proof. Given the size and scope of the universe, and what has already been observed, odds are that intelligent life must certainly exist elsewhere. Of course, this raises a number of questions. For example, why haven't they contacted us yet? Do we see any benefit in communicating with an alien civilization? Would it be safe? What are the theological implications of discovering extraterrestrial life? And what about all those UFOs? The late Arthur C. Clarke, quoted in an article on The Daily Galaxy, once explained why we have not likely communicated with aliens, "The fact that we have not yet found the slightest evidence for life -- much less intelligence -- beyond this Earth, does not surprise or disappoint me in the least. Our technology must still be laughably primitive, we may be like jungle savages listening for the throbbing of tom-toms while the ether around them carries more words per second than they could utter in a lifetime." In other words, we probably have no contact with such civilizations because we remain in our technological infancy. Time is another reason we may have not made contact with a universe teeming with life. Carl Sagan once remarked that it was time, not distance, that made communication virtually impossible. Since communications can travel no faster than the speed of light, a conversation with an intelligent neighbor just a few hundred light years away would take a millennium or more just to exchange a greeting. And in that time, entire planets could go extinct through catastrophic events that are either stellar, or self-imposed. Meanwhile intelligence likely takes billions of years to evolve on a planet, making it rare. And there is no proof as of yet that intelligence has any long-term survival value, something that's needed to raise one's species to the level of interstellar communication. Last year, Stephen Hawking made headlines when he panned the optimism that some have for making contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. Drawing comparisons between the Native American experience, he suggested that extraterrestrials who could be combing the galaxy for habitable planets might not be benevolent and instead could cast covetous eyes on our vibrant, water and resource-rich planet. If so, communicating our presence could be inviting our extinction. There are theological questions as well. So far, man's relationship with God has been confined largely to explanations of our origins and our purpose on Earth. What happens to that understanding in a universe that is filled with intelligent life? Research by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an agency that develops advanced weapons technology for the military, concluded that Christians would take the news hardest because the Christian belief system does not readily allow for the existence of other intelligent beings in the universe. However, this conclusion is disputable. CONTINUE READING: www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=46976
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2012 9:51:21 GMT -6
Well logically what happens is exactly what we have on a much grander scale. If the soul...is immortal (and it is) then the entire universe (not just the earth) could be the 'playground' for all of God's critters. It's simply too egotistical to think He'd only create humans on earth...how boring would that be?
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DEADnGONE
Junior Member
Still have this damn illness to put up with. Not terminal,can be seen as good or bad, depending
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Post by DEADnGONE on Dec 21, 2013 23:03:44 GMT -6
Wirhout a doubt, and history will bear me out, the most corrupt, murderous, sinful,(my definition)of "do as I say no as I do" gang of thugs, murders,(directly or by order) homosexuals, devients of most any type, that has ever existed in the history of man, all powerful over men's souls and countries and yet some were made saints. I guess that is done on a "sliding scale". Simply review the acts of barbarity carried out in the name of any one particular pope and I'll show you hundreds of years of murder by the" Holy Office" crying "tis God's will" and those who did not agree with the doctrine and dogma were burned alive, racked, dismembered, tortured in ways that the KGB and SS would fine tune in the 20th century. There were good popes, some that the mantle of "saint" would sit most properly on but the Middle Ages saw few that would care for others before themselves.Make an foe of the "Church", and not just 1 person, king or thief, but whole countries could be"excommunicated" until a king had to kneel to a pope, and ask what had to be done and some popes, it has been documented by their own hands, love to watch a king squirm for the sake of his soul or for his kingdom, whichever he cared about more. Mainly those that came from the 3 or 4 powerful families and city-states in Italy provided the church for popes well into the 20th Centruy.Who says old "habits" die hard. No pun intended. But I am a Protestant, and we butchered Catholics as well as each other, when religion was the cause and Heaven was the reward, so not all popes were bad, nor all "reformers" but it is a truly an act of divine intervention that long ago, both groups did not gather and kill everyone and anyone that opposed them. But we still have time.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2013 10:46:05 GMT -6
I am a person much more comfortable with God than ANY religious organization. The reason being..that for some unholy reason when a governing body forms along comes a political agenda and many a power struggle..leaving the faithful confused and shaken. The Catholic church is only one of many that have seen internal struggle over the years. Baptist ministers, Christian ministers, LDS...etc etc have fallen from grace throughout time. The boy scouts for heavens sake...were the latest. Wealth accumulates...it corrupts..men crave power..and unfortunately that seems to be the key to unlocking the deadly sins. The people inevitably pay for it..sadly..it's often the children. And yet...most people need the security..the stability of religion in their lives. Society is even measured so. A 'good' family gets up every Sunday morning and heads to church so their children are sure to find Christ and be saved. It is a necessary part of life for many. I have been to every church in town. My father raised me alone and every Sunday would take me to a different church (alone) to see which I wanted to belong to. Catholic and Episcopalian and Lutheran ceremony are lovely and amazing...especially at Christmas time. But the closest I came to feeling God anywhere was in a Native American church yard and cemetery..an old adobe church standing in the middle of no where. I don't need to congregate..God is where ever I am..and MY God isn't the vengeful variety. He loves everyone..even the screw-ups and no one is going to be left out. I like Him A LOT..and He tells me not make fun of nor tear down another's need for religion in their lives nor the one they choose to be a part of..because if you look deep enough you'll find that they've all have had their problems, they all have their secrets because..where ever people are...with them come the frailties, the flaws, the nearness of sin if tempted enough. With them also come the virtues..of honesty and bravery and love. Hunt instead for the positive...especially during this time of the year. And find the tolerance to love everyone no matter how they believe. It will all work out in the end I promise.
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Post by spotless38 on Dec 23, 2013 12:53:58 GMT -6
Boy this one post that's hard to reply to . I try to stay out of religion and politics . But this is one I have to reply to . I am Catholic and I do not go to church but I do my praying at home . Why ? I ( in my life I learned many things . ) have talked to many different pastors and I asked about the tiding of 10% to the church . They told me that we ( the church gives 3% to the poor .) I am thinking that is not right . But yet they have new homes in the hundred of thousands . Motor homes , ect I was told that the tiding was a paycheck for their services That is not right . I read or heard that Jesus said the church is in your home . What is home ? Your body is a home so I believe that I keep him in my heart . I can go on and on . But this is my own opinion . it made a better person spotless
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2013 13:25:41 GMT -6
You are a wise man Spotless...the heart is exactly the place to keep it
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Post by auntym on Mar 30, 2018 15:01:07 GMT -6
mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/03/mysteries-the-mafia-and-vatican-conspiracies-the-strange-death-of-roberto-calvi/ Mysteries, the Mafia, and Vatican Conspiracies: The Strange Death of Roberto Calviby Brent Swancer March 30, 2018 Mysterious deaths and conspiracies go hand in hand, it seems. There are always theories swirling about these strange passings that point to insidious machinations beyond our control or understanding. One very remarkable such case of conspiracy and mystery is the death of a wealthy Italian banker, whose strange demise would become embroiled with talk of mafia dealings, Vatican conspiracies, and the workings of ancient secret societies. Roberto Calvi was a prominent banker in Italy, chairman of the the Banco Ambrosiano, which was the second largest bank in the country at the time. Calvi was mostly referred to and well-known by his media nickname “God’s Banker,” due to his close ties and financial dealings with the Vatican, and for years he was a well-off, respected figure. It was in 1978 that things would begin to crumble, and the banker would find himself in a spiraling web of scandal, intrigue, and conspiracy. It was in this year that the Bank of Italy investigated the Banco Ambrosiano and found evidence that billions of lire amounting to around $27 million had been transferred out of the country illegally, and they promptly filed a report on the find, which would lead to one of the biggest financial scandals in Italian history. The criminal investigation that followed in the wake of the report led to the conviction of Roberto Calvi as the chief conspirator in the scandal in 1981. The conviction led to a four-year suspended sentence and a hefty fine of $19.8 million dollars, and Calvi served a short prison stint during which time he attempted suicide, but this did not stop him. Calvi was soon released on bail, amazingly maintaining his position as chairperson of the bank pending an appeal, while meanwhile friends and family insisted that Calvi was innocent and that he had been manipulated and coerced into the shady dealings by sinister parties behind the scenes. Roberto CalviIn June of 1982, Calvi sent a cryptic message to Pope John Paul II, which seemed to suggest that such illegal banking transactions were commonplace, indicating that the Vatican had been complacent, and in which he would promise, “a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions in which the Church will suffer the gravest damage.” It was all very interesting, considering that the Vatican Bank owned 10% of Banco Ambrosiano and was their main shareholder. Just a few weeks later, the banking behemoth Banco Ambrosiano collapsed under the groaning weight of the scandal and the debt it owed, estimated at being around $1.5 billion. Rather suspiciously, the Vatican Bank agreed to pay off $225 million of the debt, although it was never established if the Holy See had had anything to do with the scandal, and it was granted immunity to prosecution on the matter. Just 5 days after his mysterious message to the Pope, Calvi vanished from his apartment in Rome and flew to London on a fake passport, after which he rented a flat in the Chelsea district. Just after this, he was removed from his post at the bank and his private secretary, Graziella Corrocher, committed suicide by jumping from a window. On June 18, 1982, Calvi’s dead body was found hanging from the Blackfriars Bridge along the Thames River with his pockets loaded with bricks and overflowing with about $15,000 in cash of various currencies. Considering the banking scandal that had been all over the news, Calvi’s death was widely reported on in the media, and conspiracies were immediately flying as to who had killed him. Although the exact cause of death was not determined, it was initially branded a simple suicide by authorities who seemed keen to swiftly sweep in all under the rug, but this was all hotly contested by Calvi’s family, who hired private investigators to look into the matter further, headed by a man named Jeff Katz. It was immediately found through additional forensic tests that, although Calvi’s pockets had been filled with bricks, for some unknown reason his hands held no evidence that he had ever touched them, meaning that someone else had likely placed them there. There was also found no sign that the hanging had been the actual cause of death and there was no trace of residue of the rust or paint of the scaffolding of the bridge on his person. It was also a mystery as to how he could have climbed up to that point on a busy bridge and then put the bricks in and hung himself without anyone at all noticing him. In short, it strongly appeared that Calvi had been killed somewhere else and then hung from the bridge to make it look like he had killed himself. Katz had this new evidence sent to the City of London Police, but they would have nothing to do with it, standing behind their verdict of suicide. When an independent German forensic scientist followed up on all of this and had the body exhumed, he found that Katz had been right, and published these findings in 2002. With these urgent findings increasingly pointing to murder, the case was reopened by London in 2003, and this new investigation would turn up all sorts of new details. For instance, it was uncovered that the mafia had been using the Banco Ambrosiano for money laundering, and that Calvi must have at least been aware that this was all going on. In light of this enlightening information, it was suspected that when the bank crashed someone had to be held accountable for the mafia’s lost money, and that someone would have been Calvi. Adding to this damning evidence that the mafia may have killed him, it came to light that one of the people who had assisted Calvi’s flight to London, a Sergio Vaccari, had been found viciously stabbed to death just 3 months after Calvi had died, also eerily with bricks stuffed into his pockets. Adding to this mafia intrigue, it was also discovered that Calvi had been involved with an ultra right-wing illegal masonic lodge called Propaganda Due (P2), who were sometimes referred to as “The Black Friars” and who were also apparently customers of Calvi’s bank. Indeed, Vaccari was found to have been in possession of a list of members of the notorious P2, who had been infiltrating the government for their own insidious purposes, adding further conspiracy theories that perhaps they had been killed by the secret society. In 1991 a mafioso living in London named Francesco Marino Mannoia claimed that Calvi had indeed been offed due to his losing the mob so much money, and he fingered a hitman and drug dealer named Francesco Di Carlo as the killer. For his part, Di Carlo would deny having had any role in the killing, although he stated that the mob and the P2 were very interested in getting him out of the picture, saying thus: Calvi was naming names. No one had any trust in him any more. He owed a lot of money. His friends had all distanced themselves. Everyone wanted to get rid of him. He had been arrested and he had started to talk. Then he had tried to kill himself by cutting his wrists. He was released, but knew he could be rearrested at any time. He was weak, he was a broken man. I was not the one who hanged Calvi. One day I may write the full story, but the real killers will never be brought to justice because they are being protected by the Italian state, by members of the P2 masonic lodge. They have massive power. They are made up of a mixture of politicians, bank presidents, the military, top security and so on. This is a case that they continue to open and close again and again but it will never be resolved. The higher you go, the less evidence you will find. The VaticanThroughout the investigation there were ominous signs that someone behind the scenes did not appreciate the police looking into matters. In 2003, the Italian detective leading the investigation, Luca Tescaroli, received a letter containing some batteries and a strange black powder, along with a message that read, “This is an ultimatum. Stop.” In the end Calvi’s death was reevaluated as a murder and Di Carlo was the chief suspect. In 2005, five people went to trial for the murder, Francesco di Carlo, his ex-girlfriend Manuela Kleinszig, businessman Ernesto Diotallevi, mafia boss Giuseppe Caló, and Silvano Vittor, Calvi’s bodyguard, but every single one of them would be acquitted in 2007 due to lack of evidence. Licio Gelli, the grand master of the P2 masonic lodge, was also put under investigation but nothing ever came of it and the charges were dropped. The only thing they would learn from Gelli was that he believed Calvi had indeed been murdered by parties associated with the Vatican. Fingers of course have always been pointed right at the Vatican itself, and the theories abound that they might have had something to do with it. After all, their organization dealt heavily with Calvi’s bank and stood to lose a lot from the scandal, which was somewhat illustrated in Calvi’s haunting letter to them. Italian journalist Andrea Purgatori would say of this: When Calvi died, and the money disappeared it was wonderful for the Vatican bank. It was a very good business, his death. An investigative author named Gerald Posner has also expressed suspicions that the Vatican may have been involved. He said of the Vatican’s bank dealings and possible role thus: It (the Vatican) takes money in and then it invests that money, makes money on it and keeps it all secret, it really operates almost like an off-shore bank in the heart of Rome. It’s a bank like no other in the world. So all you need to do if you’re the Mafia or you’re an Italian looking to avoid taxes is get your money physically into the Vatican. You can drive a truck with ten million pounds in it, it’ll go straight into the Vatican and once it does, it disappears. No Italian tax investigator, no drug investigator, nobody from the DEA or the FBI can ever see it. In the end, the death of Roberto Calvi has never been solved, and the depth of conspiracy never fully uncovered. It is unclear just why he died or by whose hand, and theories have swirled ever since. Did Calvi die by the hand of the mafia or even the Vatican? Did he fall due to the workings and machinations of the secret society P2? Or did he just merely commit suicide as was originally stated? Despite all of the investigations and court dealings that have ensued with his strange death the answers remain unclear. mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/03/mysteries-the-mafia-and-vatican-conspiracies-the-strange-death-of-roberto-calvi/
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Post by jcurio on Apr 4, 2018 9:52:57 GMT -6
I “know”’of this “story” because of a “fiction” book I read (that I picked up at a thrift store).
The “story” was so well written and intriguing (I hardly ever read “fiction” these days) that I wanted to find out if the author had other books out there.....
It shouldn’t be too hard to find this book again; except for the revelation that some of my books gone “ missing” is due to my deteriorating dad. 😞
Anyway, the author was from South America. It seems he died rather young of cancer after writing this book.
~shrug~
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Post by auntym on May 1, 2018 17:32:45 GMT -6
www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/vatican-secret-archives-artificial-intelligence/559205/ Artificial intelligence is cracking open the Vatican’s secret archives. A new project untangles the handwritten texts in one of the world’s largest historical collections.Green and red lighting reveals several books on wooden shelves Alessandra Benedetti / Corbis / Getty by Sam Kean / www.theatlantic.com/author/sam-kean/Apr 30, 2018 The Vatican Secret Archives is one of the grandest historical collections in the world. It’s also one of the most useless. The grandeur is obvious. Located within the Vatican’s walls, next door to the Apostolic Library and just north of the Sistine Chapel, the VSA houses 53 linear miles of shelving dating back more than 12 centuries. It includes gems like the papal bull that excommunicated Martin Luther and the pleas for help that Mary Queen of Scots sent to Pope Sixtus V before her execution. In size and scope, the collection is almost peerless. That said, the VSA isn’t much use to modern scholars, because it’s so inaccessible. Of those 53 miles, just a few millimeters’ worth of pages have been scanned and made available online. Even fewer pages have been transcribed into computer text and made searchable. If you want to peruse anything else, you have to apply for special access, schlep all the way to Rome, and go through every page by hand. But a new project could change all that. Known as In Codice Ratio, it uses a combination of artificial intelligence and optical-character-recognition (OCR) software to scour these neglected texts and make their transcripts available for the very first time. If successful, the technology could also open up untold numbers of other documents at historical archives around the world. OCR has been used to scan books and other printed documents for years, but it’s not well suited for the material in the Secret Archives. Traditional OCR breaks words down into a series of letter-images by looking for the spaces between letters. It then compares each letter-image to the bank of letters in its memory. After deciding which letter best matches the image, the software translates the letter into computer code (ASCII) and thereby makes the text searchable. This process, however, really only works on typeset text. It’s lousy for anything written by hand—like the vast majority of old Vatican documents. Here’s an example from the early 1200s, written in what’s called Caroline minuscule script, which looks like a mix of calligraphy and cursive: In Codice Ratio The main problem in this example is the lack of space between letters (so-called dirty segmentation). OCR can’t tell where one letter stops and another starts, and therefore doesn’t know how many letters there are. The result is a computational deadlock, sometimes referred to as Sayre’s paradox: OCR software needs to segment a word into individual letters before it can recognize them, but in handwritten texts with connected letters, the software needs to recognize the letters in order to segment them. It’s a catch-22. Some computer scientists have tried to get around this problem by developing OCR to recognize whole words instead of letters. This works fine technologically—computers don’t “care” whether they’re parsing words or letters. But getting these systems up and running is a bear, because they require gargantuan memory banks. Rather than a few dozen alphabet letters, these systems have to recognize images of thousands upon thousands of common words. Which means you need a whole platoon of scholars with expertise in medieval Latin to go through old documents and capture images of each word. In fact, you need several images of each, to account for quirks in handwriting or bad lighting and other variables. It’s a daunting task. In Codice Ratio sidesteps these problems through a new approach to handwritten OCR. The four main scientists behind the project—Paolo Merialdo, Donatella Firmani, and Elena Nieddu at Roma Tre University, and Marco Maiorino at the VSA—skirt Sayre’s paradox with an innovation called jigsaw segmentation. This process, as the team recently outlined in a paper, breaks words down not into letters but something closer to individual pen strokes. The OCR does this by dividing each word into a series of vertical and horizontal bands and looking for local minimums—the thinner portions, where there’s less ink (or really, fewer pixels). The software then carves the letters at these joints. The end result is a series of jigsaw pieces: CONTINUE READING: www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/vatican-secret-archives-artificial-intelligence/559205/
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Post by auntym on May 5, 2018 12:13:46 GMT -6
mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/05/mysteries-and-dark-conspiracies-of-the-vaticans-forbidden-archives/ Mysteries and Dark Conspiracies of the Vatican’s Forbidden Archivesby Brent Swancer / mysteriousuniverse.org/author/brentswancer/May 5, 2018 Secretive places closed off to the world invite rumor, intrigue, and mystery. These are places where anything could be lurking within their halls, and they attract conspiracy theories like moths to a flame, fluttering about bashing up against them but never gaining access and never finding the answers they seek. One such place that has long been a wellspring of strange theories and speculation lies squarely within Vatican City, and besides being one of the most forbidden places in the world is also one of the most mysterious. Comprised of approximately 53 miles of labyrinthine aisles of shelving harboring rows upon countless rows of texts, books, and scrolls ranging from the more modern to fragile, time-worn manuscripts reaching back 12 centuries into the shadows of time, the Vatican Archives, officially known as the Archivum Secretum Apostolicum Vaticanum, was originally constructed in 1612 by Pope Paul V and is a truly a huge treasure trove of information collected by the Church over hundreds of years. This vast repository of knowledge holds state papers, Holy See paperwork, papal correspondence and personal letters, and countless historical records, documents and texts accumulated by the Vatican from every corner of the known world that date back to the 8th century, all housed within a massive, carefully climate-controlled structure adjacent to the Vatican Library that is designed more like a fortress than a library, replete with impenetrable underground bunkers and with only one known heavily guarded entrance. The list of known contents of the archives is far too long to completely cover here, but includes a wealth of historical documents including handwritten letters to the Pope from such important figures such as Mary Queen of Scotts asking for a pardon before her execution, King Henry VIII, Michelangelo asking to be paid for his work on the Sistine Chapel, Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Grand Empress Dowager Helena Wang of China in the 17th century, one written on birch bark by the Canadian Ojibwe tribe in 1887, and many, many others. Here there are official edicts by Popes through the centuries, including excommunications such as that of German religious heretic and founder of Lutheranism Martin Luther, official papal decrees such as the one made in 1493 by Pope Alexander VI that split the entire known world among Spain and Portugal, as well as personal communications from popes throughout history. Here one can also find such gems as a nearly 200-foot long scroll containing details of the trials of the Knights Templar for heresy and blasphemy dating to 1307, as well as a handwritten transcript detailing the trial of astronomer Galileo Galilei in the 17th century, as well as the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which states that Mary was conceived without sin, scrawled out on a piece of parchment dating to 1854. The Vatican Archives are often referred to as the Vatican Secret Archives, mostly due to a mistranslation of the Latin words secretum, which is actually closer in meaning to “personal” or “private” rather than “secret” or “confidential” as many think, but it could also have to do with the archive’s history of strict inaccessibility and reclusiveness from the outside world. They had been for centuries practically completely forbidden and closed off from nearly everyone, even Church officials, with not even Cardinals allowed access to their treasure trove of information, and it was not until 1881 that Pope Leo XIII allowed limited access to outsiders, yet this does little to dispel the secrecy surrounding the archives and it is still no small feat to enter this inner sanctum of all of the Vatican’s knowledge. To gain access to these isolated archives and islands of knowledge one must be a qualified, recognized scholar or researcher who has been thoroughly vetted by the Holy See, a process which can take years. Amateur historians, journalists, students, or armchair researchers need not apply and are strictly forbidden. If one is lucky enough to be granted access they enter through the sole entrance, the well-guarded Porta Sant’Anna, after which they are required to state exactly what it is they are looking for among the voluminous collection. Once entering the rows of dusty old texts there is no browsing allowed, and you can only retrieve three documents listed in one of the thick, intimidatingly massive catalogs that are meticulously handwritten in Latin or Italian. If you cannot decide what you want to look at within a set amount of time under strict supervision you are ushered out of the archives and must wait until the following day to try again. Even if you do know what you want to look at there are still oppressive limitations on what is available for perusal. All materials in the archives are only released for public viewing after a full 75 years have passed, meaning newer documents are restricted, and even then there are large swaths of archived content that are totally off limits and probably forever will be. Occasionally the Vatican will open parts of the archives to those other than academic researchers, such as it did in 2012, when some select sections were open to journalists in celebration of the archive’s 400th anniversary, but for the most part they are still largely shrouded in deep mystery. It is this mystery and the intrigue of secret or lost texts spanning over a millennium filed away in these remote, largely abandoned corridors that have spawned rumors and speculation about the extent of what the archives really hold, and the Vatican Secret Archives have perhaps not surprisingly been ground zero for all manner of conspiracy theories, ranging from the somewhat plausible to the completely bizarre and outlandish. One popular theory is that the Vatican had relations with the Nazis during World War II, a conspiracy that is made especially intriguing as much of the documentation pertaining to the war is still banned as it has not been 75 years since its addition to the archives. Author, historian, and professor of anthropology David Kertzer managed to gain access to Vatican Archive documents from the reign of Pope Pius XI (1922 – 1939), and claims his research led him to conclude that the Vatican had made deals with Mussolini to remain silent on state-sponsored Anti-Semitism in exchange for various perks from the regime in the interest of the Church. This has led him and others to wonder just to what potential extent the Vatican was in league with the Nazis, perhaps striking up similar deals or collaboration, the details of which would still be buried in the secretive portion of the archives that has not yet been released. Kertzer has written of his controversial ideas in his book The Pope and Mussolini. Adding to dark tales of possible Nazi collaboration is the idea that the Vatican Secret Archives house evidence and proof that various legendary religious artifacts such as the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, the True Cross, the Crown of Thorns, and the Shroud of Turin are all authentic and real, and that these relics are either housed somewhere in the archive itself or that there are detailed maps to their locations sequestered within. There is also speculation that the archives hold extensive information on the secret to the true nature of Jesus Christ’s bloodline and secular proof of Christ’s existence, like something out of a Dan Brown novel, as well as evidence of his alleged miracles, while conversely some believe that there is proof that Jesus actually did not exist at all. There are many other mystical and magical secrets supposedly buried within the Secret Archives. According to conspiracy theorists there are also numerous magical texts and spell books within the archives, as well as proof that demons exist and a vast amount of secret information on exorcisms. CONTINUE READING: mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/05/mysteries-and-dark-conspiracies-of-the-vaticans-forbidden-archives/
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Post by auntym on Jan 4, 2019 15:51:49 GMT -6
notfromearth.co/wikileaks-shares-email-that-uncovers-knowledge-of-extraterrestrials-in-vatican/WikiLeaks Shares Email That Uncovers Knowledge Of Extraterrestrials In Vatican TOPICS:Extraterrestrial ExistenceVatican extraterrestrials in VaticanPosted By: admin / notfromearth.co/author/admin/ May 24, 2018 WikiLeaks issued an email that says that the ex NASA agent, Edgar Mitchel, wrote to American statesman John Podesta, to inform him about the apparent knowledge of extraterrestrials in Vatican. He added they also allegedly want to divide ‘zero-point energy’ with the humankind. He claimed the pope is aware that aliens do exist and some of them are ready to help the humanity. Here is the email that was released by WikiLeaks, and it mentions the knowledge of extraterrestrials in Vatican: “Dear John, as 2015 unfolds, I understand you are leaving the Administration in February. It is urgent that we agree on a date and time to meet to discuss Disclosure and Zero Point Energy, at your earliest available after your departure. My Catholic colleague Terri Mansfield will be there too, to bring us up to date on the Vatican’s awareness of ET. Another colleague is working on a new Space Treaty, citing involvement with Russia and China. However, with Russia’s extreme interference in Ukraine, I believe we must pursue another route for peace in space and ZPE on Earth. I met with President Obama’s Honolulu childhood friend, US Ambassador Pamela Hamamoto on July 4 at the US Mission in Geneva, when I was able to tell her briefly about Zero Point Energy. I believe we can enlist her as a confidante and resource in our presentation for President Obama.” (source) wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/1766In the past years, the most famous church in the world has taken a big part in the extraterrestrial discussion. For instance, Monsignor Corrado Balducci, a friend of Pope John Paul II and Vatican’s exorcist is one of the people who spoke frankly on the extraterrestrial subject. At various times, he has asserted that communication between humans and aliens has already occurred. An astronomer from Vatican, Guy Consolmagno, in 2005, stated that humankind is currently facing a challenge of discovering extraterrestrials. Furthermore, in 2008, Vatican chief astronomer Father Jose Gabriel Funes, said that the discovery of extraterrestrial is not against their religion. Pope Francis said that extraterrestrial creatures are welcomed and he would try to baptize them. Consolmagno agreed on this very same subject. If so many authorities from Vatican speak so freely and intensely about extraterrestrials than something must be going on. The email released from WikiLeaks absolutely points to that chance. The consistent debate about extraterrestrials coming out of the Vatican also. Mitchell, a prominent astronaut who went to the Moon, also told Podesta that we should we expecting a space war. He mentioned the ‘good aliens’ want to share ‘zero-point energy’ with us as well. In one of the emails for Podesta, Mitchell talks about a woman with the name Terri Mansfield. Apparently, he described her as “the director of the special peace force for extraterrestrial intelligence.” The email spoke about a possible meeting between Podesta and Mansfield. Its purpose is both to share facts about the knowledge of extraterrestrials in Vatican. Mitchell also claimed alien existence is “the highest form of intelligence that works directly with God.” notfromearth.co/wikileaks-shares-email-that-uncovers-knowledge-of-extraterrestrials-in-vatican/
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Post by auntym on May 8, 2019 14:39:37 GMT -6
mysteriousuniverse.org/2019/05/vatican-opens-new-exorcist-training-course-to-all-faiths/ Vatican Opens New Exorcist Training Course to All Faithsby Paul Seaburn / mysteriousuniverse.org/author/paulseaburn/May 9, 2019 Priests and religious leaders of all faiths (except perhaps Satanism) are in Rome this week for the 14th Course on Exorcism and Prayer of Liberation taking place at the Pontifical University of Regina Apostolorum. It’s the first time this ground zero for zeroing out demons is open to non-Catholic exorcists and wannabe demon casters. Is this a sign that the one thing that can bring religions together is the devil? “This is the first time that different denominations have come together to compare their experiences on exorcisms. The idea is to help each other, to establish best practices if you will. The Catholic Church is most associated with exorcisms because of films like The Exorcist and The Rite, but we are not the only church that performs them. Expelling the devil goes back to the earliest origins of the Christian Church.” In a presentation to reporters before the doors to the convention were locked to prying eyes and demons trying to listen in, conference co-organizer Father Pedro Barrajon Muñoz explained why this year’s training was opened to all (there are Catholics, Lutherans, Pentecostals and Greek Orthodox religious representatives registered) and blamed the increased interest and need for exorcisms on – you guessed it – social media. “They can promote Satanic practices and occult rites though dedicated sites, while in the past it was harder to popularize.” One of the goals of opening the 6-day course to non-Catholic Christian leaders is to standardize the procedures for casting out demons, focusing on those that work the best based on past experiences of practicing exorcists. Father Muñoz says some of the other branches of Christianity “are more creative, they don’t use a precise format.” To help exorcists recognize true demonic possession, the training now goes far beyond splashing with holy water, waving crucifixes and ducking projectile vomit. “The course covers a wide range of issues: anthropological, phenomenological, social, theological, liturgical, canonical, pastoral, spiritual, medical, neuroscientific, pharmacological, symbolic, criminological, legal and juridical ones.” Besides social media, the usual smokescreens hiding alleged pathways to demonic possession are analyzed, as Professor Giuseppe Ferrari, founder and secretary of the “Social and Religious Research and Information Group,” explained to attendees. “Many young people display a certain attraction and interest toward themes tied to esotericism, magic, the occult, Satanism, witchcraft, vampirism and contact with a presumed supernatural world.” As expected, opening the training to non-Catholics is controversial. Crux reports that retired Archbishop Luigi Negri of Italy referred to Lutherans as “a sub-product of Catholic Culture,” which “represented the vilest attempt to eliminate the Catholic Church from society.” Before you suggest that Catholic priests might want to think twice and perhaps consider a self-exorcism before casting the first stone, he has an opinion on that too, saying that the Catholic Church should never apologize for its past mistakes. Oh, well. What do you expect for only € 400 (US $447)? At least the attendees will learn that the Catholic Church’s canon law states that an exorcist must be a priest who has “piety, knowledge, prudence and integrity of life.” Father Muñoz says of the former archbishop’s opinions that “we as a university, and me personally, don’t subscribe to these theological views.” The XIV Exorcism And Prayer Of Liberation Course runs through May 11. mysteriousuniverse.org/2019/05/vatican-opens-new-exorcist-training-course-to-all-faiths/
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