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Italian Geo-Strategist Fuels Debate Over Pope Benedict’s Resignation

An article published recently by an Italian geo-strategist and university professor has again sparked questions concerning the reasons for Pope Benedict XVI’s surprising resignation in 2013. Professor Germano Dottori, a professor at the Institute for Strategic Studies at LUISS-Guido Carli University in Rome, wrote an article in the the 4/2017 issue of Limes, a geo-strategic journal, which was later picked up by Italian journalist Alessandro Rico and Italian commentator and author Antonio Socci, as well as by Giuseppe Nardi of Katholisches.de in Germany.

While discussing the role of the Catholic Church with respect to larger geo-strategic considerations – such as the vast immigration into Italy and the apparently growing bonds with the Orthodox Church in Moscow – Dottori makes the following stunning, but substantiated, comments (translation kindly provided by Andrew Guernsey):

The conflicts between the Church and the United States did not become less, even with the passing of John Paul II. They instead continued during the pontificate of Pope Ratzinger, in the course of which, what exacerbated them was not only the [policy and strategic] investment made by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the political Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood during the so-called Arab Spring, but also the firm desire of Benedict XVI to achieve an historic reconciliation with the Patriarchate of Moscow [under Patriarch Kirill], the true and proper religious coronation of a geopolitical project of Euro-Russian integration, which were in his intentions strongly supported by Germany and also by Silvio Berlusconi’s Italy – but not by that more American-friendly one [Italy], which is to be recognized in Giorgio Napolitano [Italian President, 2006-2015].

How it has come to an end is well-known to everyone. The Italian and papal governments were simultaneously hit by a scandalous, coordinated, and unusually violent and unprecedented campaign, even involving more or less opaque maneuvers in the financial field, with the final effect coming to a head in November 2011 with Berlusconi’s departure from the Palazzo Chigi and, on February 10 [sic – 11], 2013, the abdication of Ratzinger. At the height of the crisis, Italy progressively saw its access to international financial markets closed, while the Institute for Religious Works (IOR) [the Vatican Bank] was temporarily cut out of the Swift 4 circuit.

In spite of the considerable change made both in Italian politics and in the Vatican, the difficulties have, however, continued to persist, a fact that confirms their structural nature and does not allow for our envisaging any short or medium-term simplification of the context within which our government will have to assume in the future the most important decisions in the field of its foreign policy.

Here an Italian expert in geo-strategic studies thus claims that both the Italian government under Berlusconi and the papacy of Benedict XVI were toppled due to financial maneuvers that put both states in jeopardy. Alessandro Rico published, on 17 May, an article entitled “Ratzinger costretto ad abdicare dal ricatto di Obama” (“Ratzinger Forced to Abdicate Due to Obama’s Blackmail”) in the Italian newspaper La Verità. Rico himself puts the Dottori statement in context with the 20 January 2017 Open Letter to President Trump, published by the traditional Catholic newspaper The Remnant, which called for an investigation into a possible U.S. intervention against Pope Benedict XVI. As Rico points out, Pope Benedict at the time stood in opposition to President Obama’s collaboration with the Muslim Brotherhood, especially with the pope’s Regensburg address in which he criticized Islamist fundamentalism. The U.S., as Rico along with Dottori explains, was not in favor of a papal rapprochement with the Patriarch of Moscow which could further support a European rapprochement with Russia. A partial basis for this desired rapprochement could also be a rejection of the moral relativism of the West.

When speaking about the financial pressure that was, in 2013, put on the Vatican by excluding the Papal State from the SWIFT system – which interrupted the credit card payments in the Vatican City, and thus in the Vatican museums – Rico also recalls: “Strangely, this [SWIFT] function was re-established immediately after the resignation of Benedict XVI.”

We recall here, too, that as recently as March of 2017, several influential Catholic voices – among them Archbishop Luigi Negri and Ettore Gotti Tedeschi (the former head of the Vatican Bank) had supported The Remnant‘s request and suspicion. My husband Dr. Robert Hickson, a retired professor from the Joint Military Intelligence College and the Joint Special Operations University, also points to the “importance of financial warfare, especially in the cybernetic world, as part of fractal warfare, whereby a small change (a “delta”) may lead to a great and disproportionate effect.”

Antonio Socci, in his own post on this new Dottori revelation, refers back to another interview which Dottori had previously given to Zenit, on 13 November 2016. Dottori then said, when asked about the recent Wikileaks scandal concerning Hilary Clinton’s staff and its influencing of the Catholic Church, as follows (and as again kindly translated by Andrew Guernsey):

Documents turned up in which a strong desire emerges from Hillary’s staff to spark a revolt from the inside of the Church in order to weaken the hierarchy. They made use of associations and grassroots pressure groups, following a consolidated scheme from the experience of the colored revolutions. We’re not yet at the smoking gun, but we’re close. Although I have no proof, I have always thought that Benedict XVI was driven to abdication by a complex plot, ordered by those who had an interest in blocking reconciliation with the Russian orthodox, the religious pillar of a project of progressive convergence between Continental Europe and Moscow. For similar reasons, I believe that Cardinal [Angelo] Scola’s race to succeed [Benedict XVI] was also stopped, who, as the Patriarch of Venice, had conducted negotiations with Moscow. To be certain, however, we will have to obtain more evidence. From Wikileaks we have also become aware of operations of psychological conditioning recently undertaken towards Pope Francis. They miserably failed: Bergoglio is renewing the Church, to strengthen it, and certainly not to weaken it as some wanted, and he signed a true and proper armistice with Kirill [of Moscow], amidst so much division within the reciprocal spheres of influence. Right below the coast of the United States, in Cuba [where Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill signed the document].

While Antonio Socci is quoting some of these words of Professor Dottori, he explains that this does not mean that Pope Benedict’s sudden resignation was forced. In Socci’s eyes, it rather shows us that there is a “colossal mystery” which, amidst many pressures, surrounds Pope Benedict’s choice, finally, to resign.


Correction: when this text was first published, we had stated that La Verità is “a publication which has no inclination toward traditional Catholicism at all, but, rather, sharply rebukes traditional and conservative Catholics in that same 17 May issue” in which Alessandro Rico. Mr. Rico himself contacted us to correct the record, stating: “I would also like to signal that it is not completely true that ‘La Verità’, as written in your post, has no inclination towards traditionalist Catholicism. Quite the contrary: many leading figures of Italian traditionalist Catholicism publish their contributions on that journal, which is one of the few, if not the only one, to host their pieces.” We have removed that portion of the sentence from our article accordingly.

This post has been updated. 

51 thoughts on “Italian Geo-Strategist Fuels Debate Over Pope Benedict’s Resignation”

  1. If Benedict served his full rule, would it have prevented the rise of Francis, or merely stalled it? What do you think?

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    • I guess we shall never know, will we?

      Regardless, Benedict left. Period. He is no longer pope now and what does it really matter anymore the circumstances?

      I think it is best to put these notions aside, as there is a powerful storm brewing, a formal correction to be made, and a persecution upon the faithful to come. And a Church and many souls which hang in the balance.

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    • I don’t know. Part of the problem was that there was no clear successor as there was with JP2. There might have been enough time for there to be an heir apparent had Benedict reigned longer

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    • Pope Francis is 80 years old. He would likely be retired now. He would also be ineligible to vote in a papal election. Although he technically would still be able to be elected pope, it would be less likely now.

      Benedict should have stayed longer, or at least called for a special consistory and appointed more cardinals of a more traditional mindset.

      If he didn’t want to travel, he could have had representatives do that for him. If all he wanted to do was write, he could have done that.

      The problem was that John Paul II was pope for so long and had such a personality cult that people expected the same of his successor. It’s not about the person of the Pope though, and that’s one of the big problems in the Church today.

      As I’ve said before, maybe Pope Francis is just what we needed to shake people loose of their ultramontanism. It certainly shook loose what ultramontanism remained in me. If people won’t be shaken loose of it, in spite of his blatant obscuring of the truth, then it’s on them. Francis will have to render an account for the problems he has caused, and those who follow him blindly will have to render an account as well.

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      • Hilary White wrote that we are undergoing “the great clarification”. Read her latest article over at the Remnant:

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    • Honestly, I think Benedict would be dead by now. From all accounts, even his reduced daily schedule, along with all the travel, was killing for him. It’s dangerous to assume that just because Benedict is alive today, that he would still be so had he stayed on as Pope.

      Which doesn’t mean that I don’t regret his abdication. I would rather a Benedict who ceased travel and only put in an hour a day of work to what we’ve endured for the past four years – even if it only bought us an extra year or two. That might have made another alternative possible at the next conclave, though there is no guarantee of it – the St Gallen mafia was awfully well organized and Bertone was no longer around to maneuver the vote.

      Reply
    • Thanks for link. My goodness, this plays out like some film at the cinema. Never thought we would be the real characters in a real fight for our spiritual lives.

      Reply
        • Ephesians 6: 10-17 is the Epistle for:

          1) the 27th Sunday after Pentecost

          2) Dec. 13 – Feast of Sts. Eustratius, Auxentius, Eugene, Mardarius and Orestes

          3) Saturday after Theophany

          4) the feast of a Confessor of the Faith

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    • I agree, in a genie-out-of-the-bottle way. I remember reading somewhere that several of the holy souls who predicted these times also said that once the Papacy was compromised it would set off repercussions which could not simply be turned back by “fixing” that situation. No going backwards. Only mitigating what must come.

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  2. Very interesting that Wikileaks is mentioned. If you’ve followed the furious and bitter Russia-Trump collusion stupidity, and the Democrat frustration over the repeated “no evidence,” even again confirmed today by Brennan……..and overlay their failing false narrative (which aim was to take down the current Admin so that the anarchic Left can rise — but which is failing because they cannot come up with red meat for the mobs they’ve fostered) and overlay that with the Seth Rich murder in July, his being the leak to Wiki of the DNC collusion to stop Bernie (for of course the NWO needed Hillary to win), and then view all that cesspool through the profoundly anti-religious Dem roots/platform (remember the leaks of the Clinton staff directly mocking the Church and calling for it to be infiltrated) and THEN fold in all the Obama material, all this starts to make some sense, but we are only scratching the surface of the Truth here as yet. The mystery is to me this: What did they use to threaten Benedict into the resignation?? That it was done I have no doubt. But what could be so profoundly terrorizing that he saw it as a better way than standing his ground?? This is neither a purely religious explosion coming, nor a purely political one, rather a Religio-Political one, for of course the secular order cannot be in order if the Religious order is not first. If you had set out to write the most outrageously plotted and fantastical page-turner-best-seller novel, you could not come up with a plot that holds 1/10th of the intrigue of the slowly unfolding truth on this matter. I suspect there will truly be no place to hide when all this hits the fan. If nothing else, the rabid crowds in the street who’ve been held off for awhile by Democrat promises to deliver the head of Donald Trump on a silver platter to the mob will turn on their masters when they cannot do this, and it won’t be pretty. The NYT, WP, mainstream media and so many others who control the narrative know they are lying, and have built their power on hopes they could steer the mob to their own power-protection. But it is out of control now, and seething. The terrorism we saw in Manchester last night is just one more manifestation of the roots of Evil which atheistic humanism has unleashed on us. I don’t know about all of you but it seems to me things are speeding up and very, very fast. I know we all pray, pray, pray. But pray more.

    Reply
    • The financial destruction of the Church would be an obvious threat that B XVI would have taken very seriously. Most of the religious orders and many Catholic institutions bank with the IOR. All their payments and revenue would have been cut off to them.

      All this points to an utter cesspit in Washington with Obama and Clinton at its head. It’s more than just a “drain the swamp” matter: we are talking geopolitics of the most serious and ruthless kind, all aimed at dismantling – BXVI’s Pontificate – the most serious threat to the Masonic plan for the world. Russia, the Democrats’ predilection for the Moslem Brotherhood and their desire to take Russia down; all are involved.

      All of which makes me ask again: how did a buffoon from Argentina come to be Pope?

      Reply
  3. No, it was because he was too old for World Youth Day is what I heard. Even at the time I was like “What gives? They’re not going to kick him out just for being old, are they? I mean, he’s the pope for heaven’s sake!” All these years later, I feel like WYD really dropped the ball and caused some serious hurt feelings!

    Reply
  4. I am quite sure that the USA and the EU are both involved. To cut a sovereign nation out of the SWIFT system (which I believe is based in Belgium), the USA would need to take the EU along with it.

    That the US and EU are prepared to resort to such tactics is certain. Putin was threatened with Russia’s withdrawal from SWIFT post-Crimea. Medvedev, Putin’s Prime Minister, reacted immediately by saying that this would be an act of war and that Russia would take it as such. Of course he is right – cutting a country out of the main international payments system, with all USD transfers worldwide going through a New York clearing bank – would indeed be the hostile act of an aggressor nation.

    So, Benedict is presented with an “either/or”. He chooses the “either” and is history. The next big question is – did the Obama / Clinton axis, together with the Masonic EU, somehow foist the Argentinian onto the Church? If so, how did they do it and what are the facts?

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  5. In the face of the incredible explanation provided at the time and still propounded, this has legs. Life among the power players isn’t simple and it isn’t pretty. Its filthy.
    We know the protestant revolt would never have transpired without the support of civil leaders advancing the development of the emerging nation states. The relationship between politics, finance and religion is a nasty reality.
    Theoretically this report has credibility. However we will not see the curtain lifted on the scandalous resignation of Pope Benedict in our lifetimes — maybe ever.

    Reply
  6. Of course, we must face the hard reality that any reunion between Rome and Moscow is vanishingly small for the foreseeable future. The Russians simply will not spring for that. They are consistently among the most hardline autocephalous churches against reunion.

    But that doesn’t mean that some more limited rapprochement might not have been achievable. Perhaps the fear of that might have been operative here in whatever pressures were brought to bear, though it is hard to think that alone could be have been sufficient as a motive.

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  7. Bergoglio is renewing the Church, to strengthen it, and certainly not to weaken it as some wanted

    Socci just can’t help himself.

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    • And Bergoglio signed a “true and proper armistice” with Patriarch Kyril? He surrendered in the most abject way to the Russians, wittering on about migrants and climate change along the way.

      Socci is an ally overall but a strange one.

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    • It seems that some people think that the longer quote at the end of the article stems from Antonio Socci himself while it is really from Professor Dottori. Thus I changed the paragraph after the quote a little bit so as to avoid that misunderstanding.

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  8. So, Pope Francis is “renewing the Church.” I have yet to encounter any Catholic who will admit to feeling “renewed”, or to be experiencing a positive spiritual transformation as a result of four years of Bergoglianism. But then, according to Antonio Socci, we don’t experience it because we are being psychologically manipulated so as to see this present pontificate in a negative light.

    Meanwhile, according to John Henry Westen, (LifeSiteNews), Francis has just berated “people who, without any commission, go about disturbing the Christian community with speeches that upset souls.” Yes, I suppose this is true, insofar as many are rendered uncomfortable by being reminded about the grave consequences of mortal sin.

    “They are fanatics about things that are not clear, such as these fanatics who go about there, sowing discord in order to to divide the Christian community. it is a “problem” and “great error” when doctrine becomes an ideology.”

    Who, may one ask, is the real political ideologue in all of this. Methinks Bergogliman speak with forked tongue. And I personally do not feel “renewed” in the least.

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    • That Pope Francis is “renewing” the Church is a claim from Professor Dottori. I just updated the article to make that a little more clear. I am sorry for this misunderstanding.

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      • Thank you for that clarification – but what makes Dottori think that Francis is “strengthening” the Church? That really is a ludicrous statement.

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  9. Why would Socci say that Bergoglio is trying to build up the Church – not tear it down? And that we Serfs are being psychologically conditioned to turn on him? That is unmitigated Balderdash! [I kept it polite!]. First , we are not stupid – we hear the awful things the Pope says. We hear the heresies and the glorification of the biggest heretic of them all – Luther. We hear him encourage grave sinners to go right ahead and commit Sacrilege – after all “What’s a little bit of bread and wine” between friends! We hear that he’s in the process of re-writing the Consecration of the Mass to make it more palatable for Protestants – sadly it will negate the most beautiful and miraculous part of the Mass! God help us all – he’s even planning on “tweaking” the words of Holy Scripture so that they suit HIS version of what God meant to say but didn’t quite get it right! So please – will you all just stop the conflicting versions of Bergoglio because quite frankly, you experts are just as damaging, bad and confusing for the struggling but Faithful Laity as HE is and that , my friends , is saying something!

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  10. Add to this the St Galen group that sought to nominate a successor to Peter before the conclave. Now we have environmental encyclicals and amoris letitia.

    All this just happening to be played out during the 100 yr anniversary of the Fatima apparitions.

    No, God will not be mocked.

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  11. Thank you Maike. Could someone guide me on where to find more information about the “psychological conditioning” plot against Pope Francis? A Google search didn’t turn up anything…

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  12. I would like to read an indepth article about the Alexandr Dugin’s geo-political theories, pan-Eurasian movement and his mysticism, his belief in the primordial superior of the northern people, etc.,etc. He might be thought of as just an intellectual sideshow, were he not known as “Putin’s Brain.” I am convinced that his Fourth Theory is – somehow – connected with the Third Secret of Fatima. Reading his works have left me with a possible explanation as to why Russia must be explicitly consecrated. And not having been so consecrated, why the world faces such dire threats from Russia. All dots seem to get connected.

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  13. I remember reading in the papers that the shut-down of the credit card payment system for the vatican museums was ordered because money laundering concerns. So if you wanted to visit the museum you had to use cash. I’m not an expert on these matters but it seems counter logical to me. I thought that someone wanted to

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  14. I can imagine only two scenarios which would enable me to accept BXVI’s resignation as sensible;

    1) He experienced some sort of supernatural vision/visitation in which Jesus or His Mother told him that the Church’s 50 year agony was at an end and it was time for the purification to occur so that a smaller, more evangelical, more faithful remnant could emerge from among the homosexuals, heretics, modernists, time-servers, communists and agnostics who currently run the Church. As part of this purification, Benedict would need to resign so that the enemy could be allowed to take over the Church for a time so that a split or schism could occur in order for the worldly non-believers and the faithful to go their separate ways.

    2) Benedict himself brilliantly devised a scheme which would have a similar end result by drawing the “anti-Church” (i.e. Bergoglio and his fellow travelers) out of the shadows and into full view.

    I cannot accept any other scenario, even if it included serious blackmail. All of these amount to a sellout by Benedict. For want of a better phrase, he “threw in the towel” or “ran from the wolves”. This is especially true of the most widely circulated reason for his resignation and one put forward by the man himself which can be essentially paraphrased as “I’m too old for this crap”. That is a non-starter as far as I’m concerned. Jesus (and nobody else) calls time on the Petrine ministry of a pope.

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  15. There is something rotten in Denmark, kiddies.

    Ask and you shall receive! Only a week or so ago I began begging the question: How Did They Make BXVI Resign?

    Reply

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