On March 20, I wrote a post about my growing suspicion that the Anonimi della Croce blog — purportedly run by a pseudonymous Italian priest called “Fra Cristoforo” who claimed sources within the pope’s inner circle — was in fact a form of disinformation, used by those who would seek to discredit any who shared the many “secrets” disclosed there. One of the blog’s contributors, who wrote under the name of Finan, wrote a polite response to my critique, and also sent me an email hoping to reassure me of the authenticity of the blog’s proprietor.
I advised him at the time that if Fra Cristoforo was a real priest, they needed to do more to dispel doubt:
I do understand the need for anonymity in some cases. I protect the identities of several people in our articles, a priest included. But the difference is that I know their identities, and mine is not hidden. People have come to trust me because I put my name on the line, and they therefore extend that trust to those I am willing to speak for who must remain anonymous.
The information Fra Cristoforo is presenting, if true, is too important to be mired in questionable credibility. I strongly suggest that you find someone with a good reputation who knows Fra Cristoforo in person, someone who can vouch for him. Magister? Tosatti? A prelate of the Church? I don’t know. But the doubts need to be cleared away.
I never received a response.
Less than two weeks later, Rorate Caeli published their own warning:
Rorate has learned from several different sources in Italy that the recent page “Anonimi della Croce”, led by a “friar” named “Fra’ Cristoforo” is merely a disinformation website by an agent provocateur, whose sole purpose is to provoke real outbursts of outrage or scandal from pious Catholics out of its fake news and fake rumors.
On April 14, Fra Cristoforo published the alleged letter to Pope Benedict XVI that was, according to Cristoforo, one of the things that led to his abdication. This letter was teased nearly a month in advance on the Anonimi della Croce site — a tactic that many found distasteful and disingenuous in the extreme. The common refrain was, “If you have important information, why not share it now?” The letter itself was so anticlimactic that it led some to believe it might even have been authentic — who would fake something so underwhelming? It certainly wasn’t anything like a smoking gun. The letter read:
<< Monaco, 14 September 2012
Holiness,
In reference to our last conversation in which you asked me for discernment, I confirm to you that in all this time, I have prayed much about the intentions that you raised. And I do not deny that it was for me a source of anxiety, your having left upon me such a burden. But having chosen me as a spiritual guide, I could not hold myself back.
Your thought of resignation from your state certainly derives from a serious inner conflict, due to the reasons and to pressures that you have detailed for me. I know for certain that in other conditions, Your Holiness would not have ever thought in the slightest to advance a similar gesture. But certainly, this time for the Church of Christ is to be considered terrible. And Your Holiness is its Head. And only you know what the Church needs today.
Purification? So be it.
Finally, as your guide, I have nothing else to tell you except that Your Holiness should act according to your conscience.
“Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam” (Mt 16)
With filial admiration,
I kiss the Sacred Slipper.
Father XXXXXX >>
(Translated by Andrew Guernsey)
And then yesterday, the whole website, and Fra Cristoforo along with it, vanished.
Visitors to the site URL are treated only to a page noting that the authors had deleted the entire thing. Visits to The Wayback Machine (a service that archives web pages in the even they go down) turns up nothing of substance. Whether or not this is result of intentional privacy alterations to the site, I couldn’t tell you. It seems very odd, though, that a site that was getting over two hundred thousand visitors a month and delivering rumors not found anywhere else online wouldn’t have had a single saved snapshot.
I emailed Finan last night to ask what happened. 17 hours later, I still have no response.
Was it a fake that wasn’t working anymore?
Was it actually real, but the author discovered and disciplined?
Will we ever really know the answers? (I suspect not.)
Just when you thought things in the Church couldn’t get much stranger.
Strange.
How is this for strange?
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/vatican-orders-matthew-festing-not-to-travel-to-rome-for-order-of-malta-ele
Pretty scary stuff.
I wonder if anyone will defend this dear man? Or will he stand alone, like Christ in front of Pilate?
Where are our apostles?
In their eyes Matthew Festing is dead meat and no one who values their standing will say a syllable or lift a finger.
Perhaps as at the foot of the Cross, mostly fled.
Either way he suffers for Christ. And that of itself is enough.
Would it that others would do the same instead of preaching comfort and choosing comfort.
Blessed are you when they persecute you for My sake.
It really is not so strange if you’ve ever inhabited the ecclesiastical jungle.
The very nature of the poison pen letter is a window into the psyche of the pontificate and the sycophants employed therein. It should be celebrated that the veil has been lifted on the moral character of the ecclesiastical apparatus. This piece of correspondence is the penultimate expression of pathological passive-aggressiveness. The Bergoglian embrace – a punch in the stomach simultaneously offered with a knife in the back. A pugilistic art form. We are engaged with the shameless and supremely disoriented – and they are legion.
It provides understanding of why right thinking faithful ecclesiastics guard their posteriors. It also gives credence to those who speculate that this Fra Cristoforo entity was a ruse of one sort or another. Believe me, the adversary has no conscience.
I believe it all too well, James. Well said. Thank you.
“Believe me, the adversary has no conscience.”
That says it all, James.
With our dictatorial, devious Pope driving the bus, it isn’t strange at all. The Order now has no credibility and will not have any until Bergoglio is ushered off the stage. He has created a mess, as he promised he would, and it’s all on him now.
Maybe Finan is actually Fra Festing and Festing has been locked out of his flat by the Pope’s Swiss Guard and poor Festing can’t get to his computer to answer his emails…
😉
I am very sorry for my Malta friends. But the lack of any apparent resistance to the papal putsch reveals the spiritual hollowness. Perhaps the good works will continue in some way, probably mixed with standard secular fare like contraceptives. Life will go on, the $30 million will quietly disappear somewhere, another bulwark will have crumbled.
I am also very sorry for my Knights of Malta friends. This is terrible upheaval in the lives of those who quietly went about their work, giving the glory to God. Now we see the infiltration of those who would disrupt that work, and I am so sorry for it. I must pray for them, and it is a bit difficult.
Well at least ‘Fra Cristoforo’ can now devote extra time to watching his Lord of the Rings box set yet again and maybe pick out some more choice bits of dialogue to use at the next opportune moment.
Comrade Skojec, although the Ninth Directorate of the OGPU still has to make its final assessment, we can surmise that whoever was behind this Anonymous of the Cross (i) is a Jesuit; (ii) knows how to use social media as a tool for propaganda and (iii) is close to Bergoglio; and that the purpose of the site was to sow discord and conspiracy among the very strong online Traditionalist presence, thereby taking its eyes away from certain personages and their heretical programme for the Church.
You, Rorate Caeli and others have shown a high degree of revolutionary vigilance in this matter, so please do accept this Stalin Prize.
What??? A Jesuit who is a known lurker behind sock-puppets??? Surely that stupido Spadaro wouldn’t have enough time on his hands to do such a thing! OTOH…..
The great stalin, hehe…
High praise indeed comrade, and well-said!
The blogosphere, including the Catholic blogosphere, is infested with trolls, liars, kooks and bottom feeders.
I am re-reading Dante. People sent to hell for their sins and choices they thought were so important in that distant medieval age, remain there all this time later; marinating still in hot lava. The schemes and plans of devious men ultimately amount to nothing. The trolling for position and advantage is ultimately overthrown by new players; now as then.
But the everlasting “hot lava” is not nothing. Everlasting Divine vengeance is something indeed.
Perspective is needed on these besotted souls thinking they can wreck the Bride for personal purposes. They are small, pathetically thinking themselves something they are not. God is God. They are not. His judgement is assured.
These poor arrogance saturated blind men.
We all face the dreadful day of judgement when all our many choices are fully revealed before God and Man. All that is done in secret is not secret after all.
We still have time to repent and get it right before our Judge.
With Pope Francis the known reality is sufficiently deplorable without the addition of fake news sources like Fra Christoforo.
Once again, an example of being able to fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. The Truth will allow nothing less. The Shepherd’s clothing is wearing thin on Francis. Thank You Jesus.
Secret priests? Secret websites?
Seems like there is an awful lot of flim flammery going on there in Bergoglios Vatican.
I was led here by a link from BigPupit.com that said, “Fake Catholic News Website Shuts Down”. I’m just glad it wasn’t Eye of the Tiber!
You mean Eye of the Tiger is fake???? OH NO!!!! NOoooooooo!!!!!