In May of 2015, I wrote about Alfred Hitchcock’s Catholicism, evident in his many amazingly crafted movies. It seems that one can always draw some interesting insights from Hitch, particularly as it relates to the nature of evil and the tactics of evil men and women. Here’s an excerpt from my post:
Hitchcock’s dark world is perhaps most vividly described in Shadow of a Doubt by Uncle Charlie, Charles Oakley (Joseph Cotten) who describes what the world is really like to his niece Charlie (Charlotte) played by Teresa Wright, after she discovers that her uncle is indeed the psychotic serial killer of wealthy widows on the run from the law whom a detective has warned her about. At night, in a Santa Rosa bar, Uncle Charlie chases down and confronts his troubled namesake and niece:
Uncle Charlie: “You think you know something, don’t you? You think you’re the clever little girl who knows something. There’s so much you don’t know. So much. What do you know, really? You’re just an ordinary little girl living in an ordinary little town. You wake up every day and know there’s nothing in the world to trouble you. You go through your ordinary little day. At night, you sleep your ordinary sleep filled with peaceful, stupid dreams. And I brought you nightmares. Or did l? Or was it a silly, inexpert, little lie? You live in a dream. You’re a sleepwalker, blind.
How do you know what the world is like? Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know if you ripped the fronts off houses, you’d find swine? The world’s a hell. What does it matter what happens in it? Wake up, Charlie. Use your wits. Learn something!”
The last set of lines in particular are almost satanic in their tone and conjure up nightmarish images from the work of Hieronymus Bosch. It’s a view of the world that is damned from a quintessentially evil character who is outwardly charming and graceful. And it’s a warning from Hitchcock to be constantly alert even in a seemingly peaceful little community like Santa Rosa, California, circa 1943 because evil may be in your midst.
If you ripped the fronts off diocese offices, chanceries, seminaries, apartments in the Vatican, what would you find? In the past few months, federal investigators have been raiding diocese offices and confiscating computers.
In another open letter made available to Edward Pentin, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who is still in hiding (and no doubt for good reason), writes to disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick imploring him to repent for all of his crimes against his abuse victims and crimes against the Church. To date, McCarrick has made no public statements of contrition for all that he has done. From the most recent letter from Viganò:
No matter what decision the supreme authority of the Church takes in your case, what really matters and what has saddened those who love you and pray for you is the fact that throughout these months you haven’t given any sign of repentance. I am among those who are praying for your conversion, that you may repent and ask pardon of your victims and the Church.
Time is running out, but you can confess and repent of your sins, crimes and sacrileges, and do so publicly, since they have themselves become public. Your eternal salvation is at stake.
But something else of great importance is also at stake. You, paradoxically, have at your disposal an immense offer of great hope for you from the Lord Jesus; you are in a position to do great good for the Church. In fact, you are now in a position to do something that has become more important for the Church than all of the good things you did for her throughout your entire life. A public repentance on your part would bring a significant measure of healing to a gravely wounded and suffering Church. Are you willing to offer her that gift? Christ died for us all when we were still sinners (Rom. 5: 8). He only asks that we respond by repenting and doing the good that we are given to do. The good that you are in a position to do now is to offer the Church your sincere and public repentance. Will you give the Church that gift?
It should be noted, as it has before, that Abp. Viganò continues to call for the saving of souls for those who have been victimized by men like McCarrick but also for predators like McCarrick, himself and many of those who covered for him for decades, who have done great harm to the Church and the faithful. Pope Francis, on the other hand, not so much. Rather than echo or endorse Viganò’s appeals, the Pope instead has referred to Viganò as the Great Accuser (a.k.a. Satan). Let’s explore this a moment.
From Dr. Taylor Marshall and Timothy Gordon’s interview with James Grein, who Theodore McCarrick’s sexually abused repeatedly beginning when Grein was eleven years old during the sacrament of confession, this (emphasis mine):
Taylor Marshall: James, I’m really curious about the backstory on McCarrick and I think most people are horrified that this man arose to the highest post in the American Catholic Church, the Archbishop Cardinal of Washington, D.C., it’s manifest and obvious to all of us, because of you and Viganò, that dozens if not hundreds of priests, monsignors, secretaries, bishops, people in Rome knew about McCarrick. This was not a well-kept secret and yet he was promoted to the highest post. My mind goes back to, you said for the first time, I hadn’t heard this before, that he had a malice to destroy the Catholic Church. Did you see anything that we would call Luciferian, satanic, Freemason, Black Masses…was there…you know people talk about Malachi Martin and going back in the 60s, that there were Black Masses in the Vatican, that Freemasons were not just undermining the Church through influence but were actually practicing dark arts. Did you ever see paraphernalia or a Black Mass or people hanging out with McCarrick who indicated that any of these things were going on in your time with McCarrick?
Grein: Without too much detail, it was prevalent…as a bishop and archbishop in New Jersey, first as a start in Metuchen and dramatic changes in Newark. In fact, in Newark in his archdiocese he had made sure there was an exorcist in his group of people, in one of the closest parishes to him. And he needed that man not to rid the world of Satan but I believe to do the opposite. There is a seminarian that you…uh… should speak to about that. There is, uh…Google that idea. And that’s how I found that guy when I had those thoughts back in the summertime and he and I corroborated our stories.
Taylor Marshall: Wait, so you’re saying that McCarrick when he was archbishop of Newark that he befriended an exorcist to, what? Learn about the Devil?
Grein: No…uh…to help him bring the devil to the diocese. He was a priest.
Taylor Marshall: Oh, so, the exorcist had flipped and sold his soul in a sense.
Grein: So, you need to find that seminarian. He’s easy to find.
Taylor Marshall: Huh. Wow. So, you’re saying that the idea that there were Luciferian rites – –
Grein: No, it’s not an idea.
Taylor Marshall: – – it’s happening.
Marshall and Grein then begin to speak about disgraced Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago, who was a friend of McCarrick’s and seemed to have the same agenda. Bernardin was just as vile as McCarrick and his diocese was a nest of sexual predators, which included Bernardin himself. There are many books and accounts that have brought this to light, suffice to say that it is telling that these two men were very friendly with one another.
Later on in the interview, Marshall queries Grein on what he thinks McCarrick’s state of mind might be:
Taylor Marshall: What is McCarrick thinking right now as he sits in his monastery near a school? Is he sad? Angry? Sullen? He thought he was going to be pope and now he’s just an ex-cardinal.
Grein: He’s a quiet, sad man. I guarantee he’s praying.
Taylor Marshall: He’s what?
Grein: He’s praying.
Taylor Marshall: Praying? You think he’s converted?
Grein: I think he’s praying.
Taylor Marshall: So, you think he’s turned to Jesus?
Grein: I’m not sure to whom he’s praying…but he’s praying. He’s asking for forgiveness…asking for help, he’s asking for a quieter mind…that’s what I pray for. I ask Jesus to just quiet his mind…don’t let him go insane. I need him to hang around for a little while.
Pope Francis promoted McCarrick to be a papal emissary after former Pope Benedict XVI restricted McCarrick from public appearances or travel; and even when Abp. Viganò warned Francis of McCarrick’s decades of sexual predation. It would be laughable, on its face, to think of Viganò as somehow doing Satan’s work, which Francis slandered him with doing, when all the evidence has been accumulating for decades that men like Bernardin, McCarrick and those weaker prelates around them, were engaged in sexual predation and in some cases in the shadow of Satan, or covering up these crimes (like Cardinal Wuerl who still are embraced and go unpunished by Francis). From Novus Ordo Watch (an article excerpted from the Spring/Summer 2000 issue of RCF’s periodic newsletter, Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam – emphasis mine):
Over the past 12 years, in sworn deposition, in accounts to investigators, in affidavits submitted in support of others’ cases, in direct statements to Bernardin, in phone calls and letters to Church officials, and in correspondence with Vatican officials (all of which RCF has examined), Agnes has testified to the following story:
In the fall of 1957, in Greenville, S.C., Fr, Joseph Bernardin raped 11-year-old Agnes as part of a Satanic ritual that involved, among others, Bishop John Russell of Charleston. Brought to the event by an abusive father, Agnes “was able, at first, to resist Bishop Russell physically, out of the knowledge that God had made me good, not bad as I was being told I was” (her words). As a young child, she had been victimized by a “sadist” cousin, and her identity was based upon “resisting bad things”, which included Bernardin. Bernardin then showed kindness and approval of her resistance, in order to gain her trust and get her to relax, and then he raped her. He followed the rape with a perverted use of a host, in an attempt to make Agnes swallow the guilt of the event.
In the fall of 1992, Agnes passed a polygraph examination regarding these events. She also, in early 1990, told her story to Malachi Martin, who had been recommended to her as someone who could get her information to the Vatican, which Agnes knew had sole and immediate jurisdiction over such a case. Martin wrote a novel, Windswept House, with the premise that Agnes had given him: that the Catholic hierarchy’s tolerance of heresy, liturgical abuse, clerical sexual misconduct, and clerical pedophilia had one overarching explanation at root, a network of Satanists whose smoke had ascended high in the Church.
Francis’ own record of promoting, protecting, or covering for sexual predators in the clergy as Archbishop Cardinal Bergoglio of Buenos Aires and later as Pope Francis doesn’t exactly give him much moral authority to smear Archbishop Viganò as someone in league with Satan. The story of the Bergoglio pontificate continues. We are bound to learn even more troubling things going forward. With each passing day, it seems that more revelations spew forth about the men who have sought or are still seeking to destroy the Catholic Church…but it appears that because of social media and the internet, the battle has been joined.
I can barely pick my jaw up off the floor after reading this.
Oof. Scary stuff.
McCarrick, Bernardin, Bergoglio, and Satan. Sheesh. What a group.
I remembered reading about Bernardin and his friend Satan from Ann Barnhardt years ago (here and here). Bernardin was the one who brought us McCarrick, Wuerl, and Mahoney and they then gave us Cupich, Tobin, Farrell, and so many others.
What @brianwatt writes seems almost unbelievable but every day more and more are red-pilled and aghast at the horrors in the Church.
But praise be to God – and to borrow a phrase from Ann – our Blessed Lord is in the courts of the Temple, and it is Whip o’clock, baby.
This rot must be exposed to the light of day for it to be cleansed from the Church.
To me there is no middle ground. Priests and Bishops are speaking out or are part of the problem. I don’t see much speaking out.
Can one of you please explain why the Roman Church is so hostile to Freemasonry? My father, his brothers, and other men I knew growing up were all Masons. My dad was also a Shriner, etc. I very much doubt that they were all Satanists.
I don’t want to derail this horrifying post, so feel free to send me private messages.
I pray for my Catholic brothers and sisters, and their Holy Church!
Thanks for the comment. I sent you a PM with some information. All the best.
Sounds like a SJW rant about “toxic whiteness”.
Pretty rough stuff. I have written here about the impropriety, as I see it, of cathedrals – what? protected? – by statuary of gargoyles and other unnatural creatures of presumably human invention top the finest cathedrals in the world. Things with snarling teeth. The true God had what at the top of his temple built by Solomon? Pomegranates. Fruits. Lilies. Oxen. Bulls. Lions. Cherubim. Palm tress. And yet atop these magnificent structures coil snarling images of Man’s creation, literally from the mind of man, carved by the hand of man, and guarding their spiritual safe havens, yet which can neither think, nor speak, nor move, nor defend and yet are aspects of what should be holy worship of mankind’s Creator. What can these things be called other than idols. I still think of it to be, essentially, representations of evil. For someone’s purpose or pleasure.
Just like speculating on what lies on the dark side of the moon, I find it inconceivable that any Christian church, such as the Church of Rome, could ever be led by the acceptance of spiritual darkness such as you describe. I reject it as unthinkable. Yet, here are the testimonies.
I have written, half tongue in cheek that the Road to the Vatican is paves with selfie sticks. (What a metaphor.) Nonetheless I have to wonder how a city that houses and prides itself on the presence of the seat of what it would have us believe is the church of Christ allows this to happen. Is it worse than negligence. It is nothing less than turning the House of the Lord into a house of merchandise. Does no one else see this? I must be confused or exaggerating.
This leads me to consider something else that has struck me. Everywhere in Rome, it seems, piazzas have centered in them obelisks imported at some cost and via wooden ships religious statuary from Egypt. Many squares have in them in the centers. Rome is historically a pagan city, and it can do what it wants. But I was stunned and startled when I first entered St. Peter’s Square and saw one standing high in the center, with a meager, it looks like re-bar, cross pinned crudely to the top of it. Why is it there? There before the rotunda of the Basilica, opposite it, stands the obelisk in deliberate juxtaposition.
This too should mean little or nothing to me. But it is recreated in grander form as the mall in Washington, D.C. It cannot be mere coincidence that the mall was designed in direct emulation of the Basilica, which itself was designed along older pagan traditions. A rotunda at one end, and a particular form of pointed spire at the other, at the center of the square or the court.
And here presided Archbishop McCarrick. And these accusations seem to be all of a part.
And sadly the faithful in Christ stand looking on wondering what the heck is going on.
What I don’t understand is why, the minute any reports of Satan-worship surfaced, there wasn’t a total overhaul in the Vatican. I mean the child abuse and the sex orgies are bad enough, and should also have caused repercussions, but I mean Satan?!?? I can never remember my visit there the same way again. And can Francis be replaced because of this?
I wish I had an answer for you. Any information on the nature and extent of the corruption of the Church and the Vatican hierarchy should be approached with a good deal of skepticism and claims need to be corroborated with other historically credible and reliable sources. There are unconfirmed reports that Benedict XVI ordered an investigative report (that had been widely reported on by major news outlets) on the homosexual corruption within the Vatican which some sources have said contained accounts of satanic rituals. Benedict resigned the papacy on the same day that the 300-page report was presented to him. Pope Francis now has the report and has not divulged its contents. Perhaps someday the information in the report will be made available, if it’s not destroyed first. It’s not known whether the cardinals commissioned to gather the information or their subordinates made additional copies of the findings.
Thanks. I’ve always thought Benedict’s sudden resignation was fishy.
FWIW, from wikipedia,
The obelisk has a terrible anti-christian history, was ordered to the Basilica by none other than a Pope and is referred to as the Vatican Obelisk — rather propriety, I’d say. Even the symbolic placement, all the saints face it, not the cross. So… Wut? What is it there for?
The Catholic Church has suffered corrupt popes before and survived.
Here’s a Catholic perspective on the obelisk and why Pope Sixtus V had it brought to its current location.
Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus, Christus imperat!
Thanks, but this is still incomprehensible to me. A pagan symbols being “baptized” to cleanse it I can understand. But to take it as a symbol of church victory and strength — especially instead of a cross or a statue of Jesus Christ — and to make it the focus of the world’s greatest Christian landmark is incomprehensible to me. With all respect to all faithful Christian believers, it must mean something, and it cannot mean Christ.
And I still can’t see why if was put there with statues of a hundred saints all turned toward it. That would be like the government of Israel blessing and putting that massive bronze swastika topped by the eagle right in front of the wailing wall or Abraham’s tomb as a symbol of Jewish strength and holiness. It doesn’t make sense there and it doesn’t make any sense at the Vatican. Sorry, that I just don”t see. What has light to do with darkness?
Calling Freemasonry satanic is a lot like calling the Catholic Church the Whore of Babylon.
The Freemasons were also hugely influential in the founding of our country, and were partially responsible for the widespread adherence to classical liberal principals among community leaders at that time. Now, they are an aging, dwindling organization with little influence. In either case,they are not the sort of organization about which satanic conspiracy theories are credible.
You are certainly not giving respect to Christian believers, and particularly us Catholics. Here is another explanation:
Spend some time contemplating that cross and Jesus Christ who was crucified on it. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
The Church of Jesus Christ reigns.
The ancient Egyptians – not so much.
I wouldn’t make too much of such things. The Church has a long history of Christianizing pagans and their cultures. There’s a small-t tradition St. Peter was crucified upside down while looking at that obelisk. I think of it as similar to the cross — a Roman instrument of torture — used to crucify our Lord becoming a symbol of our hope and salvation. Darkness turned to light through Christ’s victory.
Part of what paralyzes me is the sheer volume of assertion. So many people say so many things. I’m not calling anyone a liar because I don’t know anything, but I also know enough to know that we need more than assertion. People lie, yes, but they are also simply biased, incorrect, self-serving, misinterpreting, etc. People tell the whole ugly truth too. Which is which? I’ll admit a bias to side with the Church, a bias against boat rockers, a bias against monstrous truths. I know that awful things – crimes, sins – happen to people. I also know that there are good people’s lives and reputations at risk. How do we sort it all out?
I know a victim of sex abuse by a priest. At least one; one credible enough to have met with the cardinal over it. I believe him. I don’t know for sure, but I know him. He’s no flake. He’s not been reduced to a damaged shell of a person. He’s a man in full; a man of God still and more than most (though not Catholic anymore). It’s important to hear people when they come forward. It’s important to investigate. It’s most important to fix things when we know they’re broken. Seems like we know things about McCarrick. Do we know the same about Bernadin? I’ve heard him spoken of as a good or even great man and priest; I’ve also heard him spoken of as an enabler of abuse at best. Which is which?
I’m coming to believe that the Church’s number one job must be to restore order and holiness to its clergy. We can’t go on to shape and save souls with such problems in the ranks. How do we fix this? How do we sort out truth from innuendo and assertion?
“Few discoveries are more irritating than those which expose the pedigree of ideas”-Lord Acton
Freemasonry can be anything a person wants it to be, in other words it is esoteric spiritualism.
Perhaps freemasons marching in Rome in 1917 shouldn’t have held aloft banners showing St. Michael, the Archangel under the heel of Lucifer.
Maximilian Kolbe (born 8 January 1894 – died 14 August 1941) was a Polish Conventual Franciscan friar who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in Auschwitz and was later canonized by the Church, had years earlier witnessed the freemasons marching in Rome and related that he saw banners proclaiming the message: “Satan Must Reign in the Vatican. The Pope Will Be His Slave.”
This is not to suggest that all Masonic lodges or all freemasons hold such extreme views but that there are some that regrettably do – especially in Europe. That said, John Salza, a former high-ranking Freemason in America describes the history, agenda and some of the secret rituals of Freemasonry. If you don’t wish to listen to the whole video which begins describing the messages from the Marian apparitions of Quito, Ecuador and Fatima, Portugal, you can go directly to Salza’s descriptions of the secret masonic initiation rite of which he is intimately familiar and which begins after the 20:48 mark.
I apologize for derailing your post (unless, of course, you’re okay with the added direction). I did ask that this be addressed in PMs to me.
I don’t think it’s been derailed. We’re all good.
Color me skeptical. The interview quoted in the OP reminds me – a lot – of the Brett Kavanaugh circus last summer. Let’s keep our heads.
It’s always good to be skeptical. But many of the accounts of McCarrick’s abuses extend well beyond Grein’s testimony. Here are some other articles on McCarrick’s past and how he has affected the Church:
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/case-theodore-mccarrick
https://www.catholicregister.org/home/international/item/27795-timeline-on-archbishop-mccarrick-s-life-ministry-abuse-claims-made-against-him
Here’s an article from Ross Douthat, not considered an alarmist or an extremist
https://durangoherald.com/articles/233980
Here is George Neumayr’s take on McCarrick and the pernicious influence that he’s had on others.
https://spectator.org/what-a-web-theodore-mccarrick-weaved/
Right, thanks Brian. It is an ugly story indeed, and the American Spectator story hit close to home. We grew up in Totowa, NJ and were married at St James of the Marches (1980.) Fr Patrick Ryan officiated at the funerals for both of my wife’s parents. But I was referring to the claims about satanic ritual. Seems a bit over the top.
We can hope, but I’ve come to question the faith of these abusive priests. How could they? I don’t think it’s a far stretch to believe these sodomite rapists (in the confessional!!) could go from unbelief to working for the devil.
I agree. All I know is they should be moving a lot faster to show people they take this seriously, get to the bottom of it, and clean house before the damage gets irreparable, if it isn’t already.
Well, let’s hope it is. When discussing satanism within the Church or the clergy, the stories get a bit murky. The late Malachi Martin insisted that a good deal of his novel, Windswept House, was based on actual events. What I think is central in the OP above is not any attempt to concur that particular incidents of sacrilege are verifiably satanic – even if there is a potential that some could be – but merely make reference to those specific allegations about men whom the Vatican has supported and focus more specifically on the case of McCarrick who was punished and restricted by Benedict and then reinstated and promoted by Francis, who then took occasion to invoke the name of the Great Accuser (Satan) and apply it to Vigano – thus putting in context or raising questions about satanic influences. At best, that was a foolish thing for the pope to have said (during one of his homilies) given Vigano’s appeals to Francis and others in the hierarchy to save souls. At worse…well that’s more troubling.
I’m of the belief that Bergoglio is just not a very intelligent fellow (or a junior varsity Machiavellian) and his Peronist methods, his Leftist leanings, his visible support of LGBT lifestyles, his tampering with Catholic teaching on the Eucharist, and the promotion of aggressive homosexual clerics is quite troubling and points to an eventual train wreck in the Church, especially with characters like Cupich assuming a more prominent role in the American Catholic Church. It also doesn’t help that Bergoglio was actively promoted by prelates, a few of whom also had been accused of sexual abuses…one in particular who was under investigation by the CDF before Francis stopped the investigation and then removed the head of the CDF and replaced him with Cardinal Cocopalmerio who then participated in a cocaine-fueled gay orgy in an apartment of the CDF with other gay priests and hired male prostitutes.
I think the caveat should be substantially stronger than that in light of the Mason’s role in the foundation of our country, and the advancement of the classical liberal principles on which it was ostensibly founded (otherwise it becomes an inescapable implication that George Washington and traditional American civics must be viewed with a certain amount of suspicion). Not to mention the familial ties many ricochet have with the organization (my grandfather was a Shriner, as were many of his kin and peers), and might react negatively to the insinuation that membership in the organization should be viewed as a possible indicator of satanic inclinations.
There might very well be individual masonic lodges that have members or leaders with a satanic or occult agenda, but that would be no more an indictment of freemasonry than the current problems are an indictment of Catholicism.