| Cardinal Angelo Sodano — a controversial Vatican power broker for more than a quarter of a century who was accused of covering up one of the Catholic Church's most notorious sex abusers — has died at the age of 94.The secretary of state under two popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Cardinal Sodano — who had been ill for some time and died on Friday night — had held the number two post in the Vatican hierarchy for 16 years between 1990 and 2006.
It was widely believed that Cardinal Sodano — together with John Paul's secretary, then-Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz — ran the Church in the final years of the late pope's life as his health deteriorated from Parkinson's and other illnesses. John Paul II died in 2005.
In a series of exposes in the National Catholic Reporter in 2010, author Jason Berry, a leading expert on the Church's sex abuse crisis, wrote how Cardinal Sodano blocked the Vatican from investigating Father Marcial Maciel, disgraced founder of the Legion of Christ religious order. After John Paul II's death, Pope Benedict ramped up investigations of Maciel and removed him in 2006, when the Vatican acknowledged that allegations it had been brushed aside for decades were true.
The cult-like Legion of Christ order, whose rules forbade criticising its founder or questioning his motives, later acknowledged that Maciel, who died in 2008, lived a double life as a paedophile, womaniser and drug addict.
Cardinal Sodano several times denied allegations that he was aware of Maciel's double life and that he had covered up for him. Maciel, a conservative seen as a bulwark against liberalism in the Church, was known to have made generous financial gifts to the Vatican.
In 2010, four years after Pope Benedict replaced Cardinal Sodano as secretary of state, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna accused Sodano of having blocked a full-scale investigation of former Austrian Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer. Groer stepped down as archbishop of Vienna in 1995 after allegations that he had sexually abused young seminarians in the past. He died in 2003 never admitting guilt or facing charges.Cadinal Sodano also denied those accusations.In 2010, victims of clergy sexual abuse condemned Cardinal Sodano for saying at a public Easter address that abuse was mostly "petty gossip".
Vatican insiders have said that even after he retired, Cardinal Sodano — who continued to live in the Vatican — exercised significant influence in the careers of Vatican officials for the remainder of Benedict's pontificate. Benedict resigned in 2013.
ABC, Reuters
OD REDAKCJI:
Dopiero po śmierci kardynała Sodano pojawiły się twiedzenia, jakoby Sodano był homoseksualistą.Postać Sodano, pod innym nazwiskiem, pojawia się w książce francuskiego socjologa Frederica Martela "Sodoma.In the Vatican closet" wydanej w roku 2019. Dopiero teraz Martel oficjalnie mówi o orientacji seksualnej kardynała.Książka Martela w dużej swej części dotyczyła śledztwa, jakie się długimi latami toczyło w sprawie księdza Marciala Maciela, założyciela słynnego zgromadzenia Legion of Christ,któremu zarzucano homoseksualizm, molestowanie kleryków, i podwójne życie (żony, dzieci). Afera z Macielem była dla Watykanu orzechem trudnym do zgryzienia.Jak się oficjalnie mówi, Kościołem rządzi mafia lawendowa i jakiekolwiek śledztwo w sprawach homoseksualnych natrafia na ogromne przeszkody. Można sobie wyobrazić, w jak potwornie trudnej,(faktycznie beznadziejnej?) sytuacji byli dwaj papieże: Jan Paweł II i Benedykt XVI. Z wielu stron słychać, że głównym powodem ustąpienia Benedykta z Piotrowego Tronu była właśnie niereformowalność lawendowej mafii.
Niektórzy może pamietają aferę z arcybiskupem Julianem Paetzem. Dokumentacja dotycząca molestowania kleryków przez Paetza nie mogła sie przebić przez spiżowe, a raczej lawendowe bramy Watykanu; komplet dokumentów przeszmuglowała dopiero przyjaciółka JPII, dr Wanda Półtawska. Dopiero wtedy do Polski pojechała watykańska komisja. Ostatecznie zakazano duchownemu udzielania sakramentów święceń i bierzmowania, głoszenia kazań, konsekrowania kościołów i ołtarzy, a także przewodniczenia publicznym uroczystościom.
Tu google opublikował obszerne fragmenty książki Martela In the Vatican Closet
Kilka cytatów z książki Martela:
* Sodano has often been compared to Cardinal Mazarin, the Italian state prelate who served both the pope and the kings of France, and whose abuses of power, number of enemies, and secret amorous relationships are legendary.
** In all the cases, the political and sexual collusions give meaning to a famous phrase attributed to Oscar Wilde (...)"Everything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power".It remains for us to understand why the apostolic nuncio Angelo Sodano took such pleasure in associating wth the homosexual milieu. Why did he move in this group at the very moment when John Pail II was declaring homosexuality to be an abominable sin and an absolute evil?
*** How much filth there is in the church - said Cardinal Ratzinger, who also discovered the extent of the "closet" through a secret report by three cardinals, the content of which was described to me and that was one of the major reasosn for his resignation.
**** The carnnival is over, the pope (Franciszek) is reported to have said to his master of ceremonies at the very moment when he was elected. Since then, the Argentinian has overturned the little games of connivance and the homosexual fraternity that developed clandestinely after Paul VI, were amplified under John Paul II, before becoming ungovernable under benedict XIV (...)Have the pope and his liberal theologians realized that priestly celibacy was a failure? Did they guess that the battle launched against gays by the Vatican of John Paul II and Benedict XVI was a war that was lost in advance?
***** Paul VI is generally said to have had a relationship with Paolo Carlini, an Italian theatre and television actor 25 years his junior.
****** The homosexual network of Pinochet has never been described - it will be a revelation for many Chileans. Researchers and journalists are currently investigating this paradoxical milieu and financial arrangements between Pinochet and the Vatican (particularly via special funds in secret bank accounts that the dictator had at the Riggs Bank, and that might possibly have funded anti-communist offices close to Solidarność in Poland): we may expect further revelations on all these points in the years to come.
***** Unlike Cardinal casaroli and his scion Achille Silvestrini, who were men of compromise, Sodano was a rigid and peremptory man. He was tough and,it was said, violent, returning any blows dealt to him a hundredfold. His mode of operation: silence and rage. His ideological mainspring, the thing that animated him, was principally anti-communism. Hence his rapid proximity to John Paul II.
**** Marcel Maciel is probably the most diabolical figure that the Catholic Church has given birth to and raised over the past 50 years. Possessing insane levels of wealth and overseeing a sustained programme of sexual violence, he was protected over several decades by John Pail II, Stanisław dziwisz, personal secretary to the pope, and Angelo Sodano, the cardinal secretary of state, who became "prime minister" of the Vatican.(...) In 2005, Marcial Maciel was stripped of all his duties by benedict XVI, who also obliged him to retire from public life (...) Invited to a "life of prayer and penitence", between 2005 and 2007 Maciel continued to travel from one house to another, from mexico to Rome, and to take advantage of his limitless funds. He simply moved to the United States to avoid possible trials.
Jest również i wersja polska tej ksiązki, również w postaci audiobooka.
FRAGMENT RECENZJI: Wydanie książki „Sodoma. Hipokryzja i władza w Watykanie” zachwiało podstawami Kościoła katolickiego. Nagle okazało się, że homoseksualizm jest w nim doskonale znany, przez wielu praktykowany i akceptowany. Wstrząśnie Tobą też to, co dzieje się w Stolicy Piotrowej. Autor przedstawi Ci ustalenia, jakie poczynił podczas wielu rozmów z biskupami i nie tylko na temat homoseksualizmu wśród księży.
Tu dokładniejsze informacje na temat książki "W szafie Watykanu" i postaci w niej opisanych.
KOMENTARZ: Sodoma to definicja doskonała reportażu, śledztwa ekstremalnie zaangażowanego, które bierze na celownik miejsce od lat funkcjonującego integralnie z pojęciem święte. Jednak autor nie uprawia żadnego świętokradztwa, a raczej je wylicza w ilości obok, której nie da się przejść obojętnie. Bez taniej kontrowersji, a w celu wywołania reakcji uświadamiającej, z poczuciem misji. I to się doskonale udaje.
KOMENTARZ 2: Świetny reportaż! Jestem pod wrażeniem pracy autora, bo książka jest po prostu dobrym jakościowo sprawozdaniem ujawniającym skrywane pod sutanną sekrety Watykanu. Temat kontrowersyjny i trudny, ale czyta się to z zapartym tchem i ciekawością, co będzie dalej. Polecam każdemu, szczególnie tym najgorliwiej rzucającym na tacę w niedzielę i posyłającym dzieci na ministrantów.
Książka Martela (audiobook) na YouTube
Co podaje Wikipedia na temat Maciela i Sodano
(Opr. ESK)
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