BornJoseph Aloisius Ratzinger · 16 April 1927
· Marktl, Bavaria, Weimar Republic
Died 31 December 2022
Parents Joseph Ratzinger Sr. (father) · Maria Peintner (mother)
Residence Mater Ecclesiae Monastery, Vatican City
Pope Benedict XVI (Latin: Benedictus XVI; Italian: Benedetto XVI; German:
Benedikt XVI; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger; 16 April 1927 – 31 December 2022) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until his resignation on 28 February 2013. Benedict’s election as pope occurred in the 2005 papal conclave that followed the death of Pope John Paul II.
Benedict chose to be known as “Pope emeritus” upon his resignation,[10][11] and he
retained this title until his death in December 2022. Ordained as a priest in 1951 in his native Bavaria, Ratzinger embarked on an academic career and established himself as a highly regarded theologian by the late 1950s. He was appointed a full professor in 1958 at the age of 31. After a long career as a professor of theology at several German universities, he was appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising and created a cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1977, an unusual promotion for someone with little pastoral experience.
In 1981, he was appointed Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, one of the most important dicasteries of the Roman Curia. From 2002 until he was elected pope, he was also Dean of the College of Cardinals. Before becoming pope, he was “a major figure on the Vatican stage for a quarter of a century”; he had an influence “second to none when it came to setting church priorities and directions” as one of John Paul II‘s closest confidants.[12] Benedict’s writings were prolific and generally defended traditional Catholic doctrine, values, and liturgy.[13]
He was originally a liberal theologian but adopted conservative views after 1968.[14]
During his papacy, Benedict XVI advocated a return to fundamental Christian values to counter the increased secularisation of many Western countries. He viewed relativism‘s denial of objective truth, and the denial of moral truths in particular, as the central problem of the 21st century. He taught the importance of both the Catholic Church and an understanding of God’s redemptive love.[15] Benedict also revived several traditions, including the Tridentine Mass.[16] He strengthened the relationship between the Catholic Church and art, promoted the use of Latin,[17] and reintroduced traditional papal vestments, for which reason he was called “the pope of aesthetics”.[18]
He was described as “the main intellectual force in the Church” since the mid-1980s.[19]
On 11 February 2013, Benedict announced his resignation, citing a “lack of strength of mind and body” due to his advanced age. His resignation was the first by a pope since Gregory XII in 1415, and the first on a pope’s initiative since Celestine V in 1294.
He was succeeded by Francis on 13 March 2013 and moved into the newly renovated Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in Vatican City for his retirement.
In addition to his native German language, Benedict had some level of proficiency in French, Italian, English, and Spanish. He also knew Portuguese, Latin, Biblical Hebrew, and Biblical Greek.[20][21][22] He was a member of several social science academies, such as the French Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. He played the piano and had a preference for Mozart and Bach.[23] Source Pope Benedict XVI – Wikipedia
The Italian General says the Deep State forced Pope Benedict to resign.
On the eve of Pope Benedict XVI’s burial an Italian brigadier general confessed that the U.S. ‘Deep State’ forced him to resign as part of a coup by the globalist elites. Piero Laporta is a retired brigadier general who worked for the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Italian Military.
Laporta’s January 3 blog entry starts with the comment that he “shudders” at the publicly displayed “crocodile tears” by a representative of the community of San Egidio, in regard to Pope Benedict’s death.
Laporta then revealed that there exists “a great Roman circle that is still active today,”
that is more powerful than the so-called “Sankt Gallen group,” which has been historically opposed to Benedict.
Laporta further relayed that in 2005, “a leading delegate of the U.S. government, who had his hands in Italian finances (where he is still active) and in Italian politics,” and was “a figure in the highest ranks of the National Security Agency (NSA),” was “bragging about the resignation to which H.H. Benedict XVI of revered memory would soon be forced.”
This man, Laporta went on to say, spoke “with a nonchalance and with an arrogance” outside of his own circle about this matter. This “Roman circle” was reportedly dedicated to the slogans “God is dead” and “Jesus is fake news,” and was in “panic” when Benedict was elected.
The “Sankt Gallen Mafia,” Laporta added, was “no joke,” but is a mere fig leaf compared to this “Roman circle” that Laporta refers to as a “dome of demons.” According to the Italian general, it was this group who “isolated” Benedict, “leaving him alone while the nescional secuiriti agensi [NSA] goons scourged the truth, then crucified it.”
It is not known whether this man, who at the time reportedly worked for the U.S. government, actually played a role in the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. However, for the sake of discussing the fullest narrative of this historic resignation, it might be helpful to report on Laporta’s observations, making it a possible piece of the puzzle.
Another piece of this puzzle could be the fact that at the time of Benedict’s resignation in February of 2013, the Vatican Bank was unable to function, since it had been suddenly excluded from the SWIFT system and was thus incapable of performing necessary international transactions.
As Giuseppe Nardi of Katholisches.info reminds his readers today in his report on Laporta, Maurzio Blondet had discussed this matter in Italian, in 2015.
In light of Laporta’s blog post, Blondet, a Catholic journalist, quoted Laporta and said that it was wise that Laporta did “not disclose” the U.S. official’s name. He then re-posted his 2015 report titled “Ratzinger could neither buy nor sell,” which outlined the Vatican’s 2013 financial problems with the SWIFT system, thereby implying that he himself sees a link between Laporta’s report and this financial aspect of the history of Benedict’s resignation.
A third puzzle of the piece – which refers to the above-mentioned Sankt Gallen Group –
is that there might have been a conversation between Cardinal Carlo Martini and Benedict in 2012, in which the head of the Sankt Gallen group suggested to Benedict that it was time for him to resign.
Perhaps only future historians will be able to put together a fuller picture as to why
a pope would resign, thus leaving the Church in the hands of modernists who are out
to undermine the core of the Catholic Church’s doctrine and morals.
The seed for many tantalizing conspiracy theories, the term “deep state” in the United States implies the existence of a premeditated effort by certain federal government employees or other persons to secretly manipulate or control the government without regard for the policies of Congress or the President of the United States.
Origin and History of the Deep State
The concept of a deep state — also called a “state within a state” or a “shadow government” – was first used in reference to political conditions in countries like Turkey and post-Soviet Russia.
During the 1950s, an influential anti-democratic coalition within the Turkish political system called the “derin devlet” – literally the “deep state” — allegedly dedicated itself to ousting communists from the new Turkish Republic founded by Mustafa Ataturk after World War I. Made up of elements within the Turkish military, security, and judiciary branches, the derin devlet worked to turn the Turkish people against its enemies by staging “false flag” attacks and planned riots. Ultimately, the derin devlet was blamed
for the deaths of thousands of people.
In the 1970s, former high-ranking officials of the Soviet Union, after defecting to the West, publicly stated that the Soviet political police – the KGB – had operated as a deep state secretly attempting to control the Communist Party and ultimately, the Soviet government.
In a 2006 symposium, Ion Mihai Pacepa, a former general in the Communist Romania secret police who defected to the United States in 1978, stated, “In the Soviet Union,
the KGB was a state within a state.”
Pacepa went on to claim, “Now former KGB officers are running the state. They have custody of the country’s 6,000 nuclear weapons, entrusted to the KGB in the 1950s, and they now also manage the strategic oil industry renationalized by Putin.”
The Deep State Theory in the United States
In 2014, former congressional aide Mike Lofgren alleged the existence of a different type of deep state operating within the United States government in his essay titled “Anatomy of the Deep State.”
Instead of a group comprised exclusively of government entities, Lofgren calls the deep state in the United States “a hybrid association of elements of government and parts of top-level finance and industry that is effectively able to govern the United States without reference to the consent of the governed as expressed through the formal political process.” The Deep State, wrote Lofgren, is not “a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight, and its operators mainly act in the light of day. It is not a tight-knit group and has no clear objective. Rather, it is a sprawling network, stretching across the government and into the private sector.”
In some ways, Lofgren’s description of a deep state in the United States echoes parts of President Dwight Eisenhower’s 1961 farewell address, in which he warned future presidents to “guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
What is the ‘deep state’ that Trump keeps talking about?
Following the tumultuous 2016 presidential election, President Donald Trump and his supporters suggested that certain unnamed executive branch officials and intelligence officers were secretly operating as a deep state to block his policies and legislative agenda by leaking information considered critical of him.
President Trump, White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, along with ultra-conservative news outlets like Breitbart News claimed that Former President Obama was orchestrating a deep state attack against the Trump administration. The allegation apparently grew out of Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that Obama had ordered the wiretapping of his telephone during the 2016 election campaign.
Current and former intelligence officials remain divided on the question of the
existence of a deep state secretly working to derail the Trump administration.
In a June 5, 2017 article published in The Hill Magazine, retired veteran CIA field operations agent Gene Coyle stated that while he doubted the existence of “hordes of government officials” operating as an anti-Trump deep state, he did believe the Trump administration was justified in complaining about the number of leaks being reported by news organizations.
“If you are that appalled at the actions of an administration, you should quit, hold a press conference and publicly state your objections,” said Coyle. “You can’t run an executive branch if more and more people think, ‘I don’t like the policies of this president, therefore I will leak information to make him look bad.’”
Other intelligence experts argued that individuals or small groups of individuals leaking information critical of a presidential administration lack the organizational coordination and depth of deep states such as those that existed in Turkey or the former Soviet Union.