The Jesuits, God's Army or Vatican Assassins?
Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits
The Skeptic is and always has been fascinated by the Catholic Church and one of the most interesting things about the church, to the Skeptic anyway, is the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, God's soldiers, they are known by several different names but no matter what you call them they are a very interesting group. They were founded over the course of a few years beginning in 1535 by a Spaniard named López de Loyola, or Ignatius of Loyola, for the express purpose of reforming the Catholic Church from within, remember, this was all taking place at the exact time that Martin Luther had ignited the fire that was the Protestant Reformation and some people feared the Catholic Church could disappear altogether if they couldn't put an end to the rampant corruption that started at the very top echelons of the church. The original goals of the order were allegedly to spread the gospel to people who hadn't heard it and to found schools, both of which they did, schools and missions were founded all over the known world but it didn't stop there. In some parts of Europe the Jesuits were given credit for slowing the spread of Protestantism but it wasn't long before their fanatical loyalty to the Catholic Church crept into the young order. Their founder, Ignatius, said, "...: I will believe that the white that I see is black if the hierarchical Church so defines it." In other words, he didn't care what the Bible said about anything, he would rather take the word of clearly corrupt popes over the words of Christ Himself. With that sort of blind loyalty is it really any surprise that the Jesuits quickly forgot about their supposed original mission and became just another corrupt part of the larger church?
It took the Jesuits less than a hundred and fifty years to become regarded as greedy and what was maybe worse, as men who were interfering in the affairs of state in countries all over Europe to further the interests and power of the Vatican which had slipped considerably since the beginning of the Reformation. This group of men, priests, who swore their only purpose in the world was to spread the gospel and establish schools, found themselves up to their eyeballs in political intrigue almost as soon as the order became well established.
Jesuits were much different than the average run of the mill priest in many ways but the Skeptic finds a couple of these differences very interesting, they didn't dress like priests and they didn't live like priests, they lived in the community rather than the monastery where traditional priests lived, and their rights to live like that were enshrined in the Constitution of the Order. But, there's more, a cardinal by the name of Francis Borja, a great grandson of Pope Alexander VI, who, by the way, was likely one of the most despicable men to play God on earth, was the patron of this new Jesuit Order and he amended their constitution to include the right of the Superior General, the leader of the Jesuits, to forgive sins, any sins, to reverse excommunications ordered by the pope, to absolve Jesuit priests of murder and maybe most important of all it granted the Jesuits the right to deal in commerce and banking. That might not sound like a big deal today but at the time no order had those rights and hadn't since the Knights Templar, over four hundred years earlier, because to engage in banking was considered a sin. So this was a big deal, it allowed the Jesuits to become very wealthy, but why, priests take a vow of poverty, money is unimportant to a Catholic priest, right? Well they are supposed to be celibate too but virtually every priest and pope had children at that time so let's just call a spade a spade and say that the Catholic Church was much better at telling people how to live than they were at setting an example for the flock. And the Jesuits were like your average Catholic clergyman on steroids, these guys craved wealth and power just as much, or more, than anyone. All of the extra powers granted to the Jesuit's Superior General led to him becoming known as the Black Pope. The stated goals of the Jesuits was to spread the gospel and promote education but remember when they were formed and what was going on at the time, the Protestant Reformation was spreading like wildfire and the real goal of the Jesuits was to slow it or stop it altogether, it was a serious threat to the secular power of the Catholic Church, they were not going to cede that sort of power without putting up a serious fight.
The Catholic Church was the most powerful organization on earth for a thousand years and they weren't going to give up that power easily. Conventional history tells us the the Roman Empire collapsed in the year 476 AD when the emperor Romulus Augustus was deposed by a German chieftain, the empire did continue, in a way but only in the eastern portions of the empire, the European portion was defunct, Rome itself was no longer part of the so called Roman empire so most historians agree that the real Roman Empire ended in 476 AD but there is something else to consider. A hundred and fifty years earlier the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Catholicism, most say Christianity but the truth is he converted to Roman Catholicism, and at that point in time the real ruler of the Roman Empire became the pope. From that date on no one could rule anywhere in Europe without the blessing of the pope, he commanded armies, he sent men to war, the pope, although technically a spiritual leader and not the ruler of anything, was, in reality, the ruler of everything and he took that power very seriously. If the Catholic Church was ever interested in the spirituality of man that interest ended when they got their first taste of real earthly power and they carried on in the great tradition of the Roman emperors that ruled before them. Yes, that's right, the Skeptic thinks the Catholic Church was nothing more or less than the continuation of the Roman Empire, look, they couldn't even call themselves a Christian Church, they had to be called the Roman Catholic Church, it was somehow very important to them to be associated with Rome.
Maybe they took it all too seriously, by the time of the Protestant Reformation the church was so corrupt they weren't even really pretending to be a church, their popes lived like Caligula himself, they had children by multiple women, they openly sold indulgences to raise money, they killed their enemies with impunity, sometimes even for sport as in the case of Pope Alexander VI, they started and fought wars, but all that was threatened the moment Martin Luther nailed his theses to the door of a Catholic Church and began the Reformation. People were suddenly aware of the continuing corruption of the church and they were leaving in droves. Enter the Jesuits, an organization that would bring the church back to its roots, they would bring salvation and education to the masses or so they would have everyone believe. The truth was much more complicated than that, yes they would start schools all over the world but there was a very good reason for that, the Reformation and the printing press were educating people and educated people weren't a good thing for a church that relied on relics, rituals and restrictions. The education system set up by the Jesuits allowed them to teach people what the Catholic Church wanted them to know, everyone knows if you get to people when they're young there's a good chance you'll own them for life. Liberals know it today but Jesuits knew it then and they took full advantage of it. Actually the Catholic Church and modern liberalism have a lot in common, chiefly, that they are both led by the educated but they require a large uneducated base to remain in power. When it became obvious to Catholics that people were getting educated without them they took it upon themselves to set up schools and educate them in a way that benefited Catholicism, modern liberals knew instinctively that large numbers of educated people wouldn't gravitate towards liberalism so they became teachers and professors and educated people in a way that benefited them. Today we can see the result of that policy in that people who have a lot of education tend towards liberalism because they've been taught liberal thought from a very early age. Sort of funny really, liberals, who tend to be less religious than conservatives, are using the methods developed by the Catholic Church to indoctrinate children in liberalism.
Okay, so the Jesuits were busy fighting off the Protestant Revolution and spreading the gospel and education all over the world, everything seemed to be going just swell. The Order was getting richer and gaining influence with every passing year, and their influence wasn't just felt in Europe, it was felt all over the world. In 1580 the Jesuits purchased control of the port city of Nagasaki, Japan from a local warlord and turned it into one of the most profitable trading ports in the world. And then, on the other side of the world there was the slave trade, yes, the Jesuits were slave traders, up to a half million slaves were transported to South America under the supervision of the Jesuits for enslavement in the gold mines. Of course, they professed they were merely taking care of these poor simple people because there was no real way to stop the slave trade but to the Skeptic that just sounds like they were just rationalizing it, 'This was going to happen anyway so we might as well profit from it and at least we, unlike others, will try and save their souls'.
Then we have one of the more troubling stories about the Jesuits, yes, even more troubling, as if all this wasn't bad enough, people, many people have believed and still believe that the Jesuits were assassins, and the thing is, there's some pretty good evidence that this story isn't just a fantasy cooked up in the mind of an evil Protestant. The Jesuits were interfering in European governments to the point where they were actually causing more trouble for the Vatican than they were worth. In Portugal, after the attempted assassination of King Joseph I in 1758, the Jesuits were rounded up and sent back to the pope by the Marquis of Pombal. They were suspected to be heavily involved with, and probably behind the assassination. A few years later the King of France followed the Portuguese and expelled the Jesuits from France, what had started as a financial issue, Jesuits in Martinique were refusing to pay a bill for some three million francs, found its way into the court system of France. Once there the courts demanded to see the constitution of the Jesuits and once it was examined it was determined that the Jesuits were a social danger. It was demanded that Jesuits swear off certain parts of the constitution that allowed for murder and regicide and many Jesuit priests did exactly that but General Ricci, the leader of the Jesuits refused. In 1764 the King of France expelled all Jesuits from France. Pope Clement XIII, worried about the rising tide of Catholic countries that were threatening to break ties with the Vatican, drew up a document to disband the Jesuits but the day before it was published the pope died suddenly, it is believed by many that he was assassinated by the Jesuits. His successor, Clement XIV, not surprisingly, didn't act against the Jesuits immediately but a few years later, under extreme pressure, he finally issued the order to disband the Jesuits. The order took General Ricci by surprise and, not wanting to take any chances, this pope had the Jesuit leader imprisoned just weeks after the order was issued. Unfortunately for the pope the influence of General Ricci reached beyond his prison bars and this pope too died suddenly, most likely the victim of Jesuit assassins.
Well, the Jesuits are disbanded and all is right with the world, right? No, not really, you didn't think they'd just go away did you? Hardly, first of all, the leaders of Russia and Prussia, for reasons known only to them, refused to enforce the order and allowed the Jesuits to continue to operate and in true Jesuit fashion it wasn't long until they were exacting a measure of revenge on the French for kicking them out of France. While not everyone believes this to be the case the story is that Jesuits were behind the French Revolution and a two year period that saw the execution of forty thousand people, including the king. A few years after the Revolutionary government failed the new leader of France was Napoleon Bonaparte. Now this stuff is kind of complicated and difficult to put in a short article but the Skeptic will try, Napoleon, before he was was the leader of France, invaded Italy and the Papal States and, long story short, arrested pope Pius VI because the pope refused Napoleon's demand that he give up temporal rule over the Papal States and stick to religion. Just a note for those who don't know, at that time a section of Italy was known as the Papal States and the pope ruled them just like any king of that day would, just as he now rules the Vatican. Well six weeks after his arrest Pope Pius VI died, the pope who followed took the name Pius VII and subsequently agreed to terms with Napoleon, unfortunately for the pope the good feelings didn't last very long and by 1808 he too was a virtual prisoner of Napoleon and remained a prisoner until 1814. At that time Napoleon was considerably weakened by his war with Russia, the Jesuits saw their opportunity and took it, remember, the Jesuits still existed in Russia and Prussia and were pretty tight with the leaders of those countries. The Jesuit leader met with the imprisoned pope and negotiated an agreement that would fully restore the Jesuit Order on the arrest of Napoleon in return for a promise that they would longer oppose the Vatican or assassinate any more popes, they would reaffirm their loyalty to the Pope and that the Jesuits would see to it that the pope would regain control of the Papal States.
There's more of course, did you think there wouldn't be? We're only up to 1815, there's still almost two hundred years to get us up to the present day. Abraham Lincoln knew a lot about the Jesuits, he defended a priest who claimed to be persecuted by the Jesuits, Father Charles Chiniquy, and according to a book written by Father Chiniquy they often talked about the Jesuits. Chiniquy claimed that Lincoln said, 'The war would never have been possible without the sinister influence of the Jesuits.' There's good evidence that the Catholic Church and the Jesuits were heavily involved in the assassination of Lincoln. Almost every person involved with the assassination of Lincoln was a Catholic, Booth wasn't but there is some good evidence he converted shortly before he committed the act, John Surratt escaped to the Vatican with the help of the church, that is a known fact. Is all this merely circumstantial? Of course but it is interesting and you know we like interesting stuff here. An interesting related story is that of Cipriano Ferrandini, a Catholic barber from Baltimore who was accused of trying to assassinate Lincoln before he ever got to his first inauguration. So were Jesuits responsible for the murder of Lincoln? The Skeptic doesn't know for sure but given their long history of interfering with other countries and their well known penchant for murder it wouldn't surprise him. Remember their constitution gives their Father General the power to forgive that sort of thing, it would certainly make it easier to recruit someone if you could promise him forgiveness. Islam does a similar thing when they recruit suicide bombers so the Skeptic doesn't rule out anything. Click Here for More.
One more Jesuit tale that should make you cringe and it's one that most people probably have heard before but maybe now that you know a little more of the history of these guys it might not be so surprising to you. After World War II there were thousands of Nazis who were desperately looking for a way out of Germany to escape the punishment they knew they would have to face if they stuck around, but where to turn? As it happened, they didn't have to look far, Jesuits and the Vatican reached out to them and organized what was to become known as the Ratline. The Vatican was a logical place to look for help, if you think about it they were the perfect place, they don't place much stock in any authority other than their own so the fact that the allies might want to punish these people was of little consequence to them. They practically owned South America so it was hardly difficult for them to arrange for these countries to take in Nazis and Fascists, and take them in they did, including some of the worst of the worst Nazis. Why would the church help these criminals?
The Skeptic will let Bishop Alois Hudal, one of the founders of the ratlines, tell you in his own words. "The Allies' War against Germany was not a crusade, but the rivalry of economic complexes for whose victory they had been fighting. This so-called business ... used catchwords like democracy, race, religious liberty and Christianity as a bait for the masses. All these experiences were the reason why I felt duty bound after 1945 to devote my whole charitable work mainly to former National Socialists and Fascists, especially to so-called 'war criminals'." Yes, this man was a Catholic bishop, he couldn't have cared less that these were some of the worst criminals in history, it mattered little or him or his church.
The Skeptic knows he is just touching on this stuff lightly, to write a story that went into details on all of the things the Jesuits have done, or have been accused of doing, would take years and more space than this website could handle. Hopefully, if time permits, we will get into some of those stories in much more depth but in the meantime the Skeptic would strongly urge everyone to look into this stuff on your own. It is incredibly interesting, far more interesting than anything you'll see on television or see on any social networking sites, no light fiction here, this is real nasty stuff and it was done by the church where many of you worship every week, it doesn't get much better than that.
Once again, please don't think for a minute that the Skeptic is anti-Catholic because that is not the case but when you get something as interesting as the history of the Catholic Church it's damn near impossible not to look into it. There are two thousand years of intrigue, murder, duplicity, scandal and yet it's still there, even in the face of the current child abuse and coverup people still attend mass every week and plop their hard earned money into the plate, it astounds the Skeptic. We have two thousand years of strange behavior by the Catholic Church, we have quotes from popes who openly state they believe that Jesus was nothing more than a myth, Pope Leo X, we have popes who presided over murder for sport, Alexander VI, we currently have a church that allows their priests to abuse children and the pope and his bishops spend their time covering up the acts rather than condemning them. The Skeptic finds all of it very interesting and he hopes you do too.
The Skeptic will close with a quote from a former Father General of the Jesuit Order, Michelangelo Tamburini, Father General of the Jesuits from 1706-1731 said, “I govern, not only to Paris, but to China; not only to China, but to all the world, without anyone knowing how I do it.” Yes, this church and this Order are very interesting indeed.
It took the Jesuits less than a hundred and fifty years to become regarded as greedy and what was maybe worse, as men who were interfering in the affairs of state in countries all over Europe to further the interests and power of the Vatican which had slipped considerably since the beginning of the Reformation. This group of men, priests, who swore their only purpose in the world was to spread the gospel and establish schools, found themselves up to their eyeballs in political intrigue almost as soon as the order became well established.
Jesuits were much different than the average run of the mill priest in many ways but the Skeptic finds a couple of these differences very interesting, they didn't dress like priests and they didn't live like priests, they lived in the community rather than the monastery where traditional priests lived, and their rights to live like that were enshrined in the Constitution of the Order. But, there's more, a cardinal by the name of Francis Borja, a great grandson of Pope Alexander VI, who, by the way, was likely one of the most despicable men to play God on earth, was the patron of this new Jesuit Order and he amended their constitution to include the right of the Superior General, the leader of the Jesuits, to forgive sins, any sins, to reverse excommunications ordered by the pope, to absolve Jesuit priests of murder and maybe most important of all it granted the Jesuits the right to deal in commerce and banking. That might not sound like a big deal today but at the time no order had those rights and hadn't since the Knights Templar, over four hundred years earlier, because to engage in banking was considered a sin. So this was a big deal, it allowed the Jesuits to become very wealthy, but why, priests take a vow of poverty, money is unimportant to a Catholic priest, right? Well they are supposed to be celibate too but virtually every priest and pope had children at that time so let's just call a spade a spade and say that the Catholic Church was much better at telling people how to live than they were at setting an example for the flock. And the Jesuits were like your average Catholic clergyman on steroids, these guys craved wealth and power just as much, or more, than anyone. All of the extra powers granted to the Jesuit's Superior General led to him becoming known as the Black Pope. The stated goals of the Jesuits was to spread the gospel and promote education but remember when they were formed and what was going on at the time, the Protestant Reformation was spreading like wildfire and the real goal of the Jesuits was to slow it or stop it altogether, it was a serious threat to the secular power of the Catholic Church, they were not going to cede that sort of power without putting up a serious fight.
The Catholic Church was the most powerful organization on earth for a thousand years and they weren't going to give up that power easily. Conventional history tells us the the Roman Empire collapsed in the year 476 AD when the emperor Romulus Augustus was deposed by a German chieftain, the empire did continue, in a way but only in the eastern portions of the empire, the European portion was defunct, Rome itself was no longer part of the so called Roman empire so most historians agree that the real Roman Empire ended in 476 AD but there is something else to consider. A hundred and fifty years earlier the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Catholicism, most say Christianity but the truth is he converted to Roman Catholicism, and at that point in time the real ruler of the Roman Empire became the pope. From that date on no one could rule anywhere in Europe without the blessing of the pope, he commanded armies, he sent men to war, the pope, although technically a spiritual leader and not the ruler of anything, was, in reality, the ruler of everything and he took that power very seriously. If the Catholic Church was ever interested in the spirituality of man that interest ended when they got their first taste of real earthly power and they carried on in the great tradition of the Roman emperors that ruled before them. Yes, that's right, the Skeptic thinks the Catholic Church was nothing more or less than the continuation of the Roman Empire, look, they couldn't even call themselves a Christian Church, they had to be called the Roman Catholic Church, it was somehow very important to them to be associated with Rome.
Maybe they took it all too seriously, by the time of the Protestant Reformation the church was so corrupt they weren't even really pretending to be a church, their popes lived like Caligula himself, they had children by multiple women, they openly sold indulgences to raise money, they killed their enemies with impunity, sometimes even for sport as in the case of Pope Alexander VI, they started and fought wars, but all that was threatened the moment Martin Luther nailed his theses to the door of a Catholic Church and began the Reformation. People were suddenly aware of the continuing corruption of the church and they were leaving in droves. Enter the Jesuits, an organization that would bring the church back to its roots, they would bring salvation and education to the masses or so they would have everyone believe. The truth was much more complicated than that, yes they would start schools all over the world but there was a very good reason for that, the Reformation and the printing press were educating people and educated people weren't a good thing for a church that relied on relics, rituals and restrictions. The education system set up by the Jesuits allowed them to teach people what the Catholic Church wanted them to know, everyone knows if you get to people when they're young there's a good chance you'll own them for life. Liberals know it today but Jesuits knew it then and they took full advantage of it. Actually the Catholic Church and modern liberalism have a lot in common, chiefly, that they are both led by the educated but they require a large uneducated base to remain in power. When it became obvious to Catholics that people were getting educated without them they took it upon themselves to set up schools and educate them in a way that benefited Catholicism, modern liberals knew instinctively that large numbers of educated people wouldn't gravitate towards liberalism so they became teachers and professors and educated people in a way that benefited them. Today we can see the result of that policy in that people who have a lot of education tend towards liberalism because they've been taught liberal thought from a very early age. Sort of funny really, liberals, who tend to be less religious than conservatives, are using the methods developed by the Catholic Church to indoctrinate children in liberalism.
Okay, so the Jesuits were busy fighting off the Protestant Revolution and spreading the gospel and education all over the world, everything seemed to be going just swell. The Order was getting richer and gaining influence with every passing year, and their influence wasn't just felt in Europe, it was felt all over the world. In 1580 the Jesuits purchased control of the port city of Nagasaki, Japan from a local warlord and turned it into one of the most profitable trading ports in the world. And then, on the other side of the world there was the slave trade, yes, the Jesuits were slave traders, up to a half million slaves were transported to South America under the supervision of the Jesuits for enslavement in the gold mines. Of course, they professed they were merely taking care of these poor simple people because there was no real way to stop the slave trade but to the Skeptic that just sounds like they were just rationalizing it, 'This was going to happen anyway so we might as well profit from it and at least we, unlike others, will try and save their souls'.
Then we have one of the more troubling stories about the Jesuits, yes, even more troubling, as if all this wasn't bad enough, people, many people have believed and still believe that the Jesuits were assassins, and the thing is, there's some pretty good evidence that this story isn't just a fantasy cooked up in the mind of an evil Protestant. The Jesuits were interfering in European governments to the point where they were actually causing more trouble for the Vatican than they were worth. In Portugal, after the attempted assassination of King Joseph I in 1758, the Jesuits were rounded up and sent back to the pope by the Marquis of Pombal. They were suspected to be heavily involved with, and probably behind the assassination. A few years later the King of France followed the Portuguese and expelled the Jesuits from France, what had started as a financial issue, Jesuits in Martinique were refusing to pay a bill for some three million francs, found its way into the court system of France. Once there the courts demanded to see the constitution of the Jesuits and once it was examined it was determined that the Jesuits were a social danger. It was demanded that Jesuits swear off certain parts of the constitution that allowed for murder and regicide and many Jesuit priests did exactly that but General Ricci, the leader of the Jesuits refused. In 1764 the King of France expelled all Jesuits from France. Pope Clement XIII, worried about the rising tide of Catholic countries that were threatening to break ties with the Vatican, drew up a document to disband the Jesuits but the day before it was published the pope died suddenly, it is believed by many that he was assassinated by the Jesuits. His successor, Clement XIV, not surprisingly, didn't act against the Jesuits immediately but a few years later, under extreme pressure, he finally issued the order to disband the Jesuits. The order took General Ricci by surprise and, not wanting to take any chances, this pope had the Jesuit leader imprisoned just weeks after the order was issued. Unfortunately for the pope the influence of General Ricci reached beyond his prison bars and this pope too died suddenly, most likely the victim of Jesuit assassins.
Well, the Jesuits are disbanded and all is right with the world, right? No, not really, you didn't think they'd just go away did you? Hardly, first of all, the leaders of Russia and Prussia, for reasons known only to them, refused to enforce the order and allowed the Jesuits to continue to operate and in true Jesuit fashion it wasn't long until they were exacting a measure of revenge on the French for kicking them out of France. While not everyone believes this to be the case the story is that Jesuits were behind the French Revolution and a two year period that saw the execution of forty thousand people, including the king. A few years after the Revolutionary government failed the new leader of France was Napoleon Bonaparte. Now this stuff is kind of complicated and difficult to put in a short article but the Skeptic will try, Napoleon, before he was was the leader of France, invaded Italy and the Papal States and, long story short, arrested pope Pius VI because the pope refused Napoleon's demand that he give up temporal rule over the Papal States and stick to religion. Just a note for those who don't know, at that time a section of Italy was known as the Papal States and the pope ruled them just like any king of that day would, just as he now rules the Vatican. Well six weeks after his arrest Pope Pius VI died, the pope who followed took the name Pius VII and subsequently agreed to terms with Napoleon, unfortunately for the pope the good feelings didn't last very long and by 1808 he too was a virtual prisoner of Napoleon and remained a prisoner until 1814. At that time Napoleon was considerably weakened by his war with Russia, the Jesuits saw their opportunity and took it, remember, the Jesuits still existed in Russia and Prussia and were pretty tight with the leaders of those countries. The Jesuit leader met with the imprisoned pope and negotiated an agreement that would fully restore the Jesuit Order on the arrest of Napoleon in return for a promise that they would longer oppose the Vatican or assassinate any more popes, they would reaffirm their loyalty to the Pope and that the Jesuits would see to it that the pope would regain control of the Papal States.
There's more of course, did you think there wouldn't be? We're only up to 1815, there's still almost two hundred years to get us up to the present day. Abraham Lincoln knew a lot about the Jesuits, he defended a priest who claimed to be persecuted by the Jesuits, Father Charles Chiniquy, and according to a book written by Father Chiniquy they often talked about the Jesuits. Chiniquy claimed that Lincoln said, 'The war would never have been possible without the sinister influence of the Jesuits.' There's good evidence that the Catholic Church and the Jesuits were heavily involved in the assassination of Lincoln. Almost every person involved with the assassination of Lincoln was a Catholic, Booth wasn't but there is some good evidence he converted shortly before he committed the act, John Surratt escaped to the Vatican with the help of the church, that is a known fact. Is all this merely circumstantial? Of course but it is interesting and you know we like interesting stuff here. An interesting related story is that of Cipriano Ferrandini, a Catholic barber from Baltimore who was accused of trying to assassinate Lincoln before he ever got to his first inauguration. So were Jesuits responsible for the murder of Lincoln? The Skeptic doesn't know for sure but given their long history of interfering with other countries and their well known penchant for murder it wouldn't surprise him. Remember their constitution gives their Father General the power to forgive that sort of thing, it would certainly make it easier to recruit someone if you could promise him forgiveness. Islam does a similar thing when they recruit suicide bombers so the Skeptic doesn't rule out anything. Click Here for More.
One more Jesuit tale that should make you cringe and it's one that most people probably have heard before but maybe now that you know a little more of the history of these guys it might not be so surprising to you. After World War II there were thousands of Nazis who were desperately looking for a way out of Germany to escape the punishment they knew they would have to face if they stuck around, but where to turn? As it happened, they didn't have to look far, Jesuits and the Vatican reached out to them and organized what was to become known as the Ratline. The Vatican was a logical place to look for help, if you think about it they were the perfect place, they don't place much stock in any authority other than their own so the fact that the allies might want to punish these people was of little consequence to them. They practically owned South America so it was hardly difficult for them to arrange for these countries to take in Nazis and Fascists, and take them in they did, including some of the worst of the worst Nazis. Why would the church help these criminals?
The Skeptic will let Bishop Alois Hudal, one of the founders of the ratlines, tell you in his own words. "The Allies' War against Germany was not a crusade, but the rivalry of economic complexes for whose victory they had been fighting. This so-called business ... used catchwords like democracy, race, religious liberty and Christianity as a bait for the masses. All these experiences were the reason why I felt duty bound after 1945 to devote my whole charitable work mainly to former National Socialists and Fascists, especially to so-called 'war criminals'." Yes, this man was a Catholic bishop, he couldn't have cared less that these were some of the worst criminals in history, it mattered little or him or his church.
The Skeptic knows he is just touching on this stuff lightly, to write a story that went into details on all of the things the Jesuits have done, or have been accused of doing, would take years and more space than this website could handle. Hopefully, if time permits, we will get into some of those stories in much more depth but in the meantime the Skeptic would strongly urge everyone to look into this stuff on your own. It is incredibly interesting, far more interesting than anything you'll see on television or see on any social networking sites, no light fiction here, this is real nasty stuff and it was done by the church where many of you worship every week, it doesn't get much better than that.
Once again, please don't think for a minute that the Skeptic is anti-Catholic because that is not the case but when you get something as interesting as the history of the Catholic Church it's damn near impossible not to look into it. There are two thousand years of intrigue, murder, duplicity, scandal and yet it's still there, even in the face of the current child abuse and coverup people still attend mass every week and plop their hard earned money into the plate, it astounds the Skeptic. We have two thousand years of strange behavior by the Catholic Church, we have quotes from popes who openly state they believe that Jesus was nothing more than a myth, Pope Leo X, we have popes who presided over murder for sport, Alexander VI, we currently have a church that allows their priests to abuse children and the pope and his bishops spend their time covering up the acts rather than condemning them. The Skeptic finds all of it very interesting and he hopes you do too.
The Skeptic will close with a quote from a former Father General of the Jesuit Order, Michelangelo Tamburini, Father General of the Jesuits from 1706-1731 said, “I govern, not only to Paris, but to China; not only to China, but to all the world, without anyone knowing how I do it.” Yes, this church and this Order are very interesting indeed.