Watch Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s speech here:
The Story Behind the Pope’s Election
A new book sheds light on it, focusing on the “St. Gallen Mafia.”
Julia Meloni’s new book The St. Gallen Mafia provides a valuable service to readers curious about the origins of the current pontificate. Drawing on a wide range of sources, she fills in the picture of the St. Gallen Mafia, a group of influential liberal prelates who plotted for years to elect a progressive-minded pope.
The existence of the group became known in 2015 after one of its prominent members, Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Belgium, bragged about its role in the election of Pope Francis. “The St. Gallen group is a sort of posh name. But in reality we said of ourselves, and of that group: ‘The Mafia,’” he told the press. The group, he explained, had met since the mid-1990s in the Swiss town of St. Gallen. Its members included a roster of prominent progressive cardinals in the Church: Achille Silvestrini, Carlo Maria Martini, Walter Kasper, and Basil Hume, among others.
“The election of Bergoglio was prepared in St. Gallen, without doubt,” said Karim Schelkens, a biographer of Danneels. “And the main lines of the program of the pope is carrying out are those that Danneels and company were starting to discuss more than ten years ago.” (Schelkens later said his statement was incorrect, but that “election of Bergoglio corresponded with the aims of St. Gallen, on that there is no doubt.”)
The group had hoped to elect Jorge Bergoglio at the 2005 papal conclave. “On the eve of the conclave, in Silivestrini’s Vatican apartment, various mafia members and allies converged on Bergoglio’s candidacy,” Meloni writes. “‘The cardinals linked to the Sankt Gallen group and others too concluded that Bergoglio was the candidate best suited to be the next pope,’ says a vaticanista. ‘They believed that, in a pastoral sense, he represented a change from the previous pontificate, and so they decided to support him in the election.’”
But the group couldn’t muster the votes for Bergoglio and Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI. This had an embittering effect on members of the St Gallen Mafia, who chafed under Ratzinger’s talk of a “dictatorship of relativism,” according to Meloni.
“The night of Pope Benedict’s election, a Latin American cardinal ran into Silverstrini on the street close to St. Peter’s,” she writes. “He was a ‘defeated man,’ says the cardinal of Sliverstrini. The cardinal saw Silvestrini’s ‘dull anger’ — saw his refusal to accept a papal election that marked the very negation of his life’s work. He saw Silvestrini’s stubborn notion that Ratzinger would only be a transitional pope. That evening, the cardinal saw that Silvestrini had declared ‘a form of war.’”
Much anonymous grousing and sniping during the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI came from members of the St. Gallen Mafia. The controversies of his pontificate that they stoked appear to have broken his spirit and led to his resignation. Meloni writes that Pope Benedict XVI did not anticipate a liberal successor: “‘It is generally thought,’ says historian Henry Sire, ‘that Pope Benedict’s purpose in abdicating was to bring about the succession of Cardinal [Angelo] Scola.’”
But the St. Gallen Mafia and its friends blocked the conservative Scola. Meloni notes that the St. Gallen Maifa’s campaign to promote Bergoglio at the 2013 conclave was so widespread even CNN’s Chris Cuomo appeared to know about it. “Outside the conclave, some caught wind of the campaign to elect Bergoglio,” she writes. “CNN’s Chris Cuomo revealed on air that that he had been ‘offered up’ the name of Bergoglio as ‘the perfect compromise candidate.’”
“Benedict was caught off guard” by the election of Pope Francis, according to Meloni. He told an interviewer, “I did not think he was among the more likely candidates.”
She argues that all of the progressive priorities of the St. Gallen Mafia — from its enthusiasm for “synodality” to its dilution of traditional doctrine — foreshadowed the pontificate of Pope Francis. She details in particular the influence of the late Cardinal Martini on the pope’s thinking. Martini, who belonged to the Jesuit order as does Pope Francis, famously complained that the Church is “200 years behind” the times.
He longed for a religion adapted to post-Enlightenment liberalism. He has more or less gotten his wish. Meloni’s welcome focus on the St. Gallen Mafia — she brings together in one well-sourced book all that is known about it — will surely benefit and inform concerned Catholics, for whom the group’s “dream” is playing out as a nightmare.
Texas, Florida Governors Seek to Attract Cargo Ships to Their Ports Amid California Logjams
Governors of Texas and Florida are urging container ships struggling to get into California ports to reroute to their states, where they say there is capacity to handle all the cargo that needs to be unloaded and transported.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbot has launched an “Escape California” campaign, suggesting that companies who wish to avoid logjams should consider directing their cargo ships away from California and instead, sending them to ports on the Texas coastline.
“Are your products stuck off Long Beach? Texas ports are wide open,” a 30-second promotional video posted last week on Twitter by Abbott says, claiming that port delays are “up to 100 days” in California and that it would take less than two weeks to sail from there to a “24/7 functioning” Texas port off the Gulf of Mexico via the Panama Canal.
“Choose a state that doesn’t see inflation and America’s supply chain backlog as a good thing,” the video says. “Escape California. Everyone’s doing it. Choose Texas.”
The campaign appears to take effect as the Port of Houston, the sixth largest container port in the United States and the first in term of total waterborne tonnage, reports a container surge partly driven by retailers who see the Gulf Coast port as an alternative to those on Pacific Coast.
“For 34 years that I’ve been here, I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Port Houston Executive Director Roger Guenther told KHOU, a local CBS affiliate. He said due to the increasing demand, the length of time a container has to wait for pickup has doubled from three to four days to up to 10 days.
That being said, the Port of Houston is still in a better shape than the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex, where there are routinely more than 100 ships forced to anchor or cruise the coastline while they wait for a docking space. In an effort to ease the congestion, the governing commissions of the twin ports voted last month to require shipping companies pay an “excess dwell fee” if their container ships stay at marine terminals for too long.
Meanwhile, in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis said he wants the ports in his state to play a more important role in solving the nationwide supply chain issue amid rising holiday consumer demands.
“We have to make sure people can go Christmas shopping as normal. We have to make sure that all the necessities are there,” the Republican governor said last month during a visit to the Port of Jacksonville, the busiest in Florida. “And if it’s because ships are sitting off the coast somewhere else, and they can be rerouted here, and we can get all those shelves stocked, then we want to be a part of that solution.”
At the event, the Jacksonville Port Authority, or JAXPOT, announced that it will offer incentives to any company that chooses to bring its business to the port, noting that they have never had any container ship backlog since the beginning of the pandemic.
“Throughout the pandemic, JAXPORT has had no vessels waiting at anchorage to enter the Jacksonville harbor,” port officials said in a statement. “In addition, the port offers available berth and terminal capacity to easily accommodate vessels displaced by congestion at other U.S. ports.”
COVID Deaths Lower in Norway After No Vax Passports, No Mask Mandates, No Social Distancing: Dr. Simone Gold
Dr. Simone Gold points out Norway is seeing lower Covid-19 death rates after one month of removing all coronavirus restrictions.
QUICK FACTS:
- Dr. Simone Gold of America’s Frontline Doctors on Saturday tweeted a graph highlighting the fact that the seven-day rolling average of new deaths attributed to Covid-19 in Norway remained low after a month of no health restrictions.
- “It has officially been 1 month since Norway removed all Covid restrictions,” she tweeted, adding, “They have no vaccine passports, mask mandates, or social distancing rules. Their seven-day rolling average of new deaths is lower than ever.”
- “Why is no one talking about this?” she asked, likely referring to mainstream news media’s pattern of ignoring such data.
DR. GOLD’S TWEET:
WOMEN EXPERIENCING NEGATIVE VACCINE SIDE EFFECTS IN NORWAY:
- The Norwegian Medicines Agency has so far processed 1,264 cases of menstrual disorders after Covid-19 vaccination, according to reports.
- Some women lost their periods completely while others experienced bleeding after menopause, and many women suffered from more pain and heavier bleeding, TV2 has reported.
- The adverse effects were linked to vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca.
- Norwegian Institute of Public Health officials said that the connection between the menstrual disorders and vaccines cannot be ruled out.
- “The women who reported these are not the ones who bled one extra day. Some had to receive treatment to stop the bleeding, and others have been bleeding for weeks”, Dr. Lill Trogstad of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI) said. “We take these reports seriously and go to great lengths to study any connections”, she added.
- Chief physician Sigurd Hortemo with the Norwegian Medicines Agency told Nettavisen, “We must not downplay this. There are significant ailments, but menstrual disorders are a common phenomenon. Therefore, it is difficult to come to a definite conclusion. We don’t rule out that there may be a connection between the vaccines and menstrual disorders.”
DR. GOLD EXPLAINS HER PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION AGAINST KAISER PERMANENTE:
Jon Fleetwood is Managing Editor for American Faith and author of “An American Revival: Why American Christianity Is Failing & How to Fix It.”
U.S. Cancels Multimillion-Dollar Contract with COVID Vax Manufacturer for ‘Cross-Contamination’ of J&J Vials
“There is no assurance that other batches have not been subject to cross-contamination.”
QUICK FACTS:
- The U.S. government has canceled a contract with Emergent BioSolutions, a major vaccine maker that was investigated after it was blamed for a defective batch of 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine, according to The Washington Post.
- Workers at Emergent mixed up ingredients for J&J’s shot and a vaccine from AstraZeneca, according to The Epoch Times.
- A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) document referred to the mixup as a “cross-contamination event,” and lamented that there was “no assurance that other batches have not been subject to cross-contamination.”
- The deal was worth $628 million, but Emergent will lose around $180 million from the cancellation.
- The manufacturer announced the news on Thursday during a conference call to discuss its most recent financial performance.
- The Maryland-based business stated in its earnings report that the Department of Health and Human Services and Emergent had mutually decided to cancel the contract on Nov. 1.
