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Cardinal Miloslav Vlk born May 17, 1932.

In the process of doing the obligatory post to mark his transition into non-elector status for my Papam blog, I happened to notice, accidentally at best, that he was listed as having been born to a single mother. I have absolutely no problem with this; bravo to both him and his mother. It appears that the Cardinal has readily spoken about this — I found this article from a decade ago, done for his 70th birthday.

I can not say that I have ever looked at the wedlock legitimacy status of any of the current cardinals until today. That is usually a part of the bio I skip over. All I am typically interested in is, when where they born and where. The next thing I look at is ‘Episcopate’. So that this caught my eye was a serendipitous fluke (‘Serendipity’ coming from an old name for my native Sri Lanka). As far as I know (and please feel free to correct me), the ‘defect of birth’ impediment was in Canon Law until the 1983 Code, though I think the 1917 Code diluted it. Vlk was ordained in 1968. Not sure whether he required a dispensation for this or whether impediments were not a big deal behind the Iron Curtain during the days of the Cold War. Again if somebody could shed light on this, I would be most grateful.

So, after I saw the Vlk entry, I started going down the list of all living cardinals, in order of precedence to see how many others were also born to single mothers. I need to devote a couple of hours and do this properly — with an Excel spreadsheet. I, however, already came across one incongruous situation. Giovanni Battista Re, the most senior under 80 cardinal. I can’t (as yet) find his parents! He is Italian, born January 30, 1934. There should be records of his parents. I also discovered that U.S. cardinal William Wakefield Baum is adopted, his father, Harold E. White having died when he was young. Baum is the name of his adoptive father. In some instances the last name stated for the mother is not the same as that for the father, including in the case of Lord Bertone, papabile #1. Not sure what to make of this. I guess I will get more clarity once I bang the Excel out. I will try to get to that later today.

I wish Cardinal Vlk a very happy birthday.

Click to access entry at the 'Cardinals Web site'

This morning there was one of those rare, ‘Stop Press‘, second bulletin for the day by the Vatican Information Service (VIS). It was to do with the SSPX, and somewhat atypically again intimated that the bulletin was reacting to reports already appearing in news agencies.

Click image to access VIS.

Click image to access 'The New York Times' article.

Make sure you read paragraph 7. So is this another poor child abandoned by the Church on moral grounds even if the problem lies in clerics not being able to keep their pants up. Amazing. I hope the State goes after this deadbeat dad and makes sure he pumps gas, if need be, to pay sufficient child support.

I again, however, have no choice but to go back to Dolan’s tweet: ‘Every person …. will eventually let us down’. So per Dolan, your family will let you down.

So, who is right. I am with Cardinal Lord Antonelli. As far as I can tell, Cardinal Lord Ennio Antonelli has never stated: ‘do not put your trust in me‘ — as Dolan has done, in writing no less. I will take Dolan per his word. I will NOT put my trust in him. So, as I have already mentioned, his Tweet becomes a paradox, just another version of the liar’s paradox. A Tweet made by a person who previously admitted that he should not be trusted cannot be trusted. Q.E.D. Amen.

Cardinal Lord Ennio Antonelli rocks.

Dolan should be pounding rocks.

Poster for rally from 'libera.it' -- with thanks.

Related post: Vatican ‘Misled’ Crime Boss’ Widow, Mrs. De Pedis – No Popes Buired At Either Sant’Apollinare, Rome’s Is Not Even A Basilica! — May 2, 2012.

For the last two weeks there has been a slew of articles about the disappearance 30 years ago of the then 15-year old daughter of a Vatican employee, Ms. Emanuela Orlandi, who had the rare distinction of being a young, female, lay Vatican citizen. She supposedly went missing in 1983 after leaving the Vatican to go for a music lesson in Rome. [link 1 & link 2]

Her disappearance has been linked to that of alleged Italian crime boss Enrico De Pedis — the one that was supposedly buried among popes, but in reality was buried in a nondescript Roman church run by Opus Dei. They exhumed Enrico’s body, this week, on the belief that Ms. Orlandi’s body was interred in the same tomb. They are supposed to have found a whole bunch of bones close by. Well, I checked again. This, though not a ‘titular’, is an old church and the grounds below old Roman churches are known to full of bones.

American Archbishop Marcinkus, the ‘God’s Unscrupulous Banker‘ so-to-speak who is implicated in a string of intrigue including the demise of poor John Paul I (#264), is also suspected of having a hand in the disappearance of this 15-year old girl. I think it is in ‘The Thief In The Night‘, but I remember reading a description of Marcinkus holding one of regular dinner parties at the sprawling, palatial Palazzo del Governatorato (Governor’s Palace) which at that time he occupied all on his own (with a few nuns to do the housework) — the court of a mighty Emperor. It described Marcinkus dressed in a white shirt, opened to the waist showing off his tanned, hairy chest draped in gold. According to reports, Marcinkus, who found found, at 6 am, lurking, sans explanation, in the Vatican ground behind the Papal Apartment the morning that the body of poor John Paul I was discovered is reputed to have ordered the ‘kidnapping’ of this girl. Hhhmmm. I wonder why?

There is also supposed to be a shadowy connection to the May 13, 1981 assassination attempt by Mehmet Ali Ağca on John Paul II (#265) — she supposedly a pawn in an attempt to get Ağca released. Ağca, who I think is a deranged, ego-maniac, incompetent to boot, commented on Emanuela Orlandi in a 2010 interview. According to him she was originally kidnapped by the Vatican but is now living safely, as a nun, in a Catholic monastery in Central European country — often visited by a family. [He also claimed that the Vatican was behind the 1981 assassination attempt.] BINGO.

I am in no way trying to impune integrity of this lady. The contrary is true. I, as a father of three daughters, worry that she was led astray and then whisked away when it was discovered that she was with child. As we now know, to our cost and chagrin, child abuse among the Catholic church ran deep and rampant — and only those trying to make one particular point will try and claim that the abuse was predominantly against boys. No, girls were abused too. So that is my thesis.

I really can buy into the Ağca thesis. Emanuela Orlandi is alive and well, living as a nun — a baby put up for adoption 29 years ago. That makes sense. Fits all the parameters.

So, why aren’t people asking this very basic and important of questions — was she whisked away from the Vatican because she was with child?

Marcinkus' Bachelor Pad behind St. Peter's. If these walls could talk!

Click to read the article (in English).

I don’t see why there has been no interest in it of late. Yes, there was a famous papal apartment at the Vatican that succeeding popes refused to live in — but this is definitely not in that league.

Click to read article.