Friday, December 7, 2018
Thursday, December 6, 2018
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Vatican
World War II Vatican Money Facts
Following is a list of some of the ways the Vatican enriched itself during World War II.
Reichskonkordat - From 1933, the Third Reich had signed a pact, the Reichskondordat, with the Holy See agreeing to collect the 8 – 10% church tax through automatic payroll deductions of German Catholic workers,9 a substantial provision to the Vatican’s budget. The Reichskonkordat validated the Nazi’s rise to power and reigned in Catholic priests from voicing dissent against Hitler’s regime and effectively tied the church to Nazi Germany.
Vatican Bank - The Vatican realized economic benefits from exercising complacency toward Nazism’s anti-Semitic policies. In fact, the Vatican experienced such an economic boon during the war that it needed to create an efficient way of dealing with the inflow of profits. On June 27, 1942, the Vatican Bank, also known as Istituto per le Opere di Religione (IOR; Institute for Works of Religion) was formed. Because its only branch was inside the Vatican, it was “free of any wartime regulations.”10 It was free of independent audits. It had a policy of destroying all files after ten years.
Throughout the war, Vatican Bank executed “back-and-forth transfers of Swiss francs, lira, dollars, sterling, and even gold bullion, through a slew of holding companies in a dozen countries on several continents.”11 In the midst of the unparalleled upheavals of WWII, opportunistic business titans, recognizing in the war an unequalled money-making opportunity also saw that the Vatican Bank was the world’s best offshore bank.12
Theft of Victims’ Insurance Policies - In addition, as an investor in Italian insurance companies, the Vatican benefited from the wartime practice of escheating, or transferring Jewish life insurance policies. Investigators estimate that during the war more than $200 billion in illegally retained premiums and unpaid benefits was stolen from Europe’s Jews. 13
Theft of Victims’ Gold and Jewellery - The Vatican played an important role in moving gold from German-occupied countries during the war. For example, post-war investigators concluded that Krunoslav Draganovic, a Croatian Roman Catholic priest, deposited Croatian victims’ gold and jewelry in the Vatican Bank which accepted it as “a contribution from a religious organization.”14 The loot disappeared without a trace through the Vatican Bank’s money laundering process.
At the end of the war, victims’ loot undoubtedly funded the Vatican’s efforts to transport fleeing Nazi fugitives to safe havens.
Sunday, December 2, 2018
Saturday, December 1, 2018
pope
March 2, 1939, Eugenio Pacelli was elected Pope. He had been the papal nuncio to Germany and had a great fondness for everything German. His family was among the Black Nobles, Roman aristocratic families that remained loyal to the Pope when the Italian nationalist army took Rome and confiscated the Pope’s kingdom in 1870. Early in his pontificate, Pope Pius XII sent Hitler a message assuring the Führer of the Vatican’s desire for good working relations with the Nazis. Shortly afterward, he directed his diplomatic representative, the Papal Nuncio to Germany, Archbishop Orsenigo, to fete Hitler on his fiftieth birthday.5
Pope Pius XII’s policy was silence in response to the atrocities of the Holocaust and the slaughter of Serbs in Croatia. Priests and bishops were actively involved in the politics and killing machinery of Croatia and Slovakia where hundreds of thousands, possibly more than a million, Jews and Orthodox Christian Serbs and others were killed.6 Though repeatedly implored by eye witnesses to speak out against the brutality, the Pope remained silent. Even when the Nazis entered Italy, where 1200 Jews living in Rome were rounded up and transported along streets that lay just 250 yards (approximately 230 m) from the Vatican – virtually right under the Pope’s nose – to a military detention center, Pope Pius did nothing to stop the violence. A thousand of those Jews, mostly women and children, were put in rail cars two days later and sent to Auschwitz.
Germany’s Ambassador reported, “The Curia is especially upset considering the action took place, in a manner of speaking, under the Pope’s own windows.”7 The Vatican’s response at that time? An official thanks to Hitler’s Foreign Minister for the German military’s respectful wartime behaviour to the city-state,8 possibly a reference to a promise made by Ernst von Weizsacker, Germany’s ambassador, that Germany would protect the Vatican from damage.
Unbelievably, in 1942, Pius was pre-occupied with the filming of a movie he was having made about himself, Pastor Angelicus.
Why did the Vatican refuse to act on behalf of those being slaughtered? Might the reason have had something to do with money?
Friday, November 30, 2018
Tuesday, November 27, 2018
Antartica
South America, the point of which is shared by Argentina and Chile, is the closest continent to Antarctica. At the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, 1238 km south of Ushuaia (the southern-most city of Argentina) is the Argentinian station Vice Comodoro Marambio.
Monday, November 26, 2018
Herzl
Theodor Herzl was an Austro-Hungarian journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer who was the father of modern political Zionism. Herzl formed the Zionist Organization and promoted Jewish immigration to Palestine in an effort to form a Jewish state. Wikipedia
Born: May 2, 1860, Pest
Died: July 3, 1904, Reichenau an der Rax, Austria
Full name: Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl
Born: May 2, 1860, Pest
Died: July 3, 1904, Reichenau an der Rax, Austria
Full name: Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl
Tithing
When someone rich dies usually the first question asked by friends and relatives is “How much money did he leave us?” Then the guessing game begins. Actually, there is no need to guess. The answer is simply “He left everything.”
The Bible says we brought nothing into this world and we will take nothing out (1Timothy 6:7). Many people equate success and contentment with money and other material possessions. The Bible makes it clear that the love of money is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10). People have strayed from faith because of wealth. Some being so obsessed with the wealth they have gone down the drain morally, physically, spiritually and psychologically. Solomon said, “He who seeks silver will never be satisfied with silver” (Ecclesiastes 5:10).
Money per-se is not bad. But when it becomes our god - it is bad. God blesses people financially so that wealth can be used to glorify God, spread His Gospel, and to share that wealth with other people who are in need.
We should offer a part of what God has given us to be used for His greater glory. This is the essence of tithing. What is tithing? Tithing is giving the tenth part of one’s income to the Lord. The origin of the Christian practice of tithing is unknown, but the first Biblical account of tithing was on Abraham’s return from slaughtering of the kings, he gave Melchisedec, the king of Salem, one-tenth of the spoils (Genesis 14:17-20). What is certain is that tithing originated long before Moses was born. It started before there was the Hebrew nation.
We can rob God in tithes and offerings (Malachi 3:8-10). The Lord tells the children of Israel to test Him and see if their storehouses are not full.
Proverbs 3:9 tells us to honor the Lord with our wealth. The Lord grieves when we spend money set aside for Him on other things. This is an insult to the Lord. Tithing should have priority over the other uses of our money. Tithing should also come from our hearts. God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:6-7).
Sunday, November 25, 2018
Friday, November 23, 2018
have told you this so that you may not fall away. They will expel you from the synagogues; in fact the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God. They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me. I have told you this so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you. ---- John 16:1-4
Thursday, November 22, 2018
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Monday, November 19, 2018
Saturday, November 17, 2018
Friday, November 16, 2018
Thursday, November 15, 2018
The Spanish-held Canary Islands, off the northwest coast of Africa, were home to small greenfinches. These birds were caught and caged and sold in England as “canary birds”; today’s domesticated canary bird is mainly yellow, not green, and is called a “canary” for short. However, the word "canary" itself originally meant something different. The Canary Islands were so called by the Romans because of a type of large canine found there (the Latin "canāarius" meant “of dogs”). From big dog to little yellow bird—that’s etymology.
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Monday, November 12, 2018
Sunday, November 11, 2018
If Jesus was God why did he tell the man who called him “good master” not to call him “good” (Mark 10:17-18) because accordingly, there is none good but his God in Heaven alone.
y Very simple: if you read the verse, Jesus doesn't tell the person asking, 'don't call me good'. He simply says, 'Why Why do you call me good'.
Then He adds, 'only God is good'.
The questioner was a Jew. Jesus simply meant to the Jew that if he (the Jew) thought that Jesus is good, then he would have to accept that Jesus is God, for only God is good.
Then He adds, 'only God is good'.
The questioner was a Jew. Jesus simply meant to the Jew that if he (the Jew) thought that Jesus is good, then he would have to accept that Jesus is God, for only God is good.
Friday, November 9, 2018
Wednesday, November 7, 2018
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