Tag Archives: Raiffeisen Banks

The St. Gallen connection to those snarky Vatican ATMs

by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

One of the intriguing historical events associated with the events of Pope Benedict XVI’s apparent renunciation, was the decision by Deutsche Bank to shut down the ATMs of Vatican City prior to Pope Benedict’s removal from power. The New York Times reported on this on January 4, 2013. It is an incontrovertible historical event.

But, this one event has been the source of a lot of speculation about possible force or coercion placed on the Holy Father to renounce. And the reason for the importance of this, is that Canon 188 declares all resignations of office, invalid, when obtained through coercion.

An Old Story gets some powerful help

I have recently come upon important information which leads me to say, that this theory has some very strong circumstantial basis, and one which leads directly back to the St. Gallen Mafia, who even during the very ceremony in which Benedict XVI bade farewell to the Cardinals,  on Feb. 27, 2013, seemed to be already in control of the Vatican administration (cf. during the ceremony the camera pans to Bergoglio & Tagle).

Here is the evidence which supports that line of investigation.

The Raiffeisen Banks

In 1899, Father Johann Traber, a Catholic priest in Bichelsee, Switzerland, founds the first Raiffeisen Bank in Switzerland. This bank was inspired by the teachings of Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch and Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen, who argued that financial institutions should serve the people. A Raiffeisen Bank is a rural credit union. They are found not only in Switzerland, but in Austria, Romania, Luxembourg and Germany.

In 1902, the 10 banks of this kind, in Switzerland, founded the Swiss Raiffeisen union.

In 1912, the unofficial headquarters of this Union is established in St. Gallen, Switzerland, 41 KM to the east of Bichelsee. This would make St. Gallen a center of banking, and an important one during the Second World War, because rural credit unions generally have poor security and are easily used for money laundering. In Fact, in 2019, a Raiffeisen Bank in Austria was implicated in a Russian money laundering scheme.

St. Gallen: A Rampolla Powerbase

But St. Gallen, Switzlerland, was also Diocese controlled for nearly 70 years by Rampolla allies and members. Here is that history

On September 26, 1938, Father Joseph Miele becomes the new Bishop St. Gallen. He is co-consecrated by Bishop Laurenz Matthias Vincenz, the Bishop of Chur, Switzerland, who according to his episcopal lineage, is a direct descendant of Cardinal Rampolla del Tindaro, from whom the lineage of the St. Gallen Mafia members also descends.  Father Miele was consecrated principally by Eugenio Maria Giovanni Cardinal Pacelli, who would shortly become Pope Pius XII and sign the Concordat with Nazi Germany, which guaranteed the liberty of the Catholic Church in return for the submission and dissolution of the Catholic Centre Party into the National Socialist Party of Germany. This union with the Nazi party gave Hitler the votes to be declared Dictator for Life by the enabling act.

In 1957, Bishop Miele is succeeded by Msgr. Joseph Hasler, who was principally consecrated by a disciple of Bl. Alfredo Ildefonso Cardinal Schuster, who himself was co-consecrated by a Rampolla Bishop and who was notable in arranging the escape of Nazi war criminals from allied territories at the end of World War II, as the Dossier on Father Albert Hartl, records.

In 1976, on March 25, Bishop Hasler is succeeded by Otmar Mäder, who like his three predecessors is a priest of St. Gallen, Switzerland, and who is consecrated by Bishop Hasler. This tradition continued on March 29, 1995, with the consecration of Ivo Fürer, former secretary of the European Bishop’s Conference and intimate promoter and member of the St. Gallen Mafia, as FromRome.Info has reported previously.

Home of the St. Gallen Mafia

We know from that report on Bishop Fürer, that Cardinal Kasper and others formed the St. Gallen Group as early as 1991, and from the Biography of Cardinal Daneels, that this group met at St. Gallen up until 2006, and called themselves, The St. Gallen Mafia.

But why St. Gallen, Switzerland?

St. Gallen was a notorious hotbed of Nazi sympathizers. It is sufficient to cite the case of  their chief of police, Paul Grueninger, who for the “crime” of assisting hundreds of Jews escape from Nazi Germany, was demoted and fired from his position. He received an apology posthumously a stunning 55 years later! (source: here)

But St. Gallen is also a center of Corporate networking on account of the 18,000 alumni of a very influential Business school, located there.

St_Gallen_University
St. Gallen University Campus (bottom), is a short walk from St. Gallen Monastery (Church above), where the Mafia met.

In fact, St. Gallen Switzerland is the home not only of the Raiffesen Bank HQ, but of a Business School of international profile: the University of St. Gallen, which not only has ties to the Raiffesent Banks, trough the CEO since 2015 of the Reifesen Banks, Patrik Gisel, graduated from the St. Gallen University in 1993, but more significantly, through the Chairman of the Board of Deutsche Bank since May 31, 2012, Paul Achleitner and its CEO from 2002-2012, Josef Ackermann, are graduates, and 1977 respectively of the University of St. Gallen.

And this is where it gets interesting. Because the ATM machines which were shut down in January 2013 at the Vatican, were operated by Deutsche Bank.

Perhaps it is just a coincidence that the two most senior and powerful officers of Deutsche Bank who undoubtedly were the ones who made the decision to shut down the ATMs at the Vatican, were graduates of a University in the same town where the St. Gallen Mafia met for nearly 15 years?

Oh, and on Feb. 12, 2013, Deutsche Bank lifted its block on the Vatican ATMs. The very day after Benedict XVI appeared to have abdicated. How nice of them!

That is the evidence. I leave it to you to draw the conclusions.

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