by Br. Alexis Bugnolo
After my revelations that I had been threatened over the phone by Archbishop Ganswein, the revelations which burst out from Archbishop Viganò and others in January about the duplicity of the private secretary of Pope Benedict XVI, shed real light on the need to review all the statements alleged to be from Pope Benedict XVI after February 2013, as to their authenticity. (See links in this paragraph for pertinent articles about this).
Editor’s Note: The phrase, “The Benedict Bot”, as used above in the title of the present article, is a term coined by Frank Walker, editor of Canon212.com, and used to characterized the apparently manufactured and artificial statements by others in the Vatican, which are attributed by the Vatican Press Office to the Roman Pontiff, in such wise as to raise grave concerns whether they are in any way an authentic expression of his mind. Thus the Benedict Bot is the persona created by the Vatican. This term obviously refers to a theory of interpretation, because without video confirmation that Pope Benedict XVI has said something, the matter is always capable of doubt, especially after the Vatican has been caught twice falsifying the letter and statements of Pope Benedict, as FromRome.Info has reported previously, not to mention every translation of his Declaration of Feb. 11, 2013.
Now, on the fourth anniversary of the controversy over the Third Secret of Fatima which exploded in Catholic Media in May of 2016, I think that time has come to compare the real Ratzinger with the Benedict Bot. So lets examine what Cardinal Ratzinger is alleged by a close friend on 3 occasions to have said, BEFORE February 2013, and what he is alleged to have said by the Vatican Press Office in 2016.
Cardinal Ratzinger on the Third Secret
Here is the testimony of Father Paul Kramer, in his interview in the Fatima Crusader edition of 2009, where he reports the testimony of Father Ingo Dollinger, regarding the Third Secret of Fatima, and his conversations with Cardinal Ratzinger.
Then on June 26, 2000, Cardinal Ratzinger published for the world the document [on the Third Secret] contain-ing the vision of a “bishop in white”, claiming that the en-tire Secret is set forth in this document. Yet it can only be understood that way if we say that he is using a mental res-ervation; that what is set forth by Our Lady in Her words is already implicitly contained symbolically in the vision. The elderly German priest, Ratzinger’s long-time person-al friend, took note of the fact that when this vision of the Third Secret was published it
The Fatima Crusader 10 May 2009May 200911 The Fatima Crusader did not contain those things, those elements of the Third Secret that Cardinal Ratzinger had revealed to him nearly ten years earlier. The German priest — Father Döllinger — told me that his question was burning in his mind on the day he concelebrated with Cardinal Ratzinger. Father Döllinger said to me, “I con-fronted Cardinal Ratzinger to his face.” And of course he asked Cardinal Ratzinger, “how can this be the entire Third Secret? Remember what you told me before?” Cardinal Ratzinger was cornered. He didn’t know what to say and so he blurted out to his friend in German, “Wirklich gebt das der etwas” which means “really there is something more there,” meaning there is something more in the Third Secret. The Cardinal stated this quite plainly.
I have tracked down the original article, here. Christopher A. Ferrara refers to this interview in his commentary on the events of 2016, here.
The Fatima Crusader, on its FaceBook page, in on May 17, 2016, reported Father Kramer’s more detailed testimony thus:
STATEMENT FROM FATHER PAUL KRAMER
Regarding the Recent Confirmation by Fr. Ingo Döllinger<< Third Secret of Fatima Still Mainly Concealed; Warns Against an Evil Council and Changes in the Liturgy >>
“Fr. Ingo Döllinger is a several decades long close personal friend of Pope Benedict XVI. Cardinal Ratzinger told Dr. Döllinger around 1991 that the 3rd Secret speaks of an ‘evil council,’ and warned against changing and adulterating the liturgy of the Mass — literally against adding extraneous elements into the liturgy (which is exactly what Bugnini & Co. did by adding Protestant elements into the liturgy).
“The Secret, according to Döllinger, also speaks negatively about the Conciliar popes, according to what Ratzinger told Döllinger — comparing one pope to a chameleon, another to a serpent, etc.
“Dr. Döllinger spoke not only to me and Joseph Cain on what Ratzinger had told him, but he related even more details to the young clerics in the seminary of Anapolis (Brazil), where he had been rector. I myself and Joseph have spoken not only with Döllinger, but also with the priests and deacons in Brazil who had heard Dr. Döllinger relate to them the details of the Secret that had been told to him personally by Cardinal Ratzinger around 1991.
“After the publication of the ‘bishop in white’ vision of the 3rd Secret, Döllinger noticed that the details of the Secret that Ratzinger had revealed to him nearly a decade earlier were not in the ‘bishop in white’ version of the secret. When Döllinger had his next opportunity to meet with Cardinal Ratzinger (after a concelebrated Mass), Döllinger asked Ratzinger how it can be said that the whole Secret has been published, since the details of the Secret earlier mentioned to him by Ratzinger were conspicuously absent from the version of the Secret published by Ratzinger on 26 June 2000. Ratzinger was cornered, and therefore blurted out, ‘Wirklich giebt es da noch etwas.’ (‘Really there is more there.’) Dr. Döllinger also told Joseph and me that he had personally known (St.) Pio of Pietrelcina, and that he had made his confession to Padre Pio fifty-eight times.”
Andin 2016, Maike Hickson revived the story and started a firestorm by doing so, by quoting Father Dollinger thus, in her article at One Peter Five, published on May, 15, just two days earlier:
Not long after the June 2000 publication of the Third Secret of Fatima by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger told Fr. Dollinger during an in-person conversation that there is still a part of the Third Secret that they have not published! “There is more than what we published,” Ratzinger said. He also told Dollinger that the published part of the Secret is authentic and that the unpublished part of the Secret speaks about “a bad council and a bad Mass” that was to come in the near future.
Thus, Cardinal Ratzinger before becoming pope.
The Benedict Bot Responds
Now for the Vatican Press office response of May 21, 2016:
Several articles have appeared recently, including declarations attributed to Professor Ingo Dollinger according to which Cardinal Ratzinger, after the publication of the Third Secret of Fatima (which took place in June 2000), had confided to him that the publication was not complete.
In this regard, Pope emeritus Benedict XVI declares “never to have spoken with Professor Dollinger about Fatima”, clearly affirming that the remarks attributed to Professor Dollinger on the matter “are pure inventions, absolutely untrue”, and he confirms decisively that “the publication of the Third Secret of Fatima is complete”.
The first thing to notice is that the Benedict Bot is calling a life long friend and confidant, of impeccable public reputation, a bold face liar. I do not know of any case in the entire personal history of Pope Benedict XVI that he calls anyone a liar, let alone a close friend. That is entirely out of character for Benedict. But not for Bergoglio and many who now rule the Vatican.
Second, the Vatican Press Office does not quote the sources of the reports they are attempted to rebut. Are they afraid that others might start analyzing the evidence?
Third, the Vatican Press Office does not say to whom Pope Benedict XVI made these recent statements, who was present, who witnesses them, nor reports their entire context, or even if they refer to his conversations with Father Dollinger, because if you notice how the quotations are spliced, important context has been left out to verify such a relation between them — even if they are authentic quotes — to Father Dollinger’s reported statements on the Third Secret.
For these three reasons, one can doubt that the statement from the Vatican Press Office is an authentic representation of anything Pope Benedict XVI said in 2016, if he said anything at all.
Finally, seeing how Archbishop Gänswein was caught in bold face lies when he denied that Pope Benedict XVI had collaborated in certain matters regarding the Book on Celibacy by Cardinal Sarah, I think we might be able to guess where the source of the Benedict Bot statements of 2016 may have come from.
+ + +
[simple-payment id=”5295″]