The Exorcism Worked, I guess: Reflections on the Latest Vatican Lie by Rev. Kevin D. Annett Secretary, The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared www.hiddenfromhistory.org   Far be it for me to rain on the latest damage control orgy emanating from Rome, now that Pope Joseph Ratzinger is personally implicated in shielding child rapists. But I can't resist reminding our three-minute-memory world that the latest effort by the Vatican to shift blame and attention for its crimes to the Irish clergy is in truth an enormous knee jerk reaction to something that happened last October 11 on its doorstep.   I was there.   Being a rational skeptic by nature, I don't think my words and actions that day necessarily caused the once-in-a-century tornado that struck the centre of Rome, and the Vatican, the morning after the ritual I conducted there for the children murdered in CatholicIndian residential schools. Some of my aboriginal friends do. But what I do know is that, two days later, I received a back-channel call from a senior Vatican Cardinal, who said he welcomed the chance to speak with me about the demand of our network that the church return the remains of their victims for a proper burial.   Outside the Vatican that cool October morning, in full view of the Pope and his entourage, I had scattered soil from a mass grave near a former Catholic residential school, while calling on the murderous spirit that had killed those children to depart from the church. I invoked words of exorcism and cleansing, as well as remembrance for the fallen. And, strangely, neither the police nor the Vatican security goons intervened to stop me, even though they swarmed all around.   Whatever the impact of my action, it is undeniable that something is shaking loose in the Vatican these days. The fact that the Pope has chosen to publicly contradict his own policy on sexual abuse by clergy, and blatantly try to transfer blame and responsibility from his office to the Irish Bishops, reveals an unusually desperate and panicking man.   Joseph Ratzinger is not one normally prone to panic. "God's pit bull" was his nickname during his days as Cardinal and head of the modern day papal inquisition, The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. But the fact that the Pope personally shielded child raping priests in his home archbishopric of Munich, and is the author of the Vatican's standing policy requiring that Bishops conceal evidence of sexual abuse by priests, has made him personally complicit in obstructing justice and engaging in a clear crime against humanity: the organized sexual exploitation of children.    German Catholic Bishops, saluting Hitler with Nazi leaders Wilhelm Frick and Joseph Goebbels, 1937    Liberal garb doesn't fit very well on Pope Joe, not simply because of his Hitler Youth upbringing. This past week, Ratzinger gave an unconvincing exhortation to Irish Bishops to "take responsibility" for a crime and coverup of child rape and torture that Ratzinger's own office has perpetrated on the innocent. In reality, the Pope refuses to endorse the Irish government's official investigation into crimes in Catholic institutions, and made no mention of it in his letter to the Irish clergy.   Bury the evidence, but take responsibility; resist any inquiry, but call for disclosure: such profound doublethink may be confusing to even the "faithful", but little else can be expected from an institution as awash in criminal complicity as the Vatican. But at least now, that crime, and its attending bodyguard of lies, stands exposed.   Murder, torture and child rape are not new to the Roman Catholic church, nor will these obscenities stop, since the church is above the law and accountable only to itself. And yet, for all its worldly power, the Vatican is tottering under the impact of the simple truth.   In exorcism rituals practiced by Christian churches, the key moment is when the ostensible possessing entity is asked to name itself and thereby be exposed and lose its grip over the possessed. Last October, I proclaimed to the angel spirit of the Vatican to come forth and reveal itself; and, sure enough, it has. What Jesus called "The Father of Lies", the spirit that some call Satan, stands naked for anyone to see.   The question is, now that it stands exposed, what are we to do with this evil?   Jesus had a simple remedy for child abusers, if you believe the Bible:   "It would be better if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, rather than that he should harm one of these little ones." (Luke 17:2)   On Easter Sunday, this April 4, I will be returning to St. Peter's Square in Rome to do what I can to fasten a millstone of truth around the neck of the most murderous institution in human history.   This time, survivors of torture in Catholic Indian residential schools will accompany me, and together we will seek not to reform evil, but to bury it; not with the weapons of this world, but the ones provided us by truth, and and heart, and love.   Our revolution will be televised. Stay tuned.

The Exorcism Worked, I guess: Reflections on the Latest Vatican Lie by Rev. Kevin D. Annett Secretary, The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared www.hiddenfromhistory.org   Far be it for me to rain on the latest damage control orgy emanating from Rome, now that Pope Joseph Ratzinger is personally implicated in shielding child rapists. But I can't resist reminding our three-minute-memory world that the latest effort by the Vatican to shift blame and attention for its crimes to the Irish clergy is in truth an enormous knee jerk reaction to something that happened last October 11 on its doorstep.   I was there.   Being a rational skeptic by nature, I don't think my words and actions that day necessarily caused the once-in-a-century tornado that struck the centre of Rome, and the Vatican, the morning after the ritual I conducted there for the children murdered in CatholicIndian residential schools. Some of my aboriginal friends do. But what I do know is that, two days later, I received a back-channel call from a senior Vatican Cardinal, who said he welcomed the chance to speak with me about the demand of our network that the church return the remains of their victims for a proper burial.   Outside the Vatican that cool October morning, in full view of the Pope and his entourage, I had scattered soil from a mass grave near a former Catholic residential school, while calling on the murderous spirit that had killed those children to depart from the church. I invoked words of exorcism and cleansing, as well as remembrance for the fallen. And, strangely, neither the police nor the Vatican security goons intervened to stop me, even though they swarmed all around.   Whatever the impact of my action, it is undeniable that something is shaking loose in the Vatican these days. The fact that the Pope has chosen to publicly contradict his own policy on sexual abuse by clergy, and blatantly try to transfer blame and responsibility from his office to the Irish Bishops, reveals an unusually desperate and panicking man.   Joseph Ratzinger is not one normally prone to panic. "God's pit bull" was his nickname during his days as Cardinal and head of the modern day papal inquisition, The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. But the fact that the Pope personally shielded child raping priests in his home archbishopric of Munich, and is the author of the Vatican's standing policy requiring that Bishops conceal evidence of sexual abuse by priests, has made him personally complicit in obstructing justice and engaging in a clear crime against humanity: the organized sexual exploitation of children.    German Catholic Bishops, saluting Hitler with Nazi leaders Wilhelm Frick and Joseph Goebbels, 1937    Liberal garb doesn't fit very well on Pope Joe, not simply because of his Hitler Youth upbringing. This past week, Ratzinger gave an unconvincing exhortation to Irish Bishops to "take responsibility" for a crime and coverup of child rape and torture that Ratzinger's own office has perpetrated on the innocent. In reality, the Pope refuses to endorse the Irish government's official investigation into crimes in Catholic institutions, and made no mention of it in his letter to the Irish clergy.   Bury the evidence, but take responsibility; resist any inquiry, but call for disclosure: such profound doublethink may be confusing to even the "faithful", but little else can be expected from an institution as awash in criminal complicity as the Vatican. But at least now, that crime, and its attending bodyguard of lies, stands exposed.   Murder, torture and child rape are not new to the Roman Catholic church, nor will these obscenities stop, since the church is above the law and accountable only to itself. And yet, for all its worldly power, the Vatican is tottering under the impact of the simple truth.   In exorcism rituals practiced by Christian churches, the key moment is when the ostensible possessing entity is asked to name itself and thereby be exposed and lose its grip over the possessed. Last October, I proclaimed to the angel spirit of the Vatican to come forth and reveal itself; and, sure enough, it has. What Jesus called "The Father of Lies", the spirit that some call Satan, stands naked for anyone to see.   The question is, now that it stands exposed, what are we to do with this evil?   Jesus had a simple remedy for child abusers, if you believe the Bible:   "It would be better if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, rather than that he should harm one of these little ones." (Luke 17:2)   On Easter Sunday, this April 4, I will be returning to St. Peter's Square in Rome to do what I can to fasten a millstone of truth around the neck of the most murderous institution in human history.   This time, survivors of torture in Catholic Indian residential schools will accompany me, and together we will seek not to reform evil, but to bury it; not with the weapons of this world, but the ones provided us by truth, and and heart, and love.   Our revolution will be televised. Stay tuned.