From supporting the Nazis, to castrating innocent
children, here are 9 dirty secrets the Catholic Church does not want you to know... Number 9: They helped Nazis avoid prosecution
Many Nazis and Fascist war criminals are known to have fled Europe following their defeat
in World War II. It is believed that many of them to escaped
to South America through ratlines organized by Catholic clergymen. An example is the case of Bishop Alois Hudal,
a Nazi sympathizer who used his clerical position to visit Nazi POWs in Allied camps, presumably
for religious purposes. He would then secretly offer them Vatican
state travel documents and passports, allowing them to disguise themselves and flee to South
America. Hudal's reputation has worsened even more
from a recently resurfaced telegram showing a correspondence between him and Adolf Hitler. Among the people Hudal helped was SS commander
Franz Stangl, a man responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews in two extermination
camps that he oversaw. Stangl was eventually captured in Brazil in
1967, before being sent to trial and imprisonment in West Germany. Similarly, a Croatian priest by the name of
Krunoslav Draganovic is also known to have organized escape routes for Fascist war criminals. The organization of Croatian priests that
he led offered ratlines out of Europe for members of the Ustashe - which is Croatia's
version of Nazis - so they could avoid being prosecuted by the Allies. Number 8: Hitler's Pope
It's surprising to know about the existence of Nazi sympathizers among Catholic priests,
but what's even more surprising is that they even existed in the highest echelons of the
Vatican. Pope Pius XII who reigned from 1938 to 1958
is often painted as a saint by the Vatican, a fact that some argue couldn't be further
from the truth. Throughout World War II, Pope Pius refused
to speak out against the Holocaust and the ruthless brutalities committed by Fascist
Italy and Nazi Germany. He was seemingly content with the Fascist
regimes surrounding him, even accepting their visits to the Vatican. For his failure to speak out throughout the
war, some have dubbed him "Hitler's Pope". Under his leadership, the Catholic Church
did however take steps to save Jews from Nazi persecution. Many Jewish children were issued false baptism
certificates and taken into Catholic schools to disguise them as Christians. But the problem is what happened afterwards. In 2006, a postwar instruction from Pope Pius
was unearthed, revealing that in 1946 he had ordered for the Jewish children to not be
returned to their families so they would be raised as Catholics. Number 7: The baby-stealing scheme
Fascist-Catholic relationships were not only limited within Germany and Italy, but also
extended to Spain. After Fascist dictator Francisco Franco managed
to overthrow Spain's elected government in the late 1930s, he developed a close relationship
with the country's Catholic Church. Seeking to purify Spain from leftist ideals,
Franco had Catholic-run hospitals steal babies from "undesirable" parents. This was to ensure that future generations
would not grow up opposing him. In a lot of cases, nurses would secretly swap
newborn babies with dead babies preserved in ice in order to fool the parents into thinking
that the babies had suddenly died. The stolen babies would then be sold for adoption
to "approved" families. It is estimated that as many as 300,000 babies
had been stolen over the course of five decades. Surprisingly, Spain's Catholic Church continued
the practice until 1987, well over a decade after Dictator Franco's death. About 15 percent of all adoptions in Spain
during Franco's rule are believed to have been a result of the large kidnapping scheme. Number 6: Scandals of the Vatican Bank
The Vatican has a long history of corruption when it comes to financing. Catholic congregations and donors from around
the world are generous enough to pour money into the church, thinking it would all go
to a good cause. But the truth is, a lot of the money goes
to shady activities. The Vatican Bank has been involved in money
laundering for decades. In 2013, two former top executives at the
Vatican bank were charged for breaking Italian laws in a large money laundering scheme. Italian authorities claimed that the bank
harbored money from corrupt officials, companies, as well as the Mafia. The Vatican has long established ties with
the Italian Mafia, reportedly even accepting 1 billion lire in 1990 to have Italian mobster
Enrico De Pedis buried in a basilica next to pope and cardinals. During the Second World War, the Vatican bank
is believed to have collaborated with Nazis and other Fascist groups to harbor and smuggle
looted money and gold. A class action lawsuit against the Vatican
Bank has been brought up by Holocaust survivors and their relatives. The suit was eventually dismissed, but not
without damaging the bank's reputation even further. Number 5: Vatican leaks scandal
In 2012, the Catholic Church's reputation got tarnished greatly due to the Vatican leaks
scandal, otherwise known as Vatileaks, a play on the Wikileaks name. It began early that year when an Italian TV
program named "The Untouchables" featured a number of scandals within the Vatican. The issue escalated the following months with
the leak of documents that exposed various corruptions within the Church. Among the documents were letters from Vatican
officials addressed to the pope complaining of corruption in the Church's finances. In addition to that, an internal Vatican investigation
uncovered the blackmailing of homosexual Catholic priests by people outside the Church. Surprisingly, the source of the leaks was
revealed to have come from Pope Benedict's private butler, Paolo Gabriele. For years, the man had secretly been making
copies of documents and letters belonging to the pope before deciding to leak them to
the press. Gabriele was arrested by the Vatican police
after they claimed to have found classified documents belonging to the Church in his apartment. Pope Benedict claimed that the Vatileaks were
exaggerated rumors that attempted to defame the Holy See. In December 2012, he visited his imprisoned
former butler and offered a papal pardon. Number 4: Pedophilia and child abuse
Sexual abuse, particularly towards children, has long been a problem within the Catholic
Church. However, it was not until the 1980s when the
accusations truly came to light and received worldwide publicity. A lot of these cases involved pedophile priests
who had been sexually abusing children for decades, with the victims making the accusations
years after the abuse occurred. Many cases have also been brought against
Catholic higher-ups who have been deliberately covering up sexual abuse cases by denying
accusations by victims and moving pedophile priests away to parishes in smaller districts,
where the abuse would sometimes still continue. The fact that the problem took decades to
come to light shows how much the entire Catholic institution has been systematically covering
up these cases all over the world in order to preserve their image. In February 2014, a report from UN's Geneva
based Committee on the Rights of the Child stated that "the Holy See has consistently
placed the preservation of the reputation of the Church and the protection of the perpetrators
above children's best interests". Until quite recently no pedophilic priest
has ever been excommunicated by the Catholic Church. Father Jose Mercau of Argentina was the first,
having been laicized and excommunicated by Pope Francis in November 2014. Number 3: Forced castration
A Castrato is a type of classical singing which requires male singers to sing at a high
range equivalent to that of sopranos. In order to create the high vocal range, male
singers are castrated before puberty so their vocal range would remain unchanged by the
normal physiological events at puberty. Since the 1500s, the Catholic Church had been
creating castrato choir boys by removing their testicles at a young age. Their reasoning is that according to the Bible
women are not allowed to sing at Church, so only male singers are allowed - who would
have to be subject to castration to ensure a high vocal range. This is an extremely cruel practice, as the
boys would be unable to live normal lives. The practice continued well into the 20th
Century, before the Catholic Church finally abandoned the practice. But there's an even darker story to this. Dutch journalist Joep Dohmenn discovered the
story of a young boy from a Catholic boarding school who in the 1950s, was put into a psych
ward ran by the Church and forcibly castrated after being declared a homosexual. The reason for this was because the Church
got angry at him for reporting that he had been sexually abused by a Catholic priest. At least 10 other similar cases of forced
castration have been committed by the Dutch Catholic Church, all upon boys who tried to
report sexual crimes of priests. Number 2: Supporting the ivory trade
The illegal ivory trade is a horrible practice that causes the deaths of tens of thousands
of innocent animals every year, mainly elephants. African and Asian elephants are hunted down
by illegal poachers only to have their tusks cut off, and the rest of their body discarded. Similar to diamonds, Africa's ivory trade
has become a large source of income for local warlords and terrorists. In order to end the senseless killing of one
of the most intelligent species on Earth, a multilateral treaty known as CITES has been
drafted and signed by 182 countries. The treaty's aim is to ensure that international
trade of any wildlife specimen would not threaten the survival of the species. Surprisingly, the Vatican has refused to become
a signatory for years. The main reason, perhaps, is that religion
is at the heart of illegal ivory trading. Out of tradition, the Catholic Church purchases
a lot of decorative crucifixes made of ivory, and by not signing the treaty, the Vatican
does not become subjected to the ivory ban. During his landmark visit to Africa in 2015,
Pope Francis spoke out against illegal ivory trafficking, and urged for its crackdown. But the CITES treaty still remains unsigned. Such an action would without doubt make a
difference by yielding a large response from Catholics worldwide. Number 1: Links with the Mafia
When Italy became unified as a single state in the mid 1800s, the Vatican lost its many
territories known as the Papal States. Infuriated, the Pope considered himself a
"prisoner" of the state, and sought to establish links with alternate forms of authority such
as the Mafia. This is considered the beginning of the relationship
between the two powerful organizations - a relationship which is believed to have lasted
to this very day. Local crime syndicates sometimes try to maintain
a link with the Catholic Church, as if to guarantee redemption for their actions. The Church has for many years refused to denounce
the Mafia, even going so far as to pretend such groups did not exist. In 1964, the Cardinal Archbishop of Palermo
denounced talks of the Mafia as nothing but a Communist ploy to damage Sicily's reputation. When Pope John Paul II visited Palermo in
the early 80s in the midst of a brutal war between gangs, never once did he mention the
word Mafia. However, the Catholic Church's relationship
with the Vatican has deteriorated in recent years. Pope Francis' crusade against corruption and
attempts at reforming the Vatican Bank has put him at odds with powerful mafia clans
- a move which also puts him in danger.
Let me see if I have this right:
Catholics do bad things.
People who do bad things are liars.
Catholics are liars.
Basically, we can find corruption in every human group and even athetists/agnostics have committed crimes. It doesn't testify to the religion, does it? In the case of Christianity, it goes against the basics of the faith and what Jesus taught.
Some of these claims are overblown and misrepresented. YouTube isn't a great medium for discussing these things, IMO.