It’s the most powerful religious organization
in the world, and they warn that just watching this video could open you to demonic possession. These are the darkest secrets and conspiracy
theories of the Vatican. The Pope Knew About The Holocaust, But Still
Did Nothing (this should appear as a title card) During World War II Pope Pius XII led the
Catholic Church, and for the world's holiest man, the fact that he seemed to remain so
quiet on the mass murder of millions of Jews and other undesirables seems fishy. Critics claim that the Pope knew about the
Holocaust, but was more scared of atheist communism than of Hitler, and thus turned
a blind eye to Germany's atrocities in exchange for protection. Others claim that the Pope was terrified that
opposing Hitler publicly would lead to him disbanding the seat of power of the Catholic
church. Yet others say that the Pope merely played
ignorant publicly so that he could help cover up secret aid behind enemy lines for refugee
Jews. So which is it? The Vatican Archives recently became publicly
available to journalists and investigators, giving an unprecedented opportunity for digging
into the history of the most powerful organization in the world. For those interested in the church's silence
during the second world war, the archives have proven to be a wealth of information-
and a lot of it isn't good for the Catholic Church. In 1963, public interest into the church's
handling of the holocaust spiked due to the premier of a German play where Pope Piux XII
was portrayed as largely indifferent to the suffering of millions. As public outcry grew thanks to the play's
popularity, the Vatican was pressured into publishing an 11 volume collection of the
pope's documents collected from his writings during and just before the war. Critics however claimed that the documents
were highly selective, and lacked sufficient context. The Catholic church was accused of carefully
cultivating what to present to the public so as to present the best view of Pope Pius
XII. New revelations have since then shed a fresh
light on the issue. In 1933, Pius- then Cardinal Pacelli- met
with the German Nazi party to secure a concordant that would secure the rights of the Catholic
church in Germany. The meeting was spurred by fears that the
Third Reich would crack down on the Catholic church, as the church had strongly criticized
the Nazi party through the late 1920s and early 1930s. The future Pope Piux XII had been a particularly
strong critic of Nazism, but there was hope that the church would suffer no political
backlash for its criticism. Hitler ended up not holding up to the terms
of the concordant prompting Pius to write several protests against the Third Reich. When Italy adopted Nazi style fascism, Pius
began to criticize it too. With World War II on the horizon, Pope Pius
XI died on February 10th, 1939. Pacelli now Piux the XII was elected as the
new Pope, and Nazi Germany was the only nation not to send a representative to the coronation. As the world began to prepare for war, Pius
implored world leaders to avoid it and pursue peace at all costs. In an address to the International Eucharistic
Conference in Budapest, Hungary in May 1938, the future Pius XII was accused of slandering
Jews by claiming that they were a people that, quote, “whose lips curse Christ and whose
hearts reject him even today”. This was during a time that Hungary was drafting
new antisemitic laws, which would have added a lot of fuel to the fire. Yet this account has been criticized by historians
who point out that Pius was not referring to Jews- if he was, it was left out of the
Time Magazine piece that covered his speech in detail. Instead, Pius was clearly referencing those
who persecuted the church- Nazis and Communists. Whoever Pius was referencing, it is known
that he never once raised issue with the Vatican journal La Civiltà Cattolica which printed
constant attacks against Hungarian Jews, even calling for their expulsion from the country
so that it could be saved from their influence. As Pope, and earlier as secretary of state
to Pius XI, he would have been very aware of the content of this publication. Officially, when World War II began the Vatican
adopted a stance of neutrality, and refused to yield to Allied pressure to publicly denounce
the Nazis. Officially, this was because the pope was
unaware of the true extent of the Nazis' crimes against humanity. However, new documents break this myth and
paint a very grim picture for the catholic church during this troubling time. Newly unsealed documents show that on September
18th, 1942, Pius' assistant and future Pope Paul VI, received an eyewitness report speaking
of the butchery of Jews in Warsaw. Given his close relationship with pope Pius,
he would have naturally informed the holy father of what was going in behind Nazi lines. A month prior to that though, Archbishop Andrzej
Szeptycki had delivered a similar report to the pope of atrocities carried out in the
Lviv Ghetto by German troops. Not long after both reports, the US envoy
to the Vatican asked if rumors of mass killings in Nazi-held territory could be corraborated. Vatican Secretary of State Luigi Maglione
is reported to have replied, “I don't believe we have information that confirms this serious
news in detail.” Technically not a lie, but definitely very
much refusing to admit that yes, killings were taking place and the Vatican knew about
it. But perhaps they didn't find the reports trustworthy
not just because the scale of the carnage was truly unbelievable- after all, even US
intelligence was having difficulty believing the Nazis were exterminating people by the
tens of thousands- but because of a memo from a Vatican staffer. The memo warned that the reports should not
be easily believed, as according to the memo writer Jews, quote, “easily exaggerate”,
and quote, “orientals are really not an example of honesty”. The latter was aimed at Archbishop Sheptytsky
who had warned of the mass exterminations taking place in Ukraine. Pope Pius XII is a complicated figure, as
are the actions of the Vatican. While on the one hand there was obvious racism
taking place inside the halls of the holy city, and possibly influencing papal decisions,
on the other Pope Pius is also documenting as helping to stem the tide of Nazism in Europe,
and even assisting Jews. After they were ousted from Italian universities,
Pope Pius appointed prominent Jewish scholars to positions inside the Vatican, and even
engineered an agreement with Brazil to issue 3,000 visas to “non-Aryan Catholics”-
basically secret code for Jews fleeing persecution. However, a bribe to Brazil from the German
government soon ended that program. The Pope even made public speeches equating
gentiles and Jews, opposing Hitler's racist ideologies. He even assisted the German resistance directly,
channeling communications between conspirators seeking to oust Hitler from power. He also passed intelligence along to the Allies
on pending Nazi attacks. Yet despite this, he failed to condemn the
invasion of Poland at the start of the war, leading many Poles to feel betrayed by their
Pope. All this information paints a picture of a
Pope striding a fine line between trying to keep the seat of the Catholic church safe
during a time it was in the heart of occupied territory, while also attempting to follow
his conscience in regards to the atrocities of the Nazi regime. It can be appreciated that he was a man in
a difficult position, as publicly condemning the Nazis would have led to the destruction
of the Vatican by Hitler and the dissolution of the church, and yet his failure to take
a direct and upright stance against evil leaves him in an unfavorable light for the rest of
history. But did the Vatican help smuggle millions
of stolen Nazi money out of Europe? Secrets and Scandals of the Vatican Bank The Institute for the Works of Religion, or
Istituto per le Opere di Religione, is best known as the Vatican bank. But wait, why does the Vatican need a bank? Well, as the most powerful religious organization
on earth, it receives millions upon millions in donations every year, and managing all
that money is quite an effort. The bank was first established in June 1942
by Pope Pius XII, but details about its inner workings wouldn't come to light until 2013
when it published its first ever annual report under guidance from Pope Francis who sought
to reform the Vatican from the inside out. The purpose of the Vatican bank is to help
coordinate the massive amounts of money that the Vatican processes every year, and to quote,
“provide for the safekeeping and administration of movable and immovable property transferred
or entrusted to it by physical or juridical persons and intended for the works of religion
or charity”. But how true is that? In 2019 a Wall Street Journal investigation
revealed that only 10% of funds tithed went to charitable causes, with the other 90% being
used to pay down the Vatican's operational deficit. But this is only part of the story, and very
misleading. This report specifically mentions Peter's
Pence, an annual tithing campaign that drums up tens of millions of dollars. Under Vatican law, the Pope is allowed to
use these funds in service of the church however he sees fit- thus the bulk of this tithe is
used to pay down a growing budget deficit. However, the Vatican has been rightly criticized
for claiming that Peter's Pence is for the purposes of charity, when it should have been
more transparent with its use of funds to potential tithers. How does the Vatican have a budget deficit
of 70 million euros though? Well, that's because the Vatican is directly
responsible for financing hundreds of catholic churches around the world, and this doesn't
just include land lease or building rent costs- it also includes pay for priests and nuns
as well as organizational funds. Those priests and nuns often take part in
community activism programs such as community clean ups, crime prevention, and family counseling-
all free of charge. Organizational funds are used to supplement
these community outreach programs. So the Vatican may not often 'directly' give
money to charities, but it is one of the leading charitable organizations in the world because
of the vast amount of community programs that it runs through a global network of churches-
a fact often overlooked by critics who simply expect to see large checks paid out to charities. Another part of the Vatican's funds go to
investments, which are meant to further fuel church operations. As the Vatican doesn't earn any sort of income
and doesn't produce any goods to sell, it relies wholly on charitable giving. Investment opportunities are meant to provide
for the long term financial health of the church, but in recent years the Vatican's
investments have not been performing well, leading to a growing budget deficit. But the Vatican bank has perhaps been most
heavily criticized for its handling of what might have been stolen money during World
War II. According to allegations, which have yet to
yield any solid proof, money from a Nazi puppet government in Croatia was funneled to the
Vatican bank after being stolen from the local population. Emerson Bigelow, who compiled a report on
what would come to be known as the Ustashi plunder, worked for the US Treasury Department
and was tasked with financial investigations in Europe in the wake of World War II. The Nazis and their stooges had stolen a lot
of money from lands they occupied, and there was hope that the plundered riches could be
recovered. In Croatia, the Nazis established a puppet
government called the Ustashi, and according to Bigelow's report the Ustashi stole millions
in cash, gold, and other valuables from Orthodox Christian Serbs, Jews, and gypsies who were
all promptly deported to extermination camps. According to allegations, about 200 million
Swiss francs were stashed in the Vatican bank, where part of it was laundered and used to
buy counterfeit passports and passage from Europe to South America for the Ustashi leaders. The rest of the money allegedly stayed in
the Vatican's coffers. The connection between the Ustashi and the
Vatican bank comes through a Croatian priest named Krunoslav Draganovic. He was the head of the College of San Girolamo
in Rome, and had contact with would-be priests from Croatia who studied in San Girolamo for
their ordination. Draganovic had sympathy for the Ustashi, and
after the end of the war he allowed fleeing Ustashi leaders to use the college as a safe
house. Allegedly, Draganovic then helped the wanted
war criminals secure false travel documents and launder cash through the Vatican bank,
being paid all the while for his cooperation. There is some truth to at least some of these
allegations, as Draganovic himself admitted that in 1945 he had helped move 40 kilos of
gold to Rome concealed in luggage. In 1999 a lawsuit was filed against the Vatican
bank by survivors and descendants of the Ustashi, however the case was dismissed in 2009 under
the terms of the Sovereign Immunities Act. Under the SIA, the Vatican is immune from
litigation under Croatian jurisdiction. Not that the Vatican would have been of much
help to those seeking the missing 200 million swiss francs, as no record of any possible
transactions exist anymore thanks to the Vatican bank destroying all financial records every
10 years for its first 70 years of operation. Was the Vatican bank laundering money stolen
from victims of Nazi persecution? It's extremely probable, but the key question
is if the Vatican itself was aware of it. Given that Draganovic appeared to be acting
alone and even concealing his activities from other church officials, plus the huge sums
of money the Vatican bank processes every year, it's doubtful the Vatican itself was
implicitly helping launder stolen money and help war criminals flee prosecution. This seems to be the act of a single, or perhaps
small group of rogue priests- but the lack of transparency and baffling record-keeping
practices that plagued the Vatican bank for years only adds fuel to the fire and makes
the real amount of criminal activity impossible to determine. But perhaps the biggest Vatican secret is
its secret war against the devil. Battles With The Devil In 1973 the world saw first hand the terror
of demonic possession with the release of The Exorcist. The film horrified audiences and prompted
a massive wave of public interest in the little known, and even less understood practice of
exorcism. Could the Vatican really be fighting the devil
right here on earth? The answer is terrifying. Sunday morning on May 1st of 2016, and Father
Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican's dean of exorcism, prepares for the grueling labor ahead. Today is his birthday, but the Father has
no time for celebration. He engages in his morning prayers, answers
letters from all over the world asking for his services, and prepares to enter combat
with the devil. At 3 pm, the Father takes an elevator down
to the first floor of his faculty, and there he enters a room occupied by an Italian woman
in her late 30s. She was educated and healthy, but had difficulty
holding down a job lately due to extreme fits she kept experiencing- specially during Christian
holidays. Her family is here with her, including one
man who's own sister had fallen into a severe depression in her thirties. One day he walked into her room to find her
on the floor, convulsing and twisting her body in unnatural shapes while growling like
a wild animal. After a psychiatrist failed to help her, she
was taken to see Father Amorth, and four exorcisms later she was back to normal. It's this man, whose identity has been withheld
to protect those involved, who noticed the woman laying in bed now as she acted strangely
while attending mass. Recognizing the signs his own sister had displayed
while being possessed, he recommended she meet with Father Amorth immediately. The Father insisted that she seek out medical
and psychiatric help first- according to him, out of 100 people who come to him claiming
to be possessed, 98 are merely experiencing medical or psychological phenomena. However, medicine and psychiatry had failed
this woman, and Father Amorth was convinced this was the real deal. The devil was trying to take possession of
her soul. Father Amorth begins his prayers and he asks
the family to join in. At first, there's little reaction from the
possessed woman, but slowly she begins to nod her head involuntarily. Her eyes suddenly roll up into the back of
her head and she falls into a trance-like state. Father Armani presses the spirit inside her
to leave her body, invoking the Roman ritual of Paul V, developed in 1614 to remove demons
from their human hosts. As the ancient words are incanted, the woman
begins to cry out and her body throbs. Suddenly, she falls back into a near comatose
state. Father Amorth places his hand over her heart
and incants, “INFER TIBI LIBERA”, set yourself free in Latin. The woman falls unconscious at the incantation,
going completely limp. Father Amorth continues, “TIME SATANA INIMICI
FIDEM”, be afraid of Satan and the enemies of the faith. Suddenly, the woman comes to life, thrashing
violently. Five men all try to hold her down, putting
all their strength into the effort and barely restraining her as she lashes out at Father
Amorth. Her mouth begins to foam. “RECEDE IN NOMINI PATRIS!”, Leave in the
name of the Father! The holy command seems to weaken the demon,
the mask of rage falling from her face and turning into despair and fear as she renews
her efforts to break free of the five men holding her down. She's trying to reach Father Amorth now, trying
to violently attack him and cease his incantations. “SANCTISSIMO DOMINE MIGRA!”, Let him go,
O God Almighty!. The woman, who does not speak nor understand
Latin suddenly thrusts forward and with a defiant snarls shouts out, “MAI!!”, Never!! The group joins in the Father's prayer, the
men still struggling to hold down the enraged woman as she struggles to attack Father Amorth. The Father denounces the devil, denounces
evil satanic powers and black magic he believes is attempting to possess the woman. She responds with a guttural roar that fills
the room, “MAAAAIIIII!!!” Suddenly, the woman speaks again, but this
time in a deep voice not her own. In Italian the voice commands, “Don't touch
her! Don't ever touch her!”. Father Amorth commands the voice to surrender. The voice taunts the Father, proclaiming,
“I am satan!”. The woman continues to fight against the men
desperately restraining her even as they utter their own desperate prayers. Despite the brisk air conditioning, everyone
in the room is sweating- all except for the woman, who despite her vigorous thrashing
around is perfectly dry. The 91 year old Father refuses to surrender,
and continues commanding the demonic force within to surrender and leave her body. The unnatural voice responds “She is mine! She belongs to me!”, in latin it screams
out “Maaaai!” in defiance. Finally, Father Amorth quietly commands, “Requie
creature Dei”. Rest, creature of God. The woman, who does not understand nor speak
Latin, suddenly falls still. She blinks as if awaking from a deep slumber,
and has no recollection of the encounter. A priest helps her up and leads her into a
corner of the room as her mother receives a blessing from Father Amorth. As the Father begins the blessing, the woman
suddenly flies into a rage, shouting obscenities, screaming and trying to claw her way to the
Father. A man holds her by the neck and another restrains
her legs. Father Amorth finishes the blessing and slowly,
the woman calms down again. The exorcism is not complete, the devil still
lurks inside her, but with each session the woman feels Lucifer's grip loosening. This was a real exorcism carried out in the
Vatican as documented by William Friedkin, who had received special permission to photograph
and film the encounter. Friedkin is best known for directing the horror
classic The Exorcist, and after decades of wondering how close he had come to accurately
portraying the ancient ritual, and the power of the devil, he finally succumbed to his
curiosity and asked the Vatican to allow him to attend, and record a real exorcism. But while the world has debated the existence
of the devil, the Vatican has been battling it for decades- and cases of demonic possession
are exponentially on the rise. How bad is this new demonic crisis? Bad enough that in 2018 the Vatican held a
global training session of 250 priests from 50 countries to help them learn the signs
of demonic possession and learn how to combat demons. Father Gary Thomas, an American exorcist,
blames the global rise in demand for exorcists on a culture that is increasingly adopting
superstitious practices such as tarot card reading, fortune telling, and other occult
rituals. Yet despite 180 cases brought before him,
Father Thomas has only performed a dozen major exorcisms- this is the ritual that is commonly
thought of when the term exorcism is brought up. But this requires strict oversight by the
church, which takes great pains to ensure the individual has ruled out other medical
or psychological reasons for their problems. This caution comes as a result of several
high profile incidents involving exorcisms where victims died during their ritual, many
of which were believed to be suffering from mental illnesses and not demonic possession. In 1999 the church carried out the first major
reform on the rules for exorcism since 1614, taking into account advances in medicine and
psychology. Now, official exorcists sanctioned by the
Vatican work with a team of doctors, psychiatrists, and psychologists- all of them practicing
Catholics- to rule out mental or physical illness as the cause of an individual's disturbance. Now back to our exorcism- was it real? Friedkin took the video of the exorcism to
two of the world's best neurosurgeons and a group of psychiatrists in New York. The first to view the video was Dr. Neil Martin,
chief of neurosurgery at UCLA Medical Center and a man considered to be amongst the top
1% in his field. His response was as follows: “Absolutely
amazing. There’s a major force at work within her
somehow. I don’t know the underlying origin of it. She’s not separated from the environment. She’s not in a catatonic state. She’s responding to the priest and is aware
of the context. The energy she shows is amazing. The priest on the right is struggling to control
her. He’s holding her down, as are the others,
and the sweat is dripping off his face at a time when she’s not sweating. This doesn’t seem to be hallucinations. She appears to be engaged in the process but
resisting. You can see she has no ability to pull herself
back.” When asked if this could be some kind of brain
disorder, Dr. Martin responded that the only thing it could be is delirium, but the strange,
deep voice that the woman was speaking in could not be attributed to delirium. He went on to say, “I’ve done thousands
of surgeries, on brain tumors, traumatic brain injuries, ruptured brain aneurysms, infections
affecting the brain, and I haven’t seen this kind of consequence from any of those
disorders. This goes beyond anything I’ve ever experienced—that’s
for certain.” Dr. Itzhak Fried, a neurosurgeon and clinical
specialist in epilepsy surgery was also unable to offer a diagnosis or possible treatment
for what he was seeing. He did however state that he was sure it wasn't
the result of any physical phenomenon, and the best he could guess was that it must somehow
be psychological. The psychologists who viewed the video were
far less convinced that this wasn't just mental illness however- though there is some truth
to the saying that to a hammer every problem looks like a nail. According to one, this looked to him like
classic Dissociative Trance and Possession Disorder, however being that the definition
of DTPD is a belief that one is possessed, this could simply be the scientific labeling
for a very real demonic phenomenon. There is evidence that possessed individuals
are often simply suffering from delusions or other psychological disorders- there is
however no explanation as to how a woman with no education in Latin is not only able to
understand it when engaged in an exorcism, but respond in it as well. Is the Vatican secretly waging war against
the devil? Science has yet to provide a convincing answer
for a problem the church claims it has been battling for millenia. But the Vatican is not alone in this, as exorcisms
are a common ritual across every single culture in the world, making the belief in demonic
possession a global phenomenon. While science can't offer any definitive answers,
the church cautions that even taking an interest in demonic possessions can be all the invitation
a wandering demon needs to make you its next host. So if you start speaking in dead languages
or you start seeing figures standing at the foot of your bed at night, it might be time
to talk to a priest. Now go check out The Real Life Exorcism Even
Scarier Than A Movie, or click this other video instead- if you dare!
