[Catholic Caucus] Priest: St. Gallen Mafia prelates were named by suspected Freemason Cardinal Baggio

Father Charles Murr drew a link between Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio, who is accused of being a freemason, and the formation of the Saint Gallen group. Speaking on LifeSite’s October 6 Faith & Reason show, he claimed that “all those bishops and cardinals who formed the [Saint] Gallen group were named by Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio.” Murr is a book author, close friend of Pope Pius XII’s housekeeper Mother Pascalina, and an insider to the 1978 Vatican investigation into ecclesial freemasonry.

This comment, which was not further explained, makes more sense in light of Murr’s own 2022 book Murder in the 33rd Degree: the Vatican Investigation into Vatican Freemasonry. Murr was a close friend of Cardinal Edouard Gagnon, who had been tasked by the Pope to investigate the problem of freemasonry within the Vatican hierarchy and thus is privy to some of these internal findings and debates. He describes in his book how in 1974 two cardinals – Dino Staffa and Silvio Oddi – presented Pope Paul VI with documentation about two Vatican cardinals. These two men, Sebastiano Baggio and Annibale Bugnini, were “accused” by Oddi and Staffa “with proof in hand,” for being “active Freemasons.”

Cardinal Baggio was Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Bishops, from 1973 until 1984 and as such had great influence over which clergymen were chosen as bishops, and often subsequently cardinals.

My friend and colleague at LifeSite, Liz Yore, has done her own research in this matter and found out the following with regard of several members of the Saint Gallen Group. She wrote to me:

We could add that Cardinal Basil Hume, who was a key member of the early Saint Gallen Group, was also made a bishop, in 1976, under the reign of Cardinal Baggio.

Both Hume and Martini were leading members of the progressive wing of the Catholic Church in Europe; they consecutively headed the influential Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE) from 1979 until 1993 when Pope John Paul II removed Cardinal Carlo Martini as the head of the CCEE because they were trying to set up parallel structures to Rome and thus undermined the authority of the Pope in Europe. They were already then pushing for the progressivist agenda. Father Ivo Fürer – the man who was later made bishop and who then organized in a more formal way the meetings of the Saint Gallen group from 1996 on until 2006 – during his episcopacy in Saint Gallen, Switzerland, was also the secretary of the CCEE, from 1975 until 1995, for 20 years. He stated that Martini’s book Night Conversations with Cardinal Martini pretty much summed up the positions of the Saint Gallen Group. That same cardinal was praised multiple times by Pope Francis. Pope Francis is an explicit disciple of Cardinal Martini.

For example, not long after his papal election, Francis praised Martini in public, calling him “prophetic,” “a father for the whole Church,” and a “man of discernment and of peace.” He also once said: “I’d like to remind you that Carlo Maria Martini also came from that [Jesuit] order, someone who is very dear to me and also to you.”

The close connection between Martini and Fürer can be seen in Fürer’s own words.

Martini once also commented on these meetings in Saint Gallen. Fürer quoted Martini as saying that “there is no other meeting in the Church where one can speak so freely and so personally as in St. Gallen.”

“Much of what we discussed at these meetings,” the Swiss bishop concluded, “Martini worked into the book Night Conversations with Cardinal Martini.”

In 2018, Fürer published his own memoirs, Church in Changing Times (Kirche im Wandel der Zeit, published by Theologischer Verlag Zürich). In this book, he describes how he, together with Cardinal Martini, engaged in an intense battle with Pope John Paul II about which direction the Catholic Church in Europe should be taking.

The German journalist Julius Müller-Meiningen wrote in depth about the Saint Gallen group, back in 2015. He then quoted Cardinal Walter Kasper, another members of the Saint Gallen group, who claimed: “What Francis now tries to implement corresponds to a high degree to the thoughts that we [at the Saint Gallen group] had at the time.” And the journalist adds: “The members of the former round table [Saint Gallen Group] have today a determining influence upon the agenda of the Catholic Church.”

Without going into the details on how the Saint Gallen group helped get Jorge Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) elected pope in 2013 – after their earlier failed attempt at stopping Joseph Ratzinger’s papal election in 2005 – it is worth mentioning here that it was Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, one of the Baggio-appointed bishops and member of the Saint Gallen group, who is largely known to have played a key role in the election of Pope Francis.

Several of these Saint Gallen bishops had written to Jorge Bergoglio – who met the Saint Gallen group when being made cardinal at the same 2001 consistory as Saint Gallen members Cardinals Kasper, Murphy-O’Connor, Audrys Juozas Bačkis, and Karl Lehmann – a postcard from Rome right ahead of the 2005 conclave with the words: “We are here in the spirit of St. Gallen.”

That means that by 2005, Jorge Bergoglio was aware of that group and their larger plans. The conclave of 2005 had Jorge Bergoglio already leading right after Ratzinger, but it was due to a leak to the media and the revelations about the activities of that Saint Gallen group that his election seems to have been thwarted.

All this could mean that Pope Francis was collaborating and finally elected into the papacy by a group of modernist bishops and cardinals who were themselves picked by a man who was a Freemason.

Several of the key members of that Saint Gallen group – Silvestrini, Danneels, and Martini – have been explicitly mentioned in various media as possible freemasons.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a few years before he became Pope, once told a colleague of mine, Dr. Robert Moynihan, what he thought of the dangerous role of Freemasonry in the Church.

“I asked the Cardinal,” Moynihan reported back in 2020, “where the greatest danger to the authentic Catholic faith lies. ‘Is it in our own selves, our own sins and weaknesses. Is this what is the greatest danger to the Church or is it something else, some external enemy?’”

Moynihan continued: “He looked at me directly in the eyes and then after a moment’s pause, as if he were reflecting, he said: ‘It is Freemasonry.’”

So much more research needs to be done. But Father Murr’s comments and recent revelations can lead the way.

Let us quote here again from his book on Freemasonry in the Vatican:

Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Bishops since 1973, decided who would and who would not become a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. He chose these episcopal candidates from the pool of half a million priests throughout the world. [….] If, as Staffa and Oddi alleged, Sebatiano Baggio was the “Freemason Ambassador to the Holy See,” the havoc he was in a position to wreak upon the universal Church could cause irreparable damage. The bishops who had been nominated on his watch reflected Baggio’s own liberal ideological views.

And, as Father Murr reports, a subsequent investigation in 1978 of the claims of Oddi and Staffa against Baggio and his involvement with Freemasonry were authenticated and confirmed by Archbishop Giovanni Benelli. But neither Pope Paul VI nor Pope John Paul II took serious steps against Baggio.

Murr then also quotes Cardinal Gagnon, who was unsuccessful in trying to convince Pope Paul VI that he had to take action against Cardinal Baggio. Gagnon is quoted as saying: “The gravity of allowing Sebastiano Baggio, Cardinal and Freemason, to continue as Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Bishops was simply and completely intolerable.”

In a sense, we are living still with the consequences of that papal laxity toward ecclesial freemasons, as it seems.

Could it thus be that Pope Francis has been essentially elected by a groups of cardinals and bishops who were picked by a Freemason cardinal, thus now serving an agenda that stems out of freemasonic ideologies?

Was Pope John Paul I murdered?

With news this week that John Paul I will soon be beatified, The Pillar decided to take a look at some of these theories and the evidence behind them.

Who would kill the pope? And why?

There are a several figures who have come under suspicion in connection with John Paul I’s sudden death - each for different reasons:

Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio - Cardinal Baggio was head of the Vatican’s Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops during the 1970s, giving him significant weight in the selection process of new bishops. According to priest and author Fr. Charles Murr, Baggio was a Freemason who had worked for years to see that liberal bishops were appointed. John Paul I had been warned about Baggio and removed him from the congregation shortly after assuming the role of pope, Murr says, and Baggio was the last person to see the pope alive.

Curia officials involved in financial scandals - There are few different versions of this theory, which posits that several high-level Church officials were involved in serious financial fraud in connection with the Vatican Bank. John Paul I was assassinated, in this version of events, because he was on the verge of ordering an investigation into the Vatican Bank, which could have exposed the financial scandal tied to it, involving Freemasons, the mafia, and significant amounts of money laundering.

The CIA - a few authors have speculated that the U.S. government was eager to have a pope who would be more aligned with the foreign policy interests of the United States, and have suggested that the CIA may have been involved in murdering John Paul I.

Opponents of the Tridentine Mass - Some traditionalist groups have advanced the theory that John Paul I - the first pope elected following the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council - was preparing to restore the Traditional Latin Mass as the norm for the Catholic Church, and was murdered to prevent him from doing so.

What’s the evidence?

Theories that John Paul I was assassinated tend to revolve around a few key pieces of evidence:

The Vatican said that John Paul I died of “myocardial infarction” - aka a heart attack. But an autopsy was never performed. Critics have questioned how officials could be sure the pope had died from a heart attack in the absence of an autopsy.

According to the Vatican’s account, the pope was found sitting up in bed, still holding his reading material and sporting his signature warm smile. Some have questioned whether that peaceful and serene pose matches the description of a person who had just suffered a massive heart attack.

John Paul I’s body was embalmed immediately upon being discovered, in a departure from both Vatican protocol and Italian law. This prompted suspicions that officials were trying to cover up potential evidence of poisoning in the blood.

The Vatican first announced that a papal secretary had found John Paul I’s body, before later admitting that it was in fact a nun who had come in to serve the pope’s morning coffee. The original story may have been altered to avoid the potential scandal of acknowledging the presence of a woman in the pope’s bedroom, but the ambiguity was enough to raise eyebrows among those who were already suspicious of the official account of events.
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Is it true?

Of course, it’s impossible to say what actually happened on the fateful night of September 28, 1978. But scholars and scientists have weighed in from time to time, giving their opinions on theories that have sprung up over the years.

Vatican journalist Stefania Falasca claimed in a 2017 book, “Papa Luciani: Chronicle of a Death,” that John Paul I’s medical records reflect that while the pope was in generally good health, he had dealt with heart problems a few years prior to his death, and was taking heart medication as a result. The book also indicated that the pope had suffered brief but intense chest pain earlier in the evening on the night of his death, lending support to the claim that he died from a heart attack.

In a 2007 episode of the Discovery Channel’s “Conspiracies on Trial,” forensic scientists examined the claims surrounding John Paul I’s death. Among their findings: Contrary to Vatican claims, it was not necessary to embalm the pope’s body immediately to prevent it from decomposing in the Roman heat, which some suspected was done to prevent the detection of poision.

But — putting a crimp in the conspiracy theories — the scientists also said early embalming would not likely have been enough to prevent detection of poison in the blood.

On the other hand, a forensic pathologist in the episode suggested it was unlikely that a person would be smiling and continuing to grip reading material after dying from a massive heart attack.

The truth is out there

We may never know the truth about what happened to Pope John Paul I. It is possible - albeit unlikely - that officials could call for an autopsy as the former pope’s cause is prepared for beatification.

Although it has been more than 40 years since his death, his quick embalming means that his body should be relatively well preserved, to the point that scientists could find answers - or at least rule out possibilities - if an autopsy were to be conducted today.

Generally, though, the Vatican does not routinely launch investigations to satisfy conspiracy theorists. It is most likely that the questions surrounding John Paul I’s death will go unanswered.

And as his beatification approaches, the conspiracy theories will resurface with renewed enthusiasm.

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[Catholic Caucus] Priest: St. Gallen Mafia prelates were named by suspected Freemason Cardinal Baggio

'All those bishops and cardinals who formed the [Saint] Gallen group were named by Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio,' Father Charles Murr said, referring to one of the cardinals who in 1974 was accused by two other cardinals of being a freemason.

Who would kill the pope? And why?

What’s the evidence?

Is it true?

The truth is out there