Posted on 12/17/2002 9:29:06 AM PST by Francisco
CORPSES IN THE VATICAN
ON 4 May 1998, twenty years after the mysterious death of John Paul I, Cedric Tornay, a twenty-three year old vice-corporal in the Vatican Swiss Guards killed his superior, Colonel Alois Estermann, and his wife Gladys with his regulation pistol. He then took his own life. The Colonel (seen here) was forty-four and had been promoted the day before to take command of the pontifical army.
At least that is the official version, issued barely three hours after the drama by Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the Vatican spokesman, and “confirmed” in February 1999: after a nine month inquiry, the Vatican promoter of justice concluded that «the Estermann couple had been killed by Vice-Corporal Tornay, who then immediately took his own life with the same regulation pistol.»
However, just as with John Paul I, no one saw anything, no one heard anything that took place that evening in the Estermanns’ apartment, situated just a few metres away from that of the Holy Father. But Cedric Tornay left a letter, addressed to his mother, in which he explains his act and begs her forgiveness.
When she read this document, Cedric’s mother, Muguette Baudat-Tornay, was stunned: not only was it not her son’s handwriting, but indications that he was not its author were only too obvious. In the top right-hand corner it read, «Vatican, 4.05.98». Mugette is categorical is about this: Cedric was in the habit of writing the name of the month in full, and furthermore he never used an initial zero to indicate the first nine months of the year. Another peculiar reference: that of «lieutenant-colonel» Estermann, when Cedric could not be unaware that he had just been promoted colonel. Similarly, he calls his sister «Melinda» when he used to call her Dada. He writes, «I took an oath to give my life for the Pope and that is what I am going to do.» Now, he always used to say «Holy Father» rather than «Pope».
Cedric Tornay’s mother therefore immediately let it be known that her son had been murdered: «The three people killed on 4 May last were the victims of a plot and the official version is full of deceit, contradictions and lies in order to hide a probably inadmissible truth.» She stated that she held «two documents of great importance in a safe place», which will «force the Vatican to tell the truth». According to her, «the Colonel [Estermann] had seen or knew something that he should not have seen or known.»
Finally, Mrs Tornay declares that «several people put pressure on me and tried to put me off my fight for the truth». The chaplain of the Swiss Guard, Mgr Jehle, even attempted to dissuade her from going to the Vatican to take part in her son’s funeral! Twice she tried to contact the Holy Father directly: through a formal request dated 18 September 1998, which remains unanswered, and then by a letter dated 8 July 1999, which has not received a reply either.
DENIAL OF JUSTICE
The Holy See’s announcement on 8 February 1999 that the matter was closed was accompanied by lengthy extracts from the report made by the lawyer Nicola Picardi, the Vatican promoter of justice, at the conclusion of his inquiry, to the examining judge, Gianluigi Marrone.
The received version of the facts is as follows: Cedric Tornay presented himself at the door of the Estermanns’ apartment, entered the living room and twice shot the colonel who was on the phone at the time. He then turned on Gladys Meza Romero, firing a third shot at her which missed her, before hitting her with a fourth shot. Finally, it was against himself that he fired his last shot.
One question: And did no one hear anything? Only two paces away from the Pope’s apartment?
No, no one. And we have had to wait four years for the affair to be revived.
On 27 April 2002, Jaques Vergès and Luc Brossollet, Mugette Baudat’s lawyers, gave a press conference at Martigny, in Switzerland, where Cedric Tornay is buried. Mr Brossollet explained that the regulation pistol which the Swiss Guard is supposed to have used to kill himself was a 9.42 mm Sigg, whereas the autopsy carried out on the vice-corporal’s body at his family’s request by the University of Lausanne’s Institute of Forensic Pathology, describes the bullet’s exit hole as corresponding to a 7 mm calibre.
That is not all: the autopsy reveals a fracture to a cranium bone, the petrosal bone, which was not on the bullet’s path, as well as the presence of blood and mucus inside the lungs, a substance which the body secretes when respiration is difficult. Cedric Tornay had therefore been struck on the head before being killed by a shot fired from a weapon with a calibre of 7 mm forced into his mouth, where it can be seen that the incisors have been broken by the firearm’s front sight. On the other hand, no trace could be found of the brain tumour which, according to the Vatican inquiry, was the cause of the Swiss Guard’s «behavioural disorders».
His mother therefore returned to Rome last July, accompanied by her lawyers, Vergès and Brossollet, in an attempt to have her case heard.
To journalists who asked her why she had come to Rome, she declared:
«The Vatican remains deaf to all our appeals. Is it surprising then that we are asking the press to echo our disillusion and our bitterness? We want the inquiry to be reopened which, on 5 February 1999, made my son out to be a homicide-suicide. The decree of the president of the court of appeals which rejected our request merely invited me to present my proofs to the tribunal, without the assistance of my lawyers. An unacceptable demand!
– Before you appealed to the press, did you take other steps? she was asked.
– On 11 April last, we wrote to the Holy Father in virtue of the law of January 2002 according to which, as head of State, he has the power to reopen an inquiry without the tribunal’s consent. To this day, we have received no response.
«Nor did the Vatican react to our press conference on 27 April, at Martigny.» (Il Tempo, 5 July 2002)
The next day, the Corriere della Sera spoke of «a plot that linked the double crime of an assassination attempt against the Pope and the disappearance of Emmanuelle Orlandi: “In this settling of scores, the lawyers point out, a junior Swiss Guard was sacrificed”.»
The Italian newspaper’s journalist continues:
«The accusations brought against the Vatican are very grave; since 1998, it has reputedly rejected on six occasions Mrs Baudat’s request that it study the sentence which declared her son guilty. “Contrary to the most elementary Christian charity, say the lawyers, the Pope himself has failed to reply to a mother in difficulty.” These accusations are “unacceptable and insulting”, retorts the Holy See.» (Corriere della Sera, 6 July 2002)
For us, all this has a strange sense of déjà vu, don’t you find? Three times over the last thirty years the Abbé de Nantes has gone to ask the Pope for justice, at ten yearly intervals, each time with the same total lack of success. With this difference, albeit very minor, in Mrs Tornay’s favour, although it leaves her under no illusions: in this case, the Holy See «announced the transfer of the file to the promoter of justice who, if there are good grounds, may decide to reopen the examination».
But, come now, there are no accepted grounds… Already, the Secretariat of State has sent a communiqué to the lawyers to inform them that «the Tornay case has been dealt with by the competent bodies». This official response reveals the Curia’s real concern: to dispel every suspicion in order to avoid the explosion of the powder keg that will be tripped by the revelation of the truth. Up to now, however, the Vatican magistrature holds that there are no grounds for instituting new proceedings. It is therefore likely that the lawyer Vergès will be led to do what he stated at the press conference of 27 April: «Should the Vatican persist in turning a deaf ear to our appeal, we will bring the matter before a Swiss tribunal, for Cedric Tornay was a Swiss citizen.» The media wonders:
«Will the French lawyer, a specialist in eminent trial cases, manage to convince and sway the Vatican authorities?» (L’Express, 27 June 2002) The question remains…
BLOOD LIES
Estermann’s predecessor at the head of the pontifical guard, Colonel Roland Buchs, was called back to duty the day after the triple murder to manage matters in the interim. He ordered that the deceased Vice-Corporal Cedric Tornay should be dressed in full uniform, and that his coffin should be placed next to those of his two presumed victims, in Saint Martin’ chapel transformed into a chapel of rest. L’Express of 27 June 2002 published a photo in which John Paul II can be seen praying before the three coffins. On the day of Cedric’s funeral, which took place on 7 May 1998 in Saint Anne’s Church, a squad of forty Swiss Guards paid their tribute, with the flag of the Guard, the sword-knots of honour and the drums. The soldiers intoned their farewell song: «I had a comrade.» Clearly, Colonel Buchs does not believe the “official version” according to which Cedric Tornay was an assassin, and what is more, a suicide! «Many questions remain unanswered, he says. I think that God knows the real truth, and the precise reasons behind this tragedy.»
He is not alone. Witness the string of resignations of two thirds of the non-commissioned officers: on 15 May 1998 the halberdier Christian Frangi quit the service; followed on 31 May by two colleagues, Christian Emmeneger and Frederico Schiuchetti. A month later, it was the turn of Corporals Michel Pfister and Hans Ulrich Eörtle, etc.
On 8 February 1999, the Holy See announced that the one hundred page report of the promoter of justice, Nicola Picardi, would remain confidential. However, it published excerpts tending to support the thesis of Tornay’s homicide-suicide. The communiqué of 10 February 1999, issued by the Catholic International Press Agency, clearly reflects these «conclusions of the inquiry»: after mentioning «the presence of a cyst in a part of the young man’s cranium, capable of explaining certain of his “behavioural problems”» – the first lie denounced by Lausanne’s forensic pathology authorities, as we have seen – «it also claimed that there was evidence to show that, although being a person who was generally “courteous and kind”, Cedric Tornay had frequently displayed signs of “peculiar” behaviour, characterised by bouts of “irresponsibility”, particularly with regard to his superiors, all of which indicates a “somewhat unbalanced” personality.
«Moreover, investigations have made it possible to state that he sometimes smoked cannabis. Finally, the testimony of the young Italian girl to whom he spoke on the telephone half an hour before the drama, has highlighted his excessive state of “anxiety” and “emotivity”, although he had been particularly active all day long despite suffering from a broncho-pneumonia.»
In short, the young man is presented as having acted under a sudden mad impulse, as being seriously ill and addicted to drugs.
His mother’s response: «He was a Swiss Guard. For that, he had to pass an entrance exam. Did the Vatican only come to realise all his defects after his death? They even went so far as to say that he was a homosexual… Ask Valéria, his fiancée, what she thinks of that! The Vatican has destroyed my Cedric.»
But the Vatican allows this woman no possibility of defending her son. Here again is something we know all too well: in contempt of the rights of the defendant, only the prosecution’s testimony is admitted…
Wholly different, and unambiguous, is the testimony of Cedric’s colleagues obtained by Italian journalists: «Cedric was an impeccable young man, with a good head on his shoulders. I have great difficulty imagining that he did this because of a medal he was denied.» An allusion to the press release according to which, «among the “objective” reasons cited in the extracts presented to the press, is essentially found that of the news of the nomination of Alois Estermann as the new commandant of the Swiss Guard, something which Cedric Tornay greeted with a “I couldn’t care a damn!”, the vice corporal considering that this “bad news” was compensated for by “the great news of a job in Switzerland” of which he had just received confirmation.
«Another so called “objective” reason for this act may have been the fact that he had just learned that he would not receive the medal of recognition he was expecting.»
So, furious at having been refused a decoration by Estermann for having returned forty-eight hours late from leave, Cedric Tornay kills him, shoots his wife and takes his own life. The proof? The letter, apparently! Cedric’s letter handed to his mother by Judge Gianluigi Marrone, a handwritten letter, in French, showing both location and date, of which here is the original text:
«Vatican 4-05-98
«Mama,
«I hope you will forgive me, for it is they who made me to do what I have done. This year I should have received the Benemerenti but the Lieutenant-Colonel refused to give it to me. After 3 years, 6 months and 6 days spent here putting up with all kinds of injustice, he refused to give me the only thing I wanted. I owe this duty to the remaining guards as well as to the Catholic Church. I took an oath to give my life for the Pope and that is what I am doing. Forgive me for leaving you all alone but my duty calls me. Tell sarah, Melinda and Papa that I love you all.
«A big kiss to the Greatest Mother in the World.
Your son who loves you»
According to the Holy See’s spokesman, Tornay entrusted this letter to one of his comrades, less than two hours before the crime. It was given to his mother on the afternoon of the funeral.
But on the same morning, someone had sent journalists a typed text in French, without reference to either place or date, but signed. Some daily newspapers published an Italian translation of this on 8 May:
«Mama,
«I hope you will forgive me but it is they who made me to do what I have done. This year I should have received the decoration (la “Benemerenti”) but the lieutenant colonel refused to give it to me. After three years, six months and six days spent here putting up with all kinds of injustices, they refused to give me the only thing I wanted. I owe this duty to all the guards as well as to the Catholic Church. I took an oath to give my life for the Pope and that is what I am doing. Forgive me for leaving you all alone but my duty calls me. Tell sarah, melissa and Papa that I love you.
Cedrich».
On 8 May, the Corriere della Sera’s well known Vaticanist, Luigi Accatoli, wrote, «that he had obtained the full text of the letter and had attempted – without much success – to verify its authenticity, but it seemed genuine to him». In this letter, we find that Cedric Tornay’s sister is wrongly called «Melissa» instead of «Melinda» as in the text given to Mrs Tornay… and the Corriere della Sera copied the error as it stood. We also note that the signature «Cedrich» distorts the first name «Cedric» in the manner that Italians or Germans would write it.
It is clear that the handing over of this strange text to the press had a precise objective: to provide unchallengeable “proof” of the official version drawn up by the Holy See, and to divulge its “revelatory” contents before the experts subsequently had a chance to establish its apocryphal character. By then, once the truth had been snuffed out, it would be too late to restore it, and sufficient time would have been bought for life to go on as previously and for public opinion to become passionate about other news events. By then, the Abbé de Nantes would be in a position to reconstruct the crime point by point and to expose its authors…, but it would be old news and, being in doubt, everyone would stick to their positions. That is why it was the height of clerical hypocrisy for the Secretary of the Swiss Episcopal Conference, Rolland Tauffer, to lyingly protest at Fribourg: «This letter is in the pocket of Cedric Tornay’s mother, a copy of it is in the hands of the Vatican judge, and no one else could have read its contents. I defend the right of this mother to keep this letter for herself».
The spelling mistakes are quite a good imitation of those that Cedric usually made, as his mother acknowledges. But the unusual error lies in the calculation of his time of service. Cedric enrolled on 1 December 1994: on 4 May 1998, therefore, only 3 years, 5 months and 3 days had passed… It looks like the letter had been written in view of an event planned for 7 June and that, as events had moved faster than expected, it had subsequently been dated 4 May.
We have stated that Cedric’s Mother considers this letter received from the hand of the Vatican magistrate to be a forgery. The wording of the date, the way Colonel Estermann is demoted to «lieutenant-colonel» and the name «Melinda» are already more than sufficient evidence. «Tell sarah, Melinda and Papa that I love you all.» And what about his half-brothers, Yvan and Joel of whom he was very fond? Why does he not name them? No doubt because the Vatican was unaware of their existence.
Expert graphologists from Switzerland confirm these suspicions: this letter was not written by Cedric. But the person who wrote it knew him well. At least in an administrative sense, for it is addressed to his mother under the name of “Chamorel”. Cedric never addressed a letter to her under this name, but always used her maiden name: Baudat. But “Chamorel” is the surname that appears on the Vatican registers. Well might the forger get confused, for the situation was a little like Jesus with the Samaritan woman: «“Go, call your husband, and come back here.” The woman said to him: “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her: “Your are right to say, ‘I have no husband’, for you have had five husbands but the man who is with you now is not your husband; in this you spoke the truth.” The woman said to him: “Lord, I see that you are a prophet”.» (Jn 4.16-19)
The Vatican scribe given the task of fabricating the letter was not a prophet. He had no way of knowing that “Mrs Chamorel” had divorced her second husband some time previously…
THE HONOUR OF THE CHURCH
In 1984 Abbé de Nantes entitled his editorial “JUSTICE WILL BE HEARD”. This was in connection with the dramatic death of John Paul I «who had dared to stand alone against plutocratic and masonic tyranny; and it cost him his life. “Though dead, he still speaks”, as it is written of Abel the Just (Heb 11.4).» (CCR no 172, October 1984)
Admittedly, Mrs Tornay’s lawyers do not refer to Holy Scripture! Nevertheless, «the Parisian duo maintain that they do not want a “scrap with the Vatican”, but simply to ensure that “justice is heard”.» (La Croix, 29 April 2002)
We ourselves have known for a long time now that justice is simply not heard in Rome. «The denial of justice is manifest, affirms the lawyer Vergès: a young man is killed by a firearm and his mother is refused any explanation and any written record. The likes of this have never been seen before!»
Excuse me! It was seen twenty-four years ago when John Paul I was murdered, a murder immediately made to look like cardiac failure. If Vergès believed in the devil, he would not be unduly surprised, for Albino Luciani said that the devil was in the Vatican. But whatever the future result of the requests, counter-investigations and lawyer’s findings may be, we must not let our imaginations run riot, for that is rightly repugnant to our hearts. We should copy the terms employed by the Abbé de Nantes in 1984 with regard to the role played by Cardinal Villot in the assassination of John Paul I. One need only replace the name “Villot” with that of “Wojtyla” in order to apply these considerations to today’s perplexities, and say:
«No, it was not John Paul II who decided on the murder of Alois Estermann, Karol Wojtyla’s double, his private bodyguard since 1981. It was not he who organised it. He simply found himself confronted with a crime perpetrated by those he knew, and in a manner and at a time also known to him. He was not the author of the crime.
«Perhaps we can say that he was an accomplice in the crime? and, after the event, a participant?
«He found himself constrained, clearly reluctantly, to do what his conscience and his high sense of his duty told him to do at an hour when he held supreme authority and all power, namely to disguise the crime now that it had been consummated and was irreparable, in order to save the honour of Holy Church.
«For such was, and still is, the idea of the Church’s honour as understood by the Secretariat of State in all its avenues and curial ramifications, even where the pontifical throne is concerned.» (cf. CCR no 172, p. 9)
Thus, reasons of State cover up lies and crimes in the Vatican just as they do in Washington!... against the ecclesiastical traditions that guarantee to every one of the Catholic faithful, throughout his entire life, the magnificent privilege of appealing to Rome in any kind of difficulty or trial, when every other means of succeeding through other channels has proved impracticable or disappointing.
THE TRIBUNAL OF THE POPE
One of Cedric’s colleagues, Corporal Christian Richard has, in a single phrase, thrown a raw light on this drama: «It is too easy to make Cedric into a scapegoat for this dirty business.» Rather than “scapegoat”, it would be better to say red herring: in order to create a diversion when fox hunting, a rotting herring is brandished before the dog pack, in order to make it loose the scent and so bring the hunt to an end. The red herring thrown to journalists and to the public to devour is Vice-Corporal Cedric Tornay, presented as «an assassin who acted in a fit of madness, assassinating the colonel and his wife, and then taking his own life».
The inquiry was rigged, falsified in a thousand ways, and oriented so as to endorse this «official thesis», and everyone’s attention was focused on Cedric Tornay. Immediately, without the slightest hesitation, as was the case in the assassination of John Paul I twenty years earlier, as was the case in that of Roberto Calvi which closely followed it, a group of people intervened, doctoring the scene of the murder and removing all the evidence. The two «forensic pathologists working for the Holy See», Pietro Fucci and Giovanni Arcudi, if they were not actually waiting on the stairs like John Paul I’s embalmers, carried out the autopsy a few hours after the crime, and in secret. The gathering of evidence and the ballistic analyses were carried out by Raoul Bonarelli, under their sole supervision.
Indeed, the Vatican was careful not to call upon the Italian Police’s criminal records office and its ballistics experts, contrary to an established practice whereby the Italian police are called upon when a crime has been committed within the Vatican precincts. We know something about this, we whose access to the Bronze Door was blocked by the Italian police in 1973, even though we had no intention of killing anyone, but had simply come to ask Pope Paul VI for justice!
On the evening of 4 May 1998, a veritable piece of stagecraft was orchestrated: at midnight, an ambulance from the Vatican’s Health Assistance Fund, a white vehicle registered SCV 424 and bearing the inscription “mobile reanimation unit”, feigned to transport three bodies to the Gemelli Polyclinic Hospital.
In reality, the bodies of the three victims were placed on stretchers which halberdiers transported to the Vatican morgue situated next to Saint Anne’s Church. It was imperative to prevent an autopsy taking place outside the Vatican or on the premises of the Health Assistance Fund. The three corpses were therefore taken away without any of the precautions routinely used in criminal investigations, without gloves or bags, and placed in the corridor of the morgue, then covered with sheets.
The inquiry was entrusted to the only judge in Vatican State, the lawyer Gianluigi Marrone. He decided that the autopsy would be carried out the following day, within Vatican State, by two middle-aged forensic pathologists, Pietro Fucci and Giovanni Arcudi, who could be trusted to do what was necessary.
Muguette Baudat claims that the Vatican is protecting those responsible for the massacre and its agents. She makes this claim in a document confided to KAOS Publications and published under her name, with a provocative title, THE VOICE OF MUGUETTE BAUDAT, at the end of a work entitled BUGIE DI SANGUE IN VATICANO («Blood Lies in the Vatican»), published in November 1999 in Milan. These pages constitute a veritable Liber accusationis.
Doubtless drawn up in collaboration with her lawyers, this indictment is accompanied by a facsimile of the decrees that emanated from the Vatican, informing her of the rejection of her request to defend her son unjustly accused of murder. She lists the anomalies of the preliminary investigation of 1998-1999, and testifies to the pressure brought to bear on her by the emissaries of the Secretariat of State, after she had several times attempted to address the Holy Father directly. Whilst trying to find out just how much she knew, they insisted that she should not importune the Pope – who had nothing to do with this affair – and, above all, that she should keep silent.
As for us, we will be wary of following these anonymous authors in their investigations into facts and events that were carefully dated and clearly observed by habitués of the Vatican, familiar with the premises and the habits of the staff, both religious and lay. They lead to the thesis that two influential groups are confronting each other in the Vatican: «the masonic clan» divided into rival factions, and «Opus Dei». These organised groups operate in the shadows and in secret… We will not attempt to penetrate it.
With our eyes fixed on Our Lady of Fatima, who showed, by unveiling Her own “Secret”, that She did not want to know of crime, not having been given the task of judging such matters, we will simply recall that our complaint concerns another act of infamy, a different form of assassination, to use the term applied by Cardinal Daniélou when speaking of the «assassins of the faith». In a final petition addressed «to the most distinguished members of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura» on 24 May 1998, three weeks after the triple assassination of the Swiss Guards, the Abbé de Nantes denounced a much more serious crime:
«It concerns the immanent and contagious apostasy which continues to grow, everywhere banishing the true faith, in capite et in membris, to the extent that the implacable enemies of our holy religion lord it over the innocent flock in the Church, and the scattered defenders of the faith find themselves reduced to silence, persecuted and ultimately excluded, a mortal sadness to their hearts. CAVEANT CONSULES!
«Owing to the fact that our perfect and irreformable Catholic faith has been altered, travestied and corrupted among vast regions and population ever since the Reform decided upon by Vatican II, the defenders of the only Faith by which men can be saved find themselves discouraged, turned away, nay threatened with the direst ecclesiastical sanctions and most terrible insults from the forces of the media if they persevere in this combat.
«Thus it fares with me, I who have engaged in this struggle ever since the beginning of the Council. I have received an interdict from my Bishop and have had to put up with the gravest threats, and since I was unable to resign myself to this, I was immediately obliged to make my first appeal to Rome. That was at Christmas 1965, and since then I have renewed this appeal on ten occasions without obtaining satisfaction regarding either the truth or the justice of this combat, which I will pursue till my death, unless of course I am convicted of an offence.»
YOU MEAN HE WAS SLEEPING WITH HER?
If she was a good Catholic girl, she would not be sleeping with him, and wouldn't know if he was gay or not. I know of several nice girls in the good old days who married gay men and didn't find out until the Honeymoon.
This of course is an old scandal, and has nothing to do with Catholicism per se. This is not the only swiss guard scandal, but like most elite military groups, most of them keep their mouth shut about problems. If a secret service man killed another secret service man, would it mean we should vote Democratic?
How so? Do you frequently blame other people for your problems? For a group who eschews conspiracy theories this is perhaps the greatest conspiracy theory of all. Did it ever occur to you that people left because of your sharp, acid tongues and unChristian behavior? Aside from your all out assault on Traditionalists, the petty bickering and infighting is visible on virtually all your threads. Do we need to start posting examples of how poorly you treat each other?
You seem awfully comfortable here for a newbie. Post here under another name before?
Gee, thanks. You've learned well from your friends. Good day to you too.
From Salvation | 12/18/2002 11:01 PM PST read
What a jerk this Scupoli is.
Don't bother with him any more.
Salvation.
Did you intend to Freepmail this to me or someone else? You are quite the paragon of virtue Madam.
I am sorry I do not fit your expectation of a newcomer who should simply lurk in the background while my Faith is assaulted, as I have observed you and others do. I will not stand by and take it. You will continue to be disappointed. I guess I just don't know my place.
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