Selling Indulgences – charging the faithful for entry into Heaven. ibid.
31st October 1517 Luther sat down and penned a furious litany of criticism. Ninety-five stinging bullet-points. ibid.
The thesis would spread like wildfire. ibid.
The penalty for heresy was death. ibid.
The Church’s greatest conflict in its history. ibid.
95 theses – 95 stinging attacks on the mighty Catholic church and its head the Pope. Luther has no idea that with his one gesture he has unleashed a hurricane. A storm of violence that will rage across Europe. Martin Luther II: The Reluctant Revolutionary
Luther was charged with heresy. Only a hundred years before a man named … had criticised the Church for much the same reasons as Luther. ibid.
Luther painted a vivid picture of the financial drain that was Rome. ibid.
Luther and his followers were beginning to see the struggle with Rome was an epic battle with the devil himself. ibid.
To set down in detail a whole new system of faith. ibid.
Luther now attacked the very heart of the Church’s power - the system of sacraments. ibid.
In the winter of 1520 Luther finally received the bull of excommunication from Rome. ibid.
A depression that was accompanied by a vivid sense that the devil was haunting him. ibid.
An unstoppable rebellion and spreading from the grass roots up. The first steps of what would become the Reformation. ibid.
A series of peasant uprisings flared up across the country. ibid.
Luther would always hold to this vision of apocalyptic Biblical conflict. ibid.
After the peasants, one of his most infamous targets would be Judaism. ibid.
Protestantism swept across Germany and then onto France, the Netherlands, Belgium. But in every place it took a different form. ibid.
Luther would finally die in the year 1546 seized by a crippling heart attack. ibid.
Then, said Cranly, you do not intend to become a protestant?
I said that I had lost the faith, Stephen answered, but not that I had lost self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent? James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Now I warned and warned that Satan would enter into the highest realms of the hierarchy in Rome. The third secret, my child, is that Satan would enter into my son’s Church. Our Lady of the Roses, 13th May 1978
Within the Catholic Church is a powerful group. Opus Dei ... Critics call it secretive and cult-like. Decoding the Past s3e2: Opus Dei, History 2006
It began in 1928 with a divine inspiration experienced by a devout Spanish priest. Following what he believed was God’s holy call Father Josemaria Escriva formed a new Catholic group. He would later name it Opus Dei, Latin for God’s work. ibid.
The Da Vinci Code also dramatically introduces the controversial ritual of corporal mortification. ibid.
Opus Dei has 87,000 members in 61 countries. Its membership is comprised mostly of lay people. ibid.
Escriva and Opus Dei have been repeatedly accused of supporting Franco’s fascists and repressive reign. ibid.
Later in 1939 Escriva published The Way, his book of 199 short passages known as Maxims. ibid.
But many of their practices invite suspicion and scepticism ... What separates Opus Dei members from other Catholic lay organisations is their rigorous daily routine. Members attend mass and receive communion daily. Prayer is constant. ibid.
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Opus Dei is the practise of corporal mortification. Acts of self-denial or voluntary pain as penance, a kind of bodily sacrifice. ibid.
But it’s the more extreme forms of mortification practised by the numeries that draw the most scrutiny. ibid.
The Knights of Malta are the militia of the Pope, and are sworn to total obedience by a blood oath which is taken extremely seriously and to the death. Albert G Mackey, Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry
The Order of St John was founded in Jerusalem to care for sick pilgrims. By 1530 its base was the Mediterranean island of Malta. Part monk, part soldier, the knights of Malta dedicated themselves to the spiritual and military defence of Christianity. Ancient Discoveries: Secret Science of the Occult, History 2009
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta, also known as the original Sovereign Military Order of St John of Jerusalem, is a closed fraternity of the Roman Catholic Church. The order and its members have been proven to be linked with the Rat Run, the post-WWII escape route used by high-ranking and death camp scientists from defeated Germany to the Americas. Secret Societies of the Illuminati NWO: The Hidden Power of the World
The Society of Jesus (Jesuits) is a Roman Catholic religious order founded in 1534 by Ignacio de Loyola, a Spanish soldier. In 1540 the group received a charter from Rome in which members promised total loyalty to the Pope. Their Jesuit oath demands the initiate to lie, steal or murder, without hesitation, if ordered to do so by his superior. Formed primarily to destroy the Protestant Reformation and the Protestants, the Jesuits are led by their Jesuit General, often referred to as the Black Pope, who rules from behind the scenes. ibid.
The Knights of Malta play a powerful role in this scenario. In the 1930's General Smedley Butler was recruited to help take over the White House. He was told that he was needed because of his general popularity with the military. General Butler blew the whistle and named several prominent Americans as part of the plot. At the top of the list was John J Raskob, who was a founding member of the US branch of the Knights of Malta. He was board chairman of General Motors. He was, at the time, the US Treasurer of the Knights of Malta. Congressional hearings were held to investigate the plot, but none of those named, including Raskob, was ever called to testify and nothing ever came of the hearings. Although you will find this in the Congressional records, you will never find it in any history book anywhere.
It is significant that the Iran-Contra episode has many similarities to the 1930s plot. William Casey was a member of the Knights of Malta. William Casey, with the help of Vice President Bush, Anne Armstrong and Donald Regan, caused the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board to be emasculated so that Bush, Casey, North and others could carry out their dirty deeds without oversight. They had also developed a plan to suspend the Constitution of the United States and were preparing to implement the plan when they were caught. These facts emerged from the hearings but were suppressed by the committee chairman, Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii. You must understand that tremendous power was involved in both attempts to overthrow the United States Government.
William Casey was the Director of the CIA. He was a member of the CFR. Casey was a Knight of Malta. He was the head of Ronald Reagan’s political campaign. He was head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. During the Nixon administration he was head of the Export-Import Bank.
Casey arranged financing for the Kama River truck factory in the Soviet Union with 90% of the funds guaranteed or furnished by the US taxpayer. This factory built military truck and tank engines for the Soviet Army. It was, and may still be the largest factory in the world and could produce more heavy trucks than all US factories together. I believe Casey was murdered.
The Knights of Malta is a world organization with its threads weaving through business, banking, politics, the CIA, other intelligence organizations, P2, religion, education, law, military, think tanks, foundations, the United States Information Agency, the United Nations, and numerous other organisations. They are not the oldest but are one of the oldest branches of the Order of the Quest in existence. The world head of the Knights of Malta is elected for a life term, with the approval of the Pope. The Knights of Malta have their own Constitution and are sworn to work toward the establishment of a New World Order with the Pope at its head. Knights of Malta members are also powerful members of the CFR and the Trilateral Commission. Bill Cooper, Secret Societies/New World Order
In times to follow, however, the once revered knowledge of the Templars caused their persecution by the popes of other Orders, and by the savage Dominican friars of the Inquisition. It was at that point in the history of Christianity that the last vestige of free thinking disappeared. Neither special knowledge nor access to truths counted for anything against the hard new party line from Rome. Laurence Gardner, Bloodline of the Holy Grail p219