True personal growth ultimately will lead to fulfillment, and it's my intention with these podcasts to connect more deeply with you. Thank you for joining me, Anne Corbin, and my guests, and welcome to this episode. Well, have you heard about the latest shake up at the Vatican? It's huge. Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who is now Pope Leo the fourteenth, has made history by becoming the first ever American pope. And if you're thinking, well, so what? What does that have to do with me?
I'm not a Catholic or anything like that? Believe me, it's way bigger than that. For years, there's been an unspoken taboo about an American holding the papacy. And why? Well, it's because America is already or was already such a dominant force in global politics and economics and culture. And the idea of having an American in charge of the Catholic church was, well, let's just say, a little too much power in one nation's hands. And yet, here we are. And Pope Leo the fourteenth oh, yes.
That's the name he chose and we'll come to why in a moment. He is now at the helm. And did you see that picture that Donald Trump posted on his Truth Media social page that went viral? It was the CGI of him as the pope. He was all decked out in white. It was quite a good picture, but my goodness. Was that manifesting or what? And it's not just that our new pope is American. He's also very young for a pope. He's only 69, and that means he could potentially be pope for decades.
So could we be talking about a new direction for the church, possibly for a very long time, that alone would be making waves. And here's the kicker, before he was elected, most people wouldn't have given him a chance. In fact, if you were one of those who studied the odds and you took bets on these things, apparently, Cardinal Prevost had about a 1.2% chance of becoming pope. So not exactly a front runner. So I wonder what's going on. Oh, let's talk for a moment about the name he chose.
Pope Leo the fourteenth. He named himself after Pope Leo the thirteenth because that's a kind of a traditional way popes change their name. It's not mandatory, but when a card cardinal is making the choice, he very often honors a previous pope that he really admired. John Paul the second famously did this when he followed John Paul the first. He was the pope who was disposed of after thirty three days. There's an awful lot of Masonic symbolism around that sudden death of John Paul the first.
Now Leo the thirteenth, back in the eighteen hundreds, was known as a social pope because he had very progressive views, and he was focusing on things like civil government cooperation and social issues, things which popes didn't really get involved in back then. And this choice of name that our new pope Leo the fourteenth is wearing kind of indicates that he's gearing up for a more, well, social and progressive agenda. Although, to be honest, Pope Pope Francis was progressive.
I mean, he was World Economic Forum, which was why I personally had my reservations. And here's another part of the story. It's a situation that came to light just as the Vatican was preparing for the conclave to elect this new pope. A sealed envelope was found inside Pope Francis's personal desk drawer just as the church was gearing up for the transition, and this envelope was marked only with the word confidential.
It bore the papal seal and it contained nothing but handwritten pages, a spiritual memorandum if you like. This is how several people have described it. So sources close to the Vatican have confirmed that these pages were full of Pope Francis's personal unfiltered thoughts about the future of the church. He reportedly spoke about internal corruption, geopolitical manipulation within church diplomacy, and the threats to Catholic credibility in the modern age.
Apparently, he didn't hold back, naming specific high ranking clergy members and accusing them of obstructing transparency, mismanaging Vatican funds well, that's been going on forever and even silencing victims. And what's really shocking here is that it's unclear whether these allegations were ever formally investigated or ever will be, but it rather looks as though Pope Francis left the confrontation for others to deal with a voice from the grave, if you like.
And what we do know is that the existence of this document has stopped a lot of processes in the Vatican, especially in terms of that upcoming conclave. It's even been hinted at by some Vatican insiders that this document could be far more dangerous than any doctrinal debate, and it could uncover some very hard truths, things that the Vatican has been working really hard to keep hidden.
Tucker Carlson, who I've mentioned in previous podcasts, he's a very, very well known American reporter and he recently had rare access to a senior Vatican official And he even teased that what Pope Francis left behind could challenge the church in ways it wasn't ready for, especially since it allegedly includes references to foreign influence and covert campaigns to derail the church's reform agenda. Now, not surprisingly, there has been a lot of opposition to what Pope Francis was doing.
He was a very controversial figure. I've mentioned his connections with the World Economic Forum, but the interesting thing is he did seem to appeal to numerous people in the world who are not Catholic because he was, at least in his early days, a very approachable, gung ho, liberal sort of character and a very marked change to his predecessor.
Now his predecessor was Pope Benedict and he is the first pope in hundreds of years to have resigned and well that's only in 2013 that that happened and the speculation at the time was amazing. Everybody in my circles was talking about it and the internet and YouTube and so forth hadn't really got off the ground then. I mean, certainly, was aware of it, but I wasn't going there for my information.
I used to rely on mainstream media in those days and there wasn't very much about the sudden decision of Benedict's to resign, but it now looks as though he was forced to. And here's another thing, there have been rumors that Pope Francis was not properly created pope because he was elected by a conclave that had more than a 20 cardinals in it. There are very strict rules about what qualifies a cardinal to be included in the conclave and age is one of the things which would cut people out.
If a cardinal is over 80, he's not allowed to vote. Anyway, a 20 is the maximum and the conclave that we've just had and the one that elected Pope Francis both had too many people in them. So one or the other or maybe both of them could be challenged in terms of it not being a regular election. Anyway, back to Pope Francis's memoirs, the Vatican, of course, is not talking publicly about it so you won't see much in well, doubt you'll see any in mainstream media.
So the Vatican is staying tight lipped as they usually do. They are a form of royalty after all, but behind the scenes, apparently, things are getting very tense. Investigators and cardinals are apparently divided over whether or not to release the document I'm surprised that they're even considering it.
And of course, if all this scandal does come out, well, it could confront the church with a truth that it is tried to avoid for so long and this time the truth was written by the reigning Pope himself. And let's just step back and take a look at the bigger picture. With an American now right at the top of the Catholic church, well, what does it mean for the future? Firstly, it's a clear signal that the power dynamics within the Church itself are shifting. An American Pope is no small thing.
And it does raise serious concerns about excess influence of The United States on global institutions and geopolitics generally. And we should also consider where our new Pope Leo XIV stands on social issues.
He has been a supporter of climate change action, following in the footsteps of Pope Francis, and he's in favor of more progressive stances when it comes to welcoming divorced and remarried Catholics, so that's a plus, but his position on LGBT plus plus issues has been much more hesitant and this signals a potential shift in the church's stance because Pope Francis, you might recall, was notoriously very progressive on that front and this is a big
deal, especially for interested parties who are watching the church's evolving role in modern social debates of that nature. So what kind of Pope will Pope Leo be? Well, he's been there only a couple of days as I record this, but his youth I mean, I know 69 isn't that young, but it really is young for a Pope so with his age and his progressive inclinations, there is a lot of speculation about where this is all going. Will he be a reformer like his predecessor Pope Francis?
Or will he be taking the church in a completely different direction? This could be a wild ride and as things unfold, well, this is a fairly historical moment. And what do you think? Do you think we're witnessing a new era for the Catholic church and indeed for the world because whether or not you're Catholic, what happens at the Vatican actually affects the entire planet. You can set yourself up to win at the game of life. Become familiar with the laws of the universe.
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