10 terrifying facts the Catholic Church prefers to keep silent about

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Mysteries and the Catholic Church are inseparable concepts. But even after a series of major scandals and revelations, Catholicism remains one of the most numerous religious denominations. In our review of 10 secrets of the Catholic Church, which its representatives prefer not to remember.

1. Abuse of orphans in Canada

In the 1930s, a period began in the Canadian province of Quebec that went down in history as the "Great Darkness". Premier Maurice Duplessis, a well-known corrupt official, received the support of the Catholic Church in the elections and decided, probably, decided to show gratitude to the churchmen.

At the time, the federal budget allocated much larger subsidies to psychiatric hospitals (run by the Catholic Church) than to orphanages. Duplessis was struck by the "brilliant idea" of diagnosing orphans with a variety of mental illnesses, which they did not have at all. As a result, orphanages were empty, and psychiatric clinics, which had taken out about 20,000 children, were simply overcrowded. It got to the point that children were taken not only from orphanages, but also from single mothers. In hospitals, the life of children was a real nightmare - medical experiments were carried out over them and new medications were tested on them.

2. Resettlement of children

Since the 19th century, approximately 150,000 children from orphanages have been sent from the UK to other countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand). In this way, the problem of settling the colonies by the white population was solved. And besides this, the representatives of the church provided themselves with a guaranteed flock on other continents. Everything would be fine, but the children were not just taken from home, but sent to hard labor. Children were starved, beaten and often raped.

3. Abduction of newborns

The Spanish dictator Francisco Franco decided to make the country a better place, and for this he took away children from "unreliable" parents. At the time, the Catholic Church supporting Franco ran all hospitals, schools, and orphanages in the country. It is easy to guess that in this way about 300,000 children were abducted from their parents. Often a nurse would take a newborn "for examination" and then return someone else's stillborn child. Babies were sold directly from the hospital to foster parents.

Even after Franco's death in 1975, the church did not stop this practice until 1987, when the adoption rules were tightened. Between 1960 and 1989, about 15 percent of newborn babies were abducted in Spain with the help of the Catholic Church.

4. Policy of no return of Jewish children

During World War II, the Catholic Church in France, saving Jewish children from the Nazis, baptized babies and hid them in schools and orphanages. It would seem a noble cause, if not for one BUT. When the war ended, the children were not returned to their parents, claiming that now they must be raised by Christians.

5. Crime in the Vatican

A very funny, albeit sad fact: the Vatican is one of the ten countries with the highest crime rates. Of course, there are almost no murders in this tiny city-state, but the number of pickpockets simply exceeds all reasonable limits. The problem is that the Vatican has no prisons and only one judge. Therefore, when arriving in this city, you need to carefully monitor your wallet.

6. Mysterious murders

One of the biggest unsolved mysteries in the Catholic Church is the cause of the death of Pope John Paul I. He was found dead in his bedchamber just 33 days after accession to the papal throne. There was no autopsy on the Pope's body.

It is common knowledge that the Vatican has been associated with the mafia and organized crime for many years. In 1982, the president of the Vatican Bank, Father Pavel Marcinkus, resigned after his connections with the mafia and his involvement in several murders were made public.

7. Church cooperation with dictators

The dictator Benito Mussolini has always maintained very close ties with the Catholic Church. In 1929, the Pope and the Catholic Church received various preferences. Thus, churches have given the right to prosecute people who spoke negatively about the Pope or the Catholic Church.

8. Magdalene Shelters

In Ireland, women suspected of prostitution or fraud were imprisoned by the Catholic Church in prisons known as the Magdalene Houses. Moreover, it was enough not to take place, namely suspicion. These women were undergoing compulsory psychiatric treatment and hard labor. As a rule, these unfortunates worked in laundries, from which the Catholic Church received income. Women were certainly not paid for their labor. Moreover, they were constantly beaten and hardly fed. If a woman died, the family was not informed about it. Nothing was known about this practice until 155 bodies were found in a mass grave in North Dublin in 1993. It is estimated that some 30,000 women have spent many years in such shelters.

9. Croatian Holocaust

Ante Pavelic was the Croatian Adolf Hitler. He led an ultra-conservative Ustashi group. After Pavelic came to power, the Catholic Archbishop Stepinac held a banquet in honor of the dictator, declaring that he was "doing God's work." Then Pavelic was received by Pope Pius XII (and just four days before that, the Ustashi burned several hundred Serbs, locking them inside the Orthodox Church). Concentration camps were built throughout Croatia. For example, in Jasenovac alone, 800,000 people were killed. Catholic clergy served as guards and executioners in these camps.

10. Pedophilia

Another scandal associated with the Catholic Church was the exposure of the facts of pedophilia. How long this practice actually existed is unknown, but it is definitely not less than 30 years. Some of the Catholic holy fathers raped dozens of children without being defrocked.

And a few more shocking facts about the most wicked in the history of the Vatican, the abbots of the Roman Catholic Church … However, ideas about the standard of virtue have undergone significant changes over time.