THE VORTEX Den of Thieves! November 12, 2014 Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Vortex, where lies and falsehoods are trapped and exposed. I’m Michael Voris. Is there something in the water in Germany that foments spiritual or cultural insanity? From the land that gave the world heretic priest Martin Luther and his rending of the faith, to the nation that introduced the Protestant biblical “study” known as the historical- critical method which has produced such mass confusion about the Scriptures – and from Otto von Bismarck’s late nineteenth-century, decade-long war against the Catholic Church known as Kulturkampf, which fired up within months of Vatican I’s dogmatic declaration of papal infallibility, one has to wonder: Is anti-Catholicism just part of the life-blood of many Germans? Even today, faithful German Catholics are mocked and marginalized within the Church by clerics more content with counting coins than saving souls. From Cardinal Walter Kasper with his culturally superior slam against African cardinals at last month’s Synod on the Family, where he said, in essence, the backward Africans should just stay in their deep dark jungles with their silly unenlightened orthodox Catholic faith and “not tell us so much what to do,” to Cardinal Reinhard Marx and his near-open declaration that Church doctrine itself can change, and even to the interview by former head of the German bishops conference right up until last year, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, where he said that Our Lord did not die to redeem mankind but merely to give us an example of love—it’s like someone has poisoned the theological water. A couple of years ago it was revealed that among the vast financial holdings of the German bishops was a publishing company that produced pornography by the toilet load from which the bishops’ conference profited quite handsomely. This went on for years. When eventually exposed, they released a statement saying they didn’t know about it and would sell it. Considering how much time so many German bishops spend perverting the faith, it’s understandable they wouldn’t have any time to check up on their lucrative investments in porn. I mean, there are only twenty-four hours in a day, don’t you know? Then there is the more recent scandal of so many wanting to simply overthrow Church teaching under the guise of mercy, whereby divorced and remarried Catholics, in the estimation of the German bishops, could come back to the Church and receive Holy 1 Communion while living in sin—and conveniently check the box on their government tax forms directing a portion of their taxes back to the Church. The Church in Germany may be bankrupt when it comes to souls, but its coffers are overflowing with cold hard cash. That’s because, owing to historical circumstances, the government in Germany directs large proceeds of its revenue to various religions depending on the size of the religion’s congregations. On paper, the Church’s membership in Germany has been pretty substantial, and as a result, so has the flow of tax revenue to the German bishops and their dioceses. For example, reports are that cultural imperialist Cardinal Walter Kasper pulls down in the neighborhood of $150,000 dollars a year in the equivalent Euros. Not bad work if you can get it. Betray the faith and get rich doing it. Seems like we’ve heard that somewhere before: sell Christ for a few extra coins. And with such a history it should come as no surprise that the Archdiocese of Cologne has an annual budget of—catch this draw-dropping amount—more than $1 billion, of which more than $750 million comes from the Church tax. In fact, the archdiocese has cash on hand of well over $200 million dollars—you know, just in case they come up short or something like the equivalent of Noah’s flood should hit, their rainy day fund will come in handy. Hundreds of millions of dollars just sitting around. Too bad there aren’t some poor people who could be helped with all that cash by the German bishops of mercy and social justice. The problem is that owing to their lack of faith and unwillingness to preach the Gospel, large numbers of Catholics have left the faith, dropped off the Church tax rolls, resulting in a drop in revenue for the money hungry, faith-perverting, porn-producing prelates. See, the German bishops see things this way: as long as that messy, inconvenient Church teaching about not receiving the Body and Blood of Our Blessed Lord in a state of sin remains on the books, then more and more Catholics will leave the Church, drop off the Church tax rolls, and their revenue will decrease. That’s unthinkable. How is an archdiocese to get by skimping on something less than $750 million a year? Have you seen the cost of a bag of groceries these days? And now there is, of course, unsurprisingly, news that in the rare case that a repentant Catholic who left the faith wants to reconcile, he may expect reconciliation after he has filled out the appropriate paperwork to redirect his taxes to the Church. 2 Call it a policy of No Money, No Mercy—which is rich (pardon the use of the word rich) when you consider that the cover used by Kasper, Marx, and the rest of Judas-izers is one of mercy. No wonder Our Blessed Lord exploded in righteous anger and chased the thieves and money-hungry scoundrels from the Temple, scattering their filthy lucre on the ground. Given the vast sums of money piled up by the German bishops, it might take close to an eternity to actually turn over all those tables. How do you say “den of thieves” in German anyway? God love you. I’m Michael Voris 3.