August 27, 2022
Why Pope Francis’ Vatican bank order is a big deal
Analysis
Ed. Condon
Aug 23
18
9
Pope Francis issued a rescript Tuesday emphasizing that all Vatican departments and institutions are required to move their investments and cash to the Institute for Works of Religion, commonly called the Vatican Bank, within the next few weeks.
At first glance, the document appeared to be little more than a "hurry up†legal memo to curial departments, giving them until the end of September to finish bringing their cash and investments back into the Vatican’s own institutions from outside banks and and accounts.
But a close read the short text points to something else. It turns out Francis’ order on Tuesday could be one of the more significant financial policy changes of his pontificate.
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F309be820-f444-4524-9405-1d746604e998_1440x1594.jpeg
The Institute for Works of Religion, Vatican City. Credit: The Pillar
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The rescript says that Francis is providing an "authentic interpretation†of some norms from the pope’s new apostolic constitution governing the Roman curia, Praedicate Evangelium.
But the "interpretation†actually changes part of the law completely — barely five months after Praedicate Evangelium itself was issued.
The changes appear to strip away a major area of competence from APSA, the Holy See department which acts as sovereign wealth fund, contracting body, and paymaster for the curia.
Francis has spent several years building up APSA as the central investment manager for the Vatican. But Tuesday’s reform appears to transfer management of all assets and investments, apart from the Holy See’s real estate portfolio, away from APSA and over to the IOR, which isn’t even a curial department at all, strictly speaking. And all this was done even without a singular mention of APSA in the text of the rescript itself.
Francis’ change could also have a dramatic impact on financial accountability in the Vatican, and bring nearly all curial financial affairs under international oversight.
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Tim Birdnow Mark II
Jerry S. Rainforth very interesting idneed Jerry! I wonder what is going on here. Is it some sort of power grab for all the Church money by Francis and his peeps or is there something more sinister happening?
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This was first published at On My Mind.:
The human race was living in North America 15,000 years ago. The area was still in the throes of the last Ice Age, which would not end for another 3000 years. The average temperature of Earth’s atmosphere was 46 degrees, some 11 degrees cooler than it is today.
The human race is still living in North America. Or I think it’s the human race. Sometimes I’m not sure.
Anyway, the average temperature of Earth’s atmosphere has risen 11 degrees, a process which not only has the human race survived, but during which it has thrived and multiplied, but we are told that we will be catastrophically destroyed if the temperature rises another 2 degrees.
To repeat a bit; we survived an 11 degree rise, but we will not survive a 2 degree rise. Does that sound a little bit stupid to you? Did we lose our ability to adapt? Or did we merely lose our intelligence?
Since we, apparently, no longer can change ourselves or the way we have been doing things for the past 100 years or so (other than by using electricity to do it instead of "fossil†fuels), we propose to change the way the planet has been doing things for more than 15,000 years.
Sea levels are rising, we are told. I have seen no observable evidence of that in the more than fifty years that I have been going to the beach, but let’s assume that sea levels are rising and will drown our big cities.
Perhaps we should be talking about moving our big cities inland and to higher ground, away from those rising seas. We’re not doing that. Not one person is suggesting that. We are, instead, talking about stopping the seas from rising. I spent time in the Navy. News flash. The oceans are really big.
There was a king named Canute tried what we are proposing. He was a powerful guy, being king of England and Denmark, and Norway and Sweden. He got wet.
Temperatures are rising, we are told, so maybe we should be talking about moving our populations farther north and/or to higher altitudes where it is cooler. Adapting. We’re not talking about that either. Instead we’re talking about stopping the temperature from rising, stopping the entire freaking planet from doing something that it has been doing for more than 15,000 years.
Sorry for being so blunt, but that is just plain stupid.
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August 26, 2022
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/bidens-lawless-student-debt-plan-could-cost-over-1-trillion-penn-wharton-study-finds/
Wow, forget 300 billion, forget half a trillion, now over a TRILLION dollars for this Whitehouse bribe.
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My latest blog post on record-low Lake Mead water levels, including the effect of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation on Colorado River flows. There is no long-term reduction in river flow feeding the lake, and climate models don't even predict such a thing. https://www.drroyspencer.com/2022/08/lake-mead-low-water-levels-part-2-colorado-river-inflow-variations-and-trend/
...but if something bad is happening, it still has to be human-caused climate change, right?
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This Student Loan Bailout will cost between $300 to $500 Billion, subsidizing our universities in an underhanded, dishonest manner.
During Obama's eight years, with zero inflation and zero interest rates, the total cost of college increased 30+%. (Look it up).
Over 90% of professors' political donations go to Democrats.
It's always the money.
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11:20 AM
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BREAKING: Pope Francis orders all Vatican affiliated entities and church orders to transfer ALL FUNDS and assets to the Vatican Bank by September 30.
Pope’s Rescript, Issued August 23, Paragraph 4:
"4. The Holy See and the Institutions connected with the Holy See that are holders of financial assets and liquidity, in whatever form they are held, in financial institutions other than the IOR must inform the IOR and transfer them to it as soon as possible within 30 days from 1 September 2022."
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According to Dr. Tim Ball, co2 is not a greenhouse gas.
The problem is that in every record of temperature and CO2, the temperature changes first.
Think about what I am saying. The basic assumption on which the entire theory that human activity is causing global warming or climate change is wrong.
The questions are how did the false assumption develop and persist?
The answer is the IPCC needed the assumption as the basis for their claim that humans were causing catastrophic global warming for a political agenda.
They did what all academics do and found a person who gave historical precedence to their theory. In this case, it was the work of Svante Arrhenius.
The problem is he didn’t say what they claim.
This 2009 article identified many of the difficulties with relying on Arrhenius. The Friends of Science added confirmation when they translated a more obscure 1906 Arrhenius work. They wrote:
Much discussion took place over the following years between colleagues, with one of the main points being the similar effect of water vapour in the atmosphere which was part of the total figure. Some rejected any effect of CO2 at all.
There was no effective way to determine this split precisely, but in 1906 Arrhenius amended his view of how increased carbon dioxide would affect climate.
The issue of Arrhenius mistaking a water vapor effect for a CO2 effect is not new. What is new is that the growing level of empirical evidence that the warming effect of CO2, known as climate sensitivity, is zero.
This means Arrhenius colleagues who "rejected any effect of CO2 at all†are correct. In short, CO2 is not a greenhouse gas.
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If you seek proof that academia is become completely unhinged and insanely pagan, seek no further.
A Harvard scientist believes that our universe was created in a laboratory by aliens.
Actually, this is just a rehashing of the concept of Directed Panspermia - that aliens seeded life in the Universe. But it takes it in a crazier direction. Why? Because these scientists see clear-cut evidence for the existence of God but they refuse to accept that so they replace the Creator with the creature (aliens) and solve their problem that way.
As has been attributed to Chesterton "When a man stops believing in God he doesn't then believe in nothing, he believes anything .â€
"Science" is now at that point. The 20th century saw the rise of materialism and atheism in the sciences (materialism made a sort of sense as science is trying to explain the material world) and now they are postulating little green men creating the Cosmos because they just can't bring themselves to state what was obvious to almost all people throughout history.
And Harvard rejected it's Christian roots long ago so it's little surprise a Harvard egghead would tout such blatant nonesense.
With people like this running things, is it any wonder we are on a runaway train now?
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Fracking, the reality versus anti-fracking fearmongering:
In almost all material circulated by anti-fracking pressure groups, the process is shown as occurring just below the surface, and in close proximity to the water table or water aquifers.
The reality is that the strata of rock containing the gas is commonly 1000's of feet below the surface. So thousands of feet of solid rock lie between the gas bearing rock and any ground water source
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:27 AM
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August 25, 2022
Average #StudentDebt in the USA: $37,667
Biden’s #studentloanforgiveness plan: $10,000
In other news: most students in debt won’t be able to tell the difference.
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So Joe the Slow bro
forgave college debt
the young and rich
no longer must fret.
The lyin' old Lion
who hasn't a clue
now roars like a king in his jubilee zoo
But what of the rest on this glorious day?
It's not just a jest, they should just go away.
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Washington, Jefferson, Columbus--even Father Serra and Mother Teresa--all targets of an incessant drumbeat making self-hatred of one's nation, culture, history and traditions chic. So anything goes in diminishing heroic shrines like the Alamo and Masada? Well, while I doubt I'm the first to compare Davy Crockett to Leonidas or Eleazar Ben-Yair (in Newsmax today), I'll take just giving them their due.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
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Here is a thoughtful essay on the Biden student loan scam.
BIDEN'S STUDENT-DEBT BONFIRE IS A CLASSIST MESSAGE TO THE UNCREDENTIALED:
By Charlie Cooke
A few more points to ponder here:
1.Most of these loans are financed and guaranteed by the government but are actually made by private banks under government supervision. So, is government going to actually write checks to these banks or are they going to make the banks eat the costs?
2. How does defaulting loans help to reduce inflation? Medicare didn't; medical costs skyrocketed after it was implemented. Ditto drug prices when Bush Jr. implemented a prescription drug benefit. And would anyone claim with a straight face that housing prices are cheaper now after decades of "affordable housing" efforts by government entities like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the VA and the like?
3.If Federal student loans are to be forgiven why shouldn't housing loans? Those are often Federally guaranteed too. Why shouldn't SBA loans? Small businesses were ravaged by the policies implemented by governments over Covid.
4. Who would not believe for a second this won't just lead to increases in tuition in the upcoming academic year? Since so many students are now out of debt.
5.IRS code treats loan forgiveness as a gift and as income. Will they waive that now? Or will these kids get a huge tax bill when April rolls around?
6.Does this apply to loans for trade schools or correspondence courses? (I assume you can take out a loan for those)? I think we know the answer.
7. Does Biden or anybody else believe for a second this is a one-time deal? There will be an outcry to make this a permanent state of affairs. What does that mean? As this article points out, it is like the Israelite Jubilee year where slaves are all freed and debts forgiven. So it will have to happen fairly regularly. The simplest solution would, of course, be to make college free to everyone courtesy of taxpayer dollars. That will be a budget buster but when did Joe Biden or any of his party ever care about that? And it also will cheapen college degrees - which have already been cheapened to the point where a bachelor's degree is worth what a high school diploma used to be - as everyone will have one.
8. This will likely have a chilling effect on private lenders who will not want to make loans after government undercut them. This may well include banks dealing with Federally-insured and funded loans, as they may still wind up losing money on this. It will definitely chill private loans (what few of them that are left) as nobody will want to commercial loan if there is a good chance their government loans will be forgiven in a few years.
It will keep young people out of the workforce. It will guarantee a crying need for entry level workers, which the Democrats will happily fill with aliens, both legal and illegal. So we will lose more of our country to satisfy the fantasies of the Demo-left and to allow young adults to goof off with the third decade of their lives, remaining juveniles forever.
There is a reason why college was selective in the first place; it was not supposed to be universal. Most people are not cut out for a scholarly life. So the answer was to dumb colleges down with grade inflation, fake disciplines, and a rejection of real scholarship and solid subjects. Then when graduates with Womyns Studies or African Ice Skating Studies or LGBTQ Puppeteering degrees find themselves unemployed they will be forced to turn to the tender mercies of the government and their eternal ruling party.
This is an outrageous power grab by Lunch Pail Joe and his handlers. And we must hope the courts stop this from moving forward as it is grossly unconstitutional and illegal. This is a lawless president, from the way he stole power to the every action he has taken since.
To quote Thurston Howell III Biden "must be a Yale Man!"
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He had the heart of a lion but the grave of a BMW...
10 years ago today, the archaeological dig looking for Richard III’s grave, breaks through the car park’s tarmac, discovering the grave of the lost King (unknown at that time) just 6 hours into the 2 week planned excavation, and 537 years to the day after his burial under the Choir of the Greyfriars Church.
Image Credit @ElliottWood_
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This shit is why 'loan forgiveness' is even an issue. College is not cost effective, especially if not core degree.
Tim adds:
When government started seriously funding colleges it gave them the money to build fancy new campuses and waste tons of money on administrative costs and all sorts of left-wing idiocy. Education is just a necesasary evil to them. They don't really even do any actual research, or not much. A lot of politicized work. But they take, take, take and the value of their degrees has declined precipitously. How can it not if everyone has one? BS and BA degrees now amount to high school diplomas. So you have to go on for a masters or Ph.D. More money fror the black hole of the university. They help promote liberalism and thus the Democrats who give them more money to spend to promote their ideology. It's a machine that serves everyone but the customers.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
11:01 AM
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Harvard Loses Big Thanks to Woke Investments, About to Be Beat By Oil-Drilling University of Texas
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
10:37 AM
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DAMN that 'right wing' ...
ummmm
LEFT wing terrorism and the copycat killers.
@DolioJ
Those pages were themselves a copy of the Christchurch killer, who was a left wing radical, just like the May kid.
CBS News
@CBSNews
The U.S. government on Tuesday urged law enforcement partners to "remain vigilant" for indicators of copycat attacks following the dissemination of over 700 pages written by the 19-year-old suspect who allegedly opened fire and killed 10 people in May.
Tim adds:
None dare say "left wing terrorist" because the whole point of this campaign (and it IS a campaign) is to promote the notion the Right is stalking about with guns, nooses, and burning crosses ready to kill, kill, killl and they must be restrained by law. This is nothing short of a way to suppress those who disagree with the visions of the anointed.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:39 AM
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August 24, 2022
In Canada Justin "Caligula" Trudeau is creating a climate storm trooper army.
The crazed commie Canuk is turning our northern neighbor into a gulag - and the good people of Canada are going right along with it.The Ministry of Climate Change is building a new facility that will be home to a firearms armoury, interrogation rooms, biological labs, media relations offices, "controlled quiet rooms,†and intelligence facilities. Why do they need this? https://t.co/ZWs2cjVYC8
— Keean Bexte
(@TheRealKeean) August 23, 2022
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A scientist looks at Anthony Fauci. This is an outstanding takedown of the crazed health Nazi by Dr. Marty Makary of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
From the article:
Dr. Fauci let basic research questions about the nature of the Covid-19 virus go unanswered. Somehow, despite the NIH’s more than $45 billion budget, only 2 percent of grants went to basic Covid research while billions of federal money was invested in developing vaccines, according to a study conducted by my colleagues at Johns Hopkins and I.
The federal government failed to conduct timely studies on the following: masks; the susceptibility of people in nursing homes; natural immunity; wastewater data; vaccine-induced heart injury in young people; and the optimal interval between the first two vaccine doses.
In short, Dr. Fauci didn’t deliver the basic research we needed so that public policy would be shaped by the best science. Because policymakers lacked good evidence to support their dictates, political opinions filled the void. So Covid-19 became a highly politicized health emergency—to all of our detriment.
Read the rest; he tears old Fu-Chi a new one!
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12:19 PM
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Baby it's cold outside - and not just in Antarctica!
We are experiencing record cold around the globe.
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10:45 AM
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