(LifeSiteNews) — With the first round of voting to elect the next pope taking place today, bookmakers have declared a clear favorite in Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
The darling of Rabbi Shmuley, Parolin has also been celebrated by a leading Italian Freemason as his preferred candidate – as LifeSiteNews reported yesterday.
READ: Leading Freemason supports Cardinal Parolin for Pope, says Francis had masonic ties
Giuliano Di Bernardo, former masonic Grand Master, said, “If the Church still has a shred of rationality, it must elect Pope Pietro Parolin.”
Why must reason prevail, and the Church be led by a Parolin papacy? “It is the only way to restore its authority.”
The ‘lost authority’ of the Church
That the Church has lost its authority is an argument made by many outside Masonic circles – such as traditional Catholics. What Bernardo said in his interview last week sounds remarkably familiar, too:
“The Church began its decline with the Second Vatican Council,” said the founder of the Academy of the Illuminati – before denouncing Pope John Paul II:
“Wojtyla had already destroyed the Church from its foundations, Ratzinger tried to do something, but when he realized the depth of the abyss, he preferred to step aside.”
Finally, he comes to Francis:
“Bergoglio continued dismantling the papal structure – that is, the institution of the Church.”
Post-Vatican II popes ‘failed to restore unity’
His argument recalls that of the French Abbot Claude Barthe, who wrote on May 3 that the modernization of the Church has replaced unity in the magisterium – with diversity.
“The post-Vatican II popes ultimately failed to restore this unity, both the popes of ‘restoration’, John Paul II and above all Benedict XVI, and Francis, the pope of ‘progress’.”
Barthe warns that this cannot be halted by electing a “moderate”: “A pope espousing a more tempered version of progress would likewise fail.” He says “restoring the lost unity [of the Church] would not be on the agenda” absent the recognition of the root of the problem.
“It is magisterial, or to be more precise, it has to do with the non-exercise of the magisterium as such.”
Progressing to schism
What does this mean? It means the Vatican no longer distinguishes between Catholic teaching and heresy – resulting in a “latent schism.”
“The most visible aspect of this deficiency is the absence of condemnation of heresy, resulting in a latent schism, worse in a sense than an open schism, since Christ’s faithful no longer know where the boundary lies between faith and error.”
Barthe is saying that the Vatican “refuses” its role as the “instrument of unity” through the Catholic faith, and “instead presents itself as the manager of a certain consensus in diversity.”
Synodality has remodeled the Church on the lines of a “liberal democracy,” he says, its role “merely to interpret the Gospel message by listening to present-day humanity, and to adjust earlier dogma accordingly.”
If the truth of an argument lies in its correspondence to reality, that of Barthe may partly explain why Parolin is leading the field. The machinery of the liberal system may explain the rest.
A ‘Parolin deal’?
A Parolin deal has been rumored to be arranged by Vatican diplomats, who seek to downplay his involvement in a London financial scandal – to attract so-called “conservative” votes.
Parolin moved in April to have Cardinal Becchiu excluded from the conclave, reportedly producing two letters signed by the late Francis banning Becciu from voting. Becciu was convicted of financial crimes by the Vatican’s Criminal Court in late 2023. The problem here is Parolin’s signature is on the document approving the 140 million euro deal which lead to Becciu’s conviction.
Parolin accused the man who partly financed the deal, Raffaele Mincione, of fraud, but a court rejected his claim. Mincione was the former husband of Paul McCartney’s future wife Heather Mills. On May 2 a British court ordered Parolin’s Vatican Secretariat to pay Mincione 4 million euros for costs incurred – a report largely ignored by the media.
A further report apparently linking Parolin to the scandal mysteriously vanished from an Italian newspaper – with more news of Parolin’s actions said to be suppressed by a media sympathetic to his cause.
Must-read: https://t.co/BOdUrCkClr
— Damian Thompson (@holysmoke) May 6, 2025
Nevertheless, some news has emerged over Parolin’s troubling Chinese connections.
Evidence that Parolin is supported by Zionists and Freemasons appears to carry little weight, with crimes of mammon being relevant – whilst the undermining of the Catholic faith itself is apparently not.
READ: Rabbi who attacked Candace Owens is supporting Cardinal Parolin as the next pope
A second front-runner is Cardinal Tagle – the thriller from Manila – who has appeared on video singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” song. Imagine he is papabile after this? Seems he is, with Polymarket having the man described as being “Francis before Francis” second only to Parolin.
An Italian media report claims that Tagle is a “gambling addict” with ties to casino-owning Asian billionaires. It adds his ministry is inspired by Marxism – being concerned with the material and not the spiritual plight of mankind.
Beatlemania – for a Catholic pope?
In a service given for the election of the Roman Pontiff, Cardinal Battista Re called for the help of the Holy Spirit to guide cardinals in choosing the pope “whom the Church and humanity need at this difficult and complex turning point in history.”
He also issued a strong call to “maintain the unity of the Church,” not through “uniformity,” but their “communion in diversity.”
Love is all you need, according to Cardinal Re – in a third echo of the Beatles in this conclave.
“Love is the only force capable of changing the world,” he told the cardinals who will decide who is to hold the keys of St. Peter.
With many of them in agreement that “love is love,” it is this which powers Re’s strong call to “maintain the unity of the Church,” – not, of course, through the “uniformity,” of the rigid doctrine formerly known as Catholic – but the “communion in diversity” shared by the 133 voting cardinals.
READ: 133 cardinals will elect the new pope as 3 drop out
One hundred eight of them were appointed by Francis. So far, I can find no website giving odds on whether the next pope appears on the balcony seated at a white piano and draped in a rainbow flag. Yet it seems like a safe bet.
The world and the Church
Some object that the conclave is not about politics – and therefore that discussing the political views of the papabile is unseemly.
Yet so much of the modern Church is political. This guide on “where the cardinals stand” on crucial issues reflects this fact.
Mass migration, climate change, feminism, and rainbow flags are staples of liberal globalist politics and are all issues which combine with the suppression of the traditional Mass to show where each candidate can be found on the political spectrum.
READ: Cardinal Zen warns ‘synodality’ is ‘matter of life or death for the Church’
It is sad to see there is no mention of their position on the defense of Catholicism as it was before the liberal social revolution transformed it – in its own image.
Yet this is not merely an emotional question.
The Catholic Church has all the answers to life – proceeding from life’s essential value, through its meaning, to its ultimate purpose in the salvation of souls. If the cardinals and the Vatican would turn away from the causes of the world and to the treasure house of the Catholic faith, we would have a Vicar of Christ fit to lead mankind out of the current darkness.
Now that the liberal global order which sponsored all these causes is gone, it is a matter of time before the Vatican produces a Catholic pope. That time does not appear to be now, if the markets are to be believed – and the liberal order was nothing more than an advert for its remaking of the globe as a marketplace.
It presents no higher spiritual purpose to life than the seeking of bargains – and a parking space to secure them. Life itself is now a matter of consumer convenience, terminated at beginning and end according to a cost/benefit analysis.
What this analysis leaves out, of course, is the will of God. The crisis in our Church is a crisis of a wicked world whose modernizing agenda so accurately predicted by Pope Pius X has captured the See of Peter.
Ultimately, it is up to Him – and not any conclave – to decide when the madness stops. It will come; of this we can be certain – at a time as politicians like to say of war – of His choosing.
Meanwhile, look out for a happy piano salesman.