Did a 'mafia' of liberal cardinals pressure Benedict to resign?
In this episode of Holy Smoke, I interview Julia Meloni, author of The St Gallen Mafia: Exposing the Secret Reformist Group Within the Church. It's the first detailed study of the self-described 'mafia' of liberal cardinals who worked tirelessly to prevent and then undermine the pontificate of Benedict XVI.
The book contains many disconcerting revelations, and also well-sourced speculation that the group's founder, the Jesuit scholar Cardinal Martini of Milan, may have visited Benedict shortly before his own death in order to pressure him to resign. By 2013, when that happened, Martini was dead, but he had given his blessing to a St Gallen candidate: his fellow Jesuit Cardinal Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, whose initiatives as pope – and particularly the vicious attempt to suppress the Traditional Latin Mass – coincide very closely with Martini's own agenda.
Do listen to my conversation with Julia, formerly one of Pope Francis's biggest fans. I promise you won't forget it in a hurry.
The book contains many disconcerting revelations, and also well-sourced speculation that the group's founder, the Jesuit scholar Cardinal Martini of Milan, may have visited Benedict shortly before his own death in order to pressure him to resign. By 2013, when that happened, Martini was dead, but he had given his blessing to a St Gallen candidate: his fellow Jesuit Cardinal Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, whose initiatives as pope – and particularly the vicious attempt to suppress the Traditional Latin Mass – coincide very closely with Martini's own agenda.
Do listen to my conversation with Julia, formerly one of Pope Francis's biggest fans. I promise you won't forget it in a hurry.
Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.
For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts.
Contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2021-10-29
30 min
Available Results
Generated results are saved to the knowledge database for reuse and search.
No generated results are available for this episode yet.
Extract Knowledge
Pick what you want extracted first. Model, scope, and chapter options appear after a template is selected.
Generated results for public episodes are saved to the knowledge database so they can be reused and searched later.
Transcript
No transcript is available for this episode yet.
Sign in to generate a transcript for review.
Sign in
Chapters
No chapters available.