For History Buffs: Operation Gladio

Any other students of Operation Gladio out there? Today at LifeSite there's an interesting article about Operation Gladio, with useful links, by a very prominent traditionalist Catholic writer, Peter Kwaśniewski. Kwaśniewski rights mostly about liturgical matters, and so he attempts to tie Operation Gladio into the current disasters facing the Church, especially in the Post V2 period. I won't go into that, except to note the significance of Kwaśniewski's reference to Masonry in Italy--many important clerics at the time of V2 (and more so now) were associated with the notorious P2 Lodge, despite the Church's centuries old ban on membership in Masonic organizations. Among those clerics it is reported that Annibale Bugnini--inventor of the New Order--was a member. 

Kwaśniewski suggests that the Vatican's involvement in Operation Gladio led to institutional blackmail from then until now. I won't get into that, nor will I comment on the obvious moral ambiguities involved. My purpose in pointing to this article is simply to note that the notion of a Deep State directing US foreign policy has deep roots in history--roots that many Americans are quite unaware of. And yet, without knowledge of these matters--which have ramifications in so many directions--it's next to impossible to understand modern history, whether secular or sacred or both intertwined.

Coincidences during the reign of Pius XII? Political background to Vatican II and liturgical changes

It seems at least plausible that the Holy See’s twentieth-century misjudgment of international relations, with the dangerous bed-partners to which it led, has more than a little to do with the ambiguities and silences in Vatican II

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1947 was the year that Operation Gladio was started by the CIA to stop the spread of Communism in western Europe. Those who wish to read more about the operation will find a good introductory article here, but the summary is that the CIA generated funding for Gladio through conspiring with mafia groups operating in the international drug trade and, in order to launder the drug money, employed the Vatican Bank due to Article 2 of the Lateran Treaty of 1929, which permitted the privacy they needed.

These anti-Communist actions resulted in the funding of various terrorist cells to prevent Communist and anti-American parties from gaining electoral office in Post-War Europe, as well as some high-level assassinations. Gladio, in essence, is the European version of Operation Condor of South America and reminds one of how the CIA trained the Taliban in the 1980s during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 1948 saw the first election in which Gladio would interfere, when the Italian electorate were close to electing a Communist party to office.

Already in 1945, Pope Pius XII had met with William Donovan (former head of the OSS, precursor to the CIA, and chairman at the time of the American Committee on United Europe) about preventing the spread of Communism in Europe. Donovan was reportedly rewarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Sylvester due to his role as an anti-Communist crusader. Further, Pius XII is alleged to have worked with Alan Dulles, the first CIA Director (as well as a 33rd-degree Freemason and Council of Foreign Relations member) around the same time as part of Operation Paperclip, where over 1,600 German scientists were smuggled out of Post-War Germany to help in the development of US scientific endeavors, including defense and space capabilities related to rocket propulsion technology. I mention Dulles too because he was influential in reviving the Italian Masonic Lodge Propaganda Due (P2), which Mussolini banned during the 1920s and which would play an important role in Operation Gladio and seems likely to have played a role in shaping Vatican II as well. (It must never be forgotten that much of Vatican II’s agenda and strategy was determined by behind-the-scenes geopolitical negotiations; we know, for example, about the lengths to which the pursuit of Ostpolitik drove the Vatican.)

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Considering all of this, as well as what would later follow, is it possible that Pope Pius XII, in a sincere attempt to defend the Church against Communism, accidentally gave the Freemasons the leverage that they would need to (in effect) blackmail the Church and to make long-desired changes during Vatican II and beyond—especially by means of the liturgical reform run by Bugnini, a likely Freemason himself?