Vatikanisches Geheimarchiv: Die Geschichte der Menschheit unter Verschluss

The Vatican City is the smallest country on earth. It has less area than the New York Central Park. If you were to go from one side to the other, you could hardly walk 8 km under the mighty pillars of the famous Peter's Square, marvel at the Sistine Chapel, the Peter's Cathedral or the Apostolic Palace, the architectural magnificence of one of the most important cities in history. And yet, historically, it may not be the most important thing on earth, but what lies beneath it. There, in a fortress-like bunker, which is closed to the public and protected by armed guards, lie incredible 133 km of shelves, more than 100 times the distance from one side of the Vatican City to the other, buried deep in the ground. These shelves contain documents from the 12th century and an incomparable history, not only of the Catholic Church, but of the world as we know it. This is the Vatican Secret Archive, in which the original records of some of the most important and most famous events in history are hidden. However, there are some who say that this is not all that is hidden there. Some believe that deep beneath the Vatican there is another kind of history, one of secret powers, apocalyptic prophecies and perhaps even extraterrestrial ones. Already in the first century, the Catholic Church kept records of its activities. These records were entrusted to the care and possession of the first priests, who traveled with them wherever they went and were passed on to their successors when they died. As religion and its influence spread, the growing size of the records made this unbearable and the Church began to keep them in the official residence of the Pope. Until the 11th century, archives were kept in at least three different places, in the St. Peter's Cathedral in the Vatican City, as well as in the Lateran and in the Palatine Palace near Rome. Of course, the Middle Ages was a time of constant conflicts throughout Europe and more than once the places where these Vatican records were kept were plundered, which led to the loss of large parts of the archives. In 1404 the Vatican itself was plundered and Pope Innocent VII had to flee the city while official Vatican documents from more than 1,000 years of history were thrown into the streets like garbage. Realizing that what was left was of the greatest importance for the Church, not to mention the history of mankind, the Vatican began to develop plans to keep all its records in a safe, central place. Finally, Pope Paul V ordered in 1612 to collect all the Church records and to keep them in a safe place directly under the Vatican. This was officially known as Archivum Secretum Apostolicum Vaticanum, the Vatican Secret Archive, and has since been located under the Vatican City. For many centuries, the activities of the Catholic Church have been the basis of the culture and politics of the world. This means that in the Vatican Secret Archive the original records contain some fundamental moments of history, in the end not only the history of the Church, but of mankind itself. For example, the archives hold the official copy of the papal decree on the division of the New World in 1493, after it was allegedly discovered by Christopher Columbus. The Intercaetera, as it was called, gave Spain the control over everything that was 160 kilometers from the Azores and the Cape Verde and Portugal the rest. This is the reason why Brazil speaks Portuguese today, while the rest of South America speaks Spanish. There is the original copy of the infamous Decet Romanum Pontificem, the document with which Martin Luther was excommunicated in 1521. After Luther had published his 95 theses, a work that the Catholic Church criticized, the Vatican gave him 60 days to refute his conviction. Luther burned his copy of the decree publicly and was subsequently thrown out of the Church, which triggered the Protestant Reformation. In a similar way, the archives hold the letter that the English nobility, the clergy and even the Archbishop of Canterbury sent to the pope in 1530 and therefore asked that King Henry VIII should be allowed to divorce his wife Catherine of Aragon so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. Written on a huge, almost one meter wide parchment, the letter promised extreme measures in case the pope should not comply with their request. Of course, the pope rejected the application and thus resolved a breach with the Church of England and the English Reformation. At another point, there is the protocol of the trial of 1633, in which Galileo was brought to trial as a scourge, because he argued that the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around. An incredible moment in the history of religion and science. In a similar way, in 2001 the protocols of the trial against the Templars were discovered in the archives, after they had been lost for centuries due to an archival error. In the early 14th century and at the height of their enormous power, the Templars were accused of heresy and blasphemy during the Crusades. Many were severely punished, even burned alive. However, as the discovered documents showed, the pope released the group from blasphemy in 1308, which completely changed the historical memory of the group and their relationship to the brutality of the Catholic Church. There are some who believe that the trial against the Templars is not the only thing in the Vatican's secret archive that was perhaps even deliberately hidden. It is suspected that somewhere in the archives there is the original copy of a correspondence between St. Paul and the Roman emperor Nero of the 1st century, which either confirms or refutes the existence of Jesus Christ. Especially if this correspondence confirms the existence of Jesus, why should one then hide it? Others suspect that the cross is hidden in the archives where Jesus was crucified and the thorn crown he wore, the Holy Grail, the Bundeslade, a collection of these great historical artifacts that were believed to be lost forever. But that is exactly the point. What we know is in the Vatican's secret archive. What was confirmed by the Vatican itself is unbelievable. A monumental treasury of world history. But perhaps even more interesting are the things that the archives are supposed to contain that are unconfirmed. Skeptics say that the Vatican's secret archive is more than it seems. That is, everything that the Vatican officially wants to admit is sufficient to prove that the secret part of the name actually comes from a false translation of the Latin word secretum, which in reality comes a little closer to private. These skeptics claim that the Vatican's secret archive contains no secret, but that it is simply the private records of the Vatican, the same ones that would be kept by any organization or company. In fact, the Vatican itself intended to make this clear by officially changing the name of the Vatican secret archive to the Vatican Apostolic Archive in 2019. There is only one problem. Regardless of the name or the translation, the archives are a secret. Until 1881, only the highest church officials had access to the archives. This year, Pope Leo XIII opened the archives to elect researchers, a policy that his successors have pursued since then. But you can't just go in and look around. First of all, all entrants must be carefully accredited scientists. Journalists, students or amateur historians are not allowed. As soon as the accreditation has started and the scholars have managed to get in, past the armed guards, searching is not allowed. Instead, the researchers can request up to three folders per day. These folders are not cataloged or organized. So they could contain everything. This means that it can take years for researchers to come across something noteworthy. Worse still, accredits must be renewed every six months and can be revoked by the church at any time. This means that if a researcher happens to come across something world-shaking, his access could be revoked quickly. There is no doubt that the Vatican keeps its secrets tight. In fact, they showed this to the world in 2020, not a year after they had taken the word secret out of the name. Under considerable pressure from Jewish and human rights groups, the Vatican agreed to release documents about the reign of Pope Pius XII during the Second World War. Many had criticized Pope Pius for not initially speaking out against Mussolini's racist campaign, not condemning the Holocaust as a whole, and perhaps even actively cooperating with the Nazis. The question everyone was asking themselves was what the pope said behind the scenes when the Nazis gathered the Jews in Rome. The Vatican claimed that the church was not afraid of history and published a handful of documents related to Pope Pius. Unfortunately, this was far from the extensive collection they had promised. What they published looked more like an image campaign than an attempt to bring history to light, which led to intense and ultimately ignored criticism. And that was it. When it comes to the archives, the Vatican keeps its secrets tight, regardless of the public pressure or what these secrets could mean for the world. This, of course, raises the question of which other secrets they could hide. In 1750, archaeologists discovered a mysterious book deep in the tomb of Solomon in Jerusalem. It was written in 1522, although those who examined it believed it to be a copy of an older source, perhaps from the 12th century, perhaps even a much older oral source. But what really shocked those who saw it was not the date of the book, but its content. The contents of the pages contained instructions on how to make magical talismans and amulets, how to cast spells and summon demons. The most dramatic part of the book is how to summon the devil, by constructing a magic circle and performing a ritual in which a lamb is sacrificed, at which point you can make a deal with the devil. Interestingly, the author of the book was allegedly a certain Honorius of Thebes, an apocryphal figure who was allegedly possessed by the devil. The mysterious book was called the Grand Grimoire. In the 18th century, a word for a textbook of the occult gained popularity in France. Accordingly, copies of the Grand Grimoire, which is considered the most powerful of all grimoires, began to be distributed all over the country and all over the world in French colonies. There, the Grand Grimoire was called Le Dragon Rouge, the Red Dragon, and reminded us of the biblical words of Revelation, chapter 12. And behold, a great red dragon, who had seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns on his heads, and his tail drew the third part of the star of heaven and threw it into the earth. But despite the alleged power of the Grand Grimoire and the many copies that were distributed all over the world, no one claimed to have been possessed by the devil, and the popularity of the book faded into memory. Perhaps the conclusion is then that the Grand Grimoire was nothing more than a swindle. Some offer a different explanation. They say that the Grand Grimoire is not a swindle, but that the commercially distributed copies all over the world represent an edited version of the work. And that the original, unchanged copy exists somewhere. Only that it is not somewhere. We know where the original copy of the Grand Grimoire is. That's right. According to the Vatican, it is stored in their secret archives. Could the Vatican really have access to a book with magic spells, or even the ability to curse the devil? And if so, what other powers could it have? In 1972, a bizarre headline appeared in an Italian magazine called La Domenica del Corriere. It read, Finally a machine has been invented that photographs the past. The article was reported by a Catholic priest named Pater Pellegrino Ernetti, who claimed that deep in the Vatican secret archive there is a device that enables its user to see and hear events from the past. Not a time machine that sends a person into the past, but rather a kind of time observer that brings the past into the present. A device that can adjust to certain events in the past and shows them on a screen like a kind of time-traveling television. The device was called Chronovisor, and with it, Ernetti claimed, he could see the last days in the life of Jesus and other biblical moments, such as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the creation of the Ten Commandments. The most amazing thing was that the article contained a photo of Jesus' anklet at the moment of the crucifixion, which Ernetti allegedly recorded with the device. A proof of the existence and function of the Chronovisor. The article aroused a long-standing interest in the religious and scientific communities before it disappeared from memory, never confirmed, but also never contradicted. Strangely, in 1988, the Vatican itself issued an official decree on the Chronovisor, in which it warned that anyone who used an instrument with such characteristics would be excommunicated. Why should the Vatican, instead of denying the existence of the Chronovisor, instruct its followers not to use it? Could it be because the Vatican had actually hidden the Chronovisor device deep in its secret archives? But if not a window into the past, then what is hidden in the Vatican's secret archives may be a glimpse into the future. On May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot in the heart of the Vatican City during an attempted assassination by an armed man on Peter's Square. The pope was seriously wounded and suffered a heavy loss of blood when he was taken to the hospital. But how miraculously did he survive? When he recovered, he began to write down his survival of the Mother of God of Fatima, the Catholic title for the Virgin Mary, and publicly declared, one hand pressed the trigger and the other led the bullet. When he was on his feet again, he even rushed into the city of Fatima to put the bullet that went through his chest into the crown of a marine statue and to thank her for her protection. Why should he do that? The answer lies in something that happened exactly 64 years before the assassination. On May 13, 1917, three children in the city of Fatima, Portugal, the first of many common visions in which they were allegedly visited by the Virgin Mary. According to the children, the Virgin Mary revealed three secrets to them. These were known as the Three Secrets of Fatima. At that time, the world outside of Fatima, which was involved in the First World War, paid little attention to the Portuguese children and their history. In fact, the alleged three secrets might have been completely forgotten if it were not for a local bishop. In memory of the history in 1941, the bishop had the last of the children still alive at the time, a nun named Sister Lucia, write down the secrets in an official document. According to her words, the first secret had revealed to the children the suffering of the souls of the damned. Our Mother of God showed us a great sea of fire that seemed to be under the earth. Demons and souls in human form were immersed in this fire, like transparent burning embers, completely blackened or polished bronze, floating around in the fire. Now lifted in, the air through the flames, which, together with large clouds of smoke, rose out of their interior. Now fell back to all sides, like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or balance, and in the midst of screams and moans of pain and despair, which terrified us and we trembled with fear. The second secret even seemed more prophetic. It predicted the end of the First World War, which lasted until 1917, but shortly afterwards the beginning of an even worse war. As Sister Lucia described, the war is coming to an end. If people do not stop insulting God, during the pontificate of Pope Pius XI, an even worse outbreak will break out. The sign that God has given you, that he is in control of punishing the world for its crimes, through war, hunger and persecutions of the Church and the Holy Father. The good will suffer the death of the martyr. The Holy Father will have a lot to suffer. Various nations will be destroyed. In the middle of the Second World War, when it was revealed in 1941, the secret seemed particularly overwhelming, and the three secrets of Fatima began to gain general recognition. But what was the third secret, everyone wondered. Mysteriously, Sister Lucia did not want to reveal the third secret and announced that she had not been authorized by God to share it. Why would God not allow the first two to be shared, but not the third? Two years later, after she had the flu, Sister Lucia was ordered by the bishop to write down the third secret, a request he gave her, so that she would not die and the secret would be lost forever. The secret reached the Vatican and its archives, sealed in a envelope with the gloomy instruction not to open it before 1960 if it would appear clearer. But when the time came in 1960, the Vatican published an official statement in which it announced that it is highly likely that the secret will remain under absolute seal forever. This led to many speculations. What could reveal the secret that would be so dramatic that it would have to be suppressed forever? Since it was the climax of the Cold War, the New York Times even speculated that the third secret could predict a worldwide nuclear destruction. Finally, the Vatican appeared in 2000 and published what it called the text of the third secret. It said that a bishop dressed in white was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him and how, in the same way, one after the other died, bishops, priests, ordersmen and women and different lay people of different ranks and positions. These words, according to the Vatican, could be interpreted as a symbolic language that refers to the assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981, the bishop dressed in white, of whom the secret spoke. It seemed as if the pieces of the puzzle had finally been put together more than 80 years later. Or not? When the Vatican informed the public that the highly praised third secret had to do with a failed assassination 20 years later, many thought, that's it? Why the decades-long secret, why the absolute seal, why God's initial ban on something so relatively inconspicuous? Some say the answer is simple. The third secret that the Vatican published was not the actual third secret, but an invention. Shortly after the alleged third secret was revealed in 2000, a news article appeared claiming to present an interview with the then Cardinal Ratzinger, who was to become Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. Interestingly, Benedict replied, after he had been the first pope since the 14th century that the Vatican had put an end to love affairs in 2016, called the article absolutely untrue and claimed that the publication of the third secret by Fathim was over. Strangely, this was the first and only official explanation that Benedict had given as an emerited pope. Why comment on an article that is almost two decades old and not on any of the many other things the world is confronted with? To this day, many believe that there is more behind the third secret than the Vatican has published, including those within the Vatican itself. Indeed, Benedict himself announced in a speech in Fatima in 2010 that we would go mad to believe that Fatima's prophetic mission was completed. Then, in 2020, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano gave an interview in which he claimed that the third secret that the Vatican had published was not only clearly incomplete, but that the Vatican was involved in a cover-up operation of the true content of the secret. If there is a cover-up, then a cover-up of what? It is interesting to note that Pope John Paul II gave a speech in Germany in 1980, almost a year before the attack on his life, in which he said about the third secret, If there is a message in which it is said that the oceans will flood entire parts of the earth, that millions of people will be killed from one moment to the next, then it makes no sense to publish this secret message. It is dangerous to satisfy one's own curiosity if one is convinced that one can do nothing against a predetermined catastrophe. Four years later, after the pope had been shot and had long since recovered, an article appeared in the Jesus magazine in which Cardinal Ratzinger gave an interview in which he claimed to have read the third secret and that it refers to dangers that threaten the life of the world. Even more alarming was that the article claimed that the third secret was essentially the same as another prophecy that was revealed in Akita, Japan in 1973. There, the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to a nun and conveyed a breathtaking message. The Father will impose a terrible punishment on all of humanity. It will be a punishment that is greater than the flood of sin, as it has never been foreseen before. Fire will fall from heaven and extinguish a large part of humanity, the good as well as the evil, without saving priests and believers. Could it be that Fatima's third secret was not at all about the assassination of a pope, but about the destruction of the world? Does it foretell a kind of global apocalypse? And could the Vatican suppress this secret to this day to prevent worldwide panic? The philosophical questions are difficult. Would you like to know the date of your own death? What would you do if this were your last day on earth? Simply put, if we all die, shouldn't the Vatican tell us? Besides, if they wouldn't even tell us about the end of the world, what else could they keep from us? In 1988, news reports emerged claiming that a restoration of the Vatican library had found strange elongated, clearly extraterrestrial-looking skulls. Wild speculations followed, many of which suggested that the Vatican secret archives had to hide evidence for extraterrestrials. Perhaps a marriage between the Vatican and extraterrestrials is too far-fetched, too convenient to think about. Except that the Vatican itself does not run away from extraterrestrials. Think of the words of Cardinal Conrado Balducci, a high-ranking Vatican official since the 1960s and a close friend of many popes, who in 1998 urged followers to think of a passage in the New Testament in which St. Paul is described as the king of the universe. And not just as the king of the world. This means that all beings in the universe, including extraterrestrials, are blessed with God. What could Balducci and the Vatican know about the universe that we don't? In 2009, the Vatican held its first international astrobiology conference, where top scientists from all over the world and astronomers from the Vatican came together to discuss extraterrestrial life. As the legendary American astronaut Gordon Cooper, one of the seven people who were sent into space by the United States, claimed, they want to know something about UFOs and little green men? Turn to the Vatican. In fact, even the current pope, Pope Francis, publicly explained that he would be willing to baptize extraterrestrials, and rhetorically asked, who are we to close doors? Far from closing doors, the Vatican tries to open them. In Tucson, Arizona, the Vatican works with other governments and astrological associations to search the universe for signs of extraterrestrial life in some of the most powerful telescopes on the Mount Graham International Observatory. Strangely enough, the instrument, which drives the most impressive telescope in the observatory, is the Large Binocular Telescope, Near Infrared Utility with Camera and Integral Field Unit for Extragalactic Research, or known as LUCIFER. Yes, the Vatican is looking for extraterrestrials with a telescope named after the devil. So what does the Vatican know about extraterrestrials that we do not know? About the devil, about the past and the future. Whatever it is, it is certainly buried deep in their intangible secret archives. 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