St. Peter's Basilica

Of all the embarrassing questions that have arisen around the infamous and still unfinished story of sex scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, the questions addressed to the Pope are probably the most important and need to be answered. In such a centralized and authoritarian institution, headed by a single person - the Pope - the key question may be: "what does he know and when did he know?", otherwise it is almost impossible to reach an understanding of what is happening.

The Roman Catholic Church has a long tradition of overseeing its ministers, although it turns out to be pretty badly done. Ever since the Roman Empire legalized Christianity, the hierarchs have defended this privilege with particular zeal. In the Middle Ages, clerics were subject to ecclesiastical court and, being found guilty, were sent to ecclesiastical prisons, which were run by the Holy Inquisition.

It is from here that the phrase "for the good of the clergy" comes - not for the good of other prisoners, but as a punishment for any priest or monk detained by a bailiff. If a person could prove his education by reading a few verses in Latin from the parish Bible, he was considered a cleric and given into the hands of the diocesan bishop. And only in the case of flagrant heresy, which was simultaneously interpreted as high treason, the clergyman was given into the hands of secular justice to be burned at the stake, for the Church did not want to stain herself with a death sentence.

Thus the Church established a very elaborate judicial system which became the basis for the Inquisition in all its manifestations.

A church penitentiary system was also established - monasteries and convents of "severe obedience", intended not only for extremely devoted ascetics, accustomed to wearing hair shirts and sleeping on bare boards, but also for condemned priests, monks, nuns and for ordinary people, where the guilty were strictly supervised and punished, hiding these punishments from the eyes of faithful Christians and the government, based on considerations of "good for the lost souls."

Secret archives of the Vatican

Be that as it may, records of the antics of clerics have always been kept in the secret archives of the diocese, and even today, in our time, this is regulated by church law. There are similar Secret Archives in the Vatican (yes, that's what they're called), and they're as vast as they are old. Headed by them, as well as the Vatican Library, another repository of secrets, which is now so much talked about, the cardinal. The archives are partially declassified, but only scientists approved by the Pope are allowed to work in them, and, first of all, when applying for admission to work in the archives, they are required to state the purpose of their work and obtain written permission from the Pontiff.

This is perhaps the most mysterious place in the papal city, here, almost fifty kilometers of shelves, records of scandals, secrets and revelations are collected that can shock and even blow up the world community. They are stacked in boxes and folders - very casually, but such carelessness is due to centuries of silence and caution.

The secret archive is so vast, disorganized and incomprehensible that there is hardly a person who knows it thoroughly. Some experts claim that it has "any" 40 kilometers of shelves, but representatives of the Vatican recently admitted that their total length is 85 kilometers.

They talk about the available 135 funds or individual archives. They contain records not only of papal decrees, business correspondence and all the office, but also a host of other materials, in particular, registers of prominent papal families, prohibited religious orders and monasteries, as well as documentation of nunciaris and ecclesiastical embassies. Most of these papers have never been studied, they are not even cataloged and sorted.

Archivists of the past centuries have repeatedly attempted to classify all available documentation, to compile catalogs, but this work remained unfinished. Archival funds were moved several times, some of them were captured as a trophy. Most of the documents from the Middle Ages that survived the Babylonian captivity were lost during the capture of Rome in the sixteenth century; Napoleon tried to take them out to Paris already in the eighteenth century, many priceless volumes were recycled and turned into wrapping paper in the butcher shops of France; a significant part fell into the hands of the Italian government.

Moreover, the documents are the property of the episcopates who issued them. For example, the records left by the Inquisition can only be accessed with the special permission of the organization that is its successor, namely the Sacred Congregation for the Faith, as well as the keepers of the archives themselves.

Access to archival documents is strictly controlled, the period of "document exclusion" modern language, the "embargo period" remains long enough, even by institutional standards: all records released after the Napoleonic period were considered "too fresh" back in the 1960s.

Are the Secret Archives secret enough?

Representatives of the Italian anti-clerical party were very disappointed when they failed to find a repository in the Secret Archives, which would contain evidence of usurpations, crimes and sexual perversions committed by the clergy. The question of the existence of internal censorship remains open. over the funds kept in the Secret Archives.

• What action should a scribe, curator or prefect take if, in the process of work, he encounters documents that are morally and theologically contradictory?
• Do individual archives contain materials that are talked about so much, but there is no reliable information, the materials are really completely classified. In other words, are there any so-called "closed" funds in the Secret Archives, the existence of which is categorically denied by the leadership?

These are the questions that worry a person who has gained access to the Secret Archives of the Vatican. It seems that it is hopeless to hope to receive exhaustive answers to them. It is possible that the growing interest in these "closed" funds may provoke their destruction.

The staff of the archives have a very subtle flair for the past, they are in awe of learning, and they owe a lot to their own knowledge. However, documents of this kind can simply escape their attention and be in the funds, where scattered, poorly systematized papers are stored. In this case, they will be classified as a closed fund due to chronological restrictions or rare negotiability.

This is exactly what happened with the personal correspondence of Pope Borgia and a group of women especially devoted to the Pope, the same fate befell the documents containing the original account of the trial of Giordano Bruno, it could also happen with a mass of documents whose existence we do not even know. And who knows what other information may be revealed in the future.

One thing is for sure: in the Vatican, it is in the Secret Archives that the repository of all reports of all the dirty deeds of the clergy is located, but can the employees of the archive be considered accomplices in these crimes? The curia zealously defends the contents of the archives - a few years ago, brother Filipo Tamburini, whose candidacy was personally approved by the Pope, a man who had worked in the archives for a decade and a half, was suddenly forbidden to write a book called "Saints and Sinners", dedicated to erring and transgressing clergymen who lived four - five centuries ago.

Truly, Rome keeps its secrets with the utmost care.

The basis of the church cult is the sacraments - visible signs of the invisible grace of God. Sacraments are the actions established by Jesus Christ for the good and salvation of people. Their symbolism helps believers realize God's love for people. By participating in these actions, a person, according to the teaching of the Church, receives grace-filled help from above.
The Catholic Church, like the Orthodox Church, recognizes seven sacraments: baptism, chrismation (or confirmation), the Eucharist, repentance, anointing the sick (or anointing the sick), priesthood, and marriage. The understanding of the meaning of these sacraments in the Catholic Church is similar to the Orthodox. There are only partial differences in the interpretation of their individual sides. There are also differences between the historically established external forms of the implementation of the sacraments and some church-legal prescriptions associated with them.
According to the faith of the Church, the sacrament is performed by none other than God, it is only carried out through the mediation of an earthly servant - a bishop or priest.
Baptism. According to the teaching of the Church, at baptism a person partakes in the sanctifying grace of God, from which the entire human race fell away in the fall, and is cleansed from original sin, and if baptism is received at a conscious age, then from all his former sins. Baptism regenerates a person and introduces him into the Church - into the family of God's children. There are some differences between baptism in the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. If in Orthodoxy three times the baptized person is immersed in water (in special cases it is replaced by a libation of water), then among Catholics of the Latin rite, baptism is performed by three times a libation of water on the head of the person being baptized.
The Catholic Church, like the Orthodox, requires believers to baptize children soon after birth. Baptism, therefore, occurs according to the faith of the parents, who are responsible for the further Christian upbringing of the child. Therefore, in cases where the parents are not sufficiently prepared for this, the Catholic priest can postpone baptism if nothing threatens the life of the baby. Adults who wish to be baptized must prepare for the sacrament, that is, undergo catechization.
Its terms are not the same in different local Churches (in Russia - one year), and in some cases are set individually. During the catechesis, the candidate (called a catechumen, or catechumen) must study the foundations of the faith and be convinced of the seriousness of his intention to enter the Church. There is a special rite of entry into the ranks of the catechumens of the Church, rituals of trials - scrutiny, when the candidate confirms his readiness to become a Christian before the priest and the community. Before baptism, he publicly renounces Satan and evil and declares his intention to profess the Christian faith. Usually a priest performs baptism, but if necessary, any believer can do it.
Confirmation or Confirmation. The word confirmation, translated from Latin, means “affirmation”, “strengthening”, since, according to the teaching of the Church, through this sacrament, a Christian is strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit, gaining His grace gifts and thereby uniting even more closely with the Church. The outward sign of confirmation is the anointing with holy chrism, which marks the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Unlike the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, in which chrismation takes place immediately after baptism (including infants), in the Latin Church, confirmation is usually postponed until the age when faith is accepted by a person quite consciously (in Russia - not earlier than 15 years). Confirmation, like baptism, takes place only once and cannot be repeated.
Eucharist. The sacrament of the Eucharist (Greek: "gratitude"), or communion, was established by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper and commanded by Him to the Church. Its essence lies in the remembrance of the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross, in the communion of believers with all the fullness of His Divinity and Humanity through partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ under the guise of bread and wine. The Eucharist is considered in the Catholic Church to be the center of church life, a constant source of sanctification for the faithful. The Eucharistic service - Mass - is celebrated in the Church constantly (in most parishes daily). The body of Christ is always present on the altar of every temple in the tabernacle. Catholics try to combine all other sacraments, if possible, with the Eucharistic service.
Unlike the Orthodox Church, which uses leavened bread (that is, baked from leavened dough) for the Eucharist, the Latin Church uses unleavened bread. In the Middle Ages, this caused serious controversy, reaching mutual accusations of heresy, although the ancient Church recognized both types of bread.
In the Orthodox Church, children begin to receive communion from infancy, immediately after baptism, and in the Latin rite, a child takes communion when he has some understanding of the basics of faith and understands the difference between ordinary bread and the Body of Christ (as a rule, from the age of seven or even later). But this is only a manifestation of the diversity of traditions, and not a fundamental contradiction. In the Eastern rites of the Catholic Church, the communion of infants is also practiced.
In the Latin rite, the first communion is real holiday for each child and his entire family. Usually in parishes, the first communion of children takes place on a certain day of the year and in a solemn atmosphere. An essential difference between the Eucharistic services of the Latin rite for many centuries was the communion of the laity only with the Body of Christ, that is, with bread. The body and blood of Christ (bread and wine) was shared only by the clergy. A similar order is preserved in a significant part of the parishes to this day. This custom, established in the Catholic Church in the late Middle Ages, has recently been revised. Gradually return to the ancient practice of communion. The church, not considering it possible to hastily violate traditions, leaves this to the discretion of local church authorities.
Communion of the laity with the Body and Blood of Christ is now practiced in many parishes, especially at masses in small communities. Considering the Eucharist to be the center of a Christian's spiritual life, the Catholic Church encourages the faithful to frequent (and even daily) communion. It does not prescribe any strict rules for preparing for it. In former times, Catholics, like the Orthodox, observed the Eucharistic fast - abstinence from food and drink before communion from midnight. In the middle of the 20th century, the Catholic Church, taking into account the changing rhythm and conditions of people's lives, gradually reduced the Eucharistic fast to one hour before communion. Evening masses were also introduced, allowing the faithful to participate in the Eucharist on weekdays after work. This is especially important on those church holidays that fall on weekdays.
Repentance. According to Catholic teaching, in the sacrament of repentance, the believer, by the mercy of God, receives the remission of sins, and is also reconciled and reunited with the Church, from which every serious sin committed by him separates the Christian. With the power received from Christ Himself, the priest forgives sins to those who sincerely repent of them. In this way, the believer receives God-given forgiveness, is saved from eternal punishment for grave sins, and acquires grace to fight temptations. For the Catholic Church, confession is not an automatically acting means of cleansing from sins. Sometimes it is mistakenly believed that it is enough to tell the priest about your sin, and God will immediately forgive him.
The sacrament of repentance, according to Catholic teaching, is effective only when the believer sincerely regrets his misdeeds and firmly intends to avoid any voluntary sin in the future. Another important condition is the so-called satisfaction for sins to God and neighbor. This is a feasible compensation for damage caused to other people, as well as the execution of a conditional punishment imposed by a priest - penance (as a rule, prayers or works of mercy). The sinner confesses before God Himself, the only one from whom he can receive forgiveness; the priest is only a witness to confession.
The traditional structure of the confessional, when the penitent is separated from the priest by a partition, helps him to feel that he is addressing not to a person, but to God. However, confession before a priest gives the believer the opportunity to receive spiritual advice from him, which helps the future improvement of the Christian. Therefore, in recent times, special rooms for confession have been equipped in many churches, and the penitent himself chooses how to confess: kneeling behind a partition or sitting opposite the priest. In a medieval confessional tightly closed from the outside world and reliably fenced off from the priest, the sinner could well expect to remain unrecognized.
But in any case, the most important duty of a Catholic priest is to maintain the secrecy of confession, which must not be violated under any circumstances. For violation of the secrecy of confession by a priest, church law prescribes excommunication from the Church. Closely connected with the sacrament of repentance is the practice of granting indulgences, the doctrine of which is a specific feature of Catholic theology. It has always caused a lot of controversy and rumors, and at least for this reason it needs an explanation. According to Catholic doctrine, the remission of sins means the removal of guilt for them, giving the repentant the opportunity to reunite with the Church and avoid eternal condemnation after death (if we are talking about serious sins).
However, the remission of sins in itself does not remove the temporary punishment for them: a sinner can suffer punishment both during his life, for example, in the form of illness, deprivation, and other suffering, and after death, that is, in purgatory. In the Middle Ages, Catholic theologians formulated the doctrine that such a punishment could be prevented thanks to the merits of the saints and Christ Himself. It is believed that the Church accumulates and stores these merits, and therefore can also remove temporary punishment. It was this action that became known as indulgence (lat. “forgiveness”). Indulgences were granted at confession, communion, and also if the repentant fulfilled some specific requirements (prayed, made a pilgrimage, charity, etc.).
Although Catholic theologians have repeatedly emphasized that the effect of an indulgence is not mechanical, but depends entirely on the internal disposition of the one who receives it, in medieval Europe a “magical” attitude towards indulgences gradually developed. Over time, they began to certify with special certificates, which were often issued by greedy clergy for a fee. This contributed to the development of anti-church sentiments in the 15th-16th centuries. and was one of the motives for the Reformation.
The obvious perversion of the doctrine of indulgences and the abuses associated with their provision forced the Catholic Church itself to reconsider its existing practice: in 1547, Pope Paul III categorically forbade the sale of indulgences as contrary to the norms of church law.
Today, the practice of granting indulgences is very different from the medieval one. Indulgences are not distributed to individual people and do not imply certain obediences, but are announced by the pope on special days dedicated to church holidays. These obediences can be received by every Catholic who has fulfilled the specified conditions (as a rule, certain prayers are added to confession and communion). Today, believers are given more opportunity to decide for themselves which good works should be chosen in order to receive indulgence.
Unction. Through unction (or unction) the Church entrusts the sick to the Lord to alleviate their suffering, heal the body and save the soul. The unction is performed in order for the sick person to receive grace, which, by the will of God, either contributes to his recovery or sanctifies his transition to another life. The external sign of this sacrament is, as in Orthodoxy, the anointing of the sick with consecrated oil ( olive oil). There is an erroneous opinion that the Catholic Church allows the consecration of the oil only once in a lifetime. Unction is a recurring sacrament, although it is recommended to perform it no more than once during an illness (or one stage of an illness).
Priesthood. In the sacrament of the priesthood, a Christian who has been ordained a deacon, priest, or bishop is elevated by the grace of God to the appropriate degree of priesthood and ordained for a special church service. Only a bishop can administer the sacrament of the priesthood. Episcopal ordination is usually performed by several bishops.
Contrary to popular belief, Catholics do not view the papacy as a special grace of the priesthood, for by grace the pope is equal to all other bishops of the Church.
Marriage. The Code of Canon Law in the Catholic Church states: “The marriage union, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a community of all life, intended by its natural character for the good of spouses, as well as for the birth and upbringing of children, between the baptized is elevated by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament” . Sanctified through the sacrament of marriage married life and grace is given to promote genuine love between spouses, as well as their fruitful family ministry. In the Latin Church, the sacrament of marriage differs from all other sacraments in that it is performed by the bride and groom themselves: in the face of witnesses, the future spouses enter into a marital agreement, making marriage vows. The priest (in exceptional cases he can be replaced by a deacon or even a lay person) is present at the marriage as the main witness and confirms and blesses the marital union with the authority of the Church.
In earlier centuries, the Catholic Church tried to prevent marriages between Catholics and non-Catholics. Today, while still considering the unanimity of spouses an important condition for family well-being, she nevertheless does not prevent mixed marriages (although she does not recommend them). Marriages between Catholics and other baptized are allowed; they are performed as a sacrament in the Catholic Church or are recognized by it if they were concluded in any other Christian denomination (at the same time, the Catholic side undertakes to raise children as far as possible in the Catholic faith).
Marriages between Christians and unbelievers are also possible, for, as the apostle Paul said, "... an unbelieving husband is sanctified by a believing wife, and an unbelieving wife is sanctified by a believing husband" (1 Cor. 7.14). In this case, marriage vows are taken only by believers. The sacrament of marriage is considered valid if it was performed sacramentally (that is, according to the rules established by the Church and confirmed by it) and physically (that is, the spouses entered into intimacy). The sacrament of marriage is not considered valid if the marriage was contracted contrary to canon law. For example, a person who is already in a valid marriage or who has become a monk cannot enter into a marriage; marriage cannot be performed under duress, etc. If a violation of these or other circumstances provided for by church law is revealed, the marriage entered into is recognized by the Church as invalid.
Marriage, valid as a sacrament, according to Catholic teaching, is indissoluble. It ends only with the death of one of the spouses. Following Christ's commandment, "...what God has joined together, let no man separate" (Matt. 19.6), the Catholic Church does not allow the possibility of dissolution of valid marriages. Contrary to popular belief, even the pope cannot terminate a valid marriage. Special ecclesiastical tribunals consider only petitions for the annulment of marriages. The indissolubility of marriage precludes remarriage; at the same time, separation (separation) of spouses is allowed in cases where living together becomes impossible. However, the Catholic Church calls to avoid this.
The sanctification of the life of a Christian is not limited to the sacraments. In addition to them, there are numerous secret rituals, or sacramentals (from Latin sacramentalis - "sacred"). This is the consecration of temples, dwellings, various objects, etc. The most important place among such rites is occupied by Christian burial and other funeral rituals.
The Catholic Church willingly introduces the customs of many peoples into its rituals, paying tribute to the human wisdom inherent in them. At the same time, folk customs are unacceptable for the Church, which contradict the veneration of the one God, the Gospel faith and Christian morality.

Over the course of a long history, these guys have accumulated a lot of skeletons in their closets. There are many ugly stories that the Catholic Church does not like to remember. But we decided to stir up the past a little, and see if these saints are so infallible? Throughout its history, the Catholic Church has repeatedly found itself at the center of high-profile scandals and has been subjected to sharp criticism. There are hundreds of examples of this ... here are just 15.

The Catholic Church has existed since the 1st century AD. That's really enough time to accumulate a bunch of secrets. The presence of this Church is felt all over the world. This institution has over 1.27 billion followers, but it holds some shocking secrets, and they'd rather not go into too much detail.

15. Nazi gold in the Vatican bank

The Institute for Religious Affairs (aka the Vatican Bank) was founded by papal decree of Pope Pius XII in June 1942. Three years later, according to a report by a US Treasury agent, the bank received about 2 million francs smuggled in from Germany with the help of a puppet regime. Yes, they accepted Nazi gold (and we all know what that gold is and how many people died for it), but the Vatican Bank did not stop there.
The money is believed to have been immediately transferred to Spain and South America, where it was used to help surviving Nazi officers and officials facing execution for their crimes against humanity. A report on this was written in 1947, but somehow got lost almost immediately, and was later classified.
The "friendship" of the Church with the Nazis began as early as 1929 with the signing of the Lateran Accords between Cardinal Pietro Gasparri and Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. The agreements regulated the rights and privileges of the Catholic Church, as well as its position in the Kingdom of Italy, whose lower house of parliament then consisted entirely of members of the Fascist Party.

14 They Caused Problems For Jewish Children After World War II

Despite deathly silence during the Holocaust, the Catholic Church did try to help Jewish people but in his own way, in his own way. They helped save thousands of Jews from certain death by providing them with falsified birth certificates and documents that identified them as Catholics. In France, Jewish children were hidden from the Nazis in church schools. Of course, it was wonderful, but the problem arose after the war ended.

The Catholic Church issued a decree forbidding Jewish children from returning to their families. The document states that their return to their faith and to their people would mean that they bought off the Catholic faith, which was unacceptable. This phenomenon has been called the "Policy of No Return of Jewish Children". Saving Jewish children from the Nazis, they were baptized and hidden in schools and orphanages. But when the war ended, the children were not returned to their parents, claiming that now they should be raised by Christians. Some of the children grew up not even knowing their true families or origins. It is still unclear exactly how many children they did not return after the war.

13. Irish homes for single mothers

The Irish government has ordered a comprehensive investigation into mother and child homes after a grave containing the bodies of nearly 800 children was found in Galway near a Catholic institution. Catholic institution - a mother and child home, where unmarried mothers found shelter, the death rate was four or five times the usual average death rate in the region at that time. According to experts, the dead children were from two days to nine years old. They are now said to have died due to disease and chronic malnutrition.

The authorities decided to investigate cases of forced adoption, when in Catholic mothers and children's homes their children were taken away from mothers and they themselves were sent for "re-education", as well as excessively high mortality in such institutions.
The burial in a house in the west of Ireland was discovered 40 years ago, but then experts considered that the dead fell victim to a massive famine, which peaked in Ireland in the 40s of the 19th century. According to the Guardian newspaper, local residents learned about the existence of this grave in 1975. Then two little boys accidentally broke a concrete slab. After that, the priest read a prayer at the grave, and the mass grave was sealed again.

12. Protection of rapists and pedophiles

The Catholic Church hates to discuss the facts of child abuse, which began to be widely reported in the media since the 1980s. Officials were quick to point out that other religious institutions also have similar problems, but the bottom line is this is a problem. And what's worse, they knew it very well for years and tried to hide it. The exposure of the facts of pedophilia caused huge scandals. How long this practice actually lasted is unknown, but definitely at least 30 years. Some of the Catholic holy fathers raped dozens of children without even being defrocked.
Just one example is Laurence Murphy's father. He worked at a school for deaf boys and was found to have molested over 200 boys during his 24 years of employment. When the Church became aware of his abuses, they began to transfer him from one parish to another, and when he finally went to Rome to answer for his crimes, they decided that he was too old and weak to be punished. This story was the basis for the documentary "Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God".

11. Cooperation with the Nazis

After Italy was unified in the 19th century, the Pope lost many sovereign territories. This caused a split between the government of that time and the church. But when Italy fell under the fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini, the crisis was resolved. In order to have the church on their side, the fascists offered a deal that the church could not disagree with. In exchange for their public support, the church received a sovereign state in Italy (the Vatican), an impressive amount of cash, tax exemptions, and government salaries. Catholicism was also named the state religion of Italy, and Mussolini made it a compulsory subject in all schools.

The Catholic Church kept its word, and after they came to terms with the new regime, a statement was immediately published in the official Vatican newspaper praising Mussolini. In particular, it said: "Italy returned to God, and God - to Italy."

Dictator Benito Mussolini always maintained very close ties with the Catholic Church. In 1929, the Pope and the Catholic Church received various preferences. Thus, churches were given the right to prosecute people who spoke negatively about the Pope or the Catholic Church.

10 Croatian Holocaust

While the Nazi concentration camps that operated during World War II remain the most famous to this day, several other countries, notably Yugoslavia, also operated similar concentration camps run by Catholic priests.
After the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Hungary) occupied Yugoslavia in 1941, the new fascist government formed the so-called independent state of Croatia, which is believed to have been a puppet country of the Nazis. It was run by the Ustashe (Croatian version of the Nazis) led by Ante Pavelić. The Ustaše held ultra-conservative views on Catholicism and racism.
Few people know about this. Ante Pavelić was the Croatian Adolf Hitler. After Pavelić came to power, Catholic Archbishop Stepinac hosted a banquet in honor of the dictator, declaring that he was "doing God's work." Pavelić was then received by Pope Pius XII (and just four days earlier, the Ustaše had burned several hundred Serbs, locking them inside Orthodox Church).

A few months later, the Ustaše leader proposed to exterminate the entire Serbian population of Croatia according to the principle: "Kill a third, expel a third and assimilate the remaining third." This direction of genocide soon became a horrifying reality. Concentration camps were set up all over the country, including one of the worst in Europe - Jasenovac, where 800,000 Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, political dissidents were killed. Croatian Catholic priests served as guards in the camps and even as executioners. In the Jasenovac camp, former law student Petar Brzica, a member of a Catholic organization, won the competition by killing 1,350 people in one night.

The killings were not limited to the camps. The Ustashe marched through the villages with knives and axes. One such campaign in 1942 was led by a priest and claimed the lives of 2,300 Serbs. Survivors of the attack described how the Ustaše executed small children, threw their severed heads to their mothers, cut open the stomachs of pregnant women, and raped young girls, forcing their families to watch. While all this was going on, Pavelić was exchanging emotional telegrams with Pope Pius XII. The Catholic press in Croatia propagated the fascist regime. The Vatican has never spoken out against the killings.

9. Repatriation of children

To ensure the maintenance of a healthy white majority population in the colonies, the British sent about 150,000 children to Rhodesia, Canada, New Zealand and Australia during the 19th and 20th centuries. Religious organizations, including the Catholic Church, saw this as an opportunity to increase the number of their followers and took part in the repatriation. Representatives of the church provided themselves with a guaranteed flock on other continents. Everything would be fine, but the children were not just taken away from home, but sent to hard labor. Children were starved, beaten and often raped. Only in 2001, the Catholic Church of Australia confirmed the fact of the authenticity of those crimes, and finally apologized. Holy Fathers, it's too late!

8. Ritual murder of a nun

American Catholic priest Gerald Robinson was found guilty of killing a nun. The body of the crime victim, 71-year-old Sister Margaret Ann Pal, was discovered in 1980 in the hospital chapel. Strangulation marks and 31 stab wounds to the chest were found on the body. These criss-cross wounds were caused, according to the pathologists, by a letter opener found in Robinson's room. The priest was arrested in 2004, but was released on bail: his supporters and parishioners raised $200,000 for this purpose.

26 years after the murder, the investigation was resumed thanks to Claudio Vercelotti from the society for the assistance of people who were harassed by priests. She stated that there was evidence of sexual harassment by some satanic cult in which Reverend Robinson was involved. After the verdict was announced, one of Gerald Robinson's supporters told her: "I hope you rot in hell." However, this time he sat down - but did not sit long, as he died in prison a few years later.

7 Helping The Nazis Escape

According to some estimates, after the end of World War II, approximately 9,000 Nazis managed to escape to South America. Many believe that the Catholic Church helped a large number these war criminals get there and escape punishment for their crimes. Numerous cases have been proven in which high-ranking Nazi officials were issued false Vatican passports, allowing them to travel disguised as priests.

The most famous is the Stangl case. Franz Stangl - Nazi war criminal, SS Hauptsturmführer, commandant of the concentration camps - Sobibor, Treblinka. It was smuggled from Germany to Brazil by a bishop named Hudal. Franz Stangl, who remained at large until 1967, when he was arrested in Brazil. Then Stangl was extradited to West Germany and convicted of mass kill 900,000 Jews.

The participation of the Church in this remains a controversial issue. The official position is that Hudal acted on his own, without the approval of the Vatican. But a number of historians argue that the role of the Church in organizing the escapes could be much greater.

6. Magdalene Shelter

Based on ultra-conservative concepts, the Catholic Church imprisoned women suspected of prostitution or promiscuity in special institutions - Magdalen shelters. Initially, women in these institutions were forced to undergo pseudo-psychiatric treatment in order to get rid of the alleged sinfulness and debauchery. Many women were sent to these shelters by their families.
This happened mainly in Ireland, the arrested women were forced to work as slaves - it was the daily washing of clothes for seven days a week. The church, on the other hand, received money for laundry, because laundries were commercial establishments. The prisoners endured severe beatings, received poor food and were subjected to constant sexual abuse. It has been estimated that over 30,000 women were forced to work in Irish laundries.

Shelters operated in Ireland from the 18th century until the end of the 20th century, but did not attract public attention until 1993, when 155 bodies were found in a mass grave in North Dublin. The management of the shelter buried the women secretly, not informing their families or even the authorities about their death - none of the unfortunates had a death certificate. In 2013, the Irish authorities agreed to pay at least$45 million in compensation to survivors. This decision was made after the UN committee against torture drew attention to the situation. However, the Catholic Church has yet to apologize.

5. Orphans of Duplessis

In the 1930s and 1940s, a "quiet revolution" in Quebec ushered in a new era now known as the "Great Darkness". Led by Prime Minister Morris Duplessis, this period was characterized by unprecedented corruption and repression, which included the Catholic Church. After Duplessis got the support of the local church, he decided to pay back his debt with a somewhat unusual money-making scheme related to the care of orphans.

At that time, federal subsidies for psychiatric hospitals were much larger than those allocated to orphanages. Starting in the 1940s, Duplessis, with the support of the Catholic Church (which ran most of the psychiatric hospitals and orphanages), began to systematically identify orphans with mental disabilities (although the diagnoses were not true). As a result, orphans were sent to mental hospitals, and the clinics were eligible for increased federal payments. There were cases when all pupils of shelters were recognized as mentally handicapped, and the shelters themselves were transformed into mental hospitals. Thus, the Catholic Church was able to significantly increase its revenues through government subsidies.
Approximately 20,000 children received these false diagnoses. And not all children were orphans. Many were born to unmarried mothers and forcibly transferred to the care of the Church, which categorically condemned the appearance of children out of wedlock. With this status, the life of children turned into a nightmare. They were sexually abused, electroshock therapy was applied to them, they were even given a lobotomy. Some children were used in medical experiments. Many died as a result of such treatment.
By the beginning of the 90s. about 3,000 "Duplessis orphans" survived. They banded together to make their story public and get justice from the government. In the end, they received monetary compensation from the authorities, and the Catholic Church remained modestly silent.

4 Hank's Creepy Case

Hank Haytus was a "child of divorce" and therefore was unwanted in his family, and spent his entire childhood in orphanages and boarding schools run by the church.
One of the schools he attended between the ages of 15 and 18 was the St. Vincent boarding school in the Netherlands, the school was run by monks. It was here that he was subjected to severe sexual abuse. Rather than remain silent, Hank was brave enough to speak up publicly, and when he turned 20, he filed a criminal lawsuit against the holy fathers.

But things went from bad to worse for Hank. As a result of this case, and in 1956 he was found guilty of seducing monks and sent to a Catholic psychiatric hospital, where he was treated for homosexuality. Castration was part of the treatment. Henk died at the age of 28 in a car accident, and the day after his death, the police confiscated and destroyed all of his property and court papers. Nothing to hide, right?

3. Castration of the boys from the choir

Hank's story is far from an isolated case, among his classmates there were at least 10 other teenagers who were also subjected first to sexual abuse by priests, and then to forced castration when they tried to tell the police about it.
In 2012, journalists officially proved that in the middle of the last century, the Catholic Church in the Netherlands forcibly castrated choir boys who threatened to tell the police that they had been raped by priests.
But that's not all... in 2001, it was proven that the Catholic Church strongly encouraged the castration of choir boys in order to preserve their vocal range. In order to get a high voice in men, the singer must be castrated back in adolescence(even before he reaches maturity, so that his voice does not have time to break). Until recently, the Catholic Church forbade women to sing in church choirs, and they needed high voices. The practice of castration of adolescents has continued from the 16th century to the present day. A decree banning this monstrous procedure was adopted only in 1902, but in the Vatican, young men continued to be castrated until 1959.

2. Sister Abhaya

The body of Sister Abhay was found at the bottom of a well near the church of St. Joseph in India, where she lived. She was 19 years old at the time of her death in 1997, despite the undeniable murder, her death was ruled a suicide.

The case suffered from the intervention of the church, many important documents were "missing", and one of the investigators even committed suicide by opening his veins and leaving a note - he was pressured by those who are trying to control the investigation from the inside.

Eventually, in 2009, two priests and a nun were charged with the murder of Abhay's sister. It seems that she caught them committing adultery, the guys panicked and killed her with an ax before throwing her into the well. They went to extreme lengths to cover up their atrocities - the nun even allegedly underwent a surgical procedure known as hymenoplasty to "restore" her virginity.

1 Kidnapping and lucrative adoption in Spain

Since the 30s. of the last century, the fascist regime of Franco sought to "cleanse" Spain by taking children from "undesirable" parents and raising them to be more loyal to the policies pursued. This project initially focused on the children of the "leftists", but eventually extended to the children of unmarried mothers and other "wrong" parents. 300,000 babies were eventually separated from their parents. The project was developed with the direct participation of the Catholic Church of Spain.

After Franco came to power, calling himself the protector of Catholic Spain, the Church began to manage most of the country's social institutions: from schools to hospitals and orphanages. This allowed doctors, priests, nuns to steal thousands of children. In many cases, nurses in hospitals simply took newborns away from their mothers, ostensibly for examination. And then they came back and said that the baby had died. Often, children were simply sold to foster parents.

After Franco's death in 1975, the Church maintained its grip and continued with the project. Child abductions continued until 1987, when the Spanish government tightened adoption rules. It has been estimated that about 15% of adopted children between 1960 and 1989 were stolen from their real parents.

Throughout its long history, the Catholic Church has been rocked by scandals, from the dissolution of the Knights Templar, the trial of Galileo, and the debunking of the myth of Mother Teresa. During the 20th century, there were still many scandals, no matter how hard the Church tried to guard its secrets.

10. Orphans of Duplessis

In the 1930s and 1940s, a "quiet revolution" in Quebec ushered in a new era now known as the "Great Darkness". Led by Prime Minister Morris Duplessis, this period was characterized by unprecedented corruption and repression, with much to do with the Catholic Church. After Duplessis got the support of the local church, he decided to pay back his debt with a somewhat unusual money-making scheme related to the care of orphans.

At that time, federal subsidies for psychiatric hospitals were much larger than those allocated to orphanages, which were basically a "headache" for local authorities. Starting in the 1940s, Duplessis, with the support of the Catholic Church (which ran most of the psychiatric hospitals and orphanages), began to systematically identify orphans with mental disabilities, although in reality such a diagnosis was false. As a result of such actions, orphans were sent to mental hospitals and were eligible for increased federal payments. There were cases when all pupils of shelters were recognized as mentally handicapped, and the shelters themselves were transformed into mental hospitals. In this way, the Catholic Church could significantly increase its revenues through government subsidies.

Approximately 20,000 children were misdiagnosed. And not all children were orphans. Many were born to unmarried mothers and forcibly transferred to the care of the Church, which categorically condemned the appearance of children out of wedlock.

With this status, the life of children turned into a nightmare. They were sexually abused, electroshock therapy was applied to them, they were even given a lobotomy. Some children were used in medical experiments. Many died as a result of such treatment.

By the beginning of the 90s. about 3,000 Duplessis orphans survived. They banded together to make their story public and get justice from the government. Ultimately, they received monetary compensation from the authorities, but the Catholic Church never apologized.

9. Resettlement of children

During the 19th and 20th centuries approximately 150,000 orphanage children were sent to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Rhodesia. Such a system may have been practiced before the 17th century, but what is surprising is its duration. Between 1947 and 1967 alone, 10,000 children were sent from the United Kingdom to Australia.

The purpose of such resettlements was clear - these colonies were to be dominated by the white population. British children were sent around the world as "good white stock".

And rival religious movements used a similar scheme to increase the number of their followers on the continents. From the late 1930s to the early 1960s, the Catholic Church sent at least 1,000 British and 310 Maltese children to Australian Catholic schools, where many of them were forced to do hard physical labor, including construction work.
Subsequent research revealed that, in addition to forced hard labor, many children were severely beaten, raped, starved - some forced to fight over food thrown on the floor. Many of them were deprived of the name given at birth. Decades later, in 2001, the Catholic Church acknowledged the crimes committed and apologized to the victims.

8 Kidnapped Children Of Spain

Since the 30s. of the last century, the fascist regime of Francisco Franco sought to "cleanse" Spain by taking children from "undesirable" parents and raising them to be more loyal to the policies. This project originally concerned the children of the "left", which the Spanish government regarded as a "disease that pollutes the race". But in the end it spread to the children of unmarried mothers and other "wrong" parents. As many as 300,000 babies were eventually separated from their parents. The project was developed with the direct participation of the Catholic Church of Spain.
After Franco came to power, calling himself the protector of Catholic Spain, the Church began to manage most of the country's social institutions: from schools to hospitals and orphanages. This allowed doctors, priests, nuns to steal thousands of children.

In many cases, nurses in hospitals simply took newborns away from their mothers, ostensibly for examination. And then they came back and said that the baby had died. Often, children were simply sold to foster parents.

After Franco's death in 1975, the Church maintained its grip and continued with the project. Child abductions continued until 1987, when the Spanish government tightened adoption rules. It has been estimated that about 15% of adopted children between 1960 and 1989 were stolen from their real parents.

7. Return of baptized Jewish children

While Pope Pius XII was accused of not publicly protesting the Holocaust, under his leadership the Catholic Church moved to save several thousand Jews from the Nazis. Some Italian and Hungarian Jews were given false baptismal certificates and other documents proving that they were Catholics. In France, many Jewish children were baptized and hidden in Catholic schools and orphanages from Nazi repression.

The problem is what happened later. After the end of the war, the Catholic Church in France issued a directive forbidding the return of baptized Jewish children to their families. The document, which was said to have been approved by the Holy Father, prescribed that "Children who have been baptized must be kept in institutions guaranteeing their Christian upbringing."

Many of them lost their parents in the Holocaust and were not specifically informed of their Jewish origin. The issue gained public attention in France when Robert and Gerald Finely, their surviving Jewish relatives, were tried to return to their homeland. This case sparked numerous lawsuits. However, some French Catholics voluntarily violated the directive and returned baptized children to their families. Among these French was the future Pope John XXIII, and then the representative of the Vatican in Paris.
To this day, it is not known exactly how many children the Catholic Church saved and how many later returned.

6. NSDAP Gold in the Vatican Bank

In 1947, U.S. Treasury agent Emerson Bigelow wrote what appeared to be a highly secret report that the Catholic Church was smuggling Nazi gold through the Vatican bank. Although the report itself was lost, Bigelow wrote a letter stating that the data was taken from a reliable source. According to him, 350 million Swiss francs were transferred to the Vatican bank at the end of the war from puppet Croatia, which was under the rule of the Nazis. Bigelow claimed that most of this money "settled" in the Vatican "in safekeeping."

Bigelow's letter also contains information that some of this gold was subsequently shipped through the so-called Vatican Pipeline to Spain and South America to aid the Nazis.

The letter saw the light in 1997, after the Vatican archives were declassified. Representatives of the Vatican Bank denied these accusations, but the Catholic Church was embroiled in trials associated with the laundering of Nazi gold.

In 2000, a class-action lawsuit was filed by 2,000 Holocaust survivors and their relatives seeking restitution from the Vatican of up to $200 million. Using Bigelow's letter and other documents, they claimed that the Vatican had stolen the gold from the Jews. True, the process has stalled due to the fact that it is not clear whether such a claim can be considered in the United States.

5. Alliance with fascism

Today the Vatican is a sovereign, the smallest state in the world. But it was not always so. Rome was the capital of the Papal States for hundreds of years. But after the unification of Italy in the 19th century, the Pope lost his influence on secular territories, which caused a confrontation between Church and state. The Vatican officially became a sovereign country only in 1929. And this happened only due to the fact that the Catholic Church "went to bed" with fascism.

In 1922, Benito Mussolini and his National Fascist Party came to power, eventually abolishing democracy and establishing a brutal dictatorship. In 1929, Mussolini and the Catholic Church signed the Lateran Agreement, resolving the crisis by granting the church sovereign territories in Italy. To sweeten the agreement, Mussolini paid the Holy See a significant amount of money. The church, in turn, used the money to build a lucrative international investment portfolio now valued at around £500m ($781m).

In addition, the Church was exempt from taxes, and Catholic priests received a guaranteed salary from the Italian government. The agreement recognized Catholicism as Italy's only religion, making religious education compulsory for all Italian schoolchildren unless they had a special exemption. The treaty also included a clause protecting the "dignity of the Pope." In effect, this meant that those who criticized the Church were to be brought to justice. In 2008, a fanatical Roman prosecutor opened a case against a comedian who had an unfortunate joke by criticizing Pope Benedict. Fortunately, the attempt was not crowned with success, having been suppressed by the Italian Ministry of Justice, and the Vatican also supported this decision.
For its part, Mussolini's fascist regime received public support from the Catholic Church at the signing of the agreement and was recognized as the official state system of Italy, despite the fact that Mussolini had abolished democracy four years earlier. Following the signing of the Lateran Agreement, the official newspaper of the Vatican praised Mussolini, stating: "Italy has been returned to God, and God to Italy."

4 Covering Up Child Abuse and Protecting Pedophiles

Widespread child abuse in the Catholic Church was a problem for a long time, but it didn't really come to public attention until the late 1980s. Bullying itself can cause a huge scandal, but the fact that it lasted so long and was not known to the world speaks of even greater crimes: the Catholic Church deliberately sought to cover up the facts of child abuse and systematically protected pedophile priests .

The scandal came to the surface in 2002, when five Catholic priests were tried in Boston for child abuse. One of the convicts - Father John Jogan - molested up to 130 boys before he was caught. But the higher priests knew about his crimes long before the accusations of the court. Not only did the Church not extradite him to the authorities, he was not even defrocked. Instead, he was simply transferred to another parish, where he continued to rape children without hindrance.

In Wisconsin, Catholic priest Lawrence Murphy raped 200 deaf and disabled children. handicapped in a school subordinate to the Church. This happened between 1950 and 1974. When Murphy's superiors found out about this, he was not even removed from his teaching job. Instead, he was given leave. It was not until 1996 that the Church conducted an internal investigation. However, it was decided not to punish the rapist, for he was already old and infirm. A few months later, Murphy died and was buried with all the honors due to a priest who faithfully performed his duties.

In February 2014, a United Nations Special Committee on Children's Rights found that the Catholic Church has systematically protected priests who abused children and is therefore responsible for tens of thousands of children being abused around the world. The committee argued that "the Church has systematically placed the reputation of the Holy See and the protection of criminal priests above the rights of the child."

The current Pope, Francis, recently stated that he had credible data indicating that about 2% of Catholic priests are pedophiles. In total, there are now approximately 414,000 Catholic priests in the world. So, according to the Pope himself, there are currently about 8,000 pedophile priests serving in the Catholic Church.

3. Magdalene Asylums

Based on ultra-conservative notions of sexuality, the Catholic Church imprisoned women suspected of prostitution or promiscuity in special facilities called Magdalen Asylums. Initially, women in these institutions were forced to undergo pseudo-psychiatric treatment in order to get rid of the alleged sinfulness and debauchery. Many women were sent to these shelters by their own families.

This took place mainly in Ireland, the arrested women were forced to perform slave labor, mainly associated with the daily washing of clothes, seven days a week. The church, on the other hand, received money for laundry, because laundries were commercial establishments. And the prisoners suffered severe beatings, received meager amounts of food and were constantly sexually abused. It has been estimated that over 30,000 women were forced to work in Irish laundries.

Shelters operated in Ireland from the 18th century until the end of the 20th century, but they did not attract public attention until 1993, when 155 bodies were found in a mass grave in North Dublin. The management of the shelter buried the women secretly, without informing their families or even the authorities about their death - none of the unfortunate people had a death certificate.

In 2013, Irish authorities agreed to pay at least $45 million in compensation to survivors. This decision was made after the UN committee against torture drew attention to the situation. However, the Catholic Church has yet to apologize.

2. Rat trails of the Nazis

At the end of World War II, many Nazi war criminals tried to flee Europe to avoid prosecution. In some cases, they received the help of the highest ranks of the Catholic Church. In December 1944, the Church allowed, for religious purposes, a bishop named Alois Hudal to visit Nazi prisoners held in military camps. However, the priest used his position to help many prisoners escape.
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Hudal helped develop a system of escape routes known as rat-lines, allowing the Nazis to escape into South America. He used his position in church hierarchy to arrange travel documents from the Vatican Refugee Organization. Many officers were effectively issued Vatican government passports, which allowed them to impersonate priests.

One of the Nazis Hudal helped to escape was Franz Stangl, who remained at large until 1967 when he was arrested in Brazil. Then Stangl was extradited to West Germany and convicted of the massacre of 900,000 Jews.

Meanwhile, a group of Croatian priests serving at the Roman Seminary College created the most important escape route, now known as the San Girolamo rat trail. Under the leadership of Father Krunoslav Draganovich, the organization was originally created to help members of the Croatian Ustaše terrorist movement escape Europe, but its functions soon expanded to include German Nazis such as Klaus Barbie.
At least 9,000 Nazis fled to South America after the war. The participation of the Church in this remains a controversial issue. The official position is that Hudal and Draganovich acted independently, without the approval of the Vatican. But a number of historians argue that the role of the Church in organizing the escapes could be much greater.

1 Croatian Holocaust

While the Nazi concentration camps that operated during World War II remain the most famous to this day, several other countries, notably Yugoslavia, also operated similar concentration camps run by Catholic priests.
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After the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Hungary) occupied Yugoslavia in 1941, the new fascist government formed the so-called independent state of Croatia, which is believed to have been a puppet country of the Nazis. It was run by the Ustashe (Croatian version of the Nazis) led by Ante Pavelić. The Ustaše held ultra-conservative views on Catholicism and racism.

After Pavelić came to power, Catholic Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac hosted a banquet for the dictator, declaring him "God's hand at work." Pavelić was also received by Pope Pius XII himself. Four days before Pavelić's meeting with the Pope, the Ustaše locked hundreds of Serbs inside the Orthodox Church and burned it to the ground. Yugoslav diplomats warned the Pope about the atrocities committed and asked him to refuse the meeting, but Pius XII did not comply with the request.
A few months later, the Ustaše leader proposed to exterminate the entire Serbian population of Croatia according to the principle: "Kill a third, expel a third and assimilate the remaining third."

This direction of genocide soon became a horrifying reality. Concentration camps were set up all over the country, including one of the worst in Europe - Jasenovac, where 800,000 Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, political dissidents were killed. Croatian Catholic priests served as guards in the camps and even as executioners. In the Jasenovac camp, former law student Petar Brzica, a member of a Catholic organization, won the competition by killing 1,350 people in one night.

The killings were not limited to the camps. The Ustashe marched through the villages with knives and axes. One such campaign in 1942 was led by a priest and claimed the lives of 2,300 Serbs. Survivors of the attack described how the Ustaše executed small children, threw their severed heads to their mothers, cut open the stomachs of pregnant women, and raped young girls, forcing their families to watch.

While all this was going on, Pavelić was exchanging emotional telegrams with Pope Pius XII. The Catholic press in Croatia propagated the fascist regime. The Vatican has never spoken out against the killings.

After the end of the war and the liberation of Yugoslavia by the communists, Archbishop Stepinac was found guilty of war crimes and sent to the Lepoglava prison. However, the new Yugoslav government soon released him under pressure from the Vatican. Pius XII later appointed him a cardinal. In 1998 he was beatified (blessed) by Pope John Paul II.

In 1578, archaeologists opened the Roman catacombs, and found in them casually buried human remains. The remains were exhumed by Catholic priests, who declared them to be the relics of the first Christian martyrs. In order to save the relics for the church, the highest ranks ordered the masters to collect the skeletons and decorate them with precious stones and jewelry.

Thus, the church wanted to show believers what riches await people after death. The faithful flock could expect incredible riches if they led a charitable lifestyle - so the Catholic priests claimed. Decorated with precious stones, the remains made a kind of "European tour" - they were shown in the main cathedrals of the continent, after which they were put on public display in a number of churches. These unusual exhibits stood until the beginning of the 19th century, when their authenticity was questioned by historians of that time. As a result, the Catholic Church was forced to hide the remains of the once martyrs.

Paul Koudounaris, one of the few journalists who gained access to the caches of the Catholic Church, tells about the events associated with these relics in his book “Heavenly Bodies”. The once sacred relics of the most influential religious cult are now more of a piece of art to be enjoyed.

The decoration of skeletons was mainly done by monks and nuns, only especially complex orders, for example, for the manufacture of armor, were entrusted to non-church craftsmen. The nuns were excellent seamstresses: they constantly worked with silk and other complex materials, creating exquisite clothes for the high clergy. The craftsmen even decorated the skeletons with their own jewels (or objects dear to them), thereby paying tribute to the alleged martyrs.

Paul Kodunaris argues that the choice of stones most likely did not carry any symbolic connotation. The goal was to show the poor what riches await them in the other world, and for this, emeralds and rubies, as well as diamonds and sapphires, were suitable.

As you can see, the eye sockets, oral and nasal cavities of the skeletons were decorated with large precious stones, this was done in order to give the skulls a human appearance. Some priests even created wax masks and wigs for the exhibits, so as not to frighten the common people so much. It is worth considering that there were no biology lessons in the 16th century, and ordinary peasants did not see skeletons in the pictures, so the sight of skulls could shock them.

After the authenticity of the skeletons was questioned, many of them ended up in landfills or mass graves, and the stones that decorated them became someone's property. However, the Catholic Church was still able to save a significant part of the exhibits in its vaults and caches. A small number of skeletons are in the hands of private collectors.

The authenticity of some of the skeletons was highly questionable from the start. For example, the skeleton of a Roman martyr with the German name Friedrich could not stand up to any criticism of the pundits of that time. However, the church still managed to convince the parishioners of the holiness of the relics.

The only group that denounced the Catholic Church as a waste of resources were the Protestants. For them, such a practice seemed something absurd and unacceptable. There were no objections among Catholics. People sincerely welcomed such an initiative of the church and contributed to it financially.

The Catholic Church in the German city of Waldsassen has today the largest open collection of skeletons. In total, 12 exhibits are stored there, and access to them is open to the public.