I'd like to examine an issue which needsto be addressed. As a lifelong Catholic, I respect the teaching of the Church and the authority of it's leader the Pope, who serves as the Vicar of Christ. This does not mean we blindly go along with everything he says. The Pope has authority as the leader of the Church and is considered infallible on matters of faith and morals. The issue at hand here is the Pope's purported relationship with Henry Kissinger, with one initial report from 2006 claiming that Kissinger had been invitedby the Pope to become a "political advisor".

Up until recently, I believed this to be the case and was bothered by it, as ithad beenreported in 'the news', repeated ad infinitum andaccepted as factual across the internet for over three years. However, a simple search will reveal thatthis initial story, which was unreliable at best to begin with,was factually discredited by the Vatican in 2006 after the original claim was made bythe Italian newspaper La Stampa.

The originalclaimwasreportedin the United States on 11/22/06 by the National Catholic Register in an article byEdward Pentin titled 'Kissinger to Serve As Papal Adviser? Pope Benedict XVI has invited Henry Kissinger, former adviser to Richard Nixon, to be a political consultant and he accepted'.

Their website requires registration to view the entire article, but the article is available in it's entirety at globalresearch.ca. Note, however,that globalresearch added their own subtitle,'Neo-conservatism at the Vatican? Kissinger to become Political Adviser to Pope Benedict XVI', as well as removed the Register's original headline which ended with a question mark, (Kissinger to Serve As Papal Adviser?)which was obviously intended to placethe veracity of La Stampa's original claim in doubt.

The register article reported: "According to the Italian newspaper La Stampa, Pope Benedict XVI has invited the 83-year-old former adviser to Richard Nixon to be a political consultant, and Kissinger has accepted. Quoting an “authoritative” diplomatic source at the Holy See, the paper reported Nov. 4 that the Nobel laureate was asked at a recent private audience with the Holy Father to form part of a papal “advisory board” on foreign and political affairs. As the Register went to press, Kissinger's office was unable to confirm or deny the report. La Stampa stood by its story, although the Italian press is less rigorous in its authentication of stories as is the United States Press. If true, there is speculation on which issues Kissinger would advise the Holy Father..."

On December 5, 2006, LifeSiteNews ran the story Vatican: Population Control Architect Kissinger Not Advising Pope. The article began by debunking the spurious claim:

The Vatican has dispelled any rumor that former U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger is acting as a foreign advisor to Pope Benedict XVI reports the Catholic News Agency. The veracity of the report was held in question, since Kissinger was the architect of US foreign policy supporting population control. Vatican Spokesman Father Lombardi clarified yesterday that the report from the Italian Newspaper La Stampa saying Benedict XVI had enlisted Kissinger as an advisor is “without any foundation.” Father Lombardi told CNS that Pope Benedict XVI has neither a foreign affairs advisory board, and he has not asked former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to become one of his advisers. The truth is that Kissinger met privately with the pope on Sept. 28 and that Mary Ann Glendon, a U.S. law professor and president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, has extended an invitation to Kissinger to speak to the academy in late April. "Those are the only two concrete facts," Father Lomardi said.

The Dec. 5 article thenwent on to address Kissinger's Blueprint for world de-population and western domination. Kissinger, who is largely regarded as a war criminal and an admitted eugencist, was the architect of formerly classified National Security Study Memorandum Number 200. According to
mathaba.net, the document "became the official guide to foreign policy November 26, 1975, when a National Security Decision Memorandum (NSDM 314) was signed that endorsed the findings of the study". It also "acknowledged that the purpose of population control was to serve the U.S. strategic, economic, and military interest at the expense of the developing countries". [See also Kissinger Report 2004: How U.S. foreign policy uses population control to expoloit third world economies.]

In a PrisonPlanet.com article from September, Paul Joseph Watsonoffers a cogent summary ofthe document:
National Security Study Memorandum 200, a 1974 geopolitical strategy document prepared by Rockefeller's intimate friend and fellow Bilderberg member Henry Kissinger, which targeted thirteen countries for massive population reduction by means of creating food scarcity, sterilization and war. The document, declassified in 1989, identified 13 countries that were of special interest to U.S. geopolitical objectives and outlined why population growth, and particularly that of young people who were seen as a revolutionary threat to U.S. corporations, was a potential roadblock to achieving these objectives. The countries named were India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines, Thailand, Egypt, Turkey, Ethiopia and Colombia.

The study outlined how civil disturbances affecting the “smooth flow of needed materials” would be less likely to occur “under conditions of slow or zero population growth.”
“Development of a worldwide political and popular commitment to population stabilization is fundamental to any effective strategy. This requires the support and commitment of key LDC leaders. This will only take place if they clearly see the negative impact of unrestricted population growth and believe it is possible to deal with this question through governmental action,” states the document.

The document called for integrating “family planning” (otherwise known as abortion) with routine health services for the purposes of “curbing the numbers of LDC people,” (lesser-developed countries).
The report shockingly outlines how withholding food could be used as a means of punishment for lesser-developed countries who do not act to reduce their population, essentially using food as a weapon for a political agenda by creating mass starvation in under-developed countries.
“The allocation of scarce PL480 (food) resources should take account of what steps a country is taking in population control as well as food production,” states the document.
Later in the document, the idea of enforcing “mandatory programs” by using food as “an instrument of national power” is presented.
This is the quintessential example of powerful men conspiring to use eugenicist policies in order to advance their power.

Kissinger has continually advocated world government. In January 2009, Kissingersaid that Obama's task is to complete their "new world order". In a March 2009 Wall Street Journal video titled Kissinger Ponders Plans for Recovery,the86-year-oldonce again pushes global government, stating "to convince their people that their immediate necessities are met by global solutions is going to be an enormous task. I wish them well."

Of course with Pope Benedictsaying "there is urgent need of a true world political authority" in his most recent encyclical Caritas In Veritate, it may be difficult to quell the doubts and suspicions among those who believed that Kissinger was an advisor- particularly since Kissinger himself has called for global governnance for decades. On July 7th after the encyclical's release, Reuters ran a story titled Pope calls for a "global authority" on economy.

Noticeably absent among critiques of the encyclicalis the fact that Pope Benedict also the covers importance ofmaintaining state autonomy, in number 41, declaring "The integrated economy of the present day does not make the role of States redundant, but rather it commits governments to greater collaboration with one another. Both wisdom and prudence suggest not being too precipitous in declaring the demise of the State".

But later in number 67, he calls for a "for a reform of the United Nations Organization" and says that the world political authority "would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights".

This is indeed troubling for those of us Catholics who support limited government intervention. Heck, I think the federal, state and city governments are totally out of control and need to be drastically reduced, much lesscringe to imagine promoting some sort of global government with "teeth". Thomas Woodswrote an excellent analysis, Truth & Charity,and rightly points out

"There is no need to provide chapter and verse to the effect that the Pope is not (and was never thought of as) an absolute monarch whose every utterance is to be greeted with obsequious flattery. Any educated Catholic knows this. Throughout the vast bulk of Church history, the cult of personality—let's call it what it was—that surrounded Pope John Paul II would have struck Catholics as downright bizarre.

"St. Thomas Aquinas contended that a layman may rebuke his prelate, even publicly, if the latter is giving scandal. Under the heading “Whether a man is bound to correct his prelate,” St. Thomas writes: “It must be observed, however, that if the faith were endangered, a subject ought to rebuke his prelate even publicly. ....But certain key passages of Caritas in Veritate, in addition to being unhelpful or ill considered, erect gratuitous obstacles to conversion on the part of countless Protestants and other non-Catholics. If St. Thomas' counsel does not apply in this case, where would it apply?"

I hope this article puts to rest the claim that Kissinger was hired as an advisor to the Pope. Below I will include paragraph number 67, the partof the encyclical which got a lot of attention, in it's entirety, and I will leave you with some of my favorite quotes from church fathers:

"He that sees another in error, and endeavors not to correct it, testifies himself to be in error." Pope St. Leo I

"It is better that scandal arise than that truth be concealed." St. Gregory the Great


"Not to oppose error is to approve of it, and not to defend truth is to suppress it, and, indeed, to neglect to confound evil men, when we can do it, is not less a sin than to encourage them." Pope Felix III

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• 67. In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect[146] and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making. This seems necessary in order to arrive at a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity. To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago. Such an authority would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good[147], and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth. Furthermore, such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights[148]. Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums. Without this, despite the great progress accomplished in various sectors, international law would risk being conditioned by the balance of power among the strongest nations. The integral development of peoples and international cooperation require the establishment of a greater degree of international ordering, marked by subsidiarity, for the management of globalization[149]. They also require the construction of a social order that at last conforms to the moral order, to the interconnection between moral and social spheres, and to the link between politics and the economic and civil spheres, as envisaged by the Charter of the United Nations.