The Imposter Pope Paul VI!? Has Anyone Heard This One?

The conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories?

A website claims that Pope Paul VI was drugged and a body double was put in his place, who had extensive plastic surgery. He was betrayed, according to the website, by agents of satan, dodgy Cardinals placed all around him. In this way he was martyred, having said, On June 29, 1972, "From some fissure the smoke of satan entered into the temple of God."

This, according to the conspiracy, is how the Second Vatican Council was hijacked and the liturgy of the Church destroyed. Well, you know how much I love a good conspiracy theory. According to the website this was (one of) the Third Secret (s) of Fatima, that satan's agents within the Holy See had entered and made a direct hit on the Pope, drugged him up and put an imposter in his place. I don't think Our Lady of the Roses has been recognised by the Vatican as an official Marian apparition by the way. Not surprising! Crikey!

Meanwhile, as an aside, I found this story from the Daily Mail from January 2009.

The Pope is declaring a 'holy war' against people who claim falsely that the Virgin Mary is appearing to them. He will attempt to snuff out an explosion of bogus heavenly apparitions with new guidelines to help bishops root out frauds.

Benedict XVI plans to publish criteria to help them distinguish between true and false claims of visions of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, messages, stigmata - the appearances of the five wounds of Christ - and weeping or bleeding statues.

In some cases exorcists will be used to determine if a credible apparition is 'divine' origin or 'demonic'. The guidelines will be published by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Pope is said to be deeply concerned by the explosion in the number of pseudo-mystics who, claiming a direct line to God, set themselves against the bishops and lure the Catholic faithful out of the Church and into cults.

The handbook comes six years after the Pope - when he was simply Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – first said that the boom in such phenomena posed a risk to the unity of the Church.

So, well done Fr Ray Blake for fulfilling his ministry in obedience to the wishes of the Holy Father, who made public a desire to see erroneous and heretical Marian sites of pilgrimmage investigated and censured. We put our trust in the Holy Father, the Successor of St Peter. As long as he isn't a body double and he's lying in a bed drugged up while some actor has assumed the Throne of St Peter!

According to so many websites Our Lady is popping up everywhere to lay people all over the globe to give important messages to the faithful about the Church, the World and the Future. Medjugorje, Garabandal and to a woman called Gianna in Emmittsberg, USA. They are all private revelations to lay people. And while Bishops, as we know in England and Wales, are not always right about everything, the Church isn't a democracy, and we've had so much 'empowerment of the Laity' recently, that it is worthwhile us Laity's preferring someone else's will than our own.