Two families
suffered a terrible personal tragedy when Commander Estermann, his wife, and
Lance Corporal Tornay died a violent death in the Estermann flat in Vatican City on 4th May 1998.
Our hearts go
out to them. Our task is not to pry, but merely to state the facts that
condemn Rome as the MOTHER OF
HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH, and act as a warning to others. The Sunday
Times correspondent on Vatican affairs, John Follain, has now exposed a number of serious
shortcomings in the Vatican’s
handling of the situation.
It is
interesting that Follain rejects the evidence, one might say the proof, that
John Paul I was murdered. He may therefore underestimate the Vatican’s capacity for treachery.
However, The Times is no medium for whispers. What is more, to remain
an accredited representative of the Vatican press corps requires restraint. Thus, when the case of the Swiss
Guard murders was re-opened after much lobbying in 2002, one Roman Catholic
journalist cleverly presented the news as a field day for Vatican conspiracy theorists. At a stroke
he had trivialised serious allegations.
Rome’s scandals are generally so well suppressed that often the real
truth, when it emerges, proves to be more outrageous than what was suspected.
But even the well attested facts of this bloodbath reflect badly enough on the Vatican.
Vatican sleaze sells in Rome
There has long
been a small but active antipapal press in Rome. It serves the former Papal States and dates from the time of Garibaldi. Roman bookshops tend to pile
the booklets up by the cash registers. They sell fast and command a good
price. Roman society, weary as it is of the Papacy, delights in exposures of Vatican sleaze and the booklets sell like
hot cakes. Unfortunately such cynicism, divorced from knowledge of the Bible,
actually tends to close people’s minds to the Gospel and leads them to condemn
all things Christian.
A year after the
Vatican slaughter, the present
writer noticed just such a publication fast disappearing in a large bookshop
near Termini station. A slim 60 page paperback was selling well at 20,000 lire
(about £7). The full colour cover carried the official Vatican newspaper pictures of Lance
Corporal Tornay at his swearing in ceremony, with an inset of Commander
Estermann with his wife. The sensation of the case had faded, but Roman
journalist Fabio Croce’s title was arresting – Delitto in Vaticano, Cedric
Tornay martire della chiesa cattollica. (Crime in the Vatican, Cedric Tornay, Martyr of the
Catholic Church).
The preface was
a panegyric against Rome.
Roughly translated, Croce writes, “After two thousand years of lies, the
official priests of Christianity, that is the (Roman) Catholic church, pause,
sailing in the sea of falsehood, to utilise the fruit of all of their cultural
preparation necessary to the better deceive, with their next one (their next
lie). And the last great lie was consummated on the 5th May 1988 (the day
following the bloodshed) … (Tornay) is destined to become the martyr of a world
that was not worthy of his internal purity”. So Tornay is now a martyr!
The official story
The “received”
version of events was presented by lawyer Nicola Picardi, the Vatican “promoter
of justice”, to the examining Judge Gianluigi Marrone on the 8th February 1999. The Vatican announced the matter “closed” for
good, despite numerous inconsistencies. The Vatican insists that mid evening on 4th May 1998, Cedric Tornay
arrived at the Estermann flat in the Swiss Guard barracks in Vatican City carrying his regulation gun.
He entered the flat and twice shot Commander Estermann while he was on the
telephone. Then turning to Gladys Romero he fired a third shot which missed,
but he killed her with the fourth. He then knelt down and turned the gun on
himself.
Italian Police excluded
Monsignor Alois Jehle, the Swiss Guard
Chaplain, left the scene of the shootings to inform the Pope. (The scene was
never inspected by the Italian police because of Vatican immunity) The Pope thought for a few moments, promptly judged the
matter, extolled Estermann and placed the affair in the hands of Angelo Sodano
the Secretary of State.
Rome had spoken.
Tornay had murdered his Commander in a storm of rage and jealousy because
Estermann, who had himself only been promoted to the rank of commander some
hours previously, had deprived Tornay of his hard earned prestigious
benemerenti medal for three years service. The quality of that service had
already been attested by Tornay’s promotion to Lance Corporal.
The press featured John Paul II praying
for the souls of the three deceased, lying in three similar coffins to
emphasise that all men are equal before God. This photograph has been
reproduced repeatedly around the world. However, a glance at the surroundings
shows it to be a scruffy room being used as a mortuary prior to the final
disposal of the corpses much later on. But even before this, by midnight, only three hours after the event, the
dilettante Opus Dei Vatican press secretary Navarro-Valls, had issued a
statement that the bloodbath was caused by a “fit of madness” suddenly gripping
Tornay. In the press briefing later that day, Navarro-Valls elevated this
proposition to a “certainty”. The judgement complete, the last rites could
proceed.
Sworn to secrecy
Post mortems were hurriedly carried out
by tame Vatican pathologists.
Everyone involved is sworn to total secrecy forever, and forbidden to keep
copies of any documents produced. The “closure” report, Bollettino 55/99, made
much of traces of a cannabis metabolite present in the urine but not in the
blood. This, it was claimed, led to “loss of insight”. The amount was far too
small to indicate cannabis addiction and the effect if any would have been to
calm aggressive impulses.
The pathologists also exaggerated the
significance of a benign tumour in Tornay’s brain. The presence “nel cranio
del Tornay di una cisti subaracnoidea della grandezza di un uovo di piccione (cm
4 x 2.5) che aveva compresso e deformato la parte anteriore del lobo frantale
celebrale di sinistra ed aveva partzialmente eroso la teca cranica” (in the
cranium of Tornay of a (benign) subarchnoid cyst the size of a pigeon’s egg
which had depressed and deformed the anterior part of the left frontal cerebral
lobe partially eroding the bone). The pathologists seized on this with
delight. Adams and Victor’s Principles of Neurology (McGraw Hill 1985)
was quoted in a biased way so as to suggest that this chance finding, which
probably had no effect on Tornay at all, “was responsible for impairment of
cognitive (thought) function … and … disinhibition of behaviour”.
By the same evening, in front of the high
altar, in a packed St Peters,
stood the coffins of Estermann and his wife. Estermann’s sword and white
plumed silver helmet rested on his casket. Sodano conducted the service with
maximum pomp. All the great and the good of Vatican
City were present. After all, did not legend have it
that hero Estermann personally sheltered the Pope with his own body when Mehmet
Ali Agca shot the Pope on 1981? Prayers for the repose of the pair’s souls in
purgatory continued several days. Meanwhile Tornay’s coffin, pointedly denied
any military regalia, was privately shunted off to a lowly former grooms chapel
in a “corner” of Vatican City.
The pope’s only fleeting public reference to Tornay over the whole period was
to his coming appearance before the Lord on the Day of Judgement, “to whose
mercy” he entrusted him.
Protestant Mme. Baudet
Protestant Mme Baudet, Tornay’s mother,
who had acceded to his Romanist father’s demand that Tornay be reared as a
Roman Catholic, was not at home when the verdict was telephoned through, about
30 minutes after the discovery of the blood bath. An hour later the family
priest, pre-empting even Navarro Valls, told her in no uncertain terms that,
“He committed suicide … He killed two people”.
Rome prevaricated
wildly to keep a Protestant female out of Vatican City. Mme Baudet was told that her son’s body was rotting, that his
head had been ripped off and that any way all the hotels in Rome were full. When she reached Rome she discovered that none of this was
true. She was given to hope that John Paul II who had so flattered both of
them at Tornay’s Oath taking ceremony would see her, but he never did. Rome became more silent even than the
grave. The Roman’s gossip died away. Perhaps the Vatican was right for once.
The shadow of Opus Dei
Then, following Rome’s official “closure” in February 1999, Croce’s book hit town.
Estermann, it emerged, was either close to or an actual member of Opus Dei.
This had been the reason for the delay in Estermann’s promotion as those for
and against fought behind the scenes. Estermann was a practising Romanist, as
were many of the guard, whereas Tornay’s interest was simply military.
Switzerland is a
culture that naturally accommodates Opus Dei. The German Swiss guards were the
majority and were much like Estermann, devout, proud and through Estermann’s
influence, potential recruits to Opus Dei. The French Swiss, such as Tornay,
were considered inferior “bumpkins” and expected to speak German Swiss. They
were ruthlessly discriminated against when it came to extra duties and
unpleasant tasks and they were given the last choice of off duty times. Tornay
had told his mother that he was “investigating” the hold of Opus Dei on the
Swiss Guard.
A dark Vatican secret
Another Vatican sleaze booklet by sodomite art historian Professor Massimo Lacchei,
Verbum Dei et Verbum Gay (The Word of God and the Word among Sodomites)
was also published about the same time. Not only did it unmask one of the
Vatican City’s most carefully suppressed secrets, homosexuality within its
walls, but it indicated that the Swiss Guard were involved. The details are
unprintable. The book gave the names ‘Major Jorg’ and ‘Lieutenant Kaspar’ to
the couple, but Lacchei announced on the day of the book’s release, that their
true identities were Estermann and Tornay. It sold so well that a reprint
appeared within 10 days.
Suffice it to say that Follain’s careful
investigation, taken as far as he could in the face of Vatican silence, showed that Tornay was heterosexual and popular with women
although far from chaste. Estermann had clearly married hastily, early in his
own career, having been advised that if he remained unmarried, he would never
progress in the Swiss Guard. It seems that Estermann was a promiscuous
sodomite who preyed on the young soldiers. He almost certainly had a two-year
affair with Tornay and then ended it.
Follain also discovered that young
soldiers are regularly preyed upon by senior Vatican sodomite priests. Lacchei is quoted as saying, “I see the Swiss
guard as a kind of hot-house, whose flowers are picked by homosexual bishops
and cardinals. People in the Vatican tell me the Guards supplement their tiny wages that way.”
So if we accept the suicide theory, we
can easily imagine why Tornay snapped after three years in the Vatican system. He arrives in Rome full of ideals as a military man. He
finds the wages low, the glamour over exaggerated, and the off duty minimal.
He discovers he is being severely discriminated against by his seniors in
general and Estermann in particular, because he is Swiss-French, and not a
devout Romanist. He also discovers the hidden sodomy and allows himself to be
entangled to curry favour with Estermann.
Tornay is now in favour with Estermann.
He is promoted to Lance Corporal and no doubt prospers financially thanks to
the attentions of Bishops and Cardinals. Then Estermann drops him, and all the
discrimination revives. He thinks that exposing Estermann’s links with Opus
Dei could perhaps help him reverse the setback. The last straw is Estermann’s
refusal to award him the benemerenti medal as Tornay seeks to cut his losses
and flee back to Switzerland.
This is hardly a sudden “fit of madness”, but rather three years of slow
seduction by the Scarlet Women sapping his moral fibre until he can take no
more. The Vatican broke him. Rome never changes.
But another theory is gaining ground.
Could Tornay actually have been assassinated? It seems fantastic, but his
mother and her top class lawyers think so. One must bear in mind the picture
of Rome in the
Book of Revelation. And we must not shut our minds to the possibility that he
was assassinated just for fear of being ridiculed as conspiracy theorists. We
shall return to consider this in the next issue, DV.
