How a miraculous image of Jesus’ face may have thwarted St. Gallen Mafia at 2005 conclave
December 7, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – The journalist and book author Paul Badde, who lives in Rome and works for EWTN, has worked for years on the history and significance of an ancient relic that has been cherished by Christianity for a long time, but had been lost for some centuries: The Holy Face of Manoppello – which is believed be a miraculous picture of Our Lord at the moment of His Resurrection.
Badde has written several books on this holy image which is now being kept in a monastery in Manoppello, Italy, and which Saint Padre Pio himself allegedly visited, in bilocation, and not long before he died. Padre Pio called this relic depicting the face of Jesus, “the greatest miracle we have.”
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Holy Face of Manoppello
LifeSiteNews conducted an interview with Paul Badde because he has just published in English a new booklet which sums up the recent developments and findings concerning this relic, which includes the prominent and public support of this relic and its authenticity by Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Pope emeritus Benedict XVI's secretary.
LifeSiteNews already published a book review of this booklet when it first appeared this year in German. The book review can be read here. However, the English version, as now published by Sophia Press, contains some additional information.
In this new interview, Paul Badde reveals how intensely the Holy Face of Manoppello – or the Volto Santo, as the Italians call it – is involved in the Church's recent history. Paul Badde shows, for example, how Cardinal Joachim Meisner visited the Holy Face only a short time before the 2005 Conclave. At that Conclave, with Paul Badde's help, Cardinal Meisner was able to show his fellow cardinals that there then existed an attempt – by people such as Cardinal Achille Silvestrini, Cardinal Walter Kasper, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, Cardinal Audrys Juozas Bačkis, and Cardinal Carlo Martini – to prevent Joseph Ratzinger’s election. As Badde then heard it, they had intended Cardinal Martini's election. During that same Conclave, however, he also later heard in Rome the name Jorge Bergoglio mentioned.
Cardinal Meisner succeeded in his struggle – with a picture of the Holy Face kept in his pocket – and Joseph Ratzinger became Pope. The rest is history.
Later, Paul Badde found out that this group of cardinals working against Ratzinger was the so-called “Sankt Gallen Group.”