FLASHBACK: Man Hijacks Plane, Demands Vatican Publish Third Secret of Fatima

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Inside the Hijacked Plane

No, I'm not recommending this.

But it does make one feel nostalgic for 1981.

Remember when plane hijackings were not all about Muslims bent on killing as many infidels as possible?

Remember when you could douse yourself with gasoline in an airplane bathroom and then just stroll into the cockpit flicking a lighter?

Remember when you could bring gasoline onto an airplane?  

Remember when, before it had been released by the Vatican, some thought that the Third Secret of Fatima--the climactic revelation of the most famous and spectacular Marian apparition in history--might be a prediction about World War III?

(Now that the Secret has been revealed and the text features a "bishop in white" walking through a "big city, half in ruins" while blessing corpses, we know that it's largely about a future pope being shot without result by a mentally unbalanced Turk.)

Curiously, the hijacking--the only such incident ever recorded on an Aer Lingus flight--happened only eleven days before Mehmet Ali Ağca attempted to kill John Paul II.

From The Irish Echo, eighteen years after the fact, but still two years before the Third Secret would be "released":

DUBLIN — The obsession of an ex-Trappist monk with the so-called third secret of Fatima led him to stage Ireland’s first plane hijack nearly 18 years ago when he threatened to set himself on fire and took over an Aer Lingus flight to London. 

Australian-born Laurence James Downey, now 72, disclosed in an RTE TV documentary aired Monday what drove him to terrorize 113 passengers and force the plane to divert to France. 

He brandished a lighter and pretended he was a gas-soaked firebomb. 

It was Downey’s fixation with the Fatima secret that led him to abandon his new life in the Shannon area in 1981 and stage the hijack, for which he served five years in a French prison. He believed it would force the Vatican to reveal the secret. 

Downey is penitent today about the trauma he caused — but he still wants the world to know the secret. 

Since the age of 8 he believed he had a sense of destiny. During his novitiate in France and his five years as a monk in Rome he became obsessed with apparitions and visions. 

In particular, Downey was fascinated by stories surrounding the happenings near Fatima, in Portugal, 82 years ago. Three girls, ages 7 to 10, were minding sheep when they said the Virgin Mary appeared to them. They claimed they were given messages and warnings or secrets. The apparitions happened on the 13th day of six consecutive months. 

By the time of the last appearance word had spread. About 70,000 people were gathered and strange paranormal events were reported. 

Fatima has since developed into a major Marian pilgrimage site, with millions of pilgrims visiting the shrine every year. There have been many claims of miracle cures. 

Over the years there has been global fascination with the secrets. Two were revealed involving a vision of hell and the conversion of godless Russia and the banishment of communism. 

The third prophecy remains secret, apparently only known to 91-year-old nun Sister Lucia — the only surviving member of the trio who claimed to have the visions — and the pope. 

The third secret has been the subject of speculation since it’s claimed existence in a sealed envelope was first revealed in Time Magazine in the late 1940s. Various theories have predicted it involves the end of the world, nuclear holocaust or a variety of other apocalyptic events. 

Downey, who now lives in Perth Australia, was convinced he could be the instrument to force a Vatican disclosure. As the Dublin flight approached London on May 2, 1981 he doused his hands in gasoline and poured water on his clothes to give the impression that they were flammable. 

He ordered the pilot to land at Heathrow, but instead it touched down at the quiet Le Touquet airport in Northern France. At first rumors spread that an Iranian had hijacked the plane and wanted to be flown to Teheran. The real reason emerged when former Taoiseach and then Transport Minister Albert Reynolds was interviewed during the eight-hour hijack. He explained Downey wanted publication of the third secret of Fatima. 

On Flight EI 164, Downey carried a briefcase containing a text he believes may be the third secret. It predicts devil-inspired catastrophes and damnation. 

"The third secret of Fatima is many things," Downey said. "Basically, it concerns the third millennium and the second coming of Christ." 

His text says a "great chastisement" will fall on humanity in the second part of this century the like of which has not been seen since the deluge. 

It reveals, he says, that Satan infiltrate the top of the church. The great and the powerful will perish with the little and the weak. The Catholic Church will split and the corrupt in Rome will fall. Millions and millions will perish by the hour and those still living will envy those who are dead.

The internet is silent as to whether Downey is still alive in 2016. Does anyone know?

I couldn't even find a picture of him. Talk about not getting your fifteen minutes of fame.

A 1981 New York Times article claimed that Downey "had been expelled from a Trappist monastery for punching a superior in the nose." Then he married and had at least five children.

I sincerely hope he found peace.

We Just Posted a Fake Video, Here's Another One: Pope John Paul II Takes Batting Practice

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Nice swing

An hour ago we posted a video purporting to a show public demonstration in London celebrating the Paris terror attacks. We ran it because it was posted on a reputable blog and squared with the support for ISIS present among a substantial minority of Muslims in Britain, especially young Muslim males.

However, it is a false video. It's not fake per se, but rather records a recent demonstration celebrating the arrival of the Indian Prime Minister. The tell was when the source blog took it down a few hours after running it, and I then noticed a comment on the source post pointing out its actual origin. Simultaneously, a Google+ friend pointed out oddities in the video that I should have been more hip to.

I'm calling attention to this (as opposed to merely deleting the post and moving on) because I HATE IT when other blogs do that with no explanation. That's not a criticism of those blogs, only a report of my own feelings. If something is untrue, I want to know definitively that it is, and if possible, why. Simply deleting the post often leaves a sort of mystery.

So, here's the video, allegedly of a recent pro-ISIS demonstration in broad daylight in front of a busy Tube station (but we now know it is not):

MUSLIMS AROUND THE WORLD CELEBRATE THE ISLAMIC VICTORY (?) IN PARIS, FRANCEI will kill these f***ers one day. This celebration happened in London, UK this afternoon by Pakistani Muslims.
Posted by Jean-Baptiste Kim on Saturday, November 14, 2015

So, apologies. In three-hundred and three posts, this is the second time we've done this. And we've come close on a few more occasions. But two is too many. We'll try to be more careful in the future.

Enough.

Are you ready for some fun? Here is "Pope John Paul II" taking batting practice. When a first saw it a month ago, I believed it for a few seconds then called it. The figure does look like an early Pope John Paul II, and we know that he was an athlete.

But the tell for me was the year. 1987 was after the assassination attempt, and tragically, the Pope was never physically the same after that. But a credulous viewer might also ask how a Polish prelate learned how to swing a bat so well. And if one listens to the audio track, there's also the matter of the "Vatican softball league" that the Pope was often (though not always) "too busy" to play in.

But still, it's fun. If it's not true, it should be. When popes were men...

Enjoy!

If Some Tinpot Peasant Populist Had Draped Saint John Paul II With Communist Medallions and Then Handed Him a Blasphemous Crucifix, Saint John Paul II Would Have Popped Him on His Bronzed Andean Snoot

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The Kulaks were crypto-Lefebvrists.

Okay, maybe not quite. But you know what I mean.

The story for a few hours was that on being handed the vile object--a crucified Jesus with a hammer and sickle substituting for a cross--Pope Francis had said, "this is not right". This was picked up by the Catholicism-as-Dear-Leader-Cult crowd as some sort of brave stand, and "this is not right" photos and captions were forwarded around with maniacal glee. That this was a "brave stand" was already a bit silly. The Pope had a few moments before received medallions around his neck bearing the same blasphemous representation, and after allegedly saying "this is not right," he had smiled and cradled the hammer and sickle Jesus for a few seconds before the cameras.

But now it turns out that the Pope merely had said "I didn't know that" to some piece of offered trivia about the gift.

The hammer and sickle represents one of the most evil and anti-Christian ideologies in human history. It killed well over a hundred million people. Affixing that symbol to Jesus is just about the worst desecration of the image of a crucified Christ one can imagine.

So, now it's said that the Pope was surprised or "blindsided" by the gift. But just a few hours before, he had publicly and profusely praised the late Marxist-Lenninist priest who had designed the horrid thing and--according to reports--always placed it nearby when he slept.

But it is said the Pope didn't know about that either.

We're going to leave this and return in a moment. What of the title to this blog post?  

John Paul II didn't suck up to communists.

He fought them. He was one of the primary actors responsible for bringing down the Wall in Europe. At the same time he combatted communist infiltration of the Church by opposing so-called "liberation theology" in Central and South America, where it had been spawned.

Here he is, in a famous and iconic photo, scolding the Jesuit Ernesto Cardenal, who had refused to resign from the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

I don't see any hammer and sickle medallions hanging from his neck.

But back to Francis. 

In his current tour of the Americas, Pope Francis has now gone full-blown leftist, endorsing communist priests and "imagining" that Jesus' words at the last supper were really about social revolution.

If that's not quintessential liberation theology, then Karl Marx was a Hindu.

And his rehabilitation of liberation theology--as every South American Catholic leftist, to a man, understands he is doing--is a direct and blatant betrayal of the work of his predecessors Benedict XVI and especially Jon Paul II.

It's not Catholic social teaching. It's Marxist materialist poison.

And it's coming from a Pope.

A Judas Pope.

The Church tells us that Pope John Paul II is at this very moment in heaven.

Undoubtedly he is praying for Francis.

But in regards to the present project of Francis:

Is he praying for it to succeed or for it to fail?  

What Alpini (Italian Mountain Troops) Song Was Pope Francis Referring To?

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He was an Alpini

Pope Francis, in a recent appearance in front of children--an appearance that is quickly becoming notorious for the many eyebrow raising things the Pope did and said--claimed that:

There is a lovely song that the Italian Alpine troops sing: in the art of rising up, victory does not lie in not falling, but in getting back up.

Now, the Italian mountain troops or Alpini, initially formed in 1872, are actually famed for their songs as well as their combat prowess. Many of these songs are explicitly Catholic. Mahound's Paradise does not necessarily doubt that the Pope was referring to a particular actual song. On the other hand, we wouldn't be surprised if it turned out the Pope was mixed-up or even slightly fibbing, as he often is or does in his "off-the-cuff" remarks. But the question is, what song was he referring to?

Here is perhaps the most famous Alpini song, Signore delle cime (Lord of the Peaks):

God of heaven,
Lord of the peaks,
You called our friend from the mountain.
We beseech thee, we beseech thee:
Up in heaven, up in heaven,
Let him go
Through thy mountains.

Holy Mary,
Lady of the Snow
Cover our friend, our brother
With a soft white blanket.
Up in heaven, up in heaven,
Let him go
Through thy mountains.

God of heaven,
The mountaineer has fallen
And rests in peace
In the breast of the mountains.
We beseech thee, we beseech thee:
Let an edelweiss
Fall from thy hands.

(The edelweiss is a Alpine flower, famously referred to, among other places, in a song from The Sound of Music. See end of post.)

This is a beautiful song. But there is no reference to falling down and getting up.

Here at Mahound's Paradise, we are of course fluent in 23 distinct languages and are conversant in at least 50 more. We are also highly knowledgeable about the history of music, including the Southern European folk tradition.

Nevertheless, to give others a chance, we will here offer an excerpt from Wikipedia, summing up the focus of the most well-known Alpini songs. Strip to a t-shirt, open your windows (if it's cold) or turn on a fan or the air-conditioner, to get the full effect:

• Aprite le Porte. An upbeat choral calling on people to open their doors and have a look at a column of advancing Alpini.
• Bersagliere Ha Cento Penne. This song begins by telling the difference between the single, long black feather which distinguishes the Alpini's cap from the Bersaglieri, who have a lot of smaller feathers on their cap. It goes on to tell why being an Alpino is harder than any other soldier's job, and says that the Alpini don't fear death because they die among the flowers of the Alps.
• Cosa Fai, Mio Bel Gin Gin. This song tells the story of a wife, who awaits the return of her husband, but is told by retreating Alpini, that her wait is in vain.
• Di qua, di là del Piave. A song about a beautiful girl.
• E Cadorna Manda A DireGeneral. Cadorna calls on the Alpini to advance and guard the frontier; alas they know they are on their way to guard the frontier for eternity.
• Era Una Notte Che Pioveva. A single soldier stands guard in the middle of a snowstorm on a mountain summit, dreaming of his beloved at home.
• Il Testamento Del Capitano. The Captain of a Company is mortally wounded and asks to see the rest of his Alpini a last time; they come, even though they have no shoes to walk. He asks them to cut his heart into five pieces: one for his homeland Italy, one for the battalion, one for his mother, one for his love and the last one for the mountains, which will surround it with roses and flowers.
• La Montanara. A song about the beauty of the Alps, very famous and often considered as the hymn of the Alps.
• La Si Taglia I Biondi Capelli. A young girl cut off her blonde hair to enlist in the army and thus able to follow her first love to the front on the Piave river.
• La Tradotta. “The railway that begins in Turin, doesn’t stop in Milan anymore, but goes directly to the Piave - cemetery of youth. In 29 we left home, only in 7 we returned, the other 22 all died in San Dona. Dear nun, I’m wounded, tomorrow I won’t see, my mother will not come; put a flower on my grave. A cross is in Nervesa, my brother is buried there, I wrote Ninetto on it, and so mother might find him.”
• La Valsugana. The dream of returning home.
• Lassù in montagna. A inspirational song about that even when alone in the mountains all of Italy stands besides the Alpini.
• Monte Canino. The Alpini arrive on the front after days of transport in railways wagons.
• Monte Cauriol. The wind brings the news to a family that their son has died on Mountain “Cauriol”.
• Monte Nero. The 3rd Alpini regiment is on its way to conquer Mount “Nero”, but the attacks ends in such a massacre, that the regiments Colonel sits amid his dead soldiers and weeps.
• Monte Pasubio. A long column of Alpini is on the way to Mount “Pasubio”, a column of those that will never return, that go to die on Mount “Pasubio”. But the Alpinis are not afraid; they will not return/ turn around. (In Italian the used verb has this double meaning)
• Quel Mazzolin Di Fiori. A young woman collects flowers she will bring to her love.
• Signore delle cime. A prayer for a man who died in the mountains. It prays God to let him climb the mountains of Paradise - this famous song is a recent song (1958) written by Bepi de Marzi, an italian composer who wrote many songs drawing inspiration from popular tradition.
• Stelutis Alpinis. In Friulian language. A dead soldier tells his beloved where he is buried: "up among the rocks" under a clearing full of Edelweisses. He tells her to come and pick one flower, and hold it when she prays for him, so he will still be with her.
• Sul Cappello Che Noi Portiamo. A hymn on the black feather that the Alpini carry on their hat.
• Sul Ponte Di Bassano. On the famous "Bridge of the Alpini" in Bassano del Grappa the Alpini say goodbye to their loved ones, before departing to the nearby front.
• Sul Ponte Di Perati. On the bridge of Perati a black flag of grief flies for the Alpinis of the Alpine Division Julia, who goes to war, goes under the earth.
• Ta - Pum! After 20 days on Mount Ortigara, the battalion descends and has no soldiers left; they are all in the cemetery by the river, where the battalions remaining soldiers will soon stop by too.

Well, no falling down and getting up in those songs either (unless it's hidden in the full lyrics).

There is only, well, falling down and never getting up...in the snow, and the cold, amidst the rocks and swirling wind, alone, presumably done in by an Austro-Hungarian or French sniper or whomever, while your beautiful love back home picks a mountain flower to remember you by...

I hope I'm not being too flippant. I find the Alpini to be heroic. But you have to admit most of the songs are a bit...melancholy.

So, I'm still curious. What song was the Pope referring to?

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If you read this far, you deserve a clip from the Sound of Music. Edelweiss.