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Andrea Cionci: One too many sleeping pills for Benedict XVI- The original letter
An assassination attempt in Cuba?
The journalist Andrea Cionci has requested I publish another of his articles on my substack. And it is shocking.
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One too many sleeping pills for Benedict XVI— The original letter
In January 2023, German journalist Peter Seewald published in Focus magazine excerpts from the last “strictly confidential” letters sent to him on October 28, 2022 by Pope Benedict XVI, a month before his death. In this missive, the pope stated that the main reason behind his resignation had been insomnia, from which he had been suffering since 2005.
Peter Seewald, at the request of the writer, kindly provided us with the original of the Holy Father's letter, (which, authorized, we reproduce here exclusively) from which an extremely disturbing yet explanatory episode emerges.
We had the text translated by three native German speakers in order to have the most faithful version of it possible as to to confirm the excerpts already circulated, in January 2023, by Italian newspapers.
Let us start with some contextual data: Benedict XVI never abdicated, but, applying an antiusurpation system he had himself placed in impeded see, the only case, in fact, in which the pope loses the ministerium and retains the munus. As pointed out HERE Benedict's Declaratio was literally falsified in the German version, forcing it in the sense of an abdication of the munus (Amt).
On February 10, 2012, Il Fatto quotidiano published a document titled Mordkomplott: a "strictly private and confidential" letter in which Cardinal Paolo Romeo, archbishop of Palermo, in 2011, predicted the death of Pope Benedict XVI by November 2012. (Who knows why? The only thing of historical significance at that time would be the U.S. elections.) The Mordkomplott letter was notified to Pope Benedict in January 2012.
We have also shown, beyond redundancy, that Pope Benedict XVI communicated for nine years as an impeded pope in broad mental restriction, that is, a communicative technique made possible according to moral theology to tell the truth in a subtly logical way. It’s unthinkable, then, to believe that behind Pope Benedict's resignation-impeded see, the reason could be simply insomnia, in the trivially reassuring reading that has been offered to the public.
After all this being said, we will now proceed to examine the letter on the logical basis of the text and the feedback provided by doctors and pharmacists.
"Benedictus XVI pope emeritus.
To Mr. Peter SEEWALD
Vatican City October 28, 2022
Strictly confidential and personal (1)
Dear Mr. Seewald!
I am happy to answer the question put again in your letter of October 17 whether my resignation (Rücktritt) was a mistake.
I can well understand, in view of my longevity and apparent sufficient health during these years, that one wonders whether I have not simply run away from the cross to make it too easy for myself.
On this I answer, that I, even in sober and reflective thinking, always arrive at the same result.
I was no longer able to properly exercise the office of representative of Jesus Christ on earth. (2)
The central reason was insomnia, which had been part of my life continuously since World Youth Day 2005 in Cologne.
Initially, my doctor did not bother to use even strong means that initially guaranteed full operation the next day.
They reached their limits, however, and were less and less able to guarantee operability (3).
During my apostolic trip to Santiago de Cuba in March 2012, I woke up the morning after the first night and, as usual, I used my handkerchief and realized that it was completely soaked in blood. I must have bumped into something in the bathroom and fell (4).
Thank God, there was an extremely well-regarded surgeon on the medical team escorting me who knew how to treat it so that it would not become noticeable.
But the problem remained, (5) and my new personal physician urged me to reduce the sleeping pills and also told me that on future trips I should be active only in the morning, while in the afternoon I should remain completely without outdoor activities (6).
It was clear that further measures could only be applied for a short period of time (7).
The next event across the sea ahead of me was World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro (July 22-29, 2013). It was clear that under these circumstances, I could no longer manage it, but that a new pope would have to take over the task.
This meant that I had to resign before Easter 2013" (8).
The letter provided to us ends here. It seems that half a sheet is still missing, moreover, with final greetings. But enough is enough.
(1) First of all, it is strange that a letter with such seemingly mundane content had been sent to Seewald as "strictly private and confidential." What was so new or scandalous that it could not be disclosed, with Benedict living? It was already known from "Last Conversations" (2016) that the trip to Cuba had fatigued him greatly and that he wanted to resign for this reason. There would have been no harm in recounting the episode of that unpleasant nighttime incident. Perhaps the letter held much more sensitive content than one might suppose?
(2) "I was no longer able to adequately exercise the office (Amt) of representative of Jesus Christ on earth." Benedict XVI still points out that his resignation was a renunciation of the exercise of 'office,' (i.e., ministerium alone), which was only possible through an illegitimate conclave that placed him in an impeded seat.
(3) "My doctor did not bother to use even strong means that at first guaranteed full operation the next day. They reached their limits, however, and were less and less able to guarantee operation." These strong drugs worked only in the beginning, that is, since 2005, but then they began to have less effect: contained within their limits (Grenzen), since one gets used to it, they proved less and less effective.
(4) "I must have bumped into something in the bathroom and fell." Benedict arrives in Santiago de Cuba on March 26, 2012, and, on the first night, the night of the 26th, the accident happens: yet HE DOES NOT REMEMBER how he found his handkerchief full of blood the next morning. Evidently, after the fall, he went back to bed and the next morning remembered nothing of what had happened.
This is the key point, since an excess of sedatives and or hypnoinducers, can produce confusional states, falls and anterograde and retrograde amnesia, that is, referred to the short term. A fall, for an elderly person with a frail constitution, certainly would have been dangerous for Pope Benedict. Comments pharmacist Dr. Deborah Arlunno: "Benzodiazepines are drugs that induce sedation and hypnosis and their effects are dose dependent. Because of their mechanism of action, they exert suppressive action on various vital functions of the body, from the ability to react, to the state of wakefulness, from blood pressure to heart rate, also affecting muscle tone and memory. Often, especially in elderly patients, administering a hypnotic dose can manifest the phenomenon of hangover, which results in a sense of dizziness, lightheadedness, mental confusion and ataxia, that is, loss of balance, with an increased risk of falling."
However, there was a much worse risk, as pharmacist Dr. Federico Leonardi explains, "From what Pope Benedict tells us, it is in the order of things that there was an overdose. Benzodiazepines are certainly the drugs (among the sedative-hypnoinducers) most commonly used to induce sleep and also have anxiolytic action. They are substances that act by causing sedation at the level of the central nervous system. Excessive doses of these, as well as simultaneous administration of other drugs (e.g., neuroleptics) that always act on the central nervous system result in a significant increase in the depressant effect with all possible consequences, not excluding excessive deepening of sedation that can lead to coma or death, as well as respiratory and cardiovascular depression. This risk is particularly strong in a very elderly and cardiopathic person."Recall that Pope Benedict was almost 85 years old and had a heart condition, so much so that he wore a pacemaker and three months before his "resignation" he will be hospitalized for a battery change.
Confirms internist Dr. Maurizio Luchena: "At therapeutic doses, benzodiazepines or benzodiazepine derivatives are generally well tolerated, but if administered in excess, and especially in elderly patients, they can cause significant side effects: difficulty in muscle coordination, temporary loss of memory, up to cessation of breathing, due to action on the respiratory center, and cardiac arrest. It is worth noting that if the drug is administered for long periods, habituation can occur and thus be less effective. So at the usual dose it is difficult to have side effects such as, for example, anterograde amnesia, except by increasing the dosage considerably."
In this video HERE
you can see how Benedict XVI on March 26, 2012 was in perfect shape, rosy and cheerful, while the next morning, back from the nighttime accident, he was very pale and banged up, uncertain and weak in his movements HERE
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(5) "The problem remained": which one? The problem of insomnia, or the problem represented by Pope Ratzinger who had survived?
(6) "...and my new personal physician urged me to reduce the sleeping pills and also told me that on future trips I should be active only in the morning, while in the afternoon I should remain completely without outside activity." Strange: why decrease sleeping pills if the problem of insomnia remained? And why on trips work only in the morning? Those who suffer from insomnia tend to try to recover in the morning, trying to fall back asleep or otherwise rest....
(7) "It was clear that further measures could be applied only for a short time." Measures by the doctor, or by the pope? And why would the pope be able to "apply measures" (i.e., rule) for a short time longer?
(8) "This meant that I had to resign before Easter 2013." Did he have to resign a full 3 months and 20 days before Rio? Why so much in advance of WYD? And why that precise date? Plausible to think that he could not manage the risks associated with another trip.
Conclusion: Pope Benedict certainly would not have mentioned the falling episode if it were not to be closely related to the sleepy-insomnia discourse. The symptomatology described, in this context, relates to excessive or combined intake of drugs that affect the nervous system, with the fatal risks mentioned above. Therefore, it is entirely plausible that such an incident could have been induced by outside characters who, during that trip, had managed, shortly before the night of March 26-27, 2012, to stealthily administer other benzodiazepines, opiates, or other drugs to him so as to send him into an "overdose" when Benedict XVI, before bedtime, would have taken his usual (and already high) dosage of sleeping pills. Pope Benedict does not, in fact, recount that it was he himself who made a mistake in the dose of his self-administered medication, and it certainly could not have been his medical team that prescribed this overdose of sleeping pills, because the pope claimed that, since 2005, the sleeping pills had been having little effect on him for some time as they were already at the permissible limit. It would therefore appear entirely appropriate that, immediately after the "incident," his personal physician had urged him to decrease the sleeping pills, as a precaution, so as to avoid the risk of overdose from "induced" overdoses. The recommendation to refrain, in the afternoons and during travel, from having outside contact would, in fact, have prevented ill-intentioned persons from administering any medication to the pope at a time close to the time he was taking his usual evening sleeping pills, which would have resulted in a dangerous side effect. If by unfortunate chance, the pope had taken such "unscheduled" drugs in the morning, in fact, he would still have had all afternoon to dispose of the effect, and thus avoid the evening overdose. The doctors on the team that accompanied him to Cuba would continue to assist Pope Ratzinger for years even as emeritus, a sign that they enjoyed his full confidence and are therefore beyond suspicion.
One can understand, in such a reading, why Benedict could not have managed another trip abroad: it would have been too risky. It would also explain the strict confidentiality of the letter sent to Seewald.
Thus, in high probability, at the heart of Pope Benedict's resignation, as a central reason there would have been, yes, insomnia, but not as a mere annoyance in itself, but rather as a weakness of his around which something much more worrisome took place: a real attack, or a simple "warning" such that he knew it was time to leave the scene.
So he, in order to defend the Church, got out of the way, but without abdicating and applying the anti-usurpation device of the impeded See.
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