On July 3, 2002 Zenit news reported that "the Vatican offered a symbolic contribution to the Trust Fund set up by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, to support the establishment of the International Criminal Court."

        You read that correctly: the Vatican has contributed money to the newly operational ICC - the same super-court which the United States refuses to assist because it is an obvious threat to national sovereignty. Here we see yet another sign that Cardinal Sodano’s diplomatic apparatus is hell-bent (and I use the word advisedly) on making sure that the ICC - a godless tribunal from which there will be no appeal on earth - is strapped on the back of every nation.

        As we know, the ICC will have the power to indict and try people of every nation for unspecified "crimes against humanity." Expect the list of "crimes against humanity" to grow like Pinocchio’s nose. There will be no right to jury trial and the rules of evidence governing the ICC will allow the admission of rank hearsay and other prejudicial "evidence." No wonder President Bush is adamant in his refusal to allow the United States to be subjected to this kangaroo court, to be staffed in large part by a polyglot crew of anti-Western prosecutors and judges.

        The announcement of the Vatican’s donation to the ICC was made on July 1, 2002, the date of "the court's birth in The Hague, following the adoption of its statute during the U.N. Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries, held in Rome in July 1998." In making the announcement, the Vatican’s permanent observer mission to the United Nations quoted a message of Pope John Paul II back in 1999 (note doubt drafted by the Vatican Secretariat of State) that the ICC is "A positive sign of the growing willingness of states to recognize their responsibility to protect victims of such crimes and to commit themselves to preventing them."

        Dream on. The ICC will be nothing more than an international version of the same godless judiciaries that have imposed legalized abortion throughout the world. Indeed, with the EU Parliament voting on July 3 to establish binding "norms" for the availability of abortion in every EU nation, including Ireland, it is only a matter of time before the ICC becomes an enforcer of "abortion rights" against the remaining few nations which ban or limit abortion.

        The papal statement of 1999 also declared that "This new institution, if built upon a sound legal foundation, could gradually contribute to ensuring on a world scale the effective protection of human rights." If built upon a sound legal foundation? Why would the Vatican support the ICC without knowing first if it would be built on "a sound legal foundation"? And what sound legal foundation can we expect to be laid by jurists and prosecutors who reject the teaching of Christ and the authority of His Church?

        The Zenit report notes that the United States has opposed the ICC because it does not want "American soldiers, diplomats, or others caught up in politically motivated prosecutions [and because] the court claims power to prosecute people from the United States and other countries that have not ratified the court treaty."

        But none of this worries Cardinal Sodano and his wizards of Vatican diplomacy. Instead, they plink their coins of tribute into the ICC coffers and hail the brave new world they are helping to create. Dear reader, humanly speaking the Church is not in good hands at this moment in Her history. The men who run the Vatican today, while a fading Pope makes one trip after another, are taking the Church and the world on a course 180 degrees removed from the humble field in Fatima, where the Mother of God gave us His plan, not Cardinal Sodano’s, for true peace in the world.