NSA spied on Pope under guise that the Vatican was a ‘threat to the financial system’

In the world of fictional Big Brother, or a lessor form of sociopathic tyranny like the United States has become, spying on others becomes an obsession for those in power, much more than simply a justified means of ensuring security.

Which is why it can no longer be considered shocking when new information reveals that the NSA’s spying arm has infiltrated even the Vatican, and has used its measure of ‘higher power’ to record communications from perhaps even the Pope himself.

All under the auspicious guise that the Catholic Church was a potential ‘threat to the financial system’.

According to a Reuters report, the “spy agency had eavesdropped on Vatican phone calls, possibly including when former Pope Benedict’s successor was under discussion, but the Holy See said it had no knowledge of any such activity. Panorama magazine said that among 46 million phone calls followed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) in Italy from December 10, 2012, to January 8, 2013, were conversations in and out of the Vatican.” But while it is unclear just what divine information the NSA had hoped to uncover by spying on the Vatican, what is an absolute headbanger, is that according to Panorama one of the reasons for the illegal wiretaps was to be abreast of “threats to the financial system.” – Zerohedge

This new revelation comes at a time when the NSA and the Obama administration are under serious heat from Congress, the American people, and world leaders for using their wiretapping apparatus to collect data from nearly every individual on the planet.

The Vatican is a major player in the global financial system, but has little power in circumventing the affairs of the world’s central banks and sovereign economies.  The Vatican Bank has a long history of neutrality when it comes to how it deals with individual, church, and sovereign funds, as a large portion of their wealth resides in real estate, not derivatives and government bonds that make up the majority of assets that hold the global financial system on the brink of collapse.

The ruse by the NSA that their spying efforts were directed towards prevention of any threats to the global financial system when they sought to wiretap the Vatican and Pope is but a cover to perhaps mask the greater agenda of learning who might have followed Pope Benedict in this year’s change of papacy.  Knowing the character and agenda of a man who would come to power, and have a modicum of control over 1.2 billion people throughout the world, is an important detail for the NSA and Obama administration to know, much more than what the Vatican Bank may be doing financially in its daily affairs.

Kenneth Schortgen Jr is a writer for Secretsofthefed.com, Examiner.com, and hosts the popular web blog, The Daily Economist. Ken can also be heard Friday evenings giving an weekly economic report on the Angel Clark radio show.