Popegate 2010-2015

So the Pope is at last under direct pressure over his role in the long-running cover-up over paedophile priests, many of whom were quietly moved to other parishes, where they could, and did, carry on as before. It’s about time the Pope came under scrutiny, because he was in the thick of the cover-up for many years when he was the previous Pope’s Enforcer, or ‘Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’, formerly known as the Holy Office, the historical Inquisition.

As I wrote 2 years ago, “Ratzinger (as he then was) also had authority over other matters including clerical sexual misconduct. In 2001 he issued his notorious “Crimen Sollicitationis”, which affirmed and clarified the Church’s right to keep secret its own investigations into clerical sexual misconduct. In other words, he legitimised the cover-up that was going on. Under normal circumstances, he would have been prosecuted for inciting people to withhold from the police information pertaining to serious crimes.”

Look at the fancy Latin name they gave to it, Crimen Sollicitationis. You just know there’s a scam going on.

The current case involves a paedophile priest at a school for deaf boys in Wisconsin. Complaints were made to the Vatican office in 1996, and it seems there was no response.

There are no doubt dozens of other similar cases in which Ratzinger was involved, but the trouble is that he was at the very top, and people at the top rarely take the rap. You just have to look at the Iraq torture cases involving the US army. It was the lowly soldiers who were charged and convicted, not the senior officers who presided over the culture.

So I have no doubt that Ratzinger was involved in the paedophile cover-up in a big way for many years. But I doubt that he will take the rap for it, at least in the near future. Even if the secular authorities went for him – and the Church seems to remain above the law in many ways - I think it would be very hard to prove anything. The most we can hope for now is a damaged reputation.


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What we see in his current transits is the tail end of a Uranus square to his MC and Mars, and Saturn conjunct his Moon, which rules his 5th House of Children. So his position could be under a certain amount of pressure and destabilising influence and attack for the rest of the year, but that will probably be that. For now.

His natal Moon in Libra is also square to natal Pluto. So it could get very heavy indeed a few years down the line when Pluto and Uranus begin to hard-aspect his natal Pluto and Moon. Pluto will also be culminating his long passage through Ratzinger’s 10th House of career and reputation. (He became Pope just as Pluto was entering his 10th House.)

The paedophile issue will run and run, because there is too much pain involved for it not to. It has been going on for years now and only seems to get bigger. And it is only just starting in Europe.

So for now and for the next year or two the Pope is looking like he’ll remain untouched, albeit under a certain amount of pressure. But the nature of the issue put together with the astrology suggests to me that the noose will gradually be tightening.

It looks to me a bit like Watergate, but set over a longer time period. For the next couple of years, the Pope will be able to blame others. But in 3-5 years time, with Pluto and Uranus starting to make some serious aspects to his natal Moon-Pluto, we may see a process leading to the Pope's resignation, the first to do so since 1415.

I can back this up with another major transit, Neptune square natal Saturn. The Pope’s Saturn is in Sag in the 9th House, a classic position for religious authority (the Dalai Llama also has this placement; the previous Pope had Pluto in the 9th). This authority could begin to diminish in 2011 when Neptune enters the sign square to Sag, Pisces, a process that could deepen until the exact square of 2014. Saturn is also our physical structure, and being in his early 80s, this transit could reflect an increasing frailty over the next 4 years.


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The Pope’s Solar Return for 2014-15, relocated to Rome, has Pluto conjunct MC opposite Jupiter conjunct IC, forming a Grand Cross with Mars and Uranus. There is also an eclipse along the ASC-DESC axis. This will surely be the year when he ceases to be Pope, and Pluto’s involvement in both the Solar Return and by transit suggests to me it will not simply be the gentle passing away of a much-loved pontiff.

The issue of men in religious positions, like any position of power, getting up to sexual shenanigans is an old story. Normally it is adult female pupils that the male teachers are sleeping with, and different cultures have different attitudes to this. Amongst Native Americans, for example, it is assumed that the teacher will be sleeping with his female pupil. In our culture it has recently become an absolute no-no, which I think has a lot to do with the influence of puritanical feminism and its fear of male sexuality. Timothy Leary was once asked if he'd slept with any of his students, and after pausing for a moment, replied that he couldn't think of any he hadn't slept with. The French sculptor Rodin slept with most of his young female models, to the extent that he felt obliged to let them down gently if he didn't feel so inclined. In rural Ireland, the Catholic priest usually had a female housekeeper, and it was understood that she also shared his bed. My view tends to be that if 2 adults decide to sleep together, it's not really my business, and if one of them happens to be a teacher and the other a pupil, well it can be messy, but so are a lot of relationships, and people often learn from that.

The above, though, is a bit beside the point when considering the Catholic Church, which has managed to twist and pervert to an unprecedented degree the sexual desires not just of its priesthood but also its lay congregation. A lot of the trouble seems to lie in the training of the priests, who from a young age are hidden away in boys-only seminaries and taught that sex is dirty. Consequently they suffer from arrested development, and their repressed sexuality finds unhealthy outlets. I don't think celibacy (which was originally introduced for economic reasons) is so much the problem, because hypocrisy is always an honourable way out.

Personally, though, I think they should do away with priestly celibacy - they can leave that for the monks and nuns - and not let a priest near a congregation unless he is married. They also need to look at the training that causes the problem in the first place, but the trouble is that you are up against religion, which often has a doctrinal, rather than pragmatic attitude to its practices and trainings. So far, the Church has shown no sign of common sense on this one.

I wonder also if priestly paedophilia may be a power issue. These priests are bummed up as spiritual and superior, but in reality they have been neutered, they are men in skirts, they are disempowered. Apart from the odd cowering parishioner, perhaps the only time these ghosts of men feel they have any real power is when they force themselves on children.

I watched the film 'Doubt' recently. It is set in a Roman Catholic School in the US, and involves a tussle between a male priest who is a teacher, and a nun who suspects him of being a paedophile. You never quite find out if he is, but it is also clear that he has enormously helped the boy with whom he is also suspected of sexual activity. The film gives the issue the moral complexity that you find in real life, rather than the simplistic black-and-white demonisation that you find in the tabloids.

ONLY IN THE VATICAN...

“Men and women sin in different ways,” concludes Msgr Wojciech Giertych, theologian to the papal household, writing in the Vatican newspaper. The most common sin for women is pride, and for men it is lust.

The report is based on a study of confessions carried out by Fr Roberto Busa, a 95-year-old Jesuit scholar.

I don’t doubt there may be some psychological truth lurking in this observation, but it gets confused by the notion firstly that pride and lust are 'sins', and further that they are 'deadly', and therefore have dire consequences if you die without having confessed them. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, "immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into Hell".

The idea of eternal damnation is an appalling one. How can a human being actually get their heads round this possibility? Torture that goes on and on FOR EVER.

With this sort of context, the confessions on which the study was based have to be taken as made under duress, and therefore unreliable.

Anyway, I can’t see anything wrong with lust or pride, taken in moderation. It’s normal and healthy to feel attracted to others (lust), and to enjoy feeling attractive (pride). If they become the basis of who you think you are, then that’s another matter. But it doesn’t damn you, and anyway you can’t force people to change, as the Catholic Church seems to try to do.

Catholicism isn’t the only religion that tries to terrorise people into behaving as it wants them to, though if we were to have a real war on terror, I think Catholic Doctrine would be a good place to start. Tibetan Buddhism also does this. You get these extraordinarily detailed and lengthy descriptions of the different types of hell, which are extremely difficult to escape from, in some of the Scriptures. And after you die, according to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, you eventually become so terrified by the white light of reality that you flee into another body. For any of you out there who still idealise Tibetan Buddhism, remember it is an organised religion that can be just as heavy-handed as the Catholics.

So don’t die, it’s not good for you!


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Incidentally, the modern Vatican gained its independence on 7 June 1929 at 11am in Rome. With Venus in Taurus and Mars in Leo, you would have thought it would be women who stand accused of sensuality/lust, and the men who stand accused of pride. With an intercepted Sun-Moon in Gemini, and nothing to speak of in water, the Vatican is not short on ideas, but not too good at connecting them to actual human beings.

The Pope takes a pot shot: this time it’s the Jews

Pope Benedict has done it yet again. First in 2006 it was the Muslims: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

Then just before Christmas he announced that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was as important as protecting the environment.

And then last week he reversed the excommunication of a bishop who is a holocaust denier.


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With his natal Mars at 29 Gemini, Pope Benedict is a crusader who sees life as a battle between light and dark, good and evil. And with Gemini communicativeness, he is not afraid to say so. A sign gathers momentum as you progress through it, so the end of Gemini is one of the most war-like places to have this planet. No doubt it is related to the idea we find in Arabic astrology, that Moon in late Gemini is a good time to start a war: this was the placement of the Moon on 11 Sept 2001.

This theme of opposites, of light versus dark, is also reflected in the Pope’s Moon in Libra, another sign that can be belligerent (e.g. Margaret Thatcher). His Moon is square to tribal Pluto in Cancer, and he also has the Sun in war-like Aries.

Naturally he or his spokesmen always deny that these attacks are such. But the astrology tells a different story.

The above quote about the Muslims was by a Christian Emperor, which the Pope then quoted, and twice pointed out it was a quote and not his own words. But he still found them useful to say. At the time (12 Sept 2006) Pluto was starting to oppose his natal Mars, and Mars had just finished squaring his natal Mars.

When he made the comment about gays and transsexuals (22 Dec 2008), Mars was opposing natal Mars, as was Pluto.

And when he reinstated the bishop last week (21 Jan 2009), Mars had just finished hard-aspecting his natal Moon square Pluto. And Pluto, of course, is still opposing his natal Mars.

So the underlying astrological theme of these attacks has been transiting Pluto opposing his natal Mars, and the trigger in each case has been transiting Mars. While transiting inner planets act mainly as triggers, transiting outer planets transform. And this transformation is not necessarily evolutionary. If the person involved is not very aware, outer planet transits can release primitive, barbaric elements in the psyche that then get acted out.

In the period from 9/11 through to the start of the Iraq War, for example, Neptune was making an opposition to George Bush’s natal Pluto Rising, which is one of a number of loose cannons in his chart. The Iraq War particularly was started for reasons that did not add up, and with little thought as to what to do afterwards. This strongly suggests unconscious, atavistic elements at work.

This also seems to be what is happening in the case of Pope Benedict XVI. Pluto is revealing a deeper level of his natal Mars which, as Pope, he has the scope to act out in an atavistic way if he so chooses. And he does so choose. The Pope is known for being a considerable intellectual, and his Sun, Moon and Mars all back this up. Mercury in Pisces might seem surprising, but Pisces has a great power to absorb information and make connections. So he is a classic case of someone who can seem civilised and advanced because of their intellectual accomplishments, but in whom the emotional depths remained untouched by all this learning. His Moon in civilised Libra but square to crab-like Pluto in Cancer expresses this perfectly.

What the Pope is doing is different to just not being politically correct, and thereby offending people. I have no objection to that. It does us good to get offended occasionally, as the late John Mortimer pointed out. Political correctness is usually about guilt-ridden liberals creating ‘rights’ for others and imagining ways that minorities might get offended. Like imagining that black people want to be called people of colour, or American Indians want to be called Native Americans (they don’t: they like being called Indians). It’s patronising, and it’s often insisted on in an intolerant way. The cardinal rule of PC is that no-one from a minority or another grouping must ever get offended.

But this isn’t what the Pope is doing. He’s not offending people in a healthy way, like making fun of the Jews’ pretensions to being the Chosen People, or of Americans for thinking they have the world’s best political system. He is using his position to demonise whole groups of people who are not Catholics, or who do not follow the Church’s teachings.

What we have at the heart of the modern Catholic Church is old-style barbaric medieval religion. And it’s not just this Pope. Ratzinger (the present Pope) was the enforcer for the sainted Pope John Paul II (Dare I say it, but as Rahm Emmanuel is enforcer for the sainted Barack Obama.) At least it’s now all out in the open.

It was under the present Pope that Tony Blair, who also has Mars Rising in Gemini, converted to Catholicism. In an interview some months after stepping down as Prime Minister, Blair was asked if he had any regrets about the Iraq War. He didn’t (though he hadn’t managed to get the previous Pope’s blessing for it!) What we have, he continued is “a visceral struggle between what is right and what is wrong.”

Ratzinger became Pope under Pluto in Sagittarius, a period which saw a rise in fundamentalism worldwide. Now with Pluto in Capricorn, we are seeing the Church establishment (Capricorn) reverting to a more primitive form (Pluto).

The Dalai Lama and Western Religion

The Dalai Lama has been doing a number of gigs in Nottingham, UK, in front of thousands of people. Every day he emphasised the importance of continuing in one’s own faith. “It’s better to keep your own tradition, Catholic, Protestant — better, safer,” he said.

I found this an interesting, even quite extraordinary position to take. He was speaking primarily to modern westerners. On the one hand it says a lot about his tolerance and his understanding that Truth can be found in all traditions. It’s not something you’d hear coming out of the mouth of a radical Islamist or a Pope. It’s not even something you’d hear from a moderate, pleasant, civilised Sunni (I have one in mind), who states as a simple matter of fact that the Shias are not real Muslims. With moderates like this, who needs extremists?

As an aside, this was one of the film-maker Anthony Minghella’s (The English Patient) points. He had noticed how perfectly reasonable, civilised people from different cultures could easily hold incompatible viewpoints which could ultimately lead to conflict. Part of his mission was to explore this through his film-making.

I am sure, for example, that there are many very reasonable and humane Israelis who think that Israel has every right to exist pretty much in its present form, and that if a wall round Gaza is the only way to keep the suicide bombers out, then so be it. I am sure at the same time that there are many very reasonable and humane Palestinians who feel that Israel has pushed them out of their homeland, that their conditions are intolerable, and that action needs to be taken.

You don’t need extremists to get wars. You just need ordinary, decent people who have the usual failing of finding it hard to see the other’s point of view – and who will also succumb to group pressure to see issues one-sidedly. So let’s not blame the fundamentalists for everything!

Back to the Dalai Lama. He has Saturn in the 9th House (like the present Pope), which is a classic aspect for a spiritual leader/ teacher. It is also in the sign of Pisces, which describes his tolerance and inclusivity towards other religions, his teaching that at the end of the day, it is the development of a compassionate heart that matters.

At the same time, his position here is very Piscean, it is not something that the opposite sign of Virgo would say! Virgo would point out, in its usual analytical style, that there are differences between religions that we need to be aware of, and to tread carefully. And that people are different: some will find it most helpful to stay with their own tradition, while others will need to explore different paths.

The Dalai Lama’s Saturn is opposite a 3rd House Moon-Neptune conjunction in Virgo. This is the main challenge in his chart (the other is Mars in Libra square Pluto, which describes his quest for non-violence). With Moon in 3rd House Virgo and Mercury in Gemini trine Mars, there is no doubting the sharpness of his mind. But there is a tension here between Virgo and Pisces that is basic to the Dalai Lama, and I think it is the Moon, in its conjunction to Neptune and in the context of a very watery chart, that is likely to get swamped.

I think the statement he made about everyone sticking with their own religion is one-sidedly Piscean. It is common sense that some people, even many people will need to explore other paths. So I don’t think I am imposing my own opinion onto the Dalai Lama’s astrology when I say that his statement is an example of Pisces getting the better of Virgo. Not just his Moon being swamped, but also his Mercury in the watery 12th House. (For more on the Dalai Lama's chart, see my post of 7th April.)

I assume, given context and audience, that the Dalai Lama very much has in mind westerners aligning themselves with the Tibetan Buddhist path. I have to assume also that his experience of this has overall not been a happy one!

I think he has a point. One Buddhist group I have visited, for example, is run by academics/intellectuals, and the audience/congregation are classic timorous church mice. I thought why bother switching from the Church of England? It’s no different.

Then there are the big Tibetan groups, and again I can see what I think is the Dalai Lama’s point, from my limited experience. The people in them are sincere, but often very guru-focussed at the expense of their own strength and power – lost souls. And they do all this chanting in a foreign language, often without a very clear idea of why. One western Tibetan group has been protesting against the Dalai Lama: the issue is a political one, and whatever the rights and wrongs of it, it goes back hundreds of years and all these poor westerners have been drawn into one particular side of it.

In other words Tibetan Buddhism is an organised religion like any other. People like to accord it special status, but I think that is a mistake. And I think this is where the Dalai Lama is coming from. Organised religion has its well understood failings, but you’ll also find some good teachings in all of them. And within it you’ll also find the mystics, those who have their own direct relationship with the Absolute, rather than having it mediated by priests or monks, to whatever extent.

At the same time, people often have a profound need to leave the religion they were brought up with, and the Dalai Lama for some reason does not appear to understand this. Maybe it is because of the traditional context he grew up in, where you didn’t have this phenomenon of rebellion and alienation that you get in the West.

My experience of the Catholic Church from my very early years was of people who were dogmatic and intolerant, often harsh, and not very intelligent. My subsequent experience of the Church of England, while a relief after the Catholic Church, was of something very dilute. There was no way I was going near either when I grew up. Moreover, they ask you to believe preposterous things.

So this is why I find the Dalai Lama’s statement extraordinary. It suggests that, after all these years, he does not understand the western predicament. It may be, as he said, “safer” to stick with your native religion, and I have seen plenty of examples of young westerners coming to grief through their involvement with Buddhism. But some of them, including myself, learn from that. The West is a melting pot in which it is difficult to find a meaningful and human way to live, and a philosophy to back it up. But it is also open and free and thrilling and certainly not ‘safe’. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Tragic Mr Brown

In the local elections in the UK this week, the Labour Party took a hammering. It was their worst result in local elections for 40 years. And it reflects very badly on Gordon Brown as Prime Minister.

About 4 years ago I predicted that Tony Blair would leave office at the end of 2007/early 2008, and that Gordon Brown would take over and be a ‘tail-end Charlie’. I was 6 months out with Blair, but the prediction with Brown seems to be coming true. Brown spent years desperate to be PM, and this desire of his was a major difficulty for the 10 years of the Blair administration. Unfortunately for Brown, his desire has been fulfilled at the end of a political cycle, with Labour having been in power for over 10 years, and a natural swing towards the Tories occurring.

So it’s all turning to poo for him, and he hasn’t even been in the job for a year. But it’s not just about the end of a political cycle. Gordon Brown was never suitable for the job in the first place, most people could see that, and yet he had such a position of power in the Labour Party that he couldn’t be stopped. No-one even stood against him in the election to become leader, it was a coronation. Labour was walking to its electoral doom, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

Astrologically, Gordon Brown is the Invisible Man (half his chart in 12th House Pisces) yet who nevertheless has a deep need to be number one (Moon conjunct Pluto in Leo, below the horizon).


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The pity of it is that he does have a genuine Piscean passion for helping those in need, whether at home or abroad. During his time as Chancellor, he was able to direct loads of cash towards the public services while keeping the economy healthy. Historically, this was a considerable achievement. Previously, we either had Labour trashing the economy or the Tories trashing the public services.

From the word go as Chancellor, he created a reputation for super-competence. I think this was a Piscean trick, an ability to project an image, as much as it was genuine competence. After all, the whole western world was enjoying a long period of economic growth right up until the end of 2008, and all he had to do was not to get in the way of that, which again is a Pisces quality.

So while I’m appreciative of the fact that he kept the economy healthy while promoting the public services, I think his reputation was considerably overblown. He was in the right place at the right time, Tony Blair had created the political context for him, and all he needed was a reasonable amount of competence.

It’s obviously a strong need in him to be seen as brilliant (Moon conjunct Pluto in Leo), and while he was operating behind the scenes at the Treasury, he was allowed to indulge this need.

When he became PM in June 2007, he immediately pulled the same trick, as if by magic. Here was Mr Super Competent, the ultimate safe pair of hands. Remarkably, he managed to sustain this image for 3 or 4 months. But what worked at the Treasury was never going to work as PM. You need to be able to project yourself, people need to get a sense of you, and Brown is all hidden. Worse than that, his reputation for competence, which he had done so much to cultivate, began to disintegrate.

It wasn’t just the PR blunders, which you would expect and even to some degree forgive in such a man. It was actual policy. It was the ill-thought through cutting of Capital Gains Tax last autumn to match a Tory election pledge, but which penalised small businesses. It was the recent abolition of the 10p tax rate, which was going to leave some of the poorest people less well-off. Even the PR blunders leave you gawping. Like his recent visit to the USA, where he wanted his presence felt, yet he allowed it to clash with a visit by the Pope, which almost completely overshadowed Brown’s own visit. Tony Blair, or any reasonably competent politician, would never have allowed that to happen. “Why should I re-arrange my schedule for the Pope of all people?” you can hear the obstinate voice of the Manse saying. When it wasn’t the Pope, it was the controversy over the 10p tax rate that took the headlines during his USA visit.

The local election results make it clear that the current Labour administration is done for, and that Brown is walking wounded. This is a pity, for it affects the mood of the whole country. It is like what we had in the last years of the Major government in the mid-nineties. We don’t feel we have an effective government anymore, and yet you can be sure they will hang on to power for as long as they can, which in this case will be 2010. Labour needs a new leader, but they’re not going to have one. In the Major years, there was a cartoon of the PM as a sort of Superman-manque, with a pair of grimy underpants worn outside his trousers. If anything, this cartoon has more relevance now, for at least John Major never pretended he was Superman.

Brown has a Chiron-MC conjunction in Capricorn (as does Tony Blair), and in both cases you see this combination of ambition and achievement (Capricorn) with lasting damage/wounding (Chiron). In Blair’s case it was Iraq, from which his reputation will never recover: the war began during his Chiron Return.

In Brown’s case, the defining transit is Pluto conjoining his Chiron-MC. Brown’s Chiron is at 0.53 Capricorn. On the day of this week’s elections, Pluto was applying retrograde at 0.56 Capricorn. These elections have been a defining moment for Brown, and the astrology is also telling us this. Of course there is still his MC at 4.43 Capricorn, which Pluto will not reach until 2010, the probable year of the next election, and which will make his humiliation complete.

It is a political tragedy that will be unfolding over the next couple of years. It is a great story: the man who lusted after being king, who undermined a government for 10 years until he got his way, and then fell flat on his face because he’d never been suited to the job in the first place. Everyone could see it coming, and yet nothing could be done about it: a party and a country were held to ransom by this one man’s lust. What a story!

Whether there will be a concluding chapter to the Brown story in which he resurrects himself, I do not know. The tragedy for him is that he has real talents and passions which he ignores in his pursuit of power. He would, for example, make a great UN ambassador to Africa, or fund raiser for the third world. He has North Node in 12th House Pisces, and this is where he needs to go. Whether he can learn from his experience, learn about his own need for power, remains to be seen.

Meanwhile we have David Cameron and his band of old Etonians to look forward to as our rulers in a couple of years. But that's another story.

Papal Bull

The Pope is currently visiting the US. He is giving his Church there a hard time over the paedophile priest scandal. He has also said the following: "We will absolutely exclude paedophiles from the sacred ministry…. What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?" Ah, now I understand: the problem of paedophile priests has nothing to do with the Church and everything to do with American culture. And if it does have anything to do with the church, it is the American church and not the Vatican at which we must point the finger.

The Vatican is well known for providing a refuge from the law for its paedophile priests, when it hasn’t been able to quietly move them on to other parishes where they can carry on as before. The Roman Catholic Church considers itself to be above the law, and so does not have a problem with protecting and covering-up for these people.

At the same time, I don’t want to demonise the paedophile priests – demonising anyone is unhelpful, however bad they are, it’s a way of making ourselves feel good. And paedophiles are the modern witches in this respect. The problem that a lot of these priests have is arrested emotional and sexual development. They are shut away in seminaries at a formative age and encouraged to feel guilty about their sexual impulses. These celibate retards in skirts are then let loose on the community in a position of spiritual guidance, and the power that comes with that.

No wonder there is a mess. Pope Benedict cannot address the real issues because to do so would involve changing some of the church’s basic attitudes. He is known for having a phenomenal intellect and subtle mind, but he has spent his life putting those abilities in the service of the church’s stupidity. As such, I do not view him as an intelligent man.

Before he became Pope he spent 24 years as “Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the Holy Office, the historical Inquisition.” In common parlance, he was known as the previous Pope’s ‘Enforcer’. It was a hard cop-soft cop act, so that John Paul II could appear saintly while someone else did his dirty work for him. This is a fairly common strategy for people in positions of spiritual authority.

The role of Prefect of the Congregation is best known for matters relating to Doctrinal enforcement. And in Joseph Ratzinger’s case (as he then was, of German origin), he came down hard on some of the South American liberation theologians. Other issues also prompted condemnations or revocations of rights to teach.

Ratzinger also had authority over other matters including clerical sexual misconduct. In 2001 he issued his notorious “Crimen Sollicitationis”, which affirmed and clarified the Church’s right to keep secret its own investigations into clerical sexual misconduct. In other words, he legitimised the cover-up that was going on. Under normal circumstances, he could have been prosecuted for inciting people to withhold from the police information pertaining to serious crimes.

So for him to announce in the US that he is deeply ashamed of the paedophile priests, without acknowledging his own role in allowing, even encouraging it to continue is deeply hypocritical. But hey, we are dealing with the Catholic Church, so what do you expect? Just don’t get caught up in the popular fantasy that he is ‘spiritual’. Remember it is a ghoul that you see waving mildly to the crowds from the Popemobile.

Roman Catholicism is the largest single religious denomination in the US, accounting for 23% of the population. I can understand it as a sort of tribal affiliation, I think that’s OK. But to take its rigid and fantastical doctrines seriously is another matter, and I’ve no doubt that many Catholics have enough sense not to do so.

Ratzinger was born 16 April 1927 at 4.15am in Marktl, Germany. He has some very nice bits to his chart – Sun in Aries trine to Neptune; Jupiter Rising in Pisces. This gives him a strong connection to the mystical, the spiritual, to God. This is fundamental to his personality. On its own it’s pretty saintly. Stick in Saturn in Sagittarius in the 9th, and you have a religious leader, a Pope. (The Dalai Lama also has Saturn in the 9th House. The last Pope had Pluto in the 9th.)

But then you have Moon in Libra square to Pluto in Cancer. The Moon is less obvious than the Sun, and Pluto tends to be hidden. Here you have the murk, the appetite for power and control and the ruthlessness which Ratzinger may not be very aware of. It is his Shadow, and what he personally identifies with are probably the saintly bits.

With Pluto in Cancer in the 4th House, he is fiercely protective of his own tribe and its traditions. He also has a Mars-Node conjunction in the 4th, which adds to this quality. And it is a blind quality, for it led to the cover-up over the paedophile priests. It is a ‘My country, right or wrong’ sort of attitude. Under the saintly surface, what we see operating in this man is Pluto at its most primitive and pre-human. He has the Node there as well, so in theory this lifetime involves him coming to understand this aspect of himself. But he was 74 when he issued his Crimen Sollicitationis, so he seems to be in no hurry to learn.

By transit, Pluto is currently opposing his Mars-Node conjunction, so the issue is being activated. At present, he sees it as ‘out there’, as we can see in his criticism of the American Church. But as the transit progresses, the issue may come closer to home, he may find himself under fire as well. This is the way oppositions often work: they begin by being projected ‘out there’, and gradually we come to see (if we are open to it) that it involves us as well.

This Pope is destined to have a strong relationship with not just the US Catholics but with the US as a nation. The US Sibly chart has Sun at 13 Cancer square to Saturn at 15 Libra. Ratzinger has Moon at 14 Libra square to Pluto at 14 Cancer. This is a very powerful connection, and it has a lot to do with power (Pluto) as well as the US Presidency (Sun). So no wonder George Bush (with Sun at 14 Cancer square to Moon at 17 Libra), in an unprecedented move, greeted him. And it was perfectly timed: Ratzinger’s Progressed Sun is currently at 13 Cancer in an applying conjunction to the US Sun.

So we are going to need to watch this space over the coming years. Roman Catholicism is a huge political constituency in the US, and via that constituency the Pope looks likely to be having a huge influence on the US.

It is no doubt Tony Blair’s dearest wish that his friend George should convert to Catholicism, like he did himself last year. The Pope and George Bush are both fundamentalist Christian by nature. Maybe, with their mutual hostility to Islam, it is simply a case of my enemy’s enemy is my friend; but with the Pope’s Pluto-Moon square tightly conjunct to Bush’s Sun-Moon square, I think we are likely to see a very strong relationship developing between these 2 Plutonian men.

In 2006, the Pope made the following statement during a speech: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” I am sure he has a willing adherent in George W Bush.

Blair the Fundamentalist

There’s a series of programmes called ‘The Blair Years’ on TV at the moment, and I managed to catch part of one of them the other night. It was dealing with 9/11 and Iraq. What struck me was Blair’s position on it, after all this time and after he has left office. What we have, he convicted, is “a visceral struggle between what is right and what is wrong.”


Yes, he really does believe this. The man has learnt nothing from the war, all it has done is give birth to his latent fundamentalism. When there is a war, you have to look at it from both sides if you are going to make any sense of it. And it seems pretty obvious to me that the War on Terror is rooted in Arab resistance to western influence. It’s as simple as that. A bit like how many European tribes must have felt at the time of the Romans.

The West needs the Arab oil, and they’re going to make sure they have enough control and influence in the Middle East to safeguard their supplies. You can’t expect the West to behave otherwise. Nor can you expect the Arabs not to resent this influence in their homeland (for which they get nicely paid). This tension is going to continue for as long as we need their oil. Of course, it isn’t put like this by either side. America is ‘The Great Satan’, and the West is struggling against ‘Evil’.

If anything is ‘evil’, it is the fundamentalism you find on both sides that makes any sort of understanding of the situation impossible. If anything is ‘evil’, it is the way Bush and Blair see the ‘war’ as a battle of good versus evil, with themselves of course on the side of ‘good’.

It is hard to believe that Tony Blair is so foolish and superficial, so psychologically primitive. But he is, and we elected him 3 times to run the UK. Which doesn’t say much for we the British people, or for the American people who elected Bush twice.

Before the Iraq War, Tony Blair went to see the Pope to try to get his blessing. Yes, he really did do this. You couldn’t make something like this up, it is priceless comedy. It also makes it clear that Blair was unknowingly engaged on a medieval crusade against Islam. To the Pope’s credit (and I’m not inclined to give Popes much credit), he didn’t give his blessing.


It is gradually coming out that Blair was always much bigger on God than he let on. He was afraid, rightly, of being seen as a ‘nutter’. He has for some years been close to converting to Catholicism, the main barrier appearing to be political considerations.

Tony Blair was born 6 May 1953 at 6.10am in Edinburgh. He has Moon in 10th House Aquarius in a t-square with Sun in Taurus and Pluto in Leo. The challenge of Pluto is to find your own inner power, your own independent sense of confidence and strength. If you are unaware, if you are not up to this challenge, you will look for this sense of power and authority outside of yourself, and this is exactly what Blair has done with his religious certainty and crusade against ‘evil’. And through his need to be in a position of power. Unlike many leaders, he went straight from being PM to being a Middle East envoy on behalf of the major powers.

Aquarius at its worst can be rigidly ideological, which is where his Moon comes in, and we also see it in his Jupiter-Mars conjunction on the ASC. The fixity of his t-square doesn’t help either.

It was Neptune which liberated the fundamentalist within. Up until 9/11, Blair had been a bit timid as PM, trying to please everybody. After 9/11, and particularly in the run-up to the Iraq War, he became the opposite, he was going to do what he believed regardless of popularity. Neptune made its first exact crossing to his Moon a month before the Iraq War, and since then has squared his Sun and is now in the final stages of opposing his Pluto. As it was Neptune that was activating his chart, we can see what happened in terms of what he would have felt to be an Enlightenment, a waking up to his true mission of battling evil in the specific form of Islamic ‘terrorists’; from the outside, many of us would see Neptune as having created delusion and guru-inflation. As an astrologer, my job is to describe both sides rather than say which is ‘correct’. As an opinionated blogger, I have no doubt which is correct!

They say there is no-one so ‘ex’ as an ex-Prime Minister, and I was slightly taken aback when I realised that Tony Blair still has transits going on, that he is not in suspended animation. Neptune is still finishing with his t-square, and what it seems to be creating is this mad fundamentalist, reminiscent of his hero Margaret Thatcher after she had finished as PM.


Her time as PM was characterised by a series of major Pluto transits, and there were more to come in the 5 years following her demise. The same applies to Tony Blair, who will have Neptune squaring his Mars-Jupiter-ASC in 5-6 years time. It will probably mark his appointment as Archbishop, on his ascent towards the Papacy! At any rate, it would not surprise me if, like Thatcher, we see him becoming more rigid, more of a caricature of himself, over the coming years.