“Have you ever heard two Jesuits talking to each other?” said one observer. “You have to listen not to what they say, but to what they do not say.”
The Financial Times ran an article that described the way in which Jesuit-trained Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank, manipulated German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU officials when struggling to protect the Euro from failure and the breakup of the Eurozone. Mario Draghi never explicitly promised that the central bank would act to protect the Euro if German and EU officials took steps to centralize financial power at the EU level. And German officials insist that Angela Merkel, the powerful third term German Chancellor, did not back Draghi’s policies of centralization of banking to clear the way for the European Central Bank to start buying Eurozone bonds. She obviously wanted centralization too in order to achieve greater forced integration of the Eurozone. But it appears they both understood what each other would do in order to stem the crisis. And it should not surprise those paying attention. After all, the Jesuits trained many EU leaders (not including Merkel). They know how to talk to each other and how to manipulate the rest.
The original plan to protect Eurozone nations when they came under financial attacks from the markets had been hammered out by Mario Monti, yet another Jesuit-trained leader, and his closest advisors in 2012. But it needed German approval as with all EU policies before it could be implemented.
But Chancellor Merkel’s endorsement was not forthcoming. During a 2012 meeting Merkel had with U.S. President Barak Obama, Mario Monti and a few others at the Los Cabos, Mexico G20 summit, the American and Italian delegation clearly conspired to get Merkel to endorse an automatic bond-buying program for Europe similar to the way the U.S. Federal Reserve worked its financial crisis. But she was angry about the plan because it would fundamentally change the way in which the Eurozone fought the crisis. Perhaps she felt that German leverage over EU decisions would be undermined.
Mario Draghi went to work on Merkel. He understood Merkel’s instincts. Merkel is a purist. She believed that it was not the job of politicians to set bond rates. That was the job of the central bank. More fundamentally, Merkel wanted more centralized control, with all Eurozone nations sharing the burden of bailouts, not primarily Germany.
Merkel believed that a bond-buying program would put off the day of reckoning and take the pressure off Eurozone finance ministers to adopt budgetary constraint in line with EU policy. During the months following the Los Cabos tiff, Draghi energetically helped Merkel secure an agreement for a “fiscal compact” requiring all Eurozone countries to write the EU’s tough budget rules into their constitutions. He also helped her strike a deal that would be the biggest shift of sovereignty since the euro’s creation, a key goal they share in resurrecting the Holy Roman Empire. In exchange for Eurozone rescue of failing European banks, oversight and liquidation of those institutions would shift from national to EU control.
Draghi knew that he had to have Merkel’s confidence in order to accomplish something as difficult as a bond-buying program, which would shift considerable authority away from Germany to the ECB. By supporting those two achievements, Draghi gained her confidence and could then help her see that a bond-buying program would work. “Some ECB officials who worked with Mr. Draghi argue that securing Ms Merkel’s support for his bond-buying plan… was the result of a carefully orchestrated political cultivation of the chancellor.” Perhaps a more precise word is “manipulation.”
The chancellor had learned how to successfully use the existential Eurozone crisis to manipulate Europe under German control. In the process she had become the most powerful leader in Europe. Draghi had to convince her that it was in Europe’s best interest to support his plan. But bond-buying has always been strongly opposed by the Germans.
“Mr. Draghi worked informally with Ms Merkel, carefully testing what might be acceptable.” He had to convince her that the euro was dangerously close to collapse and that a bond-buying program was essential to keeping Europe together. But he and his allies within the ECB also worked other officials until they were all in alignment with his plan except for the president of the Bundesbank, who was now isolated.
Mr. Draghi realized that “gaining [Ms Merkel’s] approval for the ECB plan would come down to something she had argued for all along: in exchange for aid, struggling countries had to agree to economic reforms. That ‘conditionality’ had to be thorough and legally binding.” It turned out to be another careful “two-step dance” between political leaders and central bankers that has characterized every important turning point in the crisis. The Jesuit-trained banker had the capabilities to manage the crisis deftly and carefully.
In three months he had secured Merkel’s support for his bond-buying plan, which ended the immediate euro crisis and pulled the euro back from the precipice. Merkel even gave her support over the strong objections of the Bundesbank. “If the euro falls, then Europe falls,” said Merkel, indicating her commitment to doing whatever it takes to keep Europe together.
When it was all done, Italian and Spanish bonds had fallen to a more sustainable level. Germany had restrained the ECB’s firefighting power, but now Mr. Draghi had achieved a key goal of the planned financial crisis; centralization of banking and control of the bond markets at the ECB. In other words, Europe’s finances are now under the control of the ECB, which is headed by a man whose finely tuned Jesuit intellect will strengthen integration, centralization and control. No doubt, the Vatican is very pleased with Mr. Draghi.
Prophetically speaking, economic centralization of Europe is essential to the eventual control of religion. The Bible tells us that those who do not worship the beast or his image will suffer economic sanctions. See Revelation 13:17. Without control over the economy global religion cannot be enforced.