PRO LGBT LAW FIRM,
TO SHUT DOWN PRO LIFE
ROMAN CATHOLIC WEBSITE
SEE: http://pulpitandpen.org/2018/03/12/vatican-sends-pro-abortion-law-firm-shut-pro-life-roman-catholic-website/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
A very small Romanist website called InfoVaticana in Madrid, Spain, recently received a notice from a rabidly pro-homosexual law firm, Baker and McKenzie, to transfer their domain directly to the Vatican or else. The Pope’s headquarters claimed that only they could use the word, “Vatican.” They claimed that the Vatican alone possesses exclusive property rights over the name and that the small website needed to transfer its domain to the Vatican Secretariat of State immediately or face punitive consequences. The website, InfoVaticana, was launched in 2013 and has happily and freely been offering journalistic reporting on all things Roman Catholic, without any previous interruption from the Papacy.
InfoVaticana’s goal was to be “a free and independent media that has the vocation to serve the Catholic Church and society.” They have done so, since 2013, without any interruption from the Vatican. The problem has arisen since InfoVaticana has published articles critical of the homosexual lobby’s influence on the Vatican, the infamous Amoris Laetitia (the Pope’s statement which was seen as “heresy” by many Roman Catholics, softening the church’s teaching on traditional marriage and divorce) and criticizing the Vatican’s handling of the scandals relating to the Order of Malta. It is then – and only then – that the Romanist Church claimed that their domain name was infringing upon what essentially amounts to a copyright on the term “Vatican.”
In 2017, after the site began to criticize Francis’ leftist leanings, InfoVaticana requested to trademark their name, along with the seal of the Vatican. When they discovered that they couldn’t trademark the national seal (even though it was a part of their logo associated with their domain name), they instead settled on making their logo two keys, interlocked. However, the Vatican claimed that the two keys represented Christ giving the keys of Heaven and Hell to Peter, and because the Pope is the Bishop of Peter’s throne, only the Pope could use that imagery.
As the Lepanto Institute reports…
In August of 2017, InfoVaticana received a second letter from Baker & McKenzie, this time demanding that in addition to no longer using the crossed keys with the name InfoVaticana, InfoVaticana actually cease using the name “InfoVaticana” at all and turn the website domain over to the Secretary of State. The letter argues that the crossed keys used in InfoVaticana’s application for its trademarked logo is a violation of the Vatican’s intellectual property in the form of “State Symbols.” Such argumentation would imply that any portion of the formal symbols representing Vatican City (the Cross, the keys, a tassel, a gold and white flag) are prohibited from use by any entity without express permission from the Vatican.
Baker and McKenzie, the law firm retained by the Vatican to threaten the critical Romanist website, is also the counsel for Planned Parenthood.
