Kranj: Cardinal in Trouble. Deja Vu? Franc Frantar.

Finding the Story Behind the Statue
Franc Frantar?
Franj; or Ljubljana?

Dan and I came across this watering trough with a drowning Cardinal (see the hat? or is that a bishop's hat? or perhaps just a priest?), watched over as he goes under by a sad lady who is not an angel, no wings, and no halo, and not really looking like a Mary, and a monster beneath the water.  At first, seeing just the photo from the card, I thought it was Croatia.  No luck locating it.  Now I am looking at Dan's log, there at his feet, and the chronology of his nightly entries puts this in Kranj, Slovenia; or possibly Llubjlana. The location in the notes looks like Kranj. Or Ljubljana, not far.  The Cathedral in Ljubljana dates from the mid-15th Century, but this is a new grouping.

What issue is being addressed? Who is the Cardinal, or Bishhop? Or priest? Spoiler:  We now think this is Franc Frantar. And he was just a priest, but how did he manage to escape temporarily to Malawi with prosecution pending for child abuse, except for collaboration with a Bishop?  See FN 1

Franc Frantar? Cardinal hat on drowning cleric, Kranj, Diocese of Ljubljana, Slovenia, we believe.  

Our research:  Who knows more?  Why is this Cardinal-Bishop-Priest drowning?  What other scenario fits.

I.  First I did a search for Cardinal-drowning-monster.

That brought up a site for survivors of sexual abuse by priests, see http://nationalsurvivoradvocatescoalition.wordpress.com/vinnie-nauheimer/. So is this statuary scene part of the

drumbeat of scandal, or merely happenstance, and a local story we haven't found yet? 

In the National Survivor Advocates site are Biblical references to the manner of death shown here, but the wording does not definitely tie in with child sexual abuse.  The wording is "offend" children -- with warnings that anyone who does so should have millstones cast around their necks and drowned.  

Without taking a position on the religious interpretation, that the manner of offending referenced here is abuse.  FYI -- here is the reference, with our emphases and comment that at the least, the meaning of the original Greek was to ensnare not just "offend":

• Matthew 18:6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. [Offend is not the transliterated word;  ensnare is, see Strong's word numbering G4624, with Greek letters phonetically like skandallsE (scandal?), see  http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/mat18.pdf/]

• Mark 9:42 And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. [Offend? Merely offend? Again, the word in transliteration is not "offend" but "ensnare", see G4624,  http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/mar9.pdf/]

• Luke 17:2 It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.  Again, ensnare, see above, and http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/luk17.pdf

Research continuing, and it appears that the Catholic Latin Vulgate and Douay Rheims come close to the Greek snare and scandalize, but that the King James and other Protestant versions use the washy "offense" and ambiguity more.  See http://greeknewtestament.com/B40C018.htm/; http://greeknewtestament.com/B41C009.htm#V42/; http://greeknewtestament.com/B42C017.htm#V2. Protestants:  your wording softpedals the snare.  See: says not to cause the little ones to stumble, or make trouble for them, cause a little one to sin.  Is the act of ensnaring, scandalizing, merely that?

II.  Second, I went back to Dan's entry in the green log at his feet in the picture. Dan has Down syndrome, but that does not hold him back. He writes down details that I do not, and then regret omitting.

• Dan's entry:  "stature of man drown with octopois stature the lady folding her hands and looking at man I am beside her with tree ...." This is located as the sentence after another statue we saw, of Slovenia's paramount poet, the 19th Century Dr. France Preseren 1800-1849.  And the next entry showed Kranj to Zagreb, Croatia. The preceding entry is for Ljubljana and Lake Bled.

III.   Moving on with Dan's information - search for cleric, sexual abuse, Slovenia this time, not Croatia.

I found Wikipedia, a good starting point, but vet it yourself.  

• Information:  Archdiocese of Ljubljana, Franc Frantar, who was detained (it says) in 2006 for "sexual abuse of up to 16 minors."  He was sentenced to prison 5 years, after having escaped to Malawi to be a missionary there, then returned to Slovenia once an Interpol warrant issued.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_sex_abuse_cases_by_country#Slovenia. Problem:  Wiki ran into a dead end in finding more about that name.  
• Do a search for it, however, and a Franc Frantar appears in Slovenian articles.   

Franc Frantar:  A/k/a Franci Frantar, spellings always can vary with translation.

Search those articles, click on translate, and  the first link found does indicate in translation that he was convicted of child abuse and served some time and has been paroled, see Franc Frantar. 

Will want to check the others.  Where is he now?  On parole with  no restrictions?  Sixteen convictions, or just one?

Vends. The Expunged, Ancient Dynasty of Carantania. Propaganda in Identify Theft. The denied Slavica Lex. Beatrice, of Charlemagne's Line, Denied.

Vendic, Carantanian Peoples Largely Expunged by History

But Very Alive. 

Update NYT on Swabians, male-supremacist culture, who conquered Slovenia, where Vends, and power to women as well as men, had prevailed:
 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/world/europe/swabian-separatists-fling-spatzle-to-make-a-point.html?_r=0

Carantania. Long gone. 

Vends. Long gone. But with traces.

 And Swabians.  One may prevail over the other, but in the long term, which brings stability, growth for all aspects of the culture.

Why pay attention to history, especially in a country like Slovenia, small in size, not now a major power, which once was Carantania. What do the Slovenians, as a currently undervalued population in terms of military and commercial control, know of the heritage that once was. Great topic. Go from there to others - indigenous Mexicans - some day we will go there and do a Mexico Road Ways that highlights the glories of any people later taken over, used.

Good reason to look at History:  Women in Power.  In some Western countries, it is considered unusual for a woman to exert political power.  Look back.  Old Carantania rising! As Hillary Clinton's supporters express dismay and anger, that the Democratic party rejected her candidacy for President of the United States, look back at the broader (!) view of history. How culturally-imposed is a perception that women do not belong in leadership positions; and if culture, not "nature", can be be juggled.  If founded in genetics, by what proof.  We know that the X gene is large and stable, and the y gene is little and squiggy and diminishing.  Does that count? Or does it explain.
 
is any of that relevant. Here, fair use thumbnail from http://forum.thefreedictionary.com/postst24668_Y-chromosome-.aspx:  Big X, squig of a y for men;  correlate two Big X's for women.  Who is powerful?

Girls look back

 Are any of us totally bound by our history, or the history others impose on us.  Can we, by education and perspective, change current cultural values -- as not etched in stone at all. Just cultural, and flawed as serving the interests in power at the time they imposed their power.

SLOVENIA: VENDIC CULTURE

WOMEN IN POWER IN OLDER CULTURES

Identity theft gives a clue: What was there once here, was stolen. See the theft at work here in Slovenia, of female place in power with full capacity to act, in the Vendic culture, the peoples known as the Vends, in broad areas of the now-Germany, and Slovenia, with similarities to the Celts.

Best site so far: See Vendic culture at http://www.carantha.net/the_vends_and_the_germans.htm, we suggest, by the macho Germanic types, Swabians; and later the Habsburgs (Austria); and specifically, loss of the grand tradition of the ancient Slavica Lex in establishing succession rights for both male and female. Is this right? Follow along. The Carantanian dynasties are also known as "Medieval Slovenian Vendic (Slovenian) State." See the carantha.net site above.

Start with history and the place of men and women.

In Slovenia, political change was forced, as usual. Go to your map and see where we are. We are looking at the old Carantanian dynasties of Slovenia, that were overcome by the German Swabians.

German Swabian invaders.  They are still on the move, see NYT (this an update 2013) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/world/europe/swabian-separatists-fling-spatzle-to-make-a-point.html?_r=0.  There, Swabians in Berlin are throwing around their tasty spaetzle or spatzle as the Times spells it, seeking autonomous districts for their identity.

 Swabians:  No wonder they push so hard.  Their buildings, even in the middle ages, were huge.  See their town, Schwabisch Hall, town named for the Swabians of old, at Germany Road Ways Schwabisch Hall, Swabians.

• Swabian history:  Swabians made their mark in many places, including Sicily, the Crusades. The Swabians were different from another group living in Germany and Slovenia at the time,  the Vends. TheVendic laws and customs were nothing like the Swabians. So: from which group do present Germans derive, the Swabians or the Vends.

But it was the Swabians that took over Slovenia, and in so doing, the Swabians cast aside a basic tenet of the old Lex Slavica, the Slavic law, that did not differentiate between succession by a female or a male. And this change, this barring of female succession and legal rights to act, affected every land that the Germans took over after that. Scroll down the left-side margin at the carantha.net site, for all the topics.

To the Germans from the North, no. No woman could take the throne. And so it went. And this was also true for the Jewish cultures. Capacity to act, juridical capacity, was a male prerogative. See carantha.net site. Vends also lived in Eastern and Central Germany (not the same borders then) and there are Vendic names of people and towns. See carantha.net site. Near the Elbe River is "Vendland." [do they make square burgers at Vendy's?] Bavaria used to be Vendelicia. Carantha.net site.

Read ://www.theslovenian.com/articles/savli.htm. We were looking up the geneology of Premysl Ottokar II, father of the good Wenceslas, and found this chronology, roughly. Who has time to do all the research on a topic like this, so we lay this one out to encourage replies:

Rough chronology:

1. Tenth Century Slovenia was comprised of a combination of Franks and Slovenians, based on the old "Carantanian" social structure, with leaders from the villages elected to a general assembly. Lords, however, were hereditary. There were three major dynasties or "houses." The people were "Vends" - a population that spread through much also of eastern and central Germany. See the German maypoles today, and traces of the custom to the Vends. See Germany Road Ways, Maypoles; and Germany Road Ways, Vends.

2. One "house" connected to the Swabians in Germany (currently in Germany) through Beatrice; this "house" produced the dynasty of Carantania. Not entirely clear on details, this is only so far.

3. This dynasty is significant because Carantanian law permitted succession to any child, male or female. The last duke of this line was Ulric III in 1269, and he appointed our research subject, Otokar II, to the throne - Otokar was King of Bohemia, in the current Czech Republic. See Czech Republic Road Ways - Hluboka nad Vltavou. Otokar was a maternal cousin.

Then, in time, the Swabians from Germany, who also went to Sicily, see a Schwabian town at Germany Road Ways, Schwabisch Hall. the Habsburgs from Austria took over, and - stay with us here - the German and Habsburg line refused to recognize the Carantanian dynasty or its laws, and imposed instead, the German.

4. The old Carantanian law was known as the "Slavica Lex" and soon diminished in influence, and understanding. This means no more female succession in the Carantanian lands. Yet, even today, the Swabian coat of arms in Germany bears the reference to Beatrice, and the female succession from the Carantanian and Slavica lex, law of the Slavs.

5. And it is Beatrice who is of Carolingian descent - from Charlemagne. She is considered the "mother" of the two houses of Carantania.

6. In the 14th Century, the Habsburgs from Austria took over Slovenia. More Germanic roots. See ://www.slovenia.si/history/habsburgs/

Soon the Carantanian culture was so downtrodden that the Slovenian people were referred to by the rulers only as "historical serfs." See theslovenian.com site.

In the 15th and 16th Centuries, in came Turkish influence. See ://www.slovenia.si/history/habsburgs/. And in 1572-73, the peasants' revolt. One system of laws followed by another with each cultural overrun, and none serving the needs of the Slovenes. Uprisings continued until the mid 18th century.

In current times, according to theslovenian.com site, this attitude followed through to Serbia and the old Yugoslavia, of which Slovenia was a part, in imposing from Belgrade a "cheap instrument for their ideological and political manipulation."

Other devalued populations today. Probably not "inherently" so - who did what to them when.