This may be the first time in the history when the Vatican’s
decision about canonization caused such a great tide of protests.
It has even come to the point when Giuseppe Laras, Chairman
of Italian Rabbi Council, has refused to greet Benedict XVI (born
Jozeph Ratzinger, who by the way, used to be a member
of the not unknown organization named "Hitler-Jugend", being a young
man) during his visit to the Roman synagogue.
Meeting the challenge, apostolic capital has sent Father Giancarlo Centioni
to the front line. In 1940-1945 this 97-year-old priest was
a chaplain of the volunteer fascist militia. Fr. Centioni suddenly
recalled that Pope XII created a covert network for saving the Jews during
the Holocaust. According to the version of Fr. Centioni, Fr. Joseph
Kentenich headed this organization and Fr. Anton Weber was his deputy who was
receiving the orders straight from Pope himself. The organization was called
Rafaels Verein (Community of the St. Rafael [Germ.]) and it helped
out the Jewish families to illegally flee from Germany, having provided
them with money and documents. It’s unnecessary to mention that none
of the members of this Catholic resistance movement are alive today
and there’s nobody who can prove the evidences of Fr. Centioni.
Almost simultaneously with these revelations, Vatican newspaper "L’Osservatore
Romano" has published an article where it tells us that
as far back as in 1978 Italian historian Ennio di Nolfo
discovered the documents regarding the relationship between the USA and
Vatican — they cover the period since the beginning of the Second
World War until the 50s. Among all these documents, Vatican journalists
considered the report about a meeting of German Catholic lawyer,
activist of the anti-Hitler resistance movement Joseph Müller with the
U. S. ambassador in the apostolic capital Harold Tittman,
to be the most important. During this meeting Tittman has allegedly
told Müller that he heard about the general criticism of the Pope’s
actions who had condemned the Nazi for the first time just after the war.
In reply to that Müller said that Pope’s silence during the war was
caused by the appeal of the German resistance movement not
to condemn it in public, as long as it could have
complicated the life of German Catholics. Having grounded on these
"valuable" evidences Vatican newspaper has also condemned the critics
of Pope Pius XII for neglect of such important documents.
On the 30th of January, this year the same newspaper has returned
to this subject — silence of the Pope who was unwilling
to condemn the Nazi regime — again. This time it published two
more documents from the London Kew Garden national archives. These are reports
of the American and British diplomats — including the above-mentioned
Harold Tittman’s one — that were sent to their own Foreign Affairs
Ministries with the description of the meetings with Pius XII
in 1943-1944. In these reports diplomats notified their higher-ups
that all their attempts to persuade Pope to publicly condemn Nazi
ended in complete failure even after the extermination of 400
thousand Jews in Hungary — and at that, Pope Pius XII denied
to name the reason for that refusal. This — according to the
newspaper’s opinion — clearly proves the fact that Pope had a secret
connection with the anti-Hitler Resistance and which is why he was
unable to name the reason of his silence.
Frankly speaking, we don’t even want to analyze the argumentation
of that sort and quality. We just want to pity the scarceness
of the intellectual resource of Pope’s advocates and express our
surprise considering the human resources policy of the Vatican media.
Yugoslavia collapse was pre-defined in Vatican
Before the First World War Croatia was just one of the
Austria-Hungarian provinces. After the war it affiliated to the SCS
Kingdom (Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia) and in 1921 its king changed the
name to Yugoslavia. Even then Yugoslavia was torn apart by the
conflicts between the Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats. Despite the fact the
Orthodox Serbs made up the majority of population (5.5 million people
versus 4.7 million Catholics), the Catholic minority has never felt itself
oppressed by the Orthodox majority. In 1935 Yugoslavia even signed
the Concordat with Vatican. Unique feature of this agreement was the fact
that the Catholic minority obtained quite a number of beneficial
advantages. Eugenio Pacelli, who was preparing this document, has managed
to include some special rights of the Roman Catholic Church into
it — right to freely and publicly conduct its mission; Catholic
priesthood gained such privileges as immunity from taxation and
governmental subventions while the studying of the Catholic religion
in schools became obligatory. Religious marriage was equalized
in rights with the secular marriage, while papal nuncio became the head
of the Yugoslavian diplomatic body — in total that gave Vatican
advantages that it has never had even in the traditionally Catholic
countries. In the end, Yugoslavian parliament has refused to ratify
the Concordat and offended Eugenio Pacelli has said the following ominous
phrase: "There’s going to be the day when a lot of people
will shed bitter tears, regretting that they have denied this generous offer,
which Vicar of Christ has heartily made to their country".
The above-mentioned Concordat — that Serbia and Vatican signed on the
24th of June, 1914 — stipulated the same privileges for the Catholics
and, in addition, provision of the benefits for the Catholic bishops.
Thus, we have every reason to say that Catholic minority
in Yugoslavia had absolutely no problems neither in religious,
nor in political sphere.
When Nazi occupied Yugoslavia on the 6th of April, 1941,
Ustaša2 movement started to actively
cooperate with them — it was created in 1929 by Ante
Pavelić. Having acted mostly from abroad, from territory of Italy, Hungary
and Austria, Ustaša have conducted several big terrorist acts and even
organized an assassination attempt against the Alexander
I in Marseilles in 1934. Quite soon Pavelić became the head
of the Independent State of Croatia (ISC) that Hitler recognized
as the Aryan one. Not only Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina but also
Serbian Srem (total territory of 92.5 thousand square kilometers)
affiliated with the new state. Banja Luka became the capital of the
ISC.
Regime that Ustaša established in the newly-formed state was one
of the most cruel that emerged during the Second World War. It was
based on the extermination of the Orthodox, Jews, Gypsies and
communists. Dr. Mile Budak, Minister of Education of this "country"
has defined the state policy in a following way: "We’ll eliminate
part of the Serbs, part of them will be expelled from the
country and those who would adopt Catholicism will become the part of the
Croatian nation. Our policy is defined by our loyalty to the
religion and the Catholic Church itself".
Hermann Neubacher, ambassador of the German Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, reported to Ribbentrop: "Policy of Ante Pavelić, Ustaša
leader and Croatian poglavnik3, resembles the
religious wars, especially the bloodiest ones: ‘One third has to become
Catholics, one third should leave the country and one third
is to be killed! The last point of this program has already
been completed’".
6.7 million people lived in the new Croatian state. Half of them were
Catholics, 2.2 million were Orthodox, 750 thousand were Muslim,
70 thousand were Protestant and 45 thousand were Jewish. Overall
aggression of Catholics was directed exclusively against Orthodox and
Jews. Fanaticism and deadly fury of the Croatian fascists had the
foundation of the religious intolerance and the very statehood program
stipulated the creation of a mono-religious country. Without any
exaggeration we may say that infernal nightmare reigned in the
Independent State of Croatia.
Pathological cruelty of Ustaša was imprinted on the photographs that
were made by the eyewitnesses of these events: women with the cut-off
breasts, torn eyeballs, chopped off genitals, executioners wearing the collars
made of the human tongues and eye bulbs. Atrocities of the German
Nazi, comparing to this horror, look just like a bureaucratic
routine, no matter how blasphemous will it sound. German Generals
in Croatia were shocked by the deeds of Pavelić and his
henchmen. In the beginning of June, 1941 Edmund Glaise von Horstenau,
Wehrmacht General reported to Berlin: "Ustaša went mad. Our six infantry
battalions were powerlessly looking at the Croats who were blinded
by the bloody hatred".
On the 17th of February
Sicherheitspolizei4 of Croatia reported
to Reichsführer-SS Himmler: "Number of Orthodox whom Croats have
exterminated in the utmost sadistic way should be estimated
in approximately 300.000 people. Lately, Catholic Church has
enthusiastically supported the terrible means of conversion
of Orthodox citizens into the Catholicism. Serbs that adopted Catholicism
may live in peace in Croatia. Therefore, Croatian-Serbian war
is grounded on the policy of the Roman Catholic Church that
is directed against Orthodox".
From time to time the situation went as far
as up to the armed interference of Wehrmacht troops into
this terrifying religious genocide. In June of 1942 commander
of the 718th German infantry division ordered to disarm and arrest
whole Ustaša company that was murdering Serbs at the Romanian territory.
Ribbentrop has even sent a message to Pavelić via the German
ambassador, expressing the "displeasure of the Reich government caused
by the awful excesses in Croatia". Italian fascists were also shocked
by the Croatian savageness. On the 1st of July, 1943 Mussolini
troops started to guard 33 thousand citizens of Croatia,
including 2.100 Jews. Croatian Archbishop Stepinac was displeased
by that and he complained that "decline of the religious life
reigns in the Croatian territories occupied by the Italian troops and
the apparent features of schism5 are seen
there". In May of 1941 first anti-Jew laws based on the racial
criteria were brought to life. The same month the first Jews were sent
to the Danica concentration camp. Serbs were obliged to wear the cyan
bandages with the letter "П6" on them,
and Jews had to wear the stars of David. Plates, saying
"No entry for Serbs, Jews, bums and dogs" appeared at the doors
of Zagreb shops, restaurants and buses.
Well-known Polish publicist Mariush Agnosevich cited these facts in his
research. Vatican actively participated in the Croatian witches’ Sabbath
from the very beginning. Quite a number of Catholic priests belonged
to the Ustaša party. Ivan Šarić, archbishop of Sarajevo was among
them, Franciscan monk Berto Dragičević from the Široki Brijeg monastery was the
commander of Ustaša squad. Croatian Catholic Church was not only
completely aware of the crimes of its congregation but also actively
masterminded them. Experts believe that thanks to the Ustaša crimes
in Croatia they’ve looted the property of their victims — its
total value may be estimated in about 80 million dollars.
"Ustaša gold" was kept in the Vatican safes and the Curia Romana designed
the plans of reconstruction of the Orthodox churches into the
Catholic ones. Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac was carrying out solemn parties
where he was honoring Croatian führer Ante Pavelić — the latter
stated at one of such parties that "he wouldn’t bear Serbian
Orthodox Church as long as it is a political
organization". It seems that due to this very reason Stepinac called
Pavelić to be a "faithful Catholic" while Pavelić addressed Pope
Pius XII with the following oaths of loyalty: "Holy Father! When the
Providence allowed me to take control over my nation and
my Motherhood I’ve made a firm decision to do my best
to make the Croatian nation — faithful to its national
history — forever loyal to the Saint Apostle Peter and his heirs
in the years to come".
On the 24th of April, 1941 Ustaša detachment attacked few Orthodox
villages and arrested 250 hostages who were burnt alive the same day. They were
buried in the graves that they used to dig by themselves, being
held at the Ustaša rifles’ gunpoints. The same day archbishop Stepinac
addressed his congregation with the following words: "Who can blame us
that we — as the pastors do — share the joy and enthusiasm
of the nation, having expressed the deep gratitude to the Divine
Greatness. Despite the complicated situation that surrounds us,
we may easily see divine interference in it. Ab domino factum
est istud et est mirabile in oculis nostril (God welcomes it and
it is beautiful in our eyes). So hear us calling and
help Croatia to gain independence. We know the people who hold the
fate of the Croatian nation in their hands and we’re sure that Church
in the renewed Croatian state would freely proclaim the principles
of truth and eternal justice".
Few days after this outstanding public speech 330 Serbs were caught
in Ostaz — they were made to dig the graves for themselves and
then were hacked to death by axes. Orthodox priest Branko
Dobrosavlevich along with his son were left until the very end: child was
hacked in front of his father who was forced to say
a prayer for the murdered people. After that, priest was put to the
terrible tortures: hairs were torn out of his head and beard, eye bulbs
were turned out, and then he was skinned alive. Luka Avramovich, former
member of the parliament, was crucified along with his son. In Banja
Luka 81-year-old bishop Platov was literally shod with the horseshoes and was
made to walk the streets this way until he fell unconscious —
after that his eyeballs were torn out, his nose and ears were cut off and only
after that terrible tortures sadists have finished off the old man. On the
14th of May, 1941 in the town of Glina few hundred Serbs were
driven into the Orthodox Church. Ustaša, armed with axes and knives, burst
in right after them. Those who have failed to show the certificate
of conversion into Catholisicm (just two people out of them managed
to do it) were hacked to death. Mirko Puk, Croatian Minister
of Justice and Chastimir Hermann, prior of the Franciscan monastery
in Chuntich initiated this savage act.
Four days after that, on the 18th of May, 1941 Pavelić received
a solemn audience of Pope Pius XII — during this audience
he blessed him as the loyal son of the Roman Catholic Church.
It’s hardly possible to assume that having blessed Pavelić, Pope was
unaware of the Croatian atrocities and the fact that führer himself was
convicted to death in his absentia — for the savage murders
he commited, including the assasination attempt against King Alexander.
"Long live Croatia!" — proclaimed Pius XII during the audience.
The described events — that took place with the blessing of Pius
XII — have paved the way for the mutual enmity between Serbs and Croats
that burst out in the 90s of 20th century. They were the very reason
of secession of Croatia from Yugoslavia in 1991 which,
in its turn, initiated the collapse of Yugoslavia.
By Gregory Tinsky
To be
continued
