VATICAN AND THE POLITICS. Part III
Preparations to the Vatican’s canonization of Pope Pius XII
have caused violent debates among the Catholics — not only concerning the
former Roman pontiff himself but also about the role of the Roman Catholic
Church in the politics and history of the 20th century.
From the "Historical wars or the reversed politics"
cycle
"German Pope"
Sympathies of Pius XII towards the Hitlerites were well-known and
in Italy he was even dubbed the "German Pope". Mostly German speech
was heard in the Vatican corridors during his pontificate. German woman
named Pascalina Lenhert took care of the pontificate household — she
used to cook the German cuisine dishes to him. Unfortunately,
culinary preferences of Pius XII affected his political activity: there
are evidences of his prayers for the Hitler’s victory over the communist
Russia, blessings of the German troops that were sent to the African
front under the command of General Rommel via Rome and also blessing
of Ante Pavelić, bloody führer of Croatia.
Hanz Frank, Governor-General of the occupied Poland, has written
in his diary: "Service to Germany is a service to God
himself. In the name of God we’re fighting the Jews and their
Bolshevism".
Arthur Greiser, Gauleiter of Reichsgau Wartheland (territories of the
Western Poland that were affiliated to Germany after the Third Reich
occupation), who was personally responsible for extermination of hundreds
thousands Jews and Poles was sentenced to death by hanging after the
war along with Frank. Pius XII has demanded to forgive them and when this
request has been denied, he has personally blessed them before the
execution.
After the victory of the anti-Hitler coalition Vatican was actively
helping the criminals to avoid the deserved punishment. Due to the
personal direction of Pius XII, Archbishop Alois Hudal was transferring
them to South America, using the Catholic charity organization "Caritas"
and the Red Cross as the cover. Walter Rauff, inventor of the
automobile gas chambers was a close friend of his. About
30 thousand Nazi criminals have left Europe with the Vatican passports,
including Adolf Eichmann — later hanged due to the sentence
of the Tel-Aviv court — and Franz Stangl (commander of the
Treblinka concentration camp). Nazi were hiding in the Catholic
monasteries and often escaped from Italy, having been dressed as the
Catholic priests.
Vatican politics, economic interests and canonization
of Pius XII
Procedure of Pius’ XII canonization started as far back
as in 1990 and just the signature of current Pope Benedict
XVI is needed to complete it. It turned out that John Paul
II didn’t have the stomach to do it. Current pontiff also
hesitates for now. The reason is quite simple — Vatican wants
to sign the Concordat with Israel — authorities of this country
were informed of that as far back as in March of 1990.
First of all, the matter is the proprietary rights for six Catholic
temples and guarantee for the taxation privileges for them at the Israel
territory. Israel state and the Jewish organizations all over the world are
actively protesting against the canonization of Pius XII, considering him
to be responsible for the Holocaust and extermination of about
half a million Orthodox Serbs and Gypsies in Croatia, Bosnia and
Srpska Krajina by the criminal Ustaša regime in 1941-1945. Only
in the Croatian Jasenovac concentration camp about 700.000 Serbs and Jews
were murdered — it was approximately 20.000 children among them.
That’s where the traces of the famous "Ustaša gold" lead — they
looted their victims prior to killing them. This gold was kept in the
Vatican bank and was, in particular, used for establishing of the
so-called "ratline" — channel for transferring the Nazi criminals
to the South America. "Nazi’s escape to Argentina was funded for the
gold torn from the teeth of my family" — stated William Dorich.
Only by a miracle he has survived in this concentration
camp and for more than sixty years now, he has been fighting for the fair
trial of the war criminals.
Ante Pavelić — Croatian führer
Thanks to the mediation and illegal help of the Vatican even Ante
Pavelić didn’t pay the fair penalty, having flew to Argentina using the
"ratline", and then, having used the "hospitability" of the Spanish
dictator Franco he had peacefully lived in Spain until 1959 where
he died in the age of 70. Spiritual mentor of Pavelić,
Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac — who didn’t avoid the trial and after the
war was sentenced to 16 years of imprisonment for the war
crimes — was promoted to the cardinal by Pius XII when
he was released from the prison in 1952.
According to the evidences of the eyewitnesses, "Ustaša gold" was
driven on ten trucks to the Rome where it was stored at the
Roman monastery of the Franciscan St. Jerome order at first —
where the Croatian Nazi, including their führer were hiding. Catholic priest
Krunoslav Draganović and Dominik Mandić, treasurer of the St. Franciscan
order, commanded this operation. In 1998 U. S. State Department
published the report regarding Swiss and Vatican banks where the looted money
of the fascist victims was concealed. This report was dubbed "The
Eizenstat report" after the last name of then Deputy Secretary
of State Stuart Eizenstat who presented this report in public. The
publication of the report resulted in the class action suit filed
by the victims of Croatian Nazi, Organization of the Ukrainian
Anti-Fascist Resistance Fighters, Ukrainian Union of the Nazism Victims,
Jasenovac Research Institute, International Union of the Former Fascism
Prisoners of the Ukraine, Russia, Byelorussia, Republic Srpska Krajna and
the Union of Serbian Gypsies against the Bank of Vatican and
Franciscan order in the Federal Court of San-Francisco (you may get
acquainted with the material of the case here —
http://www.vaticanbankclaims.com/six.pdf).
One of the most important evidences in this case is the report
of the American counter-intelligence service special agent William
Gowen — dated by 1947 — where the above-mentioned circumstances
of concealing the "Ustaša gold" were described.
Using all sorts of the legal tricks, defendants’ lawyers are doing their
best to delay the hearing of the case in essence, cherishing the
hope that most part of the claimants are the people of a rather
advanced age and many of them have already passed away before the trial
really started. Vatican lawyers have already managed to exclude the claims
of the war crimes and violations of the human rights from the list
of charges. Though, the accusations of looting the Nazi victims’
property still remain. In the same time, documents provided by the
claimants prove that Vatican mediated the withdrawal of the significant
funds out of German Reichsbank into the Nazi-controlled Swiss banks. Their
goal was the creation of the "ratline" and funding of the
"ODESSA1" organization.
It’s hard to say, how many dark secrets the Vatican archives still
conceal. They would hardly ever make them public — at least,
as the American lawyers of Vatican have proclaimed, everything
connected with claim of the Nazi victims in the San-Francisco trial
has already been destroyed. Canonization of the "Hitler’s Pope" seems
to be the internal affair of the Church but we can’t dub
the proclamation of the Nazi henchman to be a saint person
in any other way rather than "blasphemy".
By Gregory Tinsky
1 ODESSA — (Organisation Der
Ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen) — Organization of the Former
SS members. It was created in the end of war due
to the initiative of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler in order
to save the most valuable SS functionaries from the winners’ revenge.
It is this very organization that is responsible for salvation
of such famous Nazi criminals as Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele, Erich
Preibke and Klaus Barbie. Activity of this organization is described
in the novels of Yulian Semyonov in details.
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