'Hitler's Pope' tried to help Jews, say documents

The Sunday Telegraph ^ | February 16, 2003 | Michael Burleigh

[MarMema]

I was acquainted with the details of the aid given by the Vatican via that monastery (Franciscan?) in the hills above Rome as a temporary refuge to fleeing SS war criminals with Jewish loot. They stayed hidden there until the Vatican could get them smuggled out of Europe to escape justice.

I am not sure if this is the same one?

"Siroki Brijeg, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Near the site of a World War II wartime massacre of Serb women and children by Croatian Nazis stands a Franciscan Monastery. It's just down the road from Medjugorje or "Miracle City" where the Virgin Mary is said to put in nightly appearances for the tens of thousands of Roman Catholic pilgrims who flock there each year. The Franciscan Monastery at Sirkoi Brijeg and its controversial contents are at the center of an international scandal involving the Franciscans, Croatian ultra nationalists and the Vatican Bank.

A lawsuit, Alperin v. Vatican Bank, filed in San Francisco Federal Court in November 1999 by Serb, Jewish, and Ukrainian Holocaust survivors against the Vatican Bank and Franciscans seeks return of Nazi loot stolen from wartime Yugoslavia. According to a 1998 US State Department report, the money known as the Ustasha Treasury, is thought to have been concealed in the Vatican and used in part to fund the escape of Nazi and Croatian war criminals to South America. The Franciscans acted as facilitators and middlemen in moving the contents of the Ustasha Treasury from Croatia to Austria, Italy and finally South America.

The Franciscans have denied their wartime ties to the Ustasha regime in Croatia, which slaughtered over 700,000 Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies and set the stage for today's ethnic battles in the Balkans. However, in Siroki Brijeg, plaintiffs' attorneys have obtained tangible proof of the Nazi Franciscan connection. Cameramen working for Phillip Kronzer, a staunch foe of Medjugorje and its Marian apparitions obtained entry to the Monastery and filmed a secret shrine honoring the Ustashe. A plaque dedicated to Franciscan monks who were Ustasha members was filmed along with a massive shrine lining the walls complete with photographs of Ustasha soldiers some in Nazi uniforms. The admonition, "Recognize us, We are yours" can clearly be discerned in the video footage. On a later visit to the monastery the shrine had been dismantled but the videotape preserved the evidence and has now been made available by the Kronzer Foundation."

Just as in World War II, Medjugorje in the 1990's was the site of brutal ethnic cleansing by Croat nationalists. Alperin plaintiffs have alleged that Medjugorje and its facilities are connected with the Ustasha Treasury and the monastery at Siroki Brijeg seems to provide hard evidence of the connection.

But dontcha love the story I put in bold? They have film for proof. LOL. From thelinkup, a site for survivors of sexual abuse by RC clergy.

[MarMema]

I guess it is only a matter of time before they beatify Pavelich.

On this site is a copy of a memo.

Reads "Pavelic's contacts are so high and his present position is so compromising that any extradition of subject would deal a staggering blow to the Roman Catholic Church."

There is no doubt in my mind that the vatican knew about Pavelic and approved. I guess they may as well go ahead and make him a saint.

[George W. Bush]

...when Pope John Paul II publicly condemns abortion as an abhorrent violation of human dignity, liberal Jewish Americans are among his most vocal critics...

That's because they're liberal, not because they're Jewish. The historical irony of their despicable views on the matter is of little interest.

The matter of the Roman church in profiting from abetting the escape of war criminals is not an abortion issue. And they still have that money.

[George W. Bush]

I guess they may as well go ahead and make him a saint.

The embarassment and controversy that is likely to arouse, both now and for decades to come may persuade Rome that the miraculous interventions of the blessed Pavelich are merely coincidences after all.

I suspect they will be wary of the potential for embarassment in this matter. Particularly if they are making a play to be a bigger power in Russia and central Europe.

[George W. Bush]

But dontcha love the story I put in bold? They have film for proof. LOL. From thelinkup, a site for survivors of sexual abuse by RC clergy.

You know, this would be a good topic to urge independent film producers to pursue. The only way we'll ever budge these profiteers from mass murder within the Roman church (which is not all of them either) is by exposing them over and over and then pursuing in the courts until they surrender their blood money and admit their guilt and furnish the evidence for us to pursue those who escaped with their help.

I think it would make a nice PBS documentary. Or maybe something for Sundance or other independent film channels. In many ways, the understanding of how the Roman church engaged in the routine transfer of pedophile priests and how they covered up the scandals was first brought before the American public as a result of an HBO movie, a real hit piece based on a real case. Can't recall the title just now, it starred one of the Carradine brothers as a father whose son was abused by repeat pedophile priest.

[Campion]

You know, this would be a good topic to urge independent film producers to pursue.

You bet. Why, what the world really needs right now is an indpendent film producer out to show what hypocrites and frauds certain Catholics, and by extension all Catholics, and by extension from that all Christians, really are. After all, they're the same people who want to deny womyn freedom of reproductive choice, so they really deserve whatever they get, right?

And why stick to the mere facts (I mean the ones you can actually substantiate)? Go for rumor, innuendo, and outright lies. Might as well cook up the good old "secret Papist conspiracy to take over the world" one, while you're at it. After all, consider the remarkable success of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", still working wonders for its fans after all these years.

[Conservative til I die]

I'm no church/Catholic basher,

Yes you are. I've seen your behavior on other threads.

[Campion]

However, as Papal Nuncio, Cardinal Pacelli failed to act agains the Nazis before they came to power.

That's something like complaining that a British Ambassador to Washington during the Reagan Administration didn't do enough to keep Bill Clinton from being elected President.

Pacelli (if my memory serves me) wasn't Papal Nuncio when Hitler became chancellor. What sort of influence he might have had, as the diplomatic representative of a foreign power, on domestic German politics before that is at best conjectural.

The historical record demonstrates very clearly that the Nazis knew who Pacelli was, knew what he stood for, and hated him for it.

And, BTW, the Church did "explicitly condemn the Holocaust". Many times, beginning with Mit Brennender Sorge in 1937, before the Holocaust even took place. When von Ribbentrop visited Rome after the Nazis invaded Poland, Pius XII simply sat down at his desk, opened a large book, and began reciting, in German, the catalog of German atrocities against Polish Catholics, Jews, and others.

[safisoft]

I had always suspected that the Pope's apologies for the many crimes of the Roman Catholic church against the Jews were specious and facile. I am now utterly convinced they were.

Apologies are easy for "descendants" - what matters is what this pope does. He has shown himself to be anti-Israel. Add him to the long list of "Balaams" in history.

[Conservative til I die]

Vatican papers offering the first direct evidence that Pope Pius XII tried to help Jews during the Second World War have been discovered by an Italian expert.

More likely, have just been forged...

Funny, they're supported by historical fact and the testimony of others.

When reading your post, all I could think was "Look Ma! No brains!"

[Conservative til I die]

Um, no these simple accusations of bigotry do not work.

But you've shown yourself to be an anti-Catholic bigot time and time again. Why complain when you're called on it?

I dislike *this* pope because I feel he has harmed the RC church

That's not why, considering you feel the Orthodox Church to be the One Holy and Apostolic Catholic Church, and not the RCC.

[Conservative til I die]

What does a person's country of origin have to do with anything? In Christianity it doesn't!!

Not if you're Orthodox. Ethnicity means everything (Hence, Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, etc.)

[Conservative til I die]

The notion that Jews themselves were responsible for the Holocaust is both sickening and satanic, but it's what we Jews have come to expect from members of a religion that ...

crap snipped

Enjoy being a victim much? Whine somewhere else.

[Campion]

For your consideration ... a authentic Nazi cartoon mocking Cardinal Pacelli, before his accession to the Papacy, as having a communist wife with stereotypically (for Nazi propaganda!) Jewish features. The caption reads, "Pretty she's not, but she cooks well." "Giftkuche" is literally a "poison cookie".

"Hitler's Pope"?

[safisoft]

No, our animosity lies elsewhere: in the almost 2,000 years of murderous and evil campaigns launched against the innocent Jewish people by a Catholic church steeped in bigotry, lies and anti-Semitism. A Church, if this thread is anything to go by hasn't changed one jot in the sixty years since she openly collaborated in the destruction of European Jewry.

Silly, silly. Why all these Catholics are FRIENDS of Jews. They believe the Inquisition was a myth. They believe Constatine was the last Catholic that did anything wrong toward they dear friends "the Jews".

1,900 years of Catholic "heroism" on behalf of Jews is something that they likely could have done without. That is not to say that there are always those who truly understood that their Messiah was a Jew (gasp!) and considered that any kindness shown toward a Jew (gasp!) would be considered a kindness toward their Messiah - there were always those... but they were not in large part "official" in their roles.

[Conservative til I die]

Go for rumor, innuendo, and outright lies.

Hey, that fits GWB (the poster, not the Prez) to a tee!

[Conservative til I die]

what matters is what this pope does. He has shown himself to be anti-Israel

How so? Or is this just a hit and run, as is par for the course.

[Campion]

He has shown himself to be anti-Israel.

In fact, he's so "anti-Israel" that he caved in on every one of the Vatican's previous conditions for diplomatic recognition of Israel, granted it anyway, and then went to Jerusalem to grovel. I wonder what it would take for him to be "pro-Israel," short of conversion to Judaism and moving to a West Bank settlement. Oh, that's right: nothing.

[Conservative til I die]

Enjoy being a victim much? Exchange "blacks" for "Jews" and you're no different than Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackoff.

[Campion]

Why all these Catholics are FRIENDS of Jews.

And all these Jews would never DREAM that they're doing to Catholics exactly what anti-Semite propagandists did to their ancestors: lay the groundwork for persecution, disenfranchisement, and ultimately mass murder.

Yeah, buddy, it goes both ways. Probably 3 million Catholics died in the Nazi Holocaust, and another 15-20 million died behind the Iron curtain. Just keep laying the groundwork for bringing that glorious chapter of history to these shores. Just keep it up.