"a few renegade priests" -- 500,000 Orthodox Serbs???? and all of this going on only a few miles from the Vatican and the Vicar of Christ know nothing about it???? LOLOL
I suggest you go broad brush up on the Croatian Catholic Ustashi, then that mass murdering frequent visitor to the Vatican named Anton Pavelich, then his immediate superior and collaborator Archbishop Alois Stepinac convicted after the war and then rewarded with a Cardinal's hat, and finally all those other Croat Catholic prelates with blood on their hands who were whisked away down those infamous Vatican Ratlines after the war. You're right -- no Vatican connection here -- keep moving along.
You are even out of touch with your fellow Orthodox Serbs. They know the truth, so why don't you????
“You are even out of touch with your fellow Orthodox Serbs. They know the truth, so why don’t you????”
At first I was astonished that you would say that to a Serb...but then I remembered that you are an American Protestant, truly one of the elect, who know everyone’s history better than the people who lived it, what’s good for everyone better than they do and even why you’re right and they are wrong about the religion they preserved for 1500 years before anyone heard of Luther or Calvin.
I see you've read up on the Ustashe and the sad fact that some Catholic officials were implicated indirectly and directly in the Croatian death camps for the Serbs, Jews and Gypsies, where unspeakable atrocities have been committed.
You are also right that some Croatian Vatican officials provided a "ratline" that enabled many an Ustasha official to slip out of the post WWII communist Yugoslavia. In fact, Ante Pavelich ended up in Franco's Spain at first, a country that was openly pro fascist (with the hand salute and all) for many years after the end of WWII and was also on very good terms with the US.
But you are wrong that the Catholic Church (beginning with the Vatican and the Pope) endorsed, planned, executed, supported or condoned or knew in full what Croatia (NDH) did with the Serbs. It was not a Catholic operation, UC. To claim that is a gross mischaracterization of facts.
On a local level, some Catholic clergy crossed the line and engaged in actual killing, but most were simply obeying their bishops in forcibly converting the "heretic" (Orthodox) Serbs as per State of Croatia executive order signed by Ante Pavelich, and because the Vatican at that time still supported re-absorption (Uniatism) of Eastern Orthodox into the Roman fold.
Pavelich's state proposed the "final solution" for it Serbian population (at that time it was 25%; in 1990 it was 12.5; today is less than 4%— it's the largest ethnic cleaning in the Balkans, and no one in Washington talks how bad that is).
That final solution was named the Solution of Threes. One third of the Serbs was to be forcibly brought back into the Roman fold; onenthird was to be killed in several concentration camps, the largest being Jasenovac (Yasenovats), and one thrid was to be deported to Serbia proper. All tis was a croatian state doing. Whatever Catholic officials were involved it was not the policy of the Vatican State.
Needless to say, Cardinal Stepinac was condemned by a communist court. You recognize communist courts? I am not sure if he was implicated, if he knew and if he condoned. I can't judge that. It is certainly not a clear-cut case.
And no, the full extent of the atrocities committed by Croatian nationals and Bosnian Muslims was not known, just as the full extent of the Holocaust was not known until American Actually walked into those camps and saw the piles of bodies and the ovens.
As far as I know, there is no proof that the official Vatican was involved in any of that. If you can provide indisputable proof, then please do.
However, once the extent was known the US did not pressure Franco to spit our Pavelich to face a trial for crimes against humanity and America's Orthgodox allies. Pavelich died 14 years after the end of WWII and never faced a trial.