RSK
04-13-2005, 09:41 AM
Another Side of the Pope: John Paul II's Balkan Legacy
By Carl Savich
What will be Pope John Paul II's legacy? In the week between his death and
funeral, the media have lionized him with candy-coated encomiums as a
peace-loving pope who brought down Communism and ushered in the New World
Order. His place in history is assured as a determined anti-Communist who
revitalized the Roman Catholic Church. He will also be remembered as an
energetic evangelist for his faith, traveling to over 120 countries during
his reign.
Yet what kind of a role did the "peacemaker" Pope play in the recent Balkan
conflicts? And, despite his many journeys and outreach to leaders of other
faiths, why did John Paul II not seek to reconcile Orthodox Slavs and Roman
Catholic Slavs in the Balkans? In the end, did the Pope only exacerbate
religious tensions and animosity in the Balkans?
John Paul II: First to Recognize Croatia
In 1991, Pope John Paul II became the first to recognize Croatia as an
independent state. Committed at a time when tensions were high and dialogue
was called for, this act was needlessly reckless. It gave great prestige and
legitimacy to the cause of Catholic Croatia, which the Pope championed for
his own narrow religious goals. His recognition helped spark a tragic civil
war that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Serbs and Croats. The
premature and irresponsible recognition foreshadowed the carnage, killing,
displacement and suffering in the former Yugoslavia.
"I am not a pacifist," said John Paul II In 1991, in the context of the
first Gulf War. A few years later, bolstered by his 'just war' rhetoric, he
demanded of Bill Clinton and NATO to intervene in the Bosnian conflict, when
Roman Catholic Croatian troops were being militarily defeated by Bosnian
Muslim troops. Using the rationale that "'the aggressor must be disarmed,"
the Pope also incited the US to intervene militarily against the Bosnian
Serbs to prevent the military defeat of Roman Catholic Croats in Bosnia. Of
course, he has always veiled this intent behind the theology of the "duty"
of the international community to intervene in cases of perceived genocide.
However, at the same time that he sought to protect the rights of Catholic
Croats, Pope John Paul II was indifferent to the plight of the Serbian
Orthodox population of Krajina. All he wanted was to recognize Croatia, a
Roman Catholic state that worshipped the Vatican. He abjured negotiation,
compromise, reconciliation. He was silent when Roman Catholic Croat troops,
with NATO and US help, ethnically cleansed over 350,000 Krajina Serbs in
1995. This was the largest single act of ethnic cleansing during the Balkan
conflict. The peace-loving Pope showed that he was a hypocrite.
Croatia was an obsession with Pope John Paul II. It was his
Poland-next-door. He was determined to destroy the Yugoslav federation and
socialism, as he had the Soviet Union. John Paul visited Croatia on three
occasions: September 10-11, 1994; October 2-4, 1998; and, his 100th foreign
visit, June 5-9, 2003. But on this last visit, a Bosnian Muslim sent him an
e-mail threatening to kill him "in the name of Allah."
The Pope: a Supporter of Holocaust-Denier Franjo Tudjman
The Pope's behavior toward the Balkans becomes especially controversial in
light of his treatment of morally corrupt leaders. He never criticized or
condemned Croatian leader Franjo Tudjman, a known Holocaust denier and rabid
anti-Semite.. It was Tudjman who had denied that 6 million Jews were killed
in the Holocaust, maintaining instead that only 900,000 Jews were murdered.
He also called Israelis "Judeo-Nazis" who were carrying out genocide against
Palestinian Muslims. Tudjman also denied the World War II Croatian Ustasha
genocide at Jasenovac, which he dismissed contemptuously as the "Jasenovac
myth."
Tudjman was a known racist who had plans to annex Bosnia-Hercegovina into a
Greater Croatia. Yet John Paul II was silent about Tudjman. He visited
Croatia in 1994 during the civil war, thereby giving moral support to the
Tudjman regime in its efforts to ethnically cleanse the Krajina Serbs. The
Pope had no sympathy for their rights or aspirations. All he ever cared
about was the expansion of Roman Catholicism.
A Pope Who Beatified Backers of the Ustasha's Genocidal Regime
On his second official papal visit to Croatia, Pope John Paul II made the
shocking decision to beatify Croatian Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac, a man
who had supported the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Serbs,
Jews, and Roma. In Roman Catholicism, beatification is the step prior to
sainthood. The beatification occurred at a huge open-air ceremony at the
shrine of Marija Bistrica on October 3, 1998. This was meant as a slap in
the face to all Orthodox Serbs. It would be like the Nobel Peace Committee
awarding Adolf Eichmann a posthumous Nobel Prize for Peace. The action
demonstrated his total and profound contempt for the Serbian people, for the
Orthodox religion, and for the legacy of 60,000 Jews killed in Ustasha death
camps.
Pope John Paul II prays next to body of convicted war criminal Stepinac in
Zagreb, 1998 (CNN photo; fair use)
http://www.balkanalysis.com/photos/CNNPopeandStepinac.jpg
The body of Stepinac is preserved and embalmed in a glass case in Zagreb. In
beatifying Stepinac, the Pope ignored a request from the Simon Wiesenthal
Center to await the results of an investigation into his role in genocide
and the Holocaust during World War II, angering Jewish organizations in the
process. But that didn't deter the man who mass-produced more saints than
any other pope in history, by lowering the requisite standards. All that
mattered to the Pope was that Stepinac was anti-Communist. That Stepinac was
also pro-fascist, pro-Ustasha, and pro-Nazi did not seem to bother the Pope
at all; he was to be revered as a "martyr" in the conflict against
Communism.
Who was Alojze Stepinac? Stepinac was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Zagreb during World War II. He welcomed the Nazi occupation and
dismemberment of Yugoslavia in April, 1941, and supported the Ustasha regime
of Ante Pavelic. The core around which the Ustasha movement was based was
Roman Catholicism, and it was accordingly backed by Pope Pius XII, otherwise
known as "Hitler's Pope." No matter about that - the BBC reported that, as
with Stepinac, Pope John Paul II decided to put Pius XII "on the road to
sainthood," despite an outcry from Jewish groups.
The regime embarked on a campaign of genocide which resulted in the mass
murder of hundreds of thousands of Croatian and Bosnian Serbs, along with
Jews and Roma. Many of the massacres were organized and conducted by
Croatian Roman Catholic priests. The largest concentration camp in the
Balkans, Jasenovac, was commanded by a defrocked Roman Catholic priest,
Miroslav Filipovic. How could a Roman Catholic priest engage in the torture
and mass murder of Christians? This is what is so troubling about the Roman
Catholic Ustasha movement and the genocide it committed during the
Holocaust. It is so troubling that Pope John Paul II censored and covered-up
this genocide. He never even acknowledged or admitted it to himself. The
Ustasha genocide was suppressed from his memory.
The Roman Catholic Ustasha genocide against Orthodox Serbs shocked,
disgusted, and appalled even their Nazi minders themselves. Here is what
Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the SD and Heinrich Himmler's
second-in-command in the SS, the person who organized the Wannsee Conference
where the Final Solution was organized, said about the Ustasha. In a
February 17, 1942 letter to Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler, Heydrich
wrote:
.The number of Slavs massacred by the Croats with the most sadistic of
methods must be estimated at a count of 300,000.From this it is clear that
the Croat-Serbian state of tension is not least of all a struggle of the
Catholic Church against the Orthodox Church.
Stepinac himself revealed his contempt for Orthodoxy, and saw the Ustasha
genocide as the "working of the divine hand."
The Ustasha Roman Catholic priests were also determined to exterminate the
Jewish population of the Balkans. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sarajevo,
Ivan Saric, wrote an "Ode to Pavelic" in which he endorsed the genocide
against Serbs and Jews:
.Against the Jews with all their money,
Who wanted to sell our souls,
Betray our names
These miserable ones.
You are the rock on which rests
Homeland and freedom in one
Protect our lives from hell,
From Marxism and Bolshevism.
On May 25, 1941, Roman Catholic priest Franjo Kralik wrote that the Final
Solution against Croat Jews and Bosnian Jews was justified as an act of God:
.The movement for freeing the world from the Jews is a movement for the
renaissance of human dignity. The Almighty and All-wise God is behind this
movement.
A Roman Catholic priest from Udbina, Mate Mogus, even advocated genocide
against Orthodox Serbs, Jews, and Roma:
.Until now we have worked for the Catholic faith with the prayer book and
with the cross. Now the time has come to work with rifle and revolver.
It is hard to comprehend how such a brand of Roman Catholicism can be said
to be following the teachings of Jesus Christ. And this explains why it has
been so meticulously censored, suppressed, and covered-up in the so-called
West. And this is why Pope John Paul II never apologized for the genocide
committed against Orthodox Serbs, Jews, and Roma. Pope John Paul remained in
denial and suppressed this well-documented genocide until the end.
Eleanor Roosevelt called the Ustasha genocide one of the worst crimes of
World War II. Yet it is one of the greatest cover-ups of the 20th century.
Mainstream historians in the West have always covered it up and suppressed
it, and thus it remains one of the major falsifications of the history of
the Balkans. And Pope John Paul II, though himself a Slav, did nothing to
expose this massive cover-up.
Vatican and ultra-nationalist, neo-Ustasha Croatian propaganda portrays
Stepinac as a "martyr" to Communism and as an innocent who protected Jews
and Serbs. The Pope echoed this neo-Ustasha propaganda about Stepinac.
According to the neo-Ustasha falsification of history, Stepinac was a good
man, a rescuer of Serbs and Jews who should be deemed a Righteous Gentile
according to the Yad Vashem.
This is a falsification of the facts. Stepinac not only supported Pavelic
and the Ustasha Movement, but also Adolf Hitler and Nazism. In a January 1,
1942 quote in the Croatian Sentinel, Pavelic said: "Hitler is an envoy of
God." Stepinac was the first to welcome Ante Pavelic, the Ustasha, and the
Nazis. He was the Supreme Vicar of the Ustasha Armed Forces. He was a part
of the Ustasha Parliament in Zagreb. He was photographed with high ranking
Vatican officials, Nazi and Ustasha military officers, and even shaking
hands with Ante Pavelic, who he admired as a true Roman Catholic believer.
One person's saint is another person's war criminal. Nothing illustrates
this better than the Stepinac case.
After World War II, Stepinac was arrested by the Communist regime and tried
and convicted for his complicity in war crimes and mass murder. Of course,
this trial is dismissed by neo-Ustasha propaganda and the official history
as a Communist show trial meant to discredit Roman Catholicism. Stepinac
served 5 years in prison as a convicted war criminal for complicity in
genocide. He died in 1960 under house arrest.
Stepinac's Yugoslav War Crimes Trial
The theory of command responsibility cited today by the Hague and
international war crimes law experts was employed in the postwar trial of
Archbishop Stepinac. He was found guilty according to this theory. A 1947
publication, The Trial of Stepinac, relates the findings of the Yugoslav War
Crimes Commission. Here is what it says in this official Yugoslav Government
report of the trial published in Washington, DC:
.Investigation by the Yugoslav War Crimes Commission established that
Archbishop Stepinac had played a leading part in the conspiracy that lead to
the conquest and breakup of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It was furthermore
established that Archbishop Stepinac played a role in governing the Nazi
puppet Croatian state, that many members of his clergy participated actively
in atrocities and mass murders, and, finally, that they collaborated with
the enemy down to the last day of the Nazi rule, and continued after the
liberation to conspire against the newly created Federal Peoples Republic of
Yugoslavia.
Here is the evidence they presented.
Before World War II, Roman Catholic societies were set up, such as the
Crusaders or Krizari, organizations that fomented the fascist/Nazi ideology.
Stepinac appointed its leaders. The Vatican acted as a liaison between Ante
Pavelic and Croatian leaders before World War II. It was the Vatican that
was giving refuge to Pavelic and preparing his possible takeover in Croatia.
Stepinac obviously knew about all of this.
Roman Catholic priests became administrators in the Ustasha state. Stepinac
was the Supreme Vicar of the Ustasha Army. Stepinac was also a member of the
Ustasha Parliament or Sabor along with many other prominent Croat Roman
Catholics. This made him a part of the Ustasha government or political
leadership, and under command responsibility he can be held accountable for
crimes committed by those under his authority.
Stepinac endorsed the Ustasha state. He called on its military leader,
Slavko Kvaternik, and congratulated him on April 28, 1941, in a pastoral
letter that asked the clergy ".to respond without hesitation to his call
that they take part in the exalted work of defending and improving the
Independent State of Croatia."
As we have seen, prominent Roman Catholic priests in Croatia praised and
supported the Ustasha, fascism, and Nazism. Official Roman Catholic
publications were guilty of incitement to genocide. Stepinac was the top of
this hierarchical ladder under command responsibility.
The Croat priests wanted to create a "clerical-fascist" state like the one
established by Roman Catholic priest Josip Tiso in Slovakia, a Nazi puppet
state run by a Roman Catholic priest and church. The Franciscans were
militant sponsors of the Ustasha state. Roman Catholic priests under the
Ustasha regime endorsed the Final Solution of Croat Jews. In Catholic media,
they rationalized the Nazi position on Jews and approved of the Final
Solution. Moreover, many Catholic priests took an active part in the mass
murders of Serbs and Jews. They also incited Croat laymen to commit
genocide. In his sermons, Priest Srecko Peric in Livno actually entreated
his parishioners to "kill and massacre all Serbs."
Stepinac took no action against these priests.
Further, on November 17, 1941, Archbishop Stepinac convened a Bishop's
Conference in Zagreb, ".at which the forcible conversion of Serbs was given
canonical sanction." Over 250,000 Orthodox Serbs in Croatia were in fact
forcefully converted - something which for his supporters indicates the good
archbishop's benevolence!
Stepinac was also Supreme Vicar of the Ustasha Army, and was made so by
order of the Vatican. In other words, not only was he part of the clerical
and political leadership of the Ustasha regime, he was also a member of the
military. Each Ustasha military unit had a Roman Catholic priest accompany
it.
A huge number of Orthodox Serbs (estimates range from several hundred
thousand to 750,000) and about 60,000 Jews were murdered under the Ustasha
regime. Stepinac knew this crime was going on and actually sanctioned it,
being one of the top leaders of the regime.
When Stepinac concluded that Hitler would lose the war, he began to take
steps to make it appear as if he was against Pavelic and the Ustasha. But
this was a joke. He continued to help Pavelic until the last days of the
war.
Archbishop Stepanec greets Ustasha leader Ante Pavelic ,
http://www.balkanalysis.com/photos/StepinacandPavelic.jpg
The Vatican Expedites Nazi Escape
Following World War II, the Vatican helped many of the Croatian Ustasha war
criminals to escape through underground routes and channels. Croatian Roman
Catholic priest Krunoslav Draganovic organized the "ratline" that allowed
Ustasha political leaders such as such as Ante Pavelic and Anrija Artukovic
to flee. The Pope has never acknowledged the role the Vatican played in
allowing these Nazi collaborators to escape from the Balkans to Argentina
and other countries in South America, despite the fact that the Vatican was
later sued for laundering hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gold and
other items which the Ustasha regime had seized from murdered Orthodox
Serbs, Jews, and Roma during World War II. The money was kept in the Swiss
National Bank. The Vatican allegedly used the Ustasha gold to finance and
organize the rat lines that allowed top Ustasha leaders to escape. But the
Pope never apologized for the role that Roman Catholic priests such as
Alojize Stepinac and the Croatian Roman Catholic Church in general played in
the Ustasha genocide committed in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina during
World War II.
By beatifying a convicted war criminal, Pope John Paul II showed his utter
contempt for the Serbian people. He exacerbated the animosity and conflict
between Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians. He did not want
reconciliation, but conquest. Pope John Paul did nothing to reconcile the
Catholic and Orthodox communities in the Balkans. Indeed, he has made
matters much worse. His legacy will be one of failure and deliberately
missed opportunities.
The Pope's Silence on Continuing Genocide Against Christians in Kosovo
Pope John Paul II remained silent about the continuing and ongoing genocide
against Orthodox Serbian civilians in Kosovo-Metohija and in Krajina.
Artemije, the Serbian Orthodox bishop of Raska and Prizren, lamented ".the
inexplicable silence of Christian and democratic Europe in the face of such
grave crimes committed against a Christian and European people." In a
December 16, 2003 L'Espresso article in Italy, Artemije accused the Vatican
of having been "amply implicated in the events" in Kosovo. Unlike in the
later case of Iraq, the Pope did not condemn the illegal and criminal NATO
bombing and occupation of Yugoslavia and Kosovo-Metohija in 1999. After a
meeting with Yugoslav Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic, he reportedly told
Draskovic that all the destroyed church buildings and houses belonging to
Serbs in Kosovo must be rebuilt. But that was about the extent of his
concern or interest in Kosovo. He also promised Draskovic that he would read
the book on the destruction of Orthodox churches in Kosovo, Crucified
Kosovo.
Despite speaking loudly and clearly in support of Christians the world over,
Pope John Paul II stood silently by while over 150 Serbian Orthodox Churches
and cathedrals were looted, burned, demolished, desecrated, and destroyed by
Albanian Muslims in ethnic attacks meant to eradicate the centuries-old
presence of Serbian Christianity in Kosovo-Metohija. His silence was
glaring. Where was the condemnation of the March 2004 "pogrom" or
"Kristallnacht" in Kosovo, where over 35 Serbian Orthodox churches were
destroyed and demolished and Serbian Christians were brutally murdered?
Conclusion
Pope John Paul II will be remembered as the Pope who helped spark the
carnage and killing and displacement of the Balkan conflicts. By recognizing
Croatia, he started the ball rolling that resulted in the deaths of
thousands of innocent people. It was his act of recklessly and arrogantly
recognizing Croatia that was partly to blame for the violent break-up of
Yugoslavia. He could have chosen the path of negotiation, rapprochement and
reconciliation that many world leaders were counseling at the time. Instead,
he chose confrontation and conflict. He chose something that he must have
known would lead to war.
Diplomatic recognition is a matter appropriate to the political. The Pope
should have focused on religion, not politics. Like Alojze Stepinac before
him, he chose politics and Croatian nationalism over religion. He
contributed greatly to the wars that destroyed and dismembered Yugoslavia in
the 1990s.
In the West, of course, the Pope will be remembered as the man who brought
down Communism, while traveling relentlessly and providing interfaith
outreach on a scale not seen by any previous pope. But his legacy will be
remembered differently in the Balkans. He failed to acknowledge the Roman
Catholic role in the Ustasha genocide of World War II. He failed to take a
stand on the continuing and ongoing genocide of Orthodox Christians in
Kosovo-Metohija. He had an opportunity to use his enormous stature and
respect in the eyes of the world to make a difference for peace, but he
chose not to do so. In the end, he only exacerbated the historic conflict
between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. He made matters worse. In the Balkans at
least, his legacy will be one of failure.
Partial Bibliography
Braham, Randolph. The Vatican and the Holocaust. NY: Columbia University
Press, 2000.
Cornwell, John. Hitler's Pope. NY: Viking Penguin, 1999.
Dedijer, Vladimir. The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican. NY: Prometheus,
1988.
Manhattan, Avro. The Vatican's Holocaust. Springfield, MO: Ozark Books,
1986.
Ibid, Vatican Imperialism in the Twentieth Century. Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan, 1965.
Paris, Edmond. Genocide in Satellite Croatia. Chicago: American Institute,
1961.
Yugoslav Embassy. The Case of Archbishop Stepinac. Washington, DC: Yugoslav
Embassy, 1947.
http://www.balkanalysis.com/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=523
By Carl Savich
What will be Pope John Paul II's legacy? In the week between his death and
funeral, the media have lionized him with candy-coated encomiums as a
peace-loving pope who brought down Communism and ushered in the New World
Order. His place in history is assured as a determined anti-Communist who
revitalized the Roman Catholic Church. He will also be remembered as an
energetic evangelist for his faith, traveling to over 120 countries during
his reign.
Yet what kind of a role did the "peacemaker" Pope play in the recent Balkan
conflicts? And, despite his many journeys and outreach to leaders of other
faiths, why did John Paul II not seek to reconcile Orthodox Slavs and Roman
Catholic Slavs in the Balkans? In the end, did the Pope only exacerbate
religious tensions and animosity in the Balkans?
John Paul II: First to Recognize Croatia
In 1991, Pope John Paul II became the first to recognize Croatia as an
independent state. Committed at a time when tensions were high and dialogue
was called for, this act was needlessly reckless. It gave great prestige and
legitimacy to the cause of Catholic Croatia, which the Pope championed for
his own narrow religious goals. His recognition helped spark a tragic civil
war that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Serbs and Croats. The
premature and irresponsible recognition foreshadowed the carnage, killing,
displacement and suffering in the former Yugoslavia.
"I am not a pacifist," said John Paul II In 1991, in the context of the
first Gulf War. A few years later, bolstered by his 'just war' rhetoric, he
demanded of Bill Clinton and NATO to intervene in the Bosnian conflict, when
Roman Catholic Croatian troops were being militarily defeated by Bosnian
Muslim troops. Using the rationale that "'the aggressor must be disarmed,"
the Pope also incited the US to intervene militarily against the Bosnian
Serbs to prevent the military defeat of Roman Catholic Croats in Bosnia. Of
course, he has always veiled this intent behind the theology of the "duty"
of the international community to intervene in cases of perceived genocide.
However, at the same time that he sought to protect the rights of Catholic
Croats, Pope John Paul II was indifferent to the plight of the Serbian
Orthodox population of Krajina. All he wanted was to recognize Croatia, a
Roman Catholic state that worshipped the Vatican. He abjured negotiation,
compromise, reconciliation. He was silent when Roman Catholic Croat troops,
with NATO and US help, ethnically cleansed over 350,000 Krajina Serbs in
1995. This was the largest single act of ethnic cleansing during the Balkan
conflict. The peace-loving Pope showed that he was a hypocrite.
Croatia was an obsession with Pope John Paul II. It was his
Poland-next-door. He was determined to destroy the Yugoslav federation and
socialism, as he had the Soviet Union. John Paul visited Croatia on three
occasions: September 10-11, 1994; October 2-4, 1998; and, his 100th foreign
visit, June 5-9, 2003. But on this last visit, a Bosnian Muslim sent him an
e-mail threatening to kill him "in the name of Allah."
The Pope: a Supporter of Holocaust-Denier Franjo Tudjman
The Pope's behavior toward the Balkans becomes especially controversial in
light of his treatment of morally corrupt leaders. He never criticized or
condemned Croatian leader Franjo Tudjman, a known Holocaust denier and rabid
anti-Semite.. It was Tudjman who had denied that 6 million Jews were killed
in the Holocaust, maintaining instead that only 900,000 Jews were murdered.
He also called Israelis "Judeo-Nazis" who were carrying out genocide against
Palestinian Muslims. Tudjman also denied the World War II Croatian Ustasha
genocide at Jasenovac, which he dismissed contemptuously as the "Jasenovac
myth."
Tudjman was a known racist who had plans to annex Bosnia-Hercegovina into a
Greater Croatia. Yet John Paul II was silent about Tudjman. He visited
Croatia in 1994 during the civil war, thereby giving moral support to the
Tudjman regime in its efforts to ethnically cleanse the Krajina Serbs. The
Pope had no sympathy for their rights or aspirations. All he ever cared
about was the expansion of Roman Catholicism.
A Pope Who Beatified Backers of the Ustasha's Genocidal Regime
On his second official papal visit to Croatia, Pope John Paul II made the
shocking decision to beatify Croatian Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac, a man
who had supported the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Serbs,
Jews, and Roma. In Roman Catholicism, beatification is the step prior to
sainthood. The beatification occurred at a huge open-air ceremony at the
shrine of Marija Bistrica on October 3, 1998. This was meant as a slap in
the face to all Orthodox Serbs. It would be like the Nobel Peace Committee
awarding Adolf Eichmann a posthumous Nobel Prize for Peace. The action
demonstrated his total and profound contempt for the Serbian people, for the
Orthodox religion, and for the legacy of 60,000 Jews killed in Ustasha death
camps.
Pope John Paul II prays next to body of convicted war criminal Stepinac in
Zagreb, 1998 (CNN photo; fair use)
http://www.balkanalysis.com/photos/CNNPopeandStepinac.jpg
The body of Stepinac is preserved and embalmed in a glass case in Zagreb. In
beatifying Stepinac, the Pope ignored a request from the Simon Wiesenthal
Center to await the results of an investigation into his role in genocide
and the Holocaust during World War II, angering Jewish organizations in the
process. But that didn't deter the man who mass-produced more saints than
any other pope in history, by lowering the requisite standards. All that
mattered to the Pope was that Stepinac was anti-Communist. That Stepinac was
also pro-fascist, pro-Ustasha, and pro-Nazi did not seem to bother the Pope
at all; he was to be revered as a "martyr" in the conflict against
Communism.
Who was Alojze Stepinac? Stepinac was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Zagreb during World War II. He welcomed the Nazi occupation and
dismemberment of Yugoslavia in April, 1941, and supported the Ustasha regime
of Ante Pavelic. The core around which the Ustasha movement was based was
Roman Catholicism, and it was accordingly backed by Pope Pius XII, otherwise
known as "Hitler's Pope." No matter about that - the BBC reported that, as
with Stepinac, Pope John Paul II decided to put Pius XII "on the road to
sainthood," despite an outcry from Jewish groups.
The regime embarked on a campaign of genocide which resulted in the mass
murder of hundreds of thousands of Croatian and Bosnian Serbs, along with
Jews and Roma. Many of the massacres were organized and conducted by
Croatian Roman Catholic priests. The largest concentration camp in the
Balkans, Jasenovac, was commanded by a defrocked Roman Catholic priest,
Miroslav Filipovic. How could a Roman Catholic priest engage in the torture
and mass murder of Christians? This is what is so troubling about the Roman
Catholic Ustasha movement and the genocide it committed during the
Holocaust. It is so troubling that Pope John Paul II censored and covered-up
this genocide. He never even acknowledged or admitted it to himself. The
Ustasha genocide was suppressed from his memory.
The Roman Catholic Ustasha genocide against Orthodox Serbs shocked,
disgusted, and appalled even their Nazi minders themselves. Here is what
Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the SD and Heinrich Himmler's
second-in-command in the SS, the person who organized the Wannsee Conference
where the Final Solution was organized, said about the Ustasha. In a
February 17, 1942 letter to Reichsfuehrer SS Heinrich Himmler, Heydrich
wrote:
.The number of Slavs massacred by the Croats with the most sadistic of
methods must be estimated at a count of 300,000.From this it is clear that
the Croat-Serbian state of tension is not least of all a struggle of the
Catholic Church against the Orthodox Church.
Stepinac himself revealed his contempt for Orthodoxy, and saw the Ustasha
genocide as the "working of the divine hand."
The Ustasha Roman Catholic priests were also determined to exterminate the
Jewish population of the Balkans. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sarajevo,
Ivan Saric, wrote an "Ode to Pavelic" in which he endorsed the genocide
against Serbs and Jews:
.Against the Jews with all their money,
Who wanted to sell our souls,
Betray our names
These miserable ones.
You are the rock on which rests
Homeland and freedom in one
Protect our lives from hell,
From Marxism and Bolshevism.
On May 25, 1941, Roman Catholic priest Franjo Kralik wrote that the Final
Solution against Croat Jews and Bosnian Jews was justified as an act of God:
.The movement for freeing the world from the Jews is a movement for the
renaissance of human dignity. The Almighty and All-wise God is behind this
movement.
A Roman Catholic priest from Udbina, Mate Mogus, even advocated genocide
against Orthodox Serbs, Jews, and Roma:
.Until now we have worked for the Catholic faith with the prayer book and
with the cross. Now the time has come to work with rifle and revolver.
It is hard to comprehend how such a brand of Roman Catholicism can be said
to be following the teachings of Jesus Christ. And this explains why it has
been so meticulously censored, suppressed, and covered-up in the so-called
West. And this is why Pope John Paul II never apologized for the genocide
committed against Orthodox Serbs, Jews, and Roma. Pope John Paul remained in
denial and suppressed this well-documented genocide until the end.
Eleanor Roosevelt called the Ustasha genocide one of the worst crimes of
World War II. Yet it is one of the greatest cover-ups of the 20th century.
Mainstream historians in the West have always covered it up and suppressed
it, and thus it remains one of the major falsifications of the history of
the Balkans. And Pope John Paul II, though himself a Slav, did nothing to
expose this massive cover-up.
Vatican and ultra-nationalist, neo-Ustasha Croatian propaganda portrays
Stepinac as a "martyr" to Communism and as an innocent who protected Jews
and Serbs. The Pope echoed this neo-Ustasha propaganda about Stepinac.
According to the neo-Ustasha falsification of history, Stepinac was a good
man, a rescuer of Serbs and Jews who should be deemed a Righteous Gentile
according to the Yad Vashem.
This is a falsification of the facts. Stepinac not only supported Pavelic
and the Ustasha Movement, but also Adolf Hitler and Nazism. In a January 1,
1942 quote in the Croatian Sentinel, Pavelic said: "Hitler is an envoy of
God." Stepinac was the first to welcome Ante Pavelic, the Ustasha, and the
Nazis. He was the Supreme Vicar of the Ustasha Armed Forces. He was a part
of the Ustasha Parliament in Zagreb. He was photographed with high ranking
Vatican officials, Nazi and Ustasha military officers, and even shaking
hands with Ante Pavelic, who he admired as a true Roman Catholic believer.
One person's saint is another person's war criminal. Nothing illustrates
this better than the Stepinac case.
After World War II, Stepinac was arrested by the Communist regime and tried
and convicted for his complicity in war crimes and mass murder. Of course,
this trial is dismissed by neo-Ustasha propaganda and the official history
as a Communist show trial meant to discredit Roman Catholicism. Stepinac
served 5 years in prison as a convicted war criminal for complicity in
genocide. He died in 1960 under house arrest.
Stepinac's Yugoslav War Crimes Trial
The theory of command responsibility cited today by the Hague and
international war crimes law experts was employed in the postwar trial of
Archbishop Stepinac. He was found guilty according to this theory. A 1947
publication, The Trial of Stepinac, relates the findings of the Yugoslav War
Crimes Commission. Here is what it says in this official Yugoslav Government
report of the trial published in Washington, DC:
.Investigation by the Yugoslav War Crimes Commission established that
Archbishop Stepinac had played a leading part in the conspiracy that lead to
the conquest and breakup of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It was furthermore
established that Archbishop Stepinac played a role in governing the Nazi
puppet Croatian state, that many members of his clergy participated actively
in atrocities and mass murders, and, finally, that they collaborated with
the enemy down to the last day of the Nazi rule, and continued after the
liberation to conspire against the newly created Federal Peoples Republic of
Yugoslavia.
Here is the evidence they presented.
Before World War II, Roman Catholic societies were set up, such as the
Crusaders or Krizari, organizations that fomented the fascist/Nazi ideology.
Stepinac appointed its leaders. The Vatican acted as a liaison between Ante
Pavelic and Croatian leaders before World War II. It was the Vatican that
was giving refuge to Pavelic and preparing his possible takeover in Croatia.
Stepinac obviously knew about all of this.
Roman Catholic priests became administrators in the Ustasha state. Stepinac
was the Supreme Vicar of the Ustasha Army. Stepinac was also a member of the
Ustasha Parliament or Sabor along with many other prominent Croat Roman
Catholics. This made him a part of the Ustasha government or political
leadership, and under command responsibility he can be held accountable for
crimes committed by those under his authority.
Stepinac endorsed the Ustasha state. He called on its military leader,
Slavko Kvaternik, and congratulated him on April 28, 1941, in a pastoral
letter that asked the clergy ".to respond without hesitation to his call
that they take part in the exalted work of defending and improving the
Independent State of Croatia."
As we have seen, prominent Roman Catholic priests in Croatia praised and
supported the Ustasha, fascism, and Nazism. Official Roman Catholic
publications were guilty of incitement to genocide. Stepinac was the top of
this hierarchical ladder under command responsibility.
The Croat priests wanted to create a "clerical-fascist" state like the one
established by Roman Catholic priest Josip Tiso in Slovakia, a Nazi puppet
state run by a Roman Catholic priest and church. The Franciscans were
militant sponsors of the Ustasha state. Roman Catholic priests under the
Ustasha regime endorsed the Final Solution of Croat Jews. In Catholic media,
they rationalized the Nazi position on Jews and approved of the Final
Solution. Moreover, many Catholic priests took an active part in the mass
murders of Serbs and Jews. They also incited Croat laymen to commit
genocide. In his sermons, Priest Srecko Peric in Livno actually entreated
his parishioners to "kill and massacre all Serbs."
Stepinac took no action against these priests.
Further, on November 17, 1941, Archbishop Stepinac convened a Bishop's
Conference in Zagreb, ".at which the forcible conversion of Serbs was given
canonical sanction." Over 250,000 Orthodox Serbs in Croatia were in fact
forcefully converted - something which for his supporters indicates the good
archbishop's benevolence!
Stepinac was also Supreme Vicar of the Ustasha Army, and was made so by
order of the Vatican. In other words, not only was he part of the clerical
and political leadership of the Ustasha regime, he was also a member of the
military. Each Ustasha military unit had a Roman Catholic priest accompany
it.
A huge number of Orthodox Serbs (estimates range from several hundred
thousand to 750,000) and about 60,000 Jews were murdered under the Ustasha
regime. Stepinac knew this crime was going on and actually sanctioned it,
being one of the top leaders of the regime.
When Stepinac concluded that Hitler would lose the war, he began to take
steps to make it appear as if he was against Pavelic and the Ustasha. But
this was a joke. He continued to help Pavelic until the last days of the
war.
Archbishop Stepanec greets Ustasha leader Ante Pavelic ,
http://www.balkanalysis.com/photos/StepinacandPavelic.jpg
The Vatican Expedites Nazi Escape
Following World War II, the Vatican helped many of the Croatian Ustasha war
criminals to escape through underground routes and channels. Croatian Roman
Catholic priest Krunoslav Draganovic organized the "ratline" that allowed
Ustasha political leaders such as such as Ante Pavelic and Anrija Artukovic
to flee. The Pope has never acknowledged the role the Vatican played in
allowing these Nazi collaborators to escape from the Balkans to Argentina
and other countries in South America, despite the fact that the Vatican was
later sued for laundering hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gold and
other items which the Ustasha regime had seized from murdered Orthodox
Serbs, Jews, and Roma during World War II. The money was kept in the Swiss
National Bank. The Vatican allegedly used the Ustasha gold to finance and
organize the rat lines that allowed top Ustasha leaders to escape. But the
Pope never apologized for the role that Roman Catholic priests such as
Alojize Stepinac and the Croatian Roman Catholic Church in general played in
the Ustasha genocide committed in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina during
World War II.
By beatifying a convicted war criminal, Pope John Paul II showed his utter
contempt for the Serbian people. He exacerbated the animosity and conflict
between Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians. He did not want
reconciliation, but conquest. Pope John Paul did nothing to reconcile the
Catholic and Orthodox communities in the Balkans. Indeed, he has made
matters much worse. His legacy will be one of failure and deliberately
missed opportunities.
The Pope's Silence on Continuing Genocide Against Christians in Kosovo
Pope John Paul II remained silent about the continuing and ongoing genocide
against Orthodox Serbian civilians in Kosovo-Metohija and in Krajina.
Artemije, the Serbian Orthodox bishop of Raska and Prizren, lamented ".the
inexplicable silence of Christian and democratic Europe in the face of such
grave crimes committed against a Christian and European people." In a
December 16, 2003 L'Espresso article in Italy, Artemije accused the Vatican
of having been "amply implicated in the events" in Kosovo. Unlike in the
later case of Iraq, the Pope did not condemn the illegal and criminal NATO
bombing and occupation of Yugoslavia and Kosovo-Metohija in 1999. After a
meeting with Yugoslav Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic, he reportedly told
Draskovic that all the destroyed church buildings and houses belonging to
Serbs in Kosovo must be rebuilt. But that was about the extent of his
concern or interest in Kosovo. He also promised Draskovic that he would read
the book on the destruction of Orthodox churches in Kosovo, Crucified
Kosovo.
Despite speaking loudly and clearly in support of Christians the world over,
Pope John Paul II stood silently by while over 150 Serbian Orthodox Churches
and cathedrals were looted, burned, demolished, desecrated, and destroyed by
Albanian Muslims in ethnic attacks meant to eradicate the centuries-old
presence of Serbian Christianity in Kosovo-Metohija. His silence was
glaring. Where was the condemnation of the March 2004 "pogrom" or
"Kristallnacht" in Kosovo, where over 35 Serbian Orthodox churches were
destroyed and demolished and Serbian Christians were brutally murdered?
Conclusion
Pope John Paul II will be remembered as the Pope who helped spark the
carnage and killing and displacement of the Balkan conflicts. By recognizing
Croatia, he started the ball rolling that resulted in the deaths of
thousands of innocent people. It was his act of recklessly and arrogantly
recognizing Croatia that was partly to blame for the violent break-up of
Yugoslavia. He could have chosen the path of negotiation, rapprochement and
reconciliation that many world leaders were counseling at the time. Instead,
he chose confrontation and conflict. He chose something that he must have
known would lead to war.
Diplomatic recognition is a matter appropriate to the political. The Pope
should have focused on religion, not politics. Like Alojze Stepinac before
him, he chose politics and Croatian nationalism over religion. He
contributed greatly to the wars that destroyed and dismembered Yugoslavia in
the 1990s.
In the West, of course, the Pope will be remembered as the man who brought
down Communism, while traveling relentlessly and providing interfaith
outreach on a scale not seen by any previous pope. But his legacy will be
remembered differently in the Balkans. He failed to acknowledge the Roman
Catholic role in the Ustasha genocide of World War II. He failed to take a
stand on the continuing and ongoing genocide of Orthodox Christians in
Kosovo-Metohija. He had an opportunity to use his enormous stature and
respect in the eyes of the world to make a difference for peace, but he
chose not to do so. In the end, he only exacerbated the historic conflict
between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. He made matters worse. In the Balkans at
least, his legacy will be one of failure.
Partial Bibliography
Braham, Randolph. The Vatican and the Holocaust. NY: Columbia University
Press, 2000.
Cornwell, John. Hitler's Pope. NY: Viking Penguin, 1999.
Dedijer, Vladimir. The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican. NY: Prometheus,
1988.
Manhattan, Avro. The Vatican's Holocaust. Springfield, MO: Ozark Books,
1986.
Ibid, Vatican Imperialism in the Twentieth Century. Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan, 1965.
Paris, Edmond. Genocide in Satellite Croatia. Chicago: American Institute,
1961.
Yugoslav Embassy. The Case of Archbishop Stepinac. Washington, DC: Yugoslav
Embassy, 1947.
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