VATICAN ASKS COURT, U.S. GOVERNMENT TO DISMISS LAWSUIT
OVER NAZI GOLD
Church Evades Responsibility For Clerical Fascism
The Institute for Religious Works -- the cover name for the Vatican
bank -- has asked a U.S. District Court in San Francisco to dismiss a
lawsuit charging the Holy See with laundering gold expropriated from
Holocaust and other victims during W.W.II.
A class action filed in November, 1999 accuses the Vatican of
colluding with the Swiss National Bank and the Franciscan Order in
concealing hundreds of millions of dollars in gold and assets
stolen by the Croatian Nazi Ustashi (Ustasha) regime between
1941-1945. A San Francisco law firm headed by Jonathan Levy and
Thomas Dewey Easton represents 28 plaintiffs in ALPERIN v. VATICAN
BANK.
The suit deals with atrocities carried by the Nazi puppet government
of Ante (Anton) Pavelic, head of the "Catholic State of Croatia." The
Pavelic regime was typical of political movements which had sprung up
throughout Europe and supported "Clerical Fascism" -- an amalgam of
orthodox Catholic doctrine, Anti-Semitism and authoritarian politics.
These groups enjoyed the assistance of both the Fascist government in
Italy under Mussolini and Nazi Germany's "Ausland" department which
assisted like-minded movements outside of Hitler's state. In Croatia,
Pavelic's Roman Catholic terrorists received critical funding in 1939
from Mussolini, and with the help of Archbishop A. Stepanic helped
establish the Croat Separatist Movement and eventually seized power.
Under the Ustashi, a virtual reign of terror descended upon Jews,
Orthodox Serbs who refused to convert to Catholicism, and political
dissidents. Pavelic's government operated death camps, and extorted a
fortune in gold and other valuables, much from Jews who were shipped
to work and extermination camps in Germany. The Ustashi had the
support of the Catholic Church (Archbishop Stepanic was the group's
official "chaplain" and gave his blessing to the Pavelic regime), and
especially the Croatian Franciscans. The San Francisco lawsuit
charges that the Catholic order "engaged in far ranging crimes
including genocide, funding the reestablishment of the Croatian Nazi
movement in South America in the 1950s, and setting up a false Marian
religious shrine in Medjugorje, Bosnia in 1981 to bilk pilgrims of
funds." The money from this "miracles on demand" scam was then
"combined with the remnants of the Croatian Nazi Treasury to fund a
second round of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kreanjina in the
1990s."
The latest battle in the lawsuit comes after several interesting
developments...
* On October 11, 2000, Levy and Easton announced that the plaintiffs
were asking a Federal Magistrate to order the Institute for Religious
Works (the Vatican Bank) to divulge information about itself
"including its ownership." At issue was who actually owned the bank.
"There may be certain defenses available to the bank if it is owned by
the Vatican City state but if it owned by an individual or individuals
the situation is completely different."
* This past Friday, October 24, Reuters news service revealed that the
Vatican was asking that the suit against IOR and the Franciscan Order
be dismissed. The plaintiffs have been unable to successfully serve
legal notice on the Swiss National Bank. In a 41-page filing, Vatican
attorneys charged that the Holocaust-Ustashi victims "lack standing to
bring a general challenge to the wartime political decisions of a
foreign sovereign (state)."
Supporting the Vatican's filing is a "Verbal Note" from the Holy See's
Secretary of State posted at
http://www.vaticanbankclaims.com/vatsec.htm which acknowledges the San
Francisco case and a similar suit in Los Angeles, and cites diplomatic
immunity.
"Basing itself upon the diplomatic relations which exist between the
United States of America and the Holy See, as well as the recognition
which the Government of the United States has accorded to the
sovereignty of the Holy See and of Vatican City State, the Secretariat
of State requests the intervention of the Federal Government of the
United States of America..."
* The suit draws upon a treasure trove of historical documents,
including declassified CIA files, a 1998 U.S. Department of State
Report, and revelations made by researchers Mark Aarons and John
Loftus in their book "Unholy Trinity." These and other materials
describe the role of the Vatican and the Franciscan group in providing
passports via a "ratline" run by the Holy See for former fascist
officials, including Adolph Eichmann, Gestapo official Klaus Barbie,
and Ustashi dictator Pavelic. One 1946 U.S. Treasury document, for
instance, indicates that the Vatican served as a repository for more
than 200 million Swiss francs. Catholic officials linked to the
"ratline" operation include Bishop Alois Mudal and Giovanni Montini
(who became Pope Paul VI).
* The Los Angeles suit, NAUMOVIC v. SWISS NATIONAL BANK, has sought
restitution from Swiss banks on behalf of the survivors of over 12
million non-Jewish victims of the Nazis in Yugoslavia and Russia.
There is also LEVY v. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY which involves a
Freedom of Information request for files regarding the activities of
the Vatican spymaster, Fr. Krusnoslav Draganovic. Draganovic was
part of a cadre of high Catholic officials who were indicted for war
crimes, including Fr. Dragutin Kamber; Bishop Ivan Saric ("Hangman of
the Serbs"); Bishop Gregory Rozman; and Franciscan Fr. Miroslam
Filipovic-Majstorovic, a commandant of a Ustashi torture camp where
hundreds of thousands of victims (Jewish and non-Jewish) were
slaughtered with a degree of brutality that shocked even the Nazi SS.
Draganovic was a Franciscan and senior Ustashi official in charge of
the forced "conversion" of Serb Orthodox believers to Catholicism. In
1943, he gained an appointment in Vatican City where he operated an
Ustashi cell housed in a seminary of Croatian monks. He and another
priest identified as Golik helped operate the Vatican "ratline" to
obtain forged documents, including Red Cross passports, for a number
of Croatian fascists. Draganovic came to be known as "The Golden
Priest," since he ended up with at least some of the gold smuggled out
of Croatia when the Germans retreated. He was never charged for his
crimes, and returned to Yugoslavia where he died in 1983.
* The legacy of the "ratline" and other operations -- many of which
involved the Holy See -- shaped the postwar era. Some Vatican-held
gold made its way to Latin America where German and other Nazi
expatriates found a warm welcome, and established economic combines
and cultural/political groups. Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief of
Lyons, used his influence to work with Bolivia drug lord Robert Suarez
and pull off the notorious "Cocaine Coup" which placed the notorious
Hugo Banzer Suarez in power in Bolivia. Another fascist operative who
maintained close ties to the Vatican was the mysterious Liccio Gelli,
a former Italian Black Shirt who after the war worked closely with the
CIA in "Operation Gladio." Gelli was in charge of a renegade Masonic
Lodge, P-2 or Propaganda Due which in the late 1970s and early 80s was
linked to an attempted fascist coup in Italy. He was a close friend
of Argentine President Juan Peron, and backed the dictator's return to
power in 1973; he also was part of an arms-for-machinery deal
involving Libya, Italy and Argentina. Gelli was a central player in
the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano and the mysterious 1982 death of
banker Roberto Calvi; that story linked the Vatican Bank, then under
the control of American monsignor Paul Marcinkus.
Obfuscation, Denials From The Holy See
The bloody history of the Catholic State of Croatia is emerging as
part of a larger tapestry involving the role played by the Vatican in
World War II, particularly in respect to the Jews. Recent books have
explored the role played by Archbishop Pacelli, the papal nuncio in
Munich, Germany who later became Pope Pius XII. Not only was Pacelli
an anti-Semite, but he may well have found an accommodation with
Hitler preferable to the specter of what he described as "Bolshevik
atheism." Loftus and Aarons are among those who argue that Pacelli
encourage the Church to invest large amounts of cash in the Germany
economic recovery, and may have even personally handed Hitler a large
amount of "church money."
Other evidence points to an obscure group called the Intermarium, a
Catholic laity organization that labored to establish "clerical
fascist" regimes throughout Europe as a bulwark against the Soviets.
Fr. Draganovic was allegedly linked to this group.
The role played by Pius XII -- and the charge that he ignored the
plight of European Jews -- is still debated by historians. Recently
rediscovered cables from 1942, such as one sent from the U.S. Envoy
to the Holy See, Harold Tittmann to Washington, paint a mixed if not
disturbing picture. Tittmann suggests that Vatican leadership "did
not (repeat 'not') believe that the Allies were in a position to win
the war in Europe." This fueled Allied concerns that the Vatican
would push for a "compromise" settlement, and that "the pope's
peacemaking ambitions might be exploited for their own ends by the
Axis powers." Pius' obsessive fears with Communism may well have led
him into refusing to unequivocally condemn the slaughter of the Jews.
The Vatican has steadfastly denied involvement in any this, including
the acquisition of Ustashi gold and other pilfered assets. The
Vatican Bank was "initialized" in 1929 Lateran Treaty or Concordant
between the Holy See and the government of Benito Mussolini. This
agreement established the Vatican as an independent city-state,
declared Roman Catholicism as the "official" religion of the new
Fascist order, and compensated the papacy for the earlier confiscation
of papal lands. Along with an estimated $85 million contribution to
establish the bank, the Mussolini government declared church
properties outside of the Vatican City limits to be tax exempt; and
all Vatican Bank investments were tax free as well, a practice which
despite the efforts of subsequent Italian governments remains in force
to this day. By the 1970s, the known holdings of the Vatican bank,
and its investments in Italy, were of such enormous scale as to
dissuade any talk of taxation. When faced with such a prospect, Fr.
Marcinkus and other IOR officials merely threatened the possibility of
selling off Vatican assets in Italy and moving the money off shore.
Earlier this month, a number of financial and political institutions
including Italy's largest insurance firm, Assicurazioni Generali,
agreed to a final settlement with some surviving Holocaust victims and
their relatives. The $100 million compensation has drawn praise from
quarters; but the lack of participation and reparations from the
Vatican continues to attract criticism.
Another settlement, this one involving reparations for up to 12
million victims murdered by Nazis and their client regimes, including
the Catholic Croatian State, has been criticized as too little, too
late. Here, as well, the Vatican is not participating in the
compensation program.
Consecrating Clerical Thugs, Fascists
Perhaps most disturbing, though, are Vatican denials over the role
played by its stable of anti-Semitic popes and clerical officials, and
attempts to even glorify their lives. A decision to move forward on
the beatification of Pope Pius IX drew worldwide criticism this past
August. In a letter to Archbishop Jose Martins, the papal chairman of
the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, the International Jewish
Committee for Interreligious Consultations noted that Pius
"perpetuated centuries-old Church contempt and hatred of Jews,
referring to them as 'dogs' and declaring that 'of these dogs, there
are too many of them present in Rome.' " There was also the move by
Pope John Paul II during his October, 1998 visit to Croatia, to
announce the beatification of Cardinal Stepanic, elevating him to the
last step before a declaration of sainthood. CNN noted that the
announcement, made at a rally with 400,000 followers at Croatia's main
shrine to the Virgin Mary, saw the pontiff hail Stepanic "as a hero by
Catholics for his resistance to communism and his refusal to separate
the Croatian church from the Vatican."
Stepanic's fascist-era activities with the Ustashi has been
continually downplayed or ignored by the Holy See; instead, a process
of historical revision has been underway, complete with the
confabulation of a cultish tale about the Cardinal's cape, which
allegedly found its way to the Vatican after being smuggled out of
Yugoslavia in 1954 by an American Roman Catholic housewife. Stepanic
was also hailed as a "Martyr of Atheistic Communism,'" and in 1998,
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley declared May 8 as an official
"Cardinal Stepanic Day."
The San Francisco suit may unearth even more details about the
political and financial intrigues of the Vatican in connection with
World War II. It is quite possible, though, that diplomatic
"sovereign immunity" could serve as a legal shield in the Holy See's
continued efforts to conceal its historical involvement in the rise of
clerical fascism, the Holocaust and the atrocities of that period.
(
geocities.com/CapitolHill)