Posted on 01/16/2006 8:11:38 AM PST by DTA
Still donating to PTL?
Yes, but he is not relevant to this episode. Scatollini was exposed in February 1945 by making stupid mistake. After that, there was a plan to turn him into double agent but when FDR died, the plan fell through. It was in April 1945. Ustashas were still in Croatia, fighting until May 1945. VESSEL operation was finally dumped in August of 1945.
This article deals with Pavelic and other war criminals who were in Vatican until 1948. Bulk of Army intellingence files are from 1946, 1947 and 1948.
Scattollini is not a source of any documents regarding Ustashas and the role of Vatican in sheltering them and spiriting them to South America.
Did you know that American Jews sent their money to the Vatican to help their fellow Jews? I guess they were implicit in it too.
The funds sent voluntarily by Jewish Americans during the war have nothing to do with this lawsuit, i.e. looted Ustasha treasury that ended in Vatican.
The value of Ustasha loot was at least $80M in 1945 dollars (around $1B today, not including the interest). See for more deatails here: www.usembassy-israel.org.il/publish/report2/rpt_9806_ng_ustasha.pdf
I fully agree with your opinion. Anyone who writes such a scandalous claim against Pope Pius XII (which has been many times rebuked with valid testimony), is not to be respected as an unbiased writer. Whether there is any truth about this new information is totally undermined by the false accusation against PP XII.
It is also true that Tito rebelled against the Nazis (perfectly respectable without more) as a Red Partisan (whoopsie! There's the more!), united Yugoslavia by gun and knout. Respectable people would have rebelled against nazis and communists simultaneously as possible. As a communist, Tito was unable to simultaneously be a Roman Catholic, whatever the details of his baptism. Had Tito been killed in WWI, the world would have been better for it. Ditto Hitler. Ditto Stalin. Ditto Mao.
Well, I despise Tito for being a communist but not for belonging to the wrong squabbling tribe of Yugoslavians. Like most stable human beings, I do not particularly care about your tribal warfares. Bosnians? Serbians? Croatians? Herzogovinians? Montenegrans? Who cares about them or their squabbles OTHER than them? Being a communist is/was even worse than most of what Yugosquabblers have been. As a Catholic, my default position favors Croatia. Croatia is/was not perfect but it seems likely to have been better than the alternatives. As an English/Irish/German/Scottish/Scots-Irish Catholic, my default position on Ireland vs. England is Irish but I don't need to or try to enlist you in the argument which probably is not your own.
George Will wisely observed that the Balkans have produced far more history than could be consumed locally. For those obsessed by Balkan tribal warfare over the millenia, that was not a compliment.
Blessed Alois Cardinal Stepinac will be canonized as a saint in due time, regardless of the Serbian grievance industry. The libel wars of opportunists will not stop that. If Tito could not convict him in Tito's courts, you aren't going to convict him here. Your own posts concede that the priest you identify (and who may have confessed 20,000-30,000 murders) was suspended by the Vatican AFTER the massacres and they did not wait for the trial. Hopefully he was also hanged. Your attacks on nuns are disgraceful. Assuming that any nuns whatsoever or priests, for that matter, participated in atrocities, well, that makes them sinners. It is not surprising that they would have been sinners only the extent of the alleged sins. General smearing of priests and nuns for being either Catholic by baptism or Croatian by birth makes no sense and serves no justice.
Of course, contemporaneously, there was a former seminarian of the Russian Orthodox Church, Josef Vassarionovich Djugashvili aka Stalin who was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of deaths of innocent citizens on a canvas more extensive by far than Yugoslavia or Ireland. The Russian Orthodox Church was the victim of the Soviet Revolution, Stalin or no Stalin. The Russian Orthodox Church was no more responsible for Stalin's misdeeds that the Vatican was for some obscure Balkan suspended priest.
You forgot the "Here We Go Again!" alert.
"...my default position favors Croatia"
Is this based on loyalty to the RCC? If so, you may want to check your moral compass because it's in dire need of being re calibrated.
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