http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0507144.htm POPE-ORTHODOX Dec-15-2005 (630 words) xxxi
Catholics, Orthodox have responsibility to work for unity, pope says By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Catholics and Orthodox have a responsibility to work toward full unity in accordance with the will of Christ, Pope Benedict XVI said. Meeting Dec. 15 with a committee preparing for a full meeting of the international Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, the pope said he rejoiced at the desire to "take up again and pursue the dialogue which, over the past few years, had known serious internal and external difficulties." The last meeting of the international Catholic-Orthodox dialogue was held in 2000 to discuss the role and theological implications of the agreements that led to the formation of the Eastern Catholic churches. That meeting ended without any conclusions or decisions agreeable to Orthodox and Catholics. Fifteen autonomous Orthodox churches, meeting at the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in Turkey, agreed in September that the dialogue should be restarted. The decision, the pope told Orthodox and Catholic members of the preparatory committee, "constitutes a great responsibility. It is indeed a question of achieving the will of the Lord who wants his disciples to form a harmonious community and to witness together to the brotherly love that comes from the Lord." Pope Benedict said, "in this new phase of dialogue," Catholics and Orthodox must work to eliminate the differences remaining between them and resolve "to do everything to re-establish full communion, which is an essential good for the community of Christ's disciples, as is underlined in the preparatory document you are working on." The committee was meeting in Rome Dec. 13-16; a statement providing a brief history of the dialogue was released by the Vatican Dec. 15, but it was not clear if further information would be published immediately. Pope Benedict told the church officials and theologians that the full communion Catholics and Orthodox seek with one another is "a communion in truth and charity." "We cannot be satisfied to remain at an intermediate stage," he said. Rather, "without ceasing, but with courage, clarity and humility, we must seek the will of Jesus Christ, even if it does not correspond to our simple human plans." The reconciliation of the Christian community, he said, will come only "at the price of submitting our wills to the will of the Lord." Pope Benedict said human efforts alone would not be enough, which is why all Catholics and Orthodox must pray for the gift of unity. The Vatican statement said the 21-member coordinating committee for the dialogue was led by the co-chairmen of the international dialogue commission: Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and Metropolitan Ioannis of Pergamon, a top official of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The coordinating committee was expected to choose a theme and set a date for a 2006 meeting of the full dialogue commission. The Orthodox Church of Serbia has offered to host the meeting. Explaining the 15 years of difficulty in Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, the Vatican statement said the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the freedom it brought to Eastern-rite Catholics in territories with a majority Orthodox population "reopened wounds in Catholic-Orthodox relations that had never healed." The Eastern Catholic churches share the liturgical and spiritual heritage of their Orthodox counterparts, but the Orthodox tend to see their union with Rome as a splintering of the Orthodox community. The five years that have passed since the last meeting of the commission, the Vatican statement said, "were years of patient hope." "Pope John Paul II never let an opportunity go by to underline the importance of reactivating the theological dialogue while taking into account (the) need to overcome difficulties deriving from psychological attitudes, a lack of mutual knowledge" and differing developments in the churches of the East and West, the statement said. END ####### http://www.pogledi.co.yu/english/papa.php Pogledi Orthodox-Catholic Reconciliation?: Pope John Paul II's Legacy in the Balkans by Carl K. Savich Introduction: Catholic-Orthodox Reconciliation? What will be John Paul II's legacy? What will he be remembered for? The pundits and the media have already lionized him with candy-coated encomiums as the Pope who brought down Communism and ushered in the New World Order. His place in history is assured as a determined anti-Communist who revived the Roman Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II is to be highly commended for making an attempt at reconciliation between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, a split or schism in the Christian Church nearly a thousand years old. He was the first Pope in centuries to reach out to the Orthodox Church. He was the first Pope to visit Orthodox Greece in over a millennium. He made an attempt at reconciliation? But was it genuine and was it successful? What was his role in the conflicts in the Balkans? What did Pope John Paul II do to reconcile Orthodox Slavs and Roman Catholic Slavs in the Balkans? He visited over 130 countries, but he never visited Orthodox Serbia, or Russia, the largest Orthodox country. Most importantly, the Pope never made a visit to Jasenovac, the largest concentration camp in the Balkans during World War II. The Pope prayed inside a mosque, visited Israel in 2000, went to Zagreb and Banja Luka, but never found the time to visit Jasenovac. Why? Did the Pope only exacerbate religious tensions and animosity in the Balkans between the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Sunni Muslim communities? The Pope was greeted warmly in only one Orthodox country, Romania. In Greece and the Ukraine, he received a cold and hostile reception. In Serbia and Russia, he was never even invited. First to Recognize Croatia Pope John Paul II was the first to recognize Croatian independence on January 13, 1992, two days before even Germany. This reckless and provocative diplomatic action resulted in a civil war that killed thousands of Serbs and Croats. This premature and irresponsible recognition was what lead to the carnage, killing, displacement, and suffering in the former Yugoslavia. To be sure the dismemberment of Yugoslavia had been pre-determined at Maastricht. Germany was determined to recognize Croatian independence unilaterally and unconditionally. Croatia had been a key Nazi German ally in the Balkans during World War II. Croatia had been one of the most fanatical Nazi allies of Germany, participating in Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Croatia had sent an infantry regiment to Stalingrad made up of Croats and Bosnian Muslims, another regiment to the Don, a naval contingent to the Sea of Azov, and an air force contingent to Sevastopol. German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was determined to reward Croatia with unilateral independence. Germany presented a diplomatic fait accompli. But what the pundits miss here is that the Vatican was even more reckless than the resurgent Germany. No, the Vatican did not have any divisions, as Joseph Stalin once famously noted, but the Vatican did have moral authority. When the Vatican presented a fait accompli on Croatian secession and independence, the Vatican gave moral sanction to the Franjo Tudjman regime. The Vatican also gave sanction to Tudjman himself, who was an anti-Semite, Croatian ultra-nationalist "former" Communist general-turned-historian. In a moral sense, that is when the racist demonization and satanization of the Orthodox Serbs began. The pundits have all glibly missed this glaring point. The Vatican under John Paul II abused its moral authority by its complicity in the dismemberment and breakup of a sovereign state. John Paul II couldn't wait to destroy Communist Yugoslavia. Pope John Paul II bears some responsibility for the carnage and destruction that followed. Pope John Paul II was indifferent to the plight of the Serbian Orthodox population in Krajina. All he wanted to do was to recognize Croatia, a Roman Catholic state that would unite with the Vatican. He abjured negotiation, compromise, reconciliation. Instead, he supported a reckless and arrogant recognition of Croatia. This set the precedent for the violent and brutal dismemberment and destruction of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. John Paul II shares in the blame for unleashing the carnage in the Balkans. It is not Slobodan Milosevic who is responsible. It is John Paul II who rejected compromise, negotiation, and rapprochement. John Paul chose confrontation and war and a provocative fait accompli. He was determined to destroy the Yugoslav federation and socialism. He was a conquering Crusader, not a peacemaker. John Paul was determined to make his point. It was the New World Order now and Communism was finished. The Vatican called the shots now. A reunified Germany was back too, disdainfully referred to as the "Fourth Reich" of Helmut Kohl. The Pope espoused "just war" concepts but encouraged war, not peace. There is no such thing as a "just war" or a "good war". Ultimately, a just war is what advances our own interests and which we decide is just. And this is the criteria Pope John Paul II used. He is quoted as saying: "I am not a pacifist." He supported war when it advanced Roman Catholic interests, as in Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and Kosovo. He opposed war in Iraq in 2003 because there was no Roman Catholic interest. Even UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, a brazen interventionist hand-picked by the US itself, said the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a criminal act that violated all international laws. How difficult was it for the Pope to condemn this war? Why was the Pope so reckless and unmindful of human life? Why did the Vatican recognize Croatia first? Why did a religious institution take a political decision? The answer is that Croatia was Roman Catholic. That is what motivated the Pope. If Croatia had been anything other than Roman Catholic, he would not have recognized it. Croatia was an obsession with Pope John Paul. It was his Poland next door. John Paul visited Roman Catholic Croatia on three occasions: 1) September 10-11, 1994 ; 2) October 2-4, 1998 ; and, 3) June 5-9, 2003. He visited Croatian Roman Catholic sites in Bosnia-Hercegovina twice. On his 2003 visit to Banja Luka, a Bosnian Muslim sent him an e mail threatening to kill him "in the name of Allah." This e mail showed how Pope John Paul is perceived in the Balkans. This was his 100 th foreign visit. Supported Franjo Tudjman He never criticized or condemned Croatian leader Franjo Tudjman, a known Holocaust denier and rabid anti-Semite and anti-Serb former Communist general. Tudjman denied that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. He maintained that 900,000 Jews were killed in the Holocaust. He also called Israelis "Judeo-Nazis" who were carrying out a genocide against Palestinian Muslims. Tudjman also denied the genocide in Jasenovac, which he referred to as the "Jasenovac myth". Tudjman was a known racist who had plans to annex Bosnia-Hercegovina into a Greater Croatia. Yet John Paul 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. Pope John Paul had no sympathy for the aspirations of the Krajina Serbs. He rejected their goal of self-determination and autonomy. Pope John Paul showed his moral hypocrisy. All he ever cared about was the expansion of Roman Catholicism. Beatified Ustasha Mass Murderer and Convicted War Criminal On his second official papal visit to Croatia, he beatified a mass murderer and convicted war criminal with complicity in the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Serbs, Jews, and Roma. On his 1998 visit to Croatia, Pope John Paul II beatified Croatian Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac at a huge open-air ceremony. The beatification occurred at the shrine of Marija Bistrica on October 3, 1998. This was meant to be a slap in the face of all Orthodox Serbs. It would be like the Nobel Prize Committee awarding Adolf Eichmann a posthumous Nobel Prize for Peace. The action demonstrated his total and profound contempt for the Serbian people and for the Orthodox religion. Beatification is the step prior to sainthood in Roman Catholicism. He was photographed praying at the glass-enclosed, embalmed body of Stepinac in Zagreb. Like with Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the body of Stepinac is preserved and embalmed in a class case in the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Zagreb. Who was Stepinac that he should be so honored? In beatifying Stepinac, the Pope ignored the request of the Simon Wiesenthal Center to await the results of an investigation of his role in genocide and the Holocaust during World War II. 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. Stepinac was a "martyr" in the conflict against Communism. In 1953, Pope Pius XII, "Hitler's Pope", defiantly made Stepinac a Cardinal. Who was Alojzije 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, which was proclaimed on April 10, 1941. The core around which the Ustasha Movement was based on was Roman Catholicism. The Ustasha 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? How could a former Roman Catholic priest run a concentration camp where Orthodox Serbs, Jews, and Roma were murdered? 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. Why this denial and self-repression? It is difficult to uphold Roman Catholicism after seeing what the Roman Catholic Ustasha did during World War II? This is why it is one of the best kept secrets of World War II and of the twentieth century. One cannot look at Roman Catholicism in the same way after knowing what the Ustasha did in the name of the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Ustasha genocide against Orthodox Serbs shocked, disgusted, and appalled even the Nazis 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: "The schism [Orthodox Church] is the greatest curse in Europe, almost greater than Protestantism." He 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 the Poglavnik", Ante 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. Is this what Jesus Christ taught? Where did Jesus teach that it is right to torture, murder, and mutilate fellow Christians? It is hard to comprehend how Roman Catholicism can be said to be following the teachings of Jesus Christ. In fact, it boggles the mind. And this explains why it is so meticulously censored, suppressed, and covered-up in the so-called West. Roman Catholicism is claimed to be "enlightened Latin Christendom" by Fuad Ajami. But it has nothing to do with Christianity. It is anti-Christianity. 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. To admit it would be to admit that during World War II Roman Catholics in Croatia were guilty of genocide against the Serbian Orthodox, Jews, and Roma. They were anti-Christian and their belief in the teachings of Christ was a lie. He cannot do that. So he has to lie to himself and suppress it from his conscious mind. Is the genocide committed at Jasenovac and in the NDH a genocide that is "ignored" or "unknown" in the West? This implies inadvertence and lack of knowledge or of the facts. But Jasenovac is a carefully and meticulously orchestrated cover-up. It is not due to ignorance. Michael Pakenham said that "ignorance by choice is culpability with malice aforethought." It is a massive cover-up that presupposes malice and a conspiracy to falsify history. There is a method to it. Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of FDR, called the Ustasha genocide one of the worst, if not the worst, crimes of World War II. Yet it is one of the greatest cover-ups of the 20 th century. No one is allowed to know about the Ustasha genocide committed against Orthodox Serbs. Mainstream historians in the West have always covered it up and suppressed it. It remains one of the major falsifications of the history of the Balkans. And Pope John Paul II, although himself a Slav, did nothing to expose this massive cover-up. He did nothing to reconcile Orthodox Slavs in Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Russia, Bulgaria, the Ukraine, Belarus, with Roman Catholic Slavs in Croatia, Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. There was no reconciliation and there was no rapprochement. In this regard, the Pope's legacy reflects total and abysmal failure. 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 by Yad Vashem. There is even a neo-Ustasha propaganda mill headed by the Croat Stjepan G. Mestrovic at Texas A & M University. This uber Ustasha propaganda masquerading as academic scholarship has attempted to whitewash and rehabilitate the Ustasha Movement. Mestrovic had enlisted the support of Norman Cigar, Philip Cohen, and even David Riesman. This Croatian propaganda induces revulsion and disgust and even pity. It is remarkable to see to what lengths Mestrovic will go to prostitute academic scholarship. The neo-Ustasha propaganda is a falsification of the facts and of history. 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, Stepinac is quoted as saying: "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 such as Vatican legate Ramiro Marcone, Nazi and Ustasha military officers such as General Slavko Stancer, 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. Yugoslav War Crimes Trial of Stepinac When the NDH Ustasha regime collapsed in 1945, Ante Pavelic, Andrija Artukovic, and Roman Catholic priests escaped to Argentina and the US. Stepinac was left behind to bear the full brunt of criminal responsibility for the genocide committed by the Croatian regime. Was the Yugoslav trial of Stepinac a "show trial"? Was Stepinac a "martyr"? The epistemological and analytical problem here is that neo-Ustasha apologists conflate two differing issues into one. The first issue is: Did Stepinac bear responsibility or complicity for the genocide and mass murder committed by the Ustasha NDH regime? The second issue is: Was his trial by the Communist regime legal and legitimate? These two separate issues are conflated. Even if the Communist show trial was illegal and represented victor's justice, nevertheless, the role of Stepinac during the war is another issue. Stepinac was convicted as a war criminal who collaborated with the Nazis and who committed treason thereby against Yugoslavia. The legal theory used was "command responsibility", much like the one used by The Hague Tribunal/ICTY. The Yugoslav Government published a report of the trial in 1947, called The Case of Stepinac, which related the finding s of the Yugoslav War Crimes Commission. It bears noting that Stepinac was tried and convicted by Roman Catholic Croats in Zagreb, Croatia, under the regime of a Roman Catholic Croat, Josip Broz Tito. The Yugoslav report was published in Washington DC. This is the conclusion of the report: 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 People's Republic of Yugoslavia. This 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 in Zagreb before the war. It was the Vatican that gave refuge to Pavelic and which prepared for his possible takeover in Croatia. Stepinac knew about all of this. Roman Catholic priests became administrators in the Roman Catholic Ustasha state. Stepinac himself 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 NDH 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 NDH state. He called on 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." Official Roman Catholic publications were guilty of incitement to genocide and ethnic, religious, and racial hatred and enmity. Stepinac was the top rung of this hierarchical ladder under command responsibility. Like with Julius Streicher in Der Sturmer, this was an incitement to genocide. Streicher did not kill Jews himself but he incited others to do so. The Croat Roman Catholic 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. Tiso was convicted after the war and executed. The Franciscans, in particular, were militant sponsors of the Ustasha state. Roman Catholic priests under the Ustasha regime endorsed the Final Solution of Croat Jews. In the Catholic media, the 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, Roman catholic priest Srecko Peric in Livno entreated his parishioners to "kill and massacre all Serbs." Stepinac took no action against these priests under his control. 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 and Bosnia were in fact forcefully converted. The extermination of a religious group is defined as genocide. By this act alone, Stepinac should have done some jail time, regardless of whether the Communist trial was legitimate or not. This was an act of genocide. Finally, Stepinac was the Supreme Vicar of the NDH Ustasha Army, and was made so by order of the Vatican. Not only was he a part of the religious, political leadership of the NDH, but he was also a member of the military. Each NDH military unit had a Roman Catholic priest accompany it. Catholic Crusade against Communism Pope John Paul II's atavistic Crusade against Communism mirrored Hitler's and Pavelic's and Stepinac's crusade against Communism during the Second World War. This Roman Catholic Crusade against Communism is little known in the West. Croatia was a major part of the Nazi Crusade against Communism/Bolshevism. Croatia sent two infantry regiments, one to Stalingrad and one to the Don, and naval and air force contingents, during Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of the USSR. There is ambiguity in the Croatian role in Nazism. On the one hand, Croats are proud of their major role in Hitler's New Order in Europe. Croats and Bosnian Muslims fought at Stalingrad, the decisive battle of World War II. On the other hand, Croats want to cover-up their role as the most fanatical Nazis. This tension results in an attempt to re-write history and to falsify the role of Croatia in the Holocaust based on the politically correct view that is required for the time. This falsification of the Croatian role during World War II is exemplified in the pride shown by Croats in Nazism. In the IWPR story of January 24, 2003, "Croatia Unfazed by Skier's 'Pro-Nazi' Remarks," Drago Hedl reported on the pro-Nazi remark made by Croatian skier Ivica Kostelic. Hedl reported how his pro-Nazi statements were praised, not condemned in Croatia : "A ski champion's seemingly admiring remarks about Hitler's invasion of Russia has garnered more praise than criticism at home." Kostelic said he had been "as ready as a German soldier on June 22, 1941." He showed his support for Operation Barbarossa against the USSR. He stated that "Nazism was a healthy system." What was Kostelic referring too? Why is there such Nazi pride? Why the Ustasha pride? Why is Kostelic praised in Croatia and not condemned for such unabashed admiration for Adolf Hitler and the Wehrmacht? Something is missing in the IWPR report. Thus, the story makes no sense whatsoever. But the story makes perfect sense once one uncovers what the mentally challenged IWPR seeks to suppress and censor. No one in the West understood what Kostelic was referring to. Certainly not the brain-dead IWPR. What is meticulously covered up in the West is the role of Roman Catholic Croats and Bosnian Muslims as the most fanatical Nazis of World War II. Not many people know that the Croats and Bosnian Muslims sent a regiment to Stalingrad, the Croat Legion (Hrvatska Legija), the 369 th Reinforced Croat Infantry Regiment. Croatia also sent pilots and sailors as part of the Nazi attack on the Crimea. Croatia also sent a regiment to the Don Front in the USSR. It is not well known in the West that Croatia and Bosnian-Hercegovina sent troops against the USSR during Operation Barbarossa. This was a Roman Catholic Crusade whose goal was to not only destroy Communism or Bolshevism, but also to destroy the Orthodox Church and to forcefully convert Russian Orthodox Slavs to Roman Catholicism. Pope John Paul II was strongly in favor of making Pope Pius XII a saint. But this ignores the role of Pius during World War II and the Holocaust. Pope Pius XII has been referred to as "Hitler's Pope" who called for a "military crusade against Bolshevism." John Carroll of The Atlantic Monthly described Pius as follows: ".a narcissistic, power-hungry manipulator who was prepared to lie, to appease, and to collaborate in order to accomplish his ecclesiastical purpose---which was not to save lives or even to protect the Catholic Church but, more narrowly, to protect and advance the power of the papacy." Saul Friedlander of The Los Angeles Times, described Pius XII as "a man of narrow spirit and heart a man who could not find at the very least a 'candid word' when millions of human beings from all corners of Europe, some of them from under his own windows, were led to their systematic extermination." The same could be said of Stepinac. Pius XII negotiated the concordat between the Vatican and Germany and refused to ever explicitly criticize Nazi Germany. Stepinac: Convicted War Criminal After World War II, Stepinac was arrested by the Communist regime and tried and convicted for his complicity in war crimes and mass murder. But 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. Why do these neo-Ustasha propagandists and historians dismiss the Stepinac genocide trial but accept the Communist show trial of Draza Mihailovich as valid? Why is there a double standard and why is there the hypocrisy? Stepinac was tried and convicted of being a Nazi collaborator and war criminal by Roman Catholic Croats in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia under the regime of a Roman Catholic Croatian, Josip Broz "Tito". Many of the historians who documented the Ustasha NDH genocide were Roman Catholic Croats, such as Viktor Novak. Why is the Stepinac trial illegal and illegitimate? Why is there a double-standard and selective morality here? After all, the borders of Croatia which Pope John Paul II recognized in 1991-92 were also created by the Communist regime of the Roman Catholic Croat Josip Broz Tito. But why were those Communist borders recognized as legal and legitimate, while the trial of Stepinac was not? Bill Clinton in his autobiography wrote that the reason for the Kosovo War was because Slobodan Milosevic had taken away the autonomy granted to Kosovo in the 1974 Constitution. But the 1974 Constitution was also a creation of the Communist regime of Croatian leader Josip Broz. Indeed, the concept of "autonomy" is a Stalinistic concept borrowed from the Soviet Union and the Communist conception of a state. Yet absurdly, here was Clinton supporting a return to a Stalinist/Communist concept of autonomy. Moreover, if the trial of Stepinac is illegal and illegitimate, a Communist show trial, then what about the trial of Draza Mihailovich? Either both trials are illegal or illegitimate or they are not. You cannot just pick and choose based on your own self-interested agenda. By beatifying a convicted war criminal and mass murderer, Pope John Paul II showed his utter contempt for the Serbian people and for Orthodoxy. He exacerbated the animosity and conflict between Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians. He did not want reconciliation. He never apologized for the genocide and mass murder the Roman Catholic priest Alojize Stepinac was guilty of. He never apologized for or even acknowledged the role of the Roman Catholic priests and the Croatian Roman Catholic in the genocide the Ustasha committed in Croatian and Bosnia-Hercegovina during World War II. He has accomplished nothing in reconciling the Catholic and Orthodox communities in the Balkans. Indeed, he has made matters worse. His legacy will be one of failure and missed opportunities. Visited Roman Catholic Monastery in Banja Luka in 2003 On June 22, 2003, Pope John Paul II made his second visit to Bosnia-Hercegovina, conducting a Roman Catholic mass in Banja Luka, the capital of the Republika Srpska. This was a highly provocative and controversial papal visit. Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Pavle refused to meet with Pope John Paul II. Banja Luka is a majority Serbian Orthodox region. The Pope's visit can only be seen as a provocative action. He beatified Croat Roman Catholic Ivan Merz at the Petricevac Roman Catholic monastery outside of Banja Luka. Merz had founded a militant Croatian Roman Catholic youth movement, the Croatian Eagles, that served as a model for the Ustasha movement. Initially, the Pope planned to visit Croatia and to beatify Merz in Croatia itself. The Croatian Roman Catholic Bishop of Banja Luka, Franjo Komarica, however, convinced the Pope to visit Banja Luka to bolster the Croatian Roman Catholic population in the city. The goal of the visit was thus to strengthen the dwindling Roman Catholic population in the city, which Komarica said faced extinction. Reconciliation was thus never the objective of the visit. The Pope chose a symbolic location for the Catholic Mass, the Petricevac Roman Catholic Monastery, known as the base for Franciscan-led Ustasha attack against orthodox Serbs led by "Brother Satan", the Roman Catholic priest Miroslav Filipovic. The Pope did not ask for forgiveness for the mass murders organized by Filipovic. He did not offer any apology for this genocide committed by Roman Catholic priests. Instead, the Pope asked for a "genuine purification of memory through mutual forgiveness." There was a veiled reference to the genocide committed by the Ustasha in the statement for forgiveness by the Pope: "From this city, marked in the course of history by so much suffering and bloodshed, I ask Almighty God to have mercy on the sins committed against humanity, human dignity and freedom also by children of the Catholic Church." But there was no explicit apology. The Petricevac monastery was where Miroslav Filipovic, also known as Tomislav/Vjekoslav Majstorovic, a subsequently defrocked Roman Catholic priest, launched his attacks against Bosnian Orthodox Serbs. In these Ustasha massacres, 2,730 Bosnian Serbs were murdered, including 500 children. At one school, 60 children were murdered. Filipovic was an instigator of these atrocities. He personally killed a child at the school with these words: "Ustashas! I am doing this in the name of God! I am Christening these scum. And you are to follow my lead. I will accept the entire sin on my soul. And when we are done, I will absolve you and relieve you of all guilt." On February 7, 1942, Ustasha militia massacred Serbian Orthodox civilians around Banja Luka. In Drakulic, they decapitated a Serbian Orthodox priest and carried his head as a trophy. The lips and mouth were twisted into a grin. These massacres committed against Bosnian Serb Orthodox civilians were among the most horrific of World War II. Yet Pope John Paul II had nothing to say about them. He added insult to injury by his provocative visit to Banja Luka. The AP described the attack led by Filipovic as follows: "During World War II, a priest from Petricevac led Croat fascists, armed with hatchets and knives, to a nearby village. In the 1942 attack, they butchered 2,300 Serbs, including 500 women and children." The Bosnian Serb population ignored his visit to Banja Luka. He was met with posters that read: "Pope Go Home". It was another attempt by the Pope to whitewash Croatian Ustasha atrocities. He engendered only animosity and enmity, not reconciliation. 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, Bishop Artemije accused the Vatican of having been "amply implicated in the events" in Kosovo. The Pope did not condemn the illegal and criminal NATO/US/EU 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. 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. The Pope was perceived as a war-monger. He famously commanded NATO/US/EU to "disarm the aggressor" in the Bosnian conflict when Roman Catholic Croatian troops were militarily defeated by Bosnian Muslim troops. By his statement, the Pope meant that the US should intervene militarily against the Bosnian Serbs to prevent the military defeat of Roman Catholic Croats in Bosnia. John Paul II advocated war. During the Bosnian civil war, he called for US/NATO "military intervention" against the Bosnian and Krajina Serbs. He called for war. He was silent when Roman Catholic Croat troops, with NATO and US help, ethnically cleansed over 250,000 Krajina Serbs in 1995. This was the largest single act of ethnic cleansing during the Balkan conflict. He showed he was a hypocrite. He 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 Serbian Orthodox Christianity in Kosovo-Metohija. His silence was glaring. Where was the condemnation of the March, 2004 "pogrom" and "Kristallnacht" in Kosovo where over 35 Serbian Orthodox churches were destroyed and demolished and Serbian Christians were brutally murdered? Where was his outrage at the attempted axe-murder of two elderly Kosovo Christians during the 2005 Easter period? In the March 28, 2005 Reuters news report "Two elderly Serbs beaten up in Kosovo", it was reported that Nedeljko Vucic was brutally attacked by a "gang of Albanians" who cut off hid right ear, hit him over the head with a sharp and blunt object causing a concussion. His head was severely injured and his ribs were broken. He required surgery on his lungs. He was stabbed in the spine with a metal object. His wife, Nevenka Vucic, 73, received several cuts on her head and severe wounds to the chest by stabs and blows. She too required emergency surgery. Why was the Pope ignoring this ongoing and continuing genocide against Christians? Was it that difficult to miss it? It boggles the mind. Of course, for Reuters, this horrific genocidal attack, ethnically motivated, is described as two people being "beaten up". Isn't this attempted mass murder and ethnically-motivated genocide? Apparently it is not for Reuters. Having your ear cut off is to be "beaten up". This is the post-Communist world we live in. We live in a New World Order where we are brainwashed and manipulated by a media and governments that dehumanize, demonize, and satanize human beings so that they can be murdered with impunity and their land given away to proxies and terrorists. Pope John Paul II never criticized this post-Communist dehumanization of man. Vatican Ratline Following World War II, the Vatican allowed many of the Croatian Ustasha war criminals and mass murderers to escape through routes and channels created by the Vatican. Croatian Roman Catholic priest Krunoslav Draganovic organized the "ratline" that allowed the Ustasha political leaders to flee to Argentina. The Pope has never acknowledged the role the Vatican played in allowing the Nazi/fascist Ustasha leaders, such as Ante Pavelic, Andrija Artukovic, and Dinko Sakic, to escape from the Balkans to Argentina and other countries in South America and the US. The Vatican was later sued because it laundered gold and other valuables seized by the Ustasha regime from murdered Orthodox Serbs, Jews, and Roma during World War II. The money was kept in the Swiss National Bank. The Vatican allegedly used this Ustasha gold to finance and organize the ratlines. Legacy Pope John Paul II will be remembered as the Pope who started the carnage and killing and displacement of the Balkan conflicts. By recognizing Croatia, he created the initial impetus that resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent people. While the dismemberment of Yugoslavia was a political and diplomatic fait accompli, nevertheless, his recognition was a moral fait accompli. It was his act of recklessly and arrogantly recognizing Croatia that gave moral sanction for the violent break-up and dismemberment of Yugoslavia. It was not Slobodan Milosevic who was responsible. It was Pope John Paul II. He could have chosen negotiation, rapprochement, and reconciliation. Instead, he chose confrontation and conflict. He came not as a peacemaker, but as a Crusader, as a conqueror. He chose war. Diplomatic recognition is a political decision. The Pope should focus on religion not politics. Like Alojzije 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. By beatifying a mass murderer and convicted war criminal, he showed his gross contempt for the Serbian Orthodox people and the Serbian Orthodox Church. He never apologized for the role of Stepinac, the Vatican, and the Croatian Roman Catholic Church played in the Ustasha genocide. Indeed, he never even acknowledged it. He was blissfully ignorant. He denied and suppressed the Ustasha genocide from his mind and deleted and cleansed it from his memory. He visited over 130 countries, but he never visited Jasenovac, the largest killing ground in the Balkans and the largest concentration camp during World War II. This showed his contempt for humanity and for Christianity. He remained silent about the illegal NATO/US/EU bombing and occupation of Kosovo-Metohija, the cradle of Serbian Orthodox Christianity, where European Christianity made a stand against the Muslim Ottoman Turkish invasion in 1389. All the Pope could muster was contempt. He was silent when over 150 Serbian Orthodox Churches were destroyed by Albanian Muslims. He was silent about the ethnic cleansing of over 200,000 Kosovo Serbs, Jews and Roma when NATO occupied Kosovo. He was also silent as Orthodox Christians were brutally attacked and murdered in Kosovo-Metohija by Albanian Muslims. In the West, he will be remembered as the man who brought down Communism and who destroyed socialism in Europe. He will be recalled as the religious leader who wanted to play a political role. But his legacy will be remembered differently in the Balkans. He will be remembered differently by Orthodox Christians. 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 make a difference. But it was a lost opportunity. He only exacerbated the animosity and conflict between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. He made matters worse. This will be his legacy. His legacy will be one of failure. Accomplishments: Pope John Paul II Built Bridges between East and West When John Paul II visited Romania in May, 1999, this marked the first time a Pope had visited an Orthodox country since 1054, when the churches split over disputes about the authority of the Pope. This was known as "the Great Schism". This visit showed that the Pope, known as "the Pilgrim Pope, was a bridge-builder with the Orthodox. This was an important step towards achieving unity and reconciliation between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The Pope deserves credit for this remarkable achievement. Romanian Orthodox Patriarch Teoctist explained the significance of the visit as follows: "The second millennium of Christian history began with a painful wounding of the unity of the church; the end of this millennium has seen a real commitment to restoring Christian unity." John Paul II made the reunification of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches an achievable ideal. Such a religious reconciliation and reunification had not even been seriously contemplated in almost a millennium. The Pope said he had "the desire of authentic unity" between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic communities: "Not long ago it was unthinkable that the bishop of Rome could visit his brothers and sisters in the faith." He attended a joint Orthodox and Catholic service where a mass and liturgy were performed. The Pope wanted to visit Russia and Belarus. The Pope could not visit Belarus because of the opposition of the Russian Orthodox Church and President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus. Belarus has a population made up of 15% Catholics, known as Eastern Rite Catholics, whose religious rites and customs are essentially Orthodox but who are under the authority of the Pope. His visit to Russia was opposed by the Russian Orthodox Church and by Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II. The Pope made an important first step in reconciliation with the Russian Orthodox Church by returning the Kazanskaya Icon or Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, a holy relic. This holy relic dating from 1579 had been kept in Moscow 's Kazan Cathedral until Peter the Great moved it to St. Petersburg. It was stolen during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and sold in the West along with other Orthodox religious relics. It ended up in the West. Some reports say that it was owned by an American collector who sold it for three million dollars, while others maintain it was with a British citizen. Still another report maintained that it was found in the British Museum. In 1970, a Roman Catholic group, the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima, reportedly purchased it and presented it to John Paul II in 1993. John Paul returned the relic to Russia in August, 2004. John Paul II was the first Pope to visit Greece in 1291 years, amid protests. Greek Orthodox leaders also refused to meet with him. The Pope met with Archbishop Christodoulos, the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church, in Athens. The Archbishop presented the Pope with a list of "13 offenses" committed by Roman Catholics against the Orthodox. The most important was the sacking and pillage of Constantinople in 1204 by Crusaders. Christodoulos complained: "Until now, there has not been heard a single request for pardon." John Paul II said that the sacking of Constantinople was a "deep regret" of the Roman Catholic Church and that "forgiveness was sought". Both prayed together. The Vatican later announced that it would return the bones of Orthodox saints seized in Constantinople by the Crusaders. The Pope visited Ukraine in 2001 where the Pope again sought reconciliation and unity between the two churches. He asked that the Christian Church "breathe again with its two lungs." Pope John Paul II's historic and landmark visits to these Orthodox countries were important in beginning a reconciliation and reunification of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches. This was a remarkable achievement of the Pope, although it was only a first step. Conclusion: Is Catholic-Orthodox Reconciliation Possible? Pope John Paul II made an attempt at reconciliation between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. This has not been attempted for centuries, if not nearly a millennium. Pope John Paul II deserves plaudits for his untiring efforts to achieve a lasting reconciliation between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. This part of his legacy must be continued and expanded. The Vatican has to address the issue of Jasenovac and the atrocities committed against Orthodox Serbs by the Ustasha NDH regime. Ignoring this vital issue will further alienate the Orthodox Church. But herein lies the route to reconciliation. Reconciliation is possible between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. But a greater effort is needed to address the issues of most relevance to the Orthodox Church. But reconciliation will not result if the Vatican continues to ignore Jasenovac and the atrocities of the Ustasha NDH regime. Greater unity and cooperation is needed between the Roman Catholic Churches and the Orthodox Churches in preserving the Christian heritage and legacy in Kosovo-Metohija. Over 150 Christian Churches have been destroyed in Kosovo since the NATO occupation. Over 200,000 Christians have been forced to flee Kosovo. Thousands of Christians have been murdered in Kosovo. The Roman Catholic Churches have to work jointly with the Orthodox Churches to preserve Christianity in Kosovo. We all have a stake in Kosovo, whether we are Orthodox or Catholic Christians. The survival of Christianity is at stake in Kosovo. Pope John Paul II attempted to reconcile the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. This was a worthwhile objective that needs to be continued and nurtured. Reconciliation between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism is possible. But before there can be reconciliation, there has to be an understanding of what separates the two communities. We have to know what the problem is before we can resolve it. Serbian News Network - SNN [email protected] http://www.antic.org/
