[CTRL] NAZI CONNECTION TO FRANCISCAN ORDER UNCOVERED

[William Shannon]

http://www.centrexnews.com/news_archive/2001.02/05vatican.html


NAZI CONNECTION TO FRANCISCAN ORDER UNCOVERED


Siroki Brijeg, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Near the site of a World War II wartime
massacre of Serb women and children by Croatian Nazis stands a Franciscan
Monastery. It’s just down the road from Medjugorje or "Miracle City" where
the Virgin Mary is said to put in nightly appearances for the tens of
thousands of Roman Catholic pilgrims who flock there each year. The
Franciscan Monastery at Sirkoi Brijeg and its controversial contents are at
the center of an international scandal involving the Franciscans, Croatian
ultra nationalists and the Vatican Bank. A lawsuit, Alperin v. Vatican Bank,
filed in San Francisco Federal Court in November 1999 by Serb, Jewish, and
Ukrainian Holocaust survivors against the Vatican Bank and Franciscans seeks
return of Nazi loot stolen from wartime Yugoslavia. According to a 1998 US
State Department report, the money known as the Ustasha Treasury, is thought
to have been concealed in the Vatican and used in part to fund the escape of
Nazi and Croatian war criminals to South America. The Franciscans acted as
facilitators and middlemen in moving the contents of the Ustasha Treasury
from Croatia to Austria, Italy and finally South America. The Franciscans
have denied their wartime ties to the Ustasha regime in Croatia, which
slaughtered over 700,000 Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies and set the stage for
today’s ethnic battles in the Balkans. However, in Siroki Brijeg,
plaintiffs’ attorneys have obtained tangible proof of the Nazi Franciscan
connection. Cameramen working for Phillip Kronzer, a staunch foe of
Medjugorje and its Marian apparitions obtained entry to the Monastery and
filmed a secret shrine honoring the Ustashe. A plaque dedicated to Franciscan
monks who were Ustasha members was filmed along with a massive shrine lining
the walls complete with photographs of Ustasha soldiers some in Nazi
uniforms. The admonition, "Recognize us, We are yours" can clearly be
discerned in the video footage. On a later visit to the monastery the shrine
had been dismantled but the videotape preserved the evidence and has now been
made available by the Kronzer Foundation. Just as in World War II, Medjugorje
in the 1990’s was the site of brutal ethnic cleansing by Croat nationalists.
Alperin plaintiffs have alleged that Medjugorje and its facilities are
connected with the Ustasha Treasury and the monastery at Siroki Brijeg seems
to provide hard evidence of the connection.