<http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20070119-082354-5658r_page2.htm> http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20070119-082354-5658r_page2.htm The Washington Times LETTERS TO THE EDITOR January 20, 2007 The Vatican and WWII Cardinal Miloslav Vlk's comment that the Catholic Church "has its own means and methods to cope with mistakes," as quoted in the article "Warsaw archbishop not first to aid communists" (World, Sunday) is merely a euphemism for coverups and denials of misdeeds, sadly reminiscent of past Vatican policy regarding crimes committed by Catholic clergy. Regardless of whether the crime was a collaboration with communist spy networks, participation in crimes of genocide in the Holocaust or rampant child molestation in the United States, who in his or her right mind can still believe that the Catholic Church will police itself and fairly re-examine its misdeeds? In World War II Yugoslavia, the Catholic clergy in Croatia participated fully in the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Romany and helped plunder or raze 800 Orthodox churches and every Jewish religious or community building under their control. More than 60 years later, the families of the victims are still suing the Vatican for those crimes, for which the Vatican denies any knowledge or responsibility and will not even open up its archives to scholars. The notion put forward in your article (by Catholic clergy, of course) that the Catholic Church can be trusted to research its past crimes insults the intelligence of the public and mocks the memory of the victims. Only the stiffest legal and financial penalties from outside will ever alter that institution's mind-set. BARRY LITUCHY Director Jasenovac Research Institute Brooklyn, N.Y. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
