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3. German aggressions and the Jesuits, Austria – Poland – Czechoslovakia -Yugoslavia

Let us see how the Anschluss was prepared:

First of all, and by a “providential” synchronism, when Mussolini seized power in Italy thanks to don Sturzo, Jesuit and chief of the Catholic party, Monseigneur Seipel, a Jesuit, became chancellor of Austria. He held that position until 1929, with an interregnum of two years, and, during those decisive years, he led the Austrian interior politics on to the reactionary and clerical road; his successors followed him on that road which led to the absorption of that country into the German block. The bloody repression of working-class uprisings earned him the nickname “Keine Milde Kardinal”: the Cardinal Without Mercy.

“In the early days of May (1936), von Papen entered into secret negotiations with Dr Schussnigg (Austrian Chancellor) working on his weak point and showed him how advantagous a reconciliation with Hitler would be as far as the Vatican’s interests were concerned; the argument may seem odd, but Schussnigg was very devout, and von Papen the pope’s chamberlain”. (62) Not surprisingly, it was the secret chamberlain who led the whole affair which ended, on the 11th of March 1938, with the resignation of the pious Schussnigg (pupil of the Jesuits), in favour of Seyss-Inquart, chief of the Austrian Nazis. The following day, the German troops entered Austria and the puppet government of Seyss-Inquart proclaimed the union of the country to the Reich. This event was welcomed by an enthusiastic declaration of Vienna’s archbishop: Cardinal Innitzer (Jesuit).

“On the 15th of March, the German press published the following declaration from Cardinal Innitzer: “The priests and the faithful must unhesitatingly uphold the great German state, and the Fuhrer whose struggle to set up Germany’s power, honour and prosperity is in accord with the wishes of Providence.

(62) G.E.R. Gedye: “Suicide de l’Autriche” (Union latine d’editions, Paris 1940, p. 188).

The newspapers printed a facsimile of this declaration to dispel any doubt as to its authenticity. Reproductions were posted up on walls in Vienna and in the other Austrian cities. Cardinal Innitzer.. had, with his own hand, written the following words before his signature: “Und Heil Hitler!” “Three days later, the whole of the Austrian episcopate addressed a pastoral letter to its diocesans; the Italian newspapers published the text of this letter on the 28th of March: it was a straightforward adhesion to the Nazi regime whose virtues were highly extolled”.(63)

Cardinal Innitzer, highest representative of the Roman Church in Austria, also wrote in his declaration: “I invite the chiefs of Youth organisations to prepare their union to the organisation of the German Reich”.(64)

So, not only did the cardinal-archbishop of Vienna, followed by his episcopate, throw in his lot with Hitler most enthusiastically, but he handed over also the “Christian” youth to be trained according to Nazi methods; these methods had been “officially condemned” in the ‘terrible’ encyclical letter: “Mit brennender Sorge”!

Then, the ‘Mercure de France’ justifiably observed: “… These bishops have not taken a decision which involves the Church as a whole on their own accord; the Holy See gave them directives which they merely followed”.(65)

This is obvious. But what other “directives” could be expected from this Holy See which brought to power Mussolini, Hitler, Franco and, in Belgium, created the ‘Christus-Rex’ of Leon Degrelle?

We understand, then, why English authors such as F.A. Ridley, Seeker and Warburg object to the Politics of Pius XI which favoured fascist movements everywhere”.(66)

As for the Anschluss, M. Francois Charles-Roux tells us why the Church was so much in favour of it: “Eight million Austrian Catholics united to the Catholics of the Reich could make a German Catholic body more able to make its weight felt”.(67)

Poland was in the same situation as Austria when Hitler, after having invaded it, annexed part of it in the name of the Fatherland. A few more million Catholics to reinforce the German contingent under the Roman obedience: the Holy See could only be in favour of this, in spite of all its love for its “dear Polish people”. In fact, it did not frown at the brutal re- grouping of Catholics in Central Europe, according to the plan of the Jesuits’ general, Halke von Ledechowski.

(63) Francois Charles-Roux, op.cit., pp.118, 122.
(64) Ernest Pezet, former vice-president of the Commission for Foreign Affairs, “L’Autriche et la paix” (Ed. Self, Paris 1945, p. 149).
(65) Austria and Hitler (“Mercure de France”, 1st of May 1938, p.720).
(66) J. Tchernoff: “Les Demagogies contre les democracies” (R. Pichon and Durand-Auzias, Paris 1947, p.80).
(67) Francois Charles-Roux, op.cit., p.114.

The Vatican’s licensed thurifers keep on reminding their readers that Pius XII “protested” against the aggression in the encyclical letter “Summi Pontificatus”. In reality, this ludicrous document, like all other such documents, which numbers no less than 45 pages, contains only one phrase, at the end, concerning Poland crushed by Hitler. And this short allusion is an advice to the Polish people to pray much to the Virgin Mary! The contrast is striking between those few words of trite condolences and the nattering pages devoted to fascist Italy and the exaltation of the Lateran Treaty; this treaty was concluded by the Holy See and Mussolini, Hitle r ‘s collaborator who, at the time when the pope was writing his encyclical letter, delivered a scandalous speech, as a challenge to the world, and started it with these words: “Liquidata la Polonia!” (Italian for Poland liquidated)

But what risks are there in using these derisory alibis, when preaching to the converted? Besides, how many of them would be anxious to examine such references?

Nevertheless, when we study the Vatican’s behaviour in this affair, what do we see? First of all, we see the nuncio in Warsaw, Monseigneur Cortesi, urge the Polish government to give in to Hitler in everything: Dantzig, the “corridor”, the territories where German minorities live (68). Then, when this is done, we see also the Holy-Father lend his help to the aggressor when trying to make Paris and London ratify the amputation of a large part of his “dear Poland”.(69)

To those who would be surprised at such behaviour towards a Catholic country, we will quote a famous precedent: after the first division of Poland in 1772, a catastrophe in which the Jesuits’ intrigues played a large part, Pope Clement XIV, when writing to the Empress of Austria, Marie-Therese, expressed his satisfaction as follows:

“The invasion and division of Poland were not done for political reasons only; it was in the interests of religion, and necessary to the spiritual profit of the Chruch, that the Court of Viennna should extend its domination over Poland as much as possible”.

Obviously, there is nothing new under the sun—especially at the Vatican. In 1939, there was no need to change one single word in that cynical declaration, apart from “the spiritual profit of the Church” which, this time, consisted of several million Polish Catholics joining the Great Reich.

(68) Cf. the “Journal”, (1933-1939) of Count Szembeck (Plon, Paris 1952, pp.499). (69) Cf. Camille Cianfarra, op.cit., pp.259, 260.

This fact easily explains the parsimony of papal condolences in “Summi Pontificatus”.

In Czechoslovakia, the Vatican did even better: it provided Hitler with one of its own prelates, a secret chamberlain, to be made into the head of this satellite state of the Reich.

“The Anschluss had made a great noise in Europe. From now on, the hitlerian threat was hovering over the Republic of Czechoslovakia and war was in the air. But, at the Vatican, nobody seemed concerned. Let us listen to M. Francois Charles-Roux:

“In the middle of August, I had tried to persuade the pope that he should speak in favour of peace—a just peace, of course… My first attempts were unsuccessful. But, from the beginning of September 1938 on, when the international crisis reached its worst level, I started gathering, at the Vatican, soothing impressions contrasting strangely with the rapidly deteriorating situation.”.(70)

“All my attempts”, adds the former French ambassador, “received the same answer from Pius XI: “It would be useless, unnecessary, inopportune”. I could not understand his obstinacy in keeping silent”. (71) Events were soon going to explain this silence. It was first of all the annexation of Sudetenland by the Reich, with the support of the Christian Social Party, of course; this annexation was ratified by the Munich accord, and the Republic of Czechoslovakia was divided. But Hitler, who had undertaken to respect its territorial integrity, intended in reality to annexe the Czech countries independent of Slovakia, and reign over it as well by his own appointee.

It was easy for him to attain these ends as most of the main political Slovakian chiefs were Catholic ecclesiastics, according to Walter Hagen (72), and, amongst these, the priest Hlinka (Jesuit), had at his dosposal a “guard” trained on Nazi S.A. principles.

We know that, according to canon law, no priest can accept a public post or a political mandate without the Holy See’s consent.

This is confirmed and explained by the R.P. Jesuit de Soras: “How could it be otherwise? We have said so already: a priest, by virtue of the ‘character’ his ordination marked him with, by virtue of the official functions he exercises within the Church itself, by virtue of the cassock he wears, is bound to act as a Catholic, at least when a public action is concerned. Where the priest is, there is the Church”.(73)

(70) Francois Charles-Roux, op.cit., pp.127, 128. (71) Frnacois Charles-Roux, op.cit., 127, 128. (72) Cf. Walter Hagen: “Le Front secret” (Les lies d’Or, Paris 1950). (73) R.P. de Soras, op.cit., p.96.

It was then with the Vatican’s consent that members of the clergy sat in the Czechoslovak Parliament. Still more, one of these priests had to have the Holy See’s approval when the Fuhrer himself invested him as head of state -and later conferred on him the highest hitlerian distinctions: the Iron Cross and the Black Eagle decoration.

As anticipated, on the 15th of March 1939, Hitler annexed the rest of Bohemia and Moravia, and put the Republic of Slovakia, which he had created with a stroke of his pen, “under his protection”. At the head, he placed Monseigneur Tiso (Jesuit), “who dreamed of combining Catholicism and Nazism”. A noble ambition, and easily realised as it had already been proved by the German and Austrian episcopates.

“Catholicism and Nazism”, proclaimed Monseigneur Tiso, “have much in common; they work hand in hand at reforming the world”.(74)

Such must have been also the Vatican’s opinion as—in spite of the “terrible” encyclical letter “Mit Brennender Sorge”—it did not haggle over its approval of the gauleiter priest.

“In June 1940, Radio Vatican announced: “The declaration of Monseigneur Tiso, chief of the Slovakian state, stating his intention to build up Slovakia according to a Christian plan, has the full approval of the Holy See”.(75)

“Tiso’s regime, in Slovakia, was especially afflicting for the Protestant Church of that country, which comprised one fifth of the population. Monseigneur Tiso tried to reduce the Protestant influence to its minimum, and even eliminate it… Influential members of the Protestant Church were sent to concentration camps”.(76)

These could count themselves fortunate, as we consider this declaration from the Jesuits’ general Wernz, a Prussian (1906-1915): “The Church can condemn heretics to death as any rights they have is because of our forbearance”.

Let us see now what kind of apostolic gentleness was used by the gauleiter prelate Tiso towards the Jews: “In 1941, the first contingent of Jews from Slovakia and upper-Silesia arrive at Auschwitz; from the start, those who were not able to work are sent to the gas chamber, in a room of the building containing the crematory furnaces”.(77)

Who wrote this? A witness who could not be challenged, Lord Russell of Liverpool, a judicial counsellor at the trials of war criminals. So, the Holy See had not “lent” one of its prelates to Hitler in vain. The Jesuit head of state was doing a good job and the satisfaction expressed by Radio Vatican is understandable. To have been Auschwitz’s first provider, what a glory for this holy man and for the whole Company of Jesuits! In fact, this triumph lacked nothing. At the time of the Liberation, this prelate was handed over to Czechoslovakia by the Americans, condemned to death in 1946 and hanged—the palm, for a martyr!

(74) and (75) Henriette Feuillet: “France Nouvelle”, 25th of June 1949. (76) “Reforme”, 17th of August 1947. (77) Lord Russell of Liverpool: “Sous le signe de la croix gammes”, (L’Ami du livre, Geneva 1955, p.217).

“Anything done against the Jews, we do it because of our love for this nation of ours. The love for our fellow-men and the love for our country have developed into a fruitful fight against the enemies of Nazism”.(78)

Another high dignitary of the Roman Church, in a neighbouring country, could have appropriated this declaration of Monseigneur Tiso to himself. For, if the foundations of the Slovakian “City of God” were hatred and persecution, according to the steadfast tradition of the Church, what can be said of the eminently Catholic state of Croatia, offspring of the collaboration between the killer Pavelitch and Monseigneur Stepinac, and with the assistance of the pontifical legate Marcone!

We would have to look back as far as the conquest of the New World, couple the actions of the adventurers of Cortes and the no less ferocious converter monks to find something worth comparing with the atrocities of those Oustachis”, upheld, commanded and prompted by madly fanatical clerics. What these “Assassins in the Name of God”, as they were so rightly nicknamed by M. Herve Lauriere, did over four years defies all imagination, and the annals of the Roman Church, even though so rich in such material, cannot produce the equivalent in Europe. Do we need to add that the crony of the blood-thirsty Ante Pavelitch was Monseigneur Stepinac, another Jesuit?

The Croatian terrorist organisation of the “Oustachis”, led by Pavelitch, had come to the notice of the French people through the assassination, in Marseille, of King Alexander the First of Yugoslavia and our Foreign- Affairs’ minister, Louis Barthou, in 1934. “As Mussolini’s government was obviously mixed up in the crime”(79), the extradition of Pavelitch, who had taken refuge in Italy, was demanded by the French government; the Duce obviously took care not to grant it, and the Assize Court of Aix-en-Provence had to impose the death sentence by default on the head of the “Oustachis”. This chief of terrorists, hired by Mussolini, “worked” for the Italian expansion on the Adriatic coast. When, in 1941, Hitler and Mussolini invaded and divided Yoguslavia, this supposed Croatian patriot was put. by them, at the head of the satellite state they created under the name of “Independent State of Croatia”. On the 18th of May of that same year, in Rome, Pavelitch offered the crown of that state to the Duke of Spolete who took the name “Tomislav II”. Of course, he took care never to set foot on the blood-stained soil of his pseudo-kingdom. “On the same day, Pius XII gave a private audience to Pavelitch and his ‘friends’, one of whom was Monseigneur Salis-Sewis, vicar-general to Monseigneur Stepinac. “So, the Holy See did not fear shaking hands with a certified murderer, sentenced to death by default for the murder of King Alexander the First and Louis Barthou, a chief of terrorists having the most horrible crimes on his conscience! In fact, on the 18th of May 1941, when Pius XII gladly welcomed Pavelitch and his gang of killers, the massacre of Orthodox Croats was at its height, concurrently with forced conversions to Catholicism”.(79a)

(78) Henriette Feuillet: “France Nouvelle”, 25th of June 1949. (79) Francois Charles-Roux, op.cit., p. 132. (79a) Cf. Herve Lauriere: “Assassins in the Name of God”, (Ed. Dufour, Paris 1951, pp.40 ss)

It was the Serbian minority of the population they were after, as the author Walter Hagen explains: “Thanks to the ‘Oustachis’, the country was soon transformed into a bloody chaos… The deadly hatred of the new masters was directed towards the Jews and Serbians who were officially outlawed… Whole villages, even whole regions were sytematically wiped out . . . As the ancient tradition wanted Croatia and the Catholic Faith, Serbia and the Orthodox Church to be synonymous, the Orthodox believers were constrained to join the Catholic Church. These compulsory conversions constituted the completion of “croatisation”.(80)

Andrija Artukovic, minister of the Interior, was the great organiser of these massacres and compulsory conversions; but, while doing it, he “morally” defended himself, according to a witness in a high position. Indeed, when the Yugoslav government asked for his extradition from the United States where he had taken refuge, someone spoke on his behalf: the R.P. Jesuit Lackovic, residing also in the United States, and secretary to Monseigneur Stepinac, archbishop of Zagreb, during the last war. “Artukovic”, states the Jesuit, “was the lay spokesman of Monseigneur Stepinac. Between 1941 and 1945, not one day went by without seeing him in my office or myself going to his. He asked the archbishop’s advice on all his actions, as far as their moral aspect was concerned”.(81)

When we know what the “actions” of this executioner were, we realise what kind of edifying “moral” advice Monseigneur Stepinac gave him. Massacres and “conversions” took place until the Liberation, and the good-will of the Holy-Father towards the killers never altered. One must read, in the Croatian Catholic newspapers of that time, the exchanges of compliments between Pius XII and Pavelitch, the “Poglavnik”, to whom Monseigneur Saric, Jesuit archbishop of Sarajavo and a poet in his spare time, dedicated verses impregnated with a rapturous adoration.

(80) Walter Hagen op.cit., pp. 168,176,198,199. (81) “Mirror News” of Los Angeles, 24th of January 1958. (82) With other Catholic ecclesiastics such as Monseigneur Aksamovic, the Jesuits Irgolis. Lonacir, Pavunic, Mikan, Polic, Severovic, Sipic, Skrinjar, Vucetic (note of the author).

But this was only a show of good manners: “Monseigneur Stepinac becomes member of the “Oustachi” parliament (82). He wears “Oustachi” decorations, he is present at all important “Oustachi” official manifestations at which he even gives speeches… “Must we then wonder at the respect given to Monseigneur Stepinac by the satellite state of Croatia’? or that his praises were sung by the “Oustachi” press? It is, alas, too evident that, without the support of Monseigneur Stepinac, on the religious and political side, Ante Pavelitch would never have obtained the collaboration of Catholic Croats to such an extent”.(83)

To comprehend the full extent of that collaboration, one must read the Croatian Catholic press, the “Katolicki Tjednik”, the “Katolick List”, the “Hrvatski Narod”, and so many other publications which vied with each other in flattering the bloody “Poglavnik”; Pius XII was so pleased that he was a “practising Catholic”, and the high esteem of the Sovereign Pontiff embraced even the accomplices of the great man.

The “Osservatore Romano” informs us that, on the 22nd of July 1941. the pope received one hundred members of the Croatian Security Police, led by the chief of Zagreb’s police, Eugen Kvaternik-Dido. This group of Croatian S.S., the pick of the executioners and torturers operating in the concentration camps, were presented to the Holy-Father by one who perpetrated crimes so monstrous that his own mother committed suicide in despair.

The goodwill of His Holiness Pius XII is easily explained by the apostolic zeal of these killers. Another “practising Catholic”, Mile Budak, minister for Worship, exlcaimed in August 1941, at Karlovac: “The “Oustachi” movement is based on religion. All our work rests on our loyalty to religion and the Catholic Church”.(84)

Besides, on the 22nd of July, at Gospic, the same minister for Worship had perfectly defined this work: “We will kill some Serbians, deport others, and the rest will be compelled to’ embrace the Roman Catholic religion”.(85) This fine programme was carried out to the letter. When the Liberation put an end to this tragedy, 300,000 Serbians and Jews had been deported and more than 500,000 massacred. By this means the Roman Church had also made 240,000 Orthodox believers enter its fold… who quickly went back to the religion of their ancestors when their freedom was restored. But, to obtain this ridiculous result, what horrors fell on that unfortunate country! One must read, in the book of M. Herve Lauriere “Assassins in the Name of God”, details of the monstrous tortures that these practising Catholics who were the Oustachis inflicted on their poor victims.”

(83) “Le Monde” 27th of May 1953. (84) Cf. Herve Lauriere: “Assassins in the Name of God”, (Ed. Dufour, Paris 1951, p.97). (85) “L’Ordre de Paris”, 8th of February 1947.

The English journalist J.A. Voigt wrote: “Croatian politics consisted of massacres, deportations or conversions. The number of those who were massacred reaches hundreds of thousands. The massacres were accompanied by the most bestial tortures. The “Oustachis” put out their victims’ eyes and made garlands with them, which they wore, or presented as mementos”.(86)

“In Croatia, the Jesuits implanted political clericalism”.(87)

It is the present invariably offered by the famous Company to the nations which welcome it. The same author adds: “With the death of the great Croatian tribune, Raditch, Croatia loses its main opponent to political clericalism which will embrace the mission of the Catholic action defined by Friedrich Muckermann. This German Jesuit, well-known before Hitler’s advent, made it known, in 1928, in a book whose foreword was written by Monseigneur Pacelli, then apostolic nuncio in Berlin. Muckermann expressed himself as follows: “The pope appeals in favour of the Catholic Action’s new crusade. He is the guide who carries the standard of Christ’s Kingdom… The Catholic Action means the gathering of world Catholicism. It must live its heroic age… The new epoch can be acquired for Christ only through the price of blood”.(88)

Ten years after this was written, the one who wrote the foreword of the Jesuit Father Muckermann’s book sat on the throne of Saint-Peter and, during his pontificate, “the blood for Christ” literally flowed in Europe; but Croatia suffered the worst of the atrocious deeds of that “new epoch”. There, not only were the priests advocating all out slaughter from the pulpit, but some even marched at the head of the murderers. Others held, apart from their sacred ministry, official posts as prefects or chiefs of the “Oustachi” police, even as chiefs of concentration camps where horrors were not outdone by even Dachau or Auschwitz.

To this bloody list of honours, we must enter the names of the Abbe Bozidar Bralo, the priest Dragutin Kamber, the Jesuit Lackovic and the Abbe Yvan Salitch, secretaries to Monseigneur Stepinac, the priest Nicolas Bilogrivic, etc… and numberless Franciscans; one of the worst of these was Brother Miroslav Filipovitch, main organiser of those massacres, chief of and executioner at the concentration camp of Jasenovac, the most hideous of these earthly hells.

Brother Filipovitch’s fate was the same as Monseigneur Tiso’s, in Slovakia: when Liberation came, he was hanged, wearing his cassock. But many of his rivals, not very anxious to win the palm of the martyr, fled to Austria, pell-mell with the assassins they had assisted so well. But what was the “hierarchy” doing, when confronted with the blood- thirsty frenzy of so many of its subordinates?

(86) “Nineteenth Century and After”, August 1943. (87) and (88) Herve Lauriere, op.cit., pp.82,84,85.

The “hierarchy”, or the episcopate and its leader, Monseigneur Stepinac, voted in the “Oustachi” Parliament for the decrees concerning t h e conversion of the Orthodox to Catholicism, sent “missionaries” to the terrorized peasants, converted without wincing whole villages (89), took possession of the Serbian Orthodox Church’s properties and without ceasing showered praises and blessings on the Poglavnik, copying the example set from on high by Pope Pius XII.

His Holiness Pius XII was personally represented at Zagreb by an eminent monk, the R.P. Marcone. This “Sancti Sedis Legatus” was given the place of honour at all the ceremonies of the “Oustachi” regime, and had himself sanctimoniously photographed at the home of the chief of killers— Pavelitch— with his family which received him as a friend. “Birds of a feather flock together”.

So, the most sincere cordiality always reigned in the relations between the assassins and ecclesiastics—of course, many of these ecclesiastics held both positions, for which they were never blamed. “The end justifies the means”. When Pavelitch and his 4,000 “Oustachis”—which included archbishop Saric, a Jesuit, bishop Garic and 400 clerics—left the scene of their exploits to go first to Austria then on to Italy, they left behind part of their “treasures”: films, photographs, recorded speeches of Ante Pavelitch, chests full of jewels, gold coins, gold and platinum from the teeth, bracelets, wedding rings and pieces of dentures made of gold and platinum. This spoil taken from the poor wretches who had been murdered were hidden at the Archiepiscopal palace where they were eventually found. As for the fugitives, they took advantage of the “Pontifical Commission for Assistance”, created expressly to save war criminals. This charitable institution hid them in convents, mainly in Austria and Italy, and provided the chiefs with false passports which enabled them to go to “friendly” countries, where they would be able to enjoy the fruits of their robberies in peace. This was done for Ante Pavelitch, whose presence in Argentina was revealed, in 1957, through an attempt upon his life in which he was wounded.

(89) In Monseigneur Stepinac’s own diocese, Kamensko, 400 came back to the Roman Catholic fold in one day. On the 12th of June 1942, “Radio Vatican” announced these mass- conversions, stating that it had been “spontaneous and without any pressure on the part of civil and ecclesiastical authorities”.

Since then, the dictatorial regime collapsed in Buenos Aires. Like former president Peron himself, his protege had to leave Argentina. From Paraguay where he went first, he reached Spain where he died on the 28th of December 1959, at the German hospital of Madrid. On that occasion, the French press recalled his bloody career and—more discreetly the “powerful accomplices” who enabled him to escape punishment. Under the title “Belgrade demanded his extradition in vain”, we read in “Le Monde”: “The brief information published in the press this morning revived, amongst the Yugoslav people, souvenirs of a past filled with sufferings and bitterness towards those who, by hiding Ante Pavelitch, for nearly fifteen years, obstructed the course of justice”.(90) “Paris- Presse” points out the last shelter offered to the terrorist with this short, but significant phrase: “He ended up in a Franciscan monastery of Madrid”.(91)

It is from there, in fact, that Pavelitch was taken to hospital where he paid his debt to nature—but not to justice, scoffed at by these “powerful accomplices” who are easy to identify.

Monseigneur Stepinac who had, as he said, a “clear conscience”, stayed in Zagreb where he was tried in 1946. Condemned to hard labour, he was in fact only made to reside in his native village. The penance was easy to bear, as we can see, but the Church needs martyrs. The archbishop of Zagreb was then made a member of the holy cohort, in his lifetime, by Pius XII who hastened to confer on him the title of “Cardinal”, in recognition of “his apostolate which displays the purest brightness”.

We are acquainted with the symbolic meaning of the Cardinals’ Purple: the one who dons it must be ready to confess his Faith “usque ad sanguinis effusionem”: to the point of shedding blood. We cannot deny that this shedding was abundant in Croatia, during the apostolate of this holy man, but the blood which flowed there in torrents was not the prelate’s: it was the blood of Orthodox believers and Jews. Must we see there a “reversibility of merits.”

If that is the case, the right to cardinalship of Monseigneur Stepinac cannot be contested. In the diocese of Gornji Karlovac, part of his archbishopric, out of 460,000 Orthodox people who lived there, 50,000 were able to hide in the mountains, 50,000 were sent to Serbia, 40,000 were converted to Catholicism through the regime of terror and 280,000 were massacred”.(92)

On the 19th of December 1958, we read in “Catholic France”: “To exalt the greatness and heroism of His Eminence the Cardinal Stepinac, a great meeting will take place on the 21st of December 1958, at 4 o’clock, in the crypt of Sainte-Odile, 2, Avenue Stephane-Mallarme, Paris 17. It will be presided over by His Eminence the Cardinal Feltin, archbishop of Paris.

(90) “Le Monde”, 31st of December 1959. (91) “Paris-Presse”, 31st of December 1959. (92 ) Cf. Jean Hussard: “Vu en Yougoslavie” (Lausanne 1947, p.216).

Senator Ernest Pezet and the Reverend Father Dragoun, national rector of the Croatian Mission in France, will take part. His Excellency Monseigneur Rupp will celebrate mass and communion”.

This is how a new figure, and not one of the least important, the one of Cardinal Stepinac, came to enrich the gallery of Great Jesuits. Another aim of this meeting on the 21st of December 1958, in the crypt of Sainte-Odile, was to “launch” a book written in the defense of Zagreb’s archbishop, by the R.P. Dragoun himself; Monseigneur Rupp, coadjutor of Cardinal Feltin, wrote the foreword. We cannot give here a full analysis but will say this:

The book is entitled “The Dossier of Cardinal Stepinac”, which seems to promise the reader an objective exposition of the trial at Zagreb. In fact, in this volume which numbers 285 pages, we find the speeches of the archbishop’s two counsels in full, accompanied by extensive remarks from the author, but, neither the charge itself, nor the speech for the prosecution are mentioned, even briefly.

The R.P. Dragoun seems to ignore the French proverb “Qui n’entend qu’une cloche n’entend qu’un son” (there are two sides to every story)-unless, of course, he knows it too well!

Be that as it may, this systematic obliteration of the opposite side of the story would be enough to close the debate.

Let us consider, though, the good reasons invoked for the discharge of Zagreb’s archbishop. But first of all, this question: Was Monseigneur Stepinac really the metropolitan of Croatia and Slovenia? The book of the R.P. Dragoun does not answer this question. On page 142 of that book, we read this concerning the copy of a report by Monseigneur Stepinac, the authenticity of which was contested by the defence:

“In the text of the copy, the archbishop is described as “Metropolitan Croatiae et Slavoniae”, but the archbishop is not a metropolitan and never presented himself as such.

This would clear the matter up if we didn’t read, on page 114, the following taken from Monseigneur Stepinac’s own declarations before the tribunal:

“The Holy See often emphasized that the small nations and the national minorities have the right to be free. Should not I, as “bishop and metropolitan”, have the right to discuss it?” The more we read, the less we understand!

No matter! As we are reminded again and again, Monseigneur Stepinac could not influence in any way the behaviour of his flock and clergy. The To those who bring out the articles of the Catholic press praising the accomplishments of Pavelitch and his hired assassins, the answer is: “It is simply ridiculous to make Monseigneur Stepinac responsible for what the newspaper wrote”.

Even when this paper was the “Katolicki List”, the most important Catholic publication in Zagreb, diocese of Monseigneur Stepinac! In those conditions, we won’t bother mentioning the “Andjeo Cuvar” (The Guardian Angel) belonging to the Franciscans, the “Glasnik Sv. Ante” (The Voice of Saint-Anthony) to the conventuals of the “Katolicki Tjednik”, (The Catholic Weekly) of Sarajevo, bishop Saritch, nor, of course, the “Vjesnik Pocasne Straze Srca Isusova” (The Publication of the Guard of Honour of the Heart of Jesus(!), belonging to the Jesuits).

So, it is claimed that Monseigneur Stepinac, “contested metropolitan”, had no influence over these publications, of which he was president, and which constantly tried to surpass each other in their adulation of Pavelitch and his regime of blood.

Neither did he have any authority, so they say, over the “Oustachi” bishops Sacric, Garic, Aksamovic, Simrak, etc., who showered praise on the Poglavnik and applauded his crimes, nor over the “Crusaders” of the Catholic Action, these auxiliaries of “Oustachi” converters, nor over the Franciscans murderers, nor over the nuns of Zagreb who marched past, their hands raised in the hitlerian fashion.

What a strange “hierarchy” which had authority over nothing and nobody! The fact that he sat, with ten other Catholic priests, in the “Sabor” (“Oustachi” Parliament) does not compromise the archbishop—or, at least, we must presume this, as the fact is simply ignored.

We should not reproach him either for his presidency over Episcopal Conferences nor over the Committee for the application of the Decree concerning the conversion of Orthodox people. In this apology, the “humanitarian” pretext of having made so many enter the Roman Church by force, is fully—and skilfully—expounded. We read this, concerning the “awful dilemma” facing Monseigneur Stepinac: “His pastoral duty was to maintain intact the canonical principles but, on the other hand, dissidents who refused to embrace Catholicism were massacred; so, he lessened the severity of the rules.”

We become even more bewildered when we read a little further on: “He tried to resolve this dramatic alternative in the circular letter of the 2nd of March 1942, in which he ordered the priests to closely screen the motives for conversion”.

This is indeed a peculiar method to “attenuate the severity of the rules” and resolve the “dramatic alternative”!

Was Monseigneur Stepinac opening or shutting the doors of the Roman Church to the false converts? It would be absolutely impossible to find it out if we referred only to this speech for the defence. The archbishop’s apologists seem to choose the “shutting”, though, when they declare: “… The cases of re-baptisms were very rare in the territory of Zagreb’s archdiocese (92a).”

Unfortunately, statistics tell us otherwise, as we said earlier: “… In the diocese of Gornji Karlovac alone, part of Zagreb’s archbishopric, 40,000 people were re-baptised”.

It is evident that such results could be obtained only through mass- conversions of whole villages, such as Kamensko, in that same archdiocese of Monseigneur Stepinac, where 400 lost sheep returned to the Roman fold in one day, “spontaneously and without any pressure on the part of civil and ecclesiastical authorities”.

Then why conceal these numbers? If they were really due to the “charitable sentiments” of the Croatian Catholic clergy, and not to the cynical exploitation of terror, they should have been proud of them. The truth is that the veil thrown over these infamies in an attempt to hide them is transparent and not wide enough. To cover Stepinac, others have to be uncovered: Bishops Saric, Garic, Simrak, the priests Bilogrivic, Kamber Bralo and their associates—the Franciscans and Jesuits have to be uncovered, and finally the Holy See.

We might as well leave this peculiar archbishop to enjoy his “clear conscience”, this primate of Croatia supposedly stripped of any authority, calling himself “metropolitan” when he wasn’t so and who, to crown the paradox, was opening doors when shutting them. But, at the side of this fantastic prelate, there was another one, consistent and corpulent, the R.P. Marcone, personnal representative of Pius XII.

Was this “Sancti Sedis legatus” also destitute of any authority over the Croatian clergy? Nobody knows! For the “dossier” so well expurgated makes no mention whatsoever of this great person; we could even be oblivious of his existence if we didn’t have other information, such as photographs which show him officiating at Zagreb’s cathedral, enthroned, amongst the “Oustachi” general-staff, and above all sharing a meal with the family of Pavelitch, the “practising” Catholic who organised the massacres.

Confronted by such a document, it is not surprising that the presence of the pope’s representative was “blacked-out”; the mystics would call this “enlightening darkness”! But these few lines from the “dossier” are even more enlightening:

“The procurator himself, in his bill of indictment, names the Holy See’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Maglione, who had, in 1942, advised Archbishop Stepinac to establish more cordial and sincere relations with the “Oustachi” authorities”.(92b)

This is sufficient to put an end to any more quibbling.

(92a) R.P. Dragoun: “The Dossier of Cardinal Stepinac” (Nouvelles Editions Latines, Paris 1958, pages 46 and 163). (92b) R.P. Dragoun: “The Dossier of Cardinal Stepinac”, (Nouvelles Editions Latines, Paris 1958, p.32).

The collusion between the Vatican and the “Oustachi” murderers is clear enough. The Holy See itself was urging Monseigneur Stepinac to collaborate with them, and the personnal representative of Pius XII, by taking his place at Pavelitch’s table, was applying the pontifical instructions to the letter: sincerity and cordiality in the relations with murderers of Orthodox believers and Jews.

This does not surprise us! But what do the Jesuits think of it all, as they obstinately affirmed that the constant co-operation given to the dictators, by the prelates of His Holiness, was an “option” entirely personal and not dictated by the Vatican?

When Cardinal Maglione sent the previously mentioned recommendations to Zagreb’s archbishop, was it his “personal option’ he expressed, under the seal of the State’s secretary’s office? The proof of the connivance between the Holy See and the “Oustachis” supplied by the R.P. Dragoun, which has just been mentioned, puts an end to this chapter.

But here is a new confirmation of the evangelical sentiments which flourished, and still flourish amongst the faithful of the Croatian Catholic Church towards the Orthodox Serbians.

The “Federation Ouvriere Croate en France” (Federation of Croatian workmen in France) sent out an invitation to the solemn meeting organised for Sunday, 19th of April 1959, at the “General Confederation of Christian workmen” centre, in Paris, to celebrate the 18th anniversary of the foundation of the “Oustachi” Croatian state.

This invitation read: “The ceremony will start with holy mass being said at the Church of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. But the reader, edified by this pious start, is the more startled when he discovers, soon after, this straight exhortation: “DEATH TO THE SERBIANS… !”(93)

So, this not so banal document expresses the regrets that not more of these “brothers in Christ” were killed.

The book of the R.P. Dragoun, rector of the Croatian Mission in France, implies that the welcome given by the French Catholics to the Croatian refugees was not warm enough. We are told this on pages 59 and 60, and, on pages 280 and 281, the author mentions the “grevious disappointment” these refugees experienced at “being met by a total lack of understanding on the part of their brothers in the faith”.

(93) Cf. “Le Monde”, 19th of April 1959.

Considering the aforementioned document, this “lack of understanding” seems comprehensible; we are glad that our fellow-countrymen, in spite of the most grand invitations, show little sympathy to a form of piety in which the call to murder walks hand in hand with the “holy mass”, in the best Roman and “Oustachi” tradition. We would be even more glad if such blood-thirsty tracts were not allowed to be printed and distributed openly in Paris itself.

On the 10th of February 1960, the infamous archbishop of Zagreb, Alois Stepinac, died at his native village of Karlovice, where he had been made to reside. This death gave the Vatican an opportunity to organise one of its spectacular manifestations for which it excels.

On that occasion, a lot had to be done as many Catholics had no illusions as far as the Stepinac “case” was concerned. So, the Holy See surpassed itself to give this apotheosis all the pomp possible. The “Osservatore Romano” and all the Catholic press dedicated many columns to the rapturous praises of the “martyr”,, his “spiritual testament”, and the speeches of His Holiness John XXIII proclaiming “his respect and supernatural affection”; these were the motives which prompted him to give to this cardinal who was not part of the Curia the honours of a solemn service at St. Peter’s, in Rome, where he himself would give the General Absolution. And to complete this glorification, the press announced that the beatification of that illustrious person would soon be started.

We must admit that he deserved so much praise, and even the halo, for ‘having observed the “holy obedience”, and carried out to the letter the pressing instructions of the Holy See concerning the “cordial and sincere” relations wished for between himself and the “Oustachis”. But, even amongst Catholics, we hope that some will be found who will discern, behind the exaltation of this future saint and the burial under flowers of the bloody souvenirs of his “apostolate”, the attempt of the Vatican to hide its own crime.