don Vitaliano Della Sala
Beatissimo Padre,
avrei voluto scriverti prima, ma ero sicuro che una mia lettera non
ti sarebbe mai giunta tra le mani, si sarebbe fermata tra quelle di qualche
tuo solerte collaboratore. Oggi sono sicuro che potrai finalmente leggermi
e ascoltarmi, leggere e ascoltare il mio cuore.
Ti ho voluto bene, ho ammirato il tuo coraggio nel difendere sempre
i poveri e la pace; oggi sono addolorato per la tua morte, come sono addolorato
ogni volta che muore un uomo o una donna, come sono stato addolorato per
la morte di mio padre. Non sono angosciato e non condivido lo strepito che
sta facendo "la folla" e i troppi potenti che dicono di piangerti; non credo
nell'angoscia nazionale raccontata dai giornali e dal "salotto buono" italiano
di Bruno Vespa, preoccupato solo dell'audience; non credo nemmeno nelle lacrime
dei tanti in piazza S. Pietro, che in questo modo scaricano collettivamente
altre angosce e altre paure, preoccupati esclusivamente di immortalare sul
display del loro telefonino l'immagine del tuo corpo esanime. I cristiani
non strepitano di fronte alla morte; noi cristiani crediamo nella resurrezione
dei morti, nella vita oltre la morte, e siamo certi che tu ora sei vivo,
come sono vivi tutti coloro che «ti hanno preceduto nel segno della fede
e dormono il sonno della pace», non importa se poveri e sconosciuti.

Forse ti faranno presto santo e noi tutti potremo considerarci privilegiati
per aver potuto vedere, sia pure purtroppo soltanto attraverso la televisione,
come sono gli occhi e il sorriso dei santi. Aggiungeranno il tuo nome all'elenco
delle migliaia di uomini e donne che tu, forse esagerando, hai canonizzato.
I potenti sfileranno, come in passerella, accanto alla tua salma muta; quegli
stessi potenti che causano le povertà sulle quali tu ti sei chinato; quegli
stessi potenti che scatenano le guerre contro le quali tu ti sei, a volte,
scagliato: se non hanno raccolto la tua sfida quando eri vivo, non illuderti,
non lo faranno neanche ora che sei morto.

Ti hanno definito "il grande" e forse è vero, ma sarei ipocrita se
mi accodassi a tutti quelli che stanno straparlando bene di te, perché così
conviene. Sai bene quello che il Vangelo dice: «Guai quando tutti diranno
bene di voi. Allo stesso modo infatti facevano i loro padri con i falsi profeti»
(Luca 6, 26). Tu non sei stato un falso profeta, ma uno che ha saputo dire
con coraggio quello che pensava. Ma, sotto il tuo pontificato è stato tolto
a tanti cattolici il diritto di parlare: hai giustamente combattuto il comunismo
illiberale che avevi subito nella tua Polonia, ma hai voluto una Chiesa che
rispecchia molto quel regime oppressivo.

E' strano, ti hanno sempre applaudito ipocritamente i potenti, dopo
che tu li avevi bacchettati; e i giovani, che realisticamente usano gli anticoncezionali,
ti hanno sempre acclamato dopo i tuoi discorsi di chiusura in campo morale,
continuando senza eccessivi scrupoli di coscienza a disobbedirti. Attorno
a te c'è stata una specie di isteria collettiva: più pretendevi dalla gente
e più ti acclamavano. Il segreto è stato probabilmente un efficiente ufficio
stampa, capace di gestire in maniera magistrale la comunicazione della tua
immagine e delle tue gesta.

Oggi la Chiesa, a conclusione della tua esperienza terrena, sembra
una di quelle case di un set cinematografico: la facciata bella e completa
che nasconde il vuoto. Ti dico questo perché ti voglio bene e voglio bene
alla nostra Chiesa, voglio il bene della Chiesa, e il volere bene esclude
l'ipocrisia e l'ossequio vile.

Qualcuno dovrebbe raccontare alle folle plaudenti le contraddizioni
del tuo pontificato, la tua, legittima, visione tradizionalista della Chiesa,
il tradimento verso il Concilio Vaticano II; il tuo esserti circondato di
collaboratori reazionari, che la dice lunga sulle aperture di facciata del
tuo pontificato; qualcuno dovrebbe spiegare la tua visione del potere, l'accentramento
di potere nelle tue mani, e in quelle del tuo entourage, che c'è stato sotto
il tuo pontificato e la mancanza di collegialità con l'episcopato; qualcuno
dovrebbe spiegare ai rappresentanti delle altre confessioni cristiane e a
quelli delle altre religioni la tua idea di ecumenismo come riconoscimento
dell'unica verità posseduta esclusivamente dalla Chiesa cattolica; qualcuno
dovrebbe spiegarci come mai ti sei scagliato con forza contro la guerra in
Iraq e hai provocato la guerra in Jugoslavia quando il Vaticano ha riconosciuto
per primo l'indipendenza della Croazia, e perché non hai mai detto che ogni
guerra, la guerra in sé è ingiusta; qualcuno dovrebbe dirci che hai sbagliato
clamorosamente strategia quando, contribuito a far crollare i regimi comunisti
dell'est europeo, ti aspettavi, soprattutto per la tua Polonia, un prevalere
dei valori cristiani nella vita di quei Paesi e invece ha prevalso il consumismo
e il "neoliberismo sfrenato", ha prevalso quello che i tuoi predecessori
definivano «imperialismo capitalista del denaro».

Non avveniva da molto tempo che nella Chiesa ci fosse tanto terrore
ad esternare le proprie idee. In questi ultimi anni, si sono rafforzati i
tratti di una Chiesa intollerante, arrogante, inumana, che parla di diritti
dell'uomo all'esterno, ma non li rispetta al suo interno. Hai dichiarato
un numero elevatissimo di santi, ma al tempo stesso hai ignorato l'inquisizione
attuata nei confronti di teologi e sacerdoti. I nuovi santi, strumentalizzati
politicamente e commercialmente con spese ingenti e conseguenti profitti
per la Curia, sono soprattutto pie suore e fondatori di ordini religiosi
che spesso di "eroico" non hanno nulla. Uomini e donne (anche donne appartenenti
a ordini religiosi) che si sono distinti, per il loro pensiero critico e
per la loro energica volontà di riforme, sono stati invece trattati con metodi
da Inquisizione. Qualcuno dovrebbe raccogliere i frammenti di storia di tutti
i provvedimenti disciplinari, dei processi canonici o delle precisazioni
dottrinali, emanati dal Vaticano negli ultimi venticinque anni contro quei
sacerdoti, teologi e religiosi che hanno adottato un approccio molto più
ampio e flessibile nel trattare la delicata questione dei rapporti tra annuncio
evangelico, strutture religiose, contesti storico-sociali e norme morali.
Ne emergerebbe, tra l'altro, la storia del tentativo di difendere la visione
della Chiesa come istituzione - gerarchica, autoritaria e centralista - tutta
tesa a tradurre il messaggio rivoluzionario del Vangelo in norme morali e
giuridiche. Nel Vangelo c'è una parabola nella quale Gesù paragona il Regno
di Dio, quindi la Chiesa, a un granello di senape, il più piccolo tra semi
che però diventa un albero frondoso, «e fa rami tanto grandi che gli uccelli
del cielo possono ripararsi alla sua ombra»: paradigma della Chiesa-altra
che sempre più cattolici sognano e si impegnano a costruire. Una Chiesa inclusiva,
che non emargina, non usa la pesante scure del giudizio su nessuno, una «Chiesa
degli esclusi e non dell'esclusione», come ama affermare mons. Jacques Gaillot,
vescovo degli esclusi ed a sua volta vescovo escluso perché rimosso dalla
sua diocesi di Evreux, in Francia.

Nei tuoi ultimi giorni terreni ci hai, invece, dato grandi insegnamenti;
ci hai dimostrato come si soffre e si muore da cristiani, ci hai insegnato
che la morte, quando arriva, deve trovarci vivi. E' stata forse la tua lezione
più alta. Mi resterà sempre impresso nella memoria il tuo urlo silenzioso,
alla finestra del tuo apostolico appartamento l'ultima volta che ti sei affacciato,
quando hai capito che non saresti mai più riuscito a parlare. Allora, in
quel tuo silenzio straziante, ho ascoltato le urla di dolore di tutto il
XX secolo e di tutti i poveri del mondo. In quel momento mi sei parso grandissimo
e ti ho amato.

Ti saluto, nella certezza che tu, ora, non ti arrabbierai per quello
che ti ho scritto, perché abiti nel "mondo della verità", come dicono gli
anziani delle mie zone, e leggi nel mio cuore tutto l'affetto che provo per
te e per la nostra Chiesa. Sicuramente, invece, si arrabbieranno i tuoi collaboratori
e i miei diretti superiori; ma non importa, da te ho imparato che bisogna
sempre dire e amare «lo splendore della verità». Arrivederci in Paradiso.


parroco rimosso di Sant'Angelo a Scala (Av)

__________________________________________________________________
Tiscali Adsl 3 Mega Flat con 3 MESI GRATIS!
Con Tiscali Adsl 3 Mega Flat navighi con la Supervelocita'
a soli 29.95 euro al mese, senza limiti di tempo. E se attivi
entro il 15 Aprile, 3 MESI sono GRATIS!
Scopri come risparmiare navigando veloce, su
http://abbonati.tiscali.it/adsl/sa/2flat_tc/

Da: http://www.balkanalysis.com/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=523


Another Side of the Pope: John Paul II's Balkan Legacy

By Carl Savich

What will be Pope John Paul II?s legacy? In the week between his death and
funeral, the media have lionized him with candy-coated encomiums as a peace-loving
pope who brought down Communism and ushered in the New World Order. His place
in history is assured as a determined anti-Communist who revitalized the
Roman Catholic Church. He will also be remembered as an energetic evangelist
for his faith, traveling to over 120 countries during his reign.

Yet what kind of a role did the ?peacemaker? Pope play in the recent Balkan
conflicts? And, despite his many journeys and outreach to leaders of other
faiths, why did John Paul II not seek to reconcile Orthodox Slavs and Roman
Catholic Slavs in the Balkans? In the end, did the Pope only exacerbate religious
tensions and animosity in the Balkans?

John Paul II: First to Recognize Croatia

In 1991, Pope John Paul II became the first to recognize Croatia as an independent
state. Committed at a time when tensions were high and dialogue was called
for, this act was needlessly reckless. It gave great prestige and legitimacy
to the cause of Catholic Croatia, which the Pope championed for his own narrow
religious goals. His recognition helped spark a tragic civil war that resulted
in the deaths of thousands of Serbs and Croats. The premature and irresponsible
recognition foreshadowed the carnage, killing, displacement and suffering
in the former Yugoslavia.

?I am not a pacifist,? said John Paul II In 1991, in the context of the first
Gulf War. A few years later, bolstered by his ?just war? rhetoric, he demanded
of Bill Clinton and NATO to intervene in the Bosnian conflict, when Roman
Catholic Croatian troops were being militarily defeated by Bosnian Muslim
troops. Using the rationale that ?'the aggressor must be disarmed,? the Pope
also incited the US to intervene militarily against the Bosnian Serbs to
prevent the military defeat of Roman Catholic Croats in Bosnia. Of course,
he has always veiled this intent behind the theology of the ?duty? of the
international community to intervene in cases of perceived genocide.

However, at the same time that he sought to protect the rights of Catholic
Croats, Pope John Paul II was indifferent to the plight of the Serbian Orthodox
population of Krajina. All he wanted was to recognize Croatia, a Roman Catholic
state that worshipped the Vatican. He abjured negotiation, compromise, reconciliation.
He was silent when Roman Catholic Croat troops, with NATO and US help, ethnically
cleansed over 350,000 Krajina Serbs in 1995. This was the largest single
act of ethnic cleansing during the Balkan conflict. The peace-loving Pope
showed that he was a hypocrite.

Croatia was an obsession with Pope John Paul II. It was his Poland-next-door.
He was determined to destroy the Yugoslav federation and socialism, as he
had the Soviet Union. John Paul visited Croatia on three occasions: September
10-11, 1994; October 2-4, 1998; and, his 100th foreign visit, June 5-9, 2003.
But on this last visit, a Bosnian Muslim sent him an e-mail threatening to
kill him ?in the name of Allah.?

The Pope: a Supporter of Holocaust-Denier Franjo Tudjman

The Pope?s behavior toward the Balkans becomes especially controversial in
light of his treatment of morally corrupt leaders. He never criticized or
condemned Croatian leader Franjo Tudjman, a known Holocaust denier and rabid
anti-Semite.. It was Tudjman who had denied that 6 million Jews were killed
in the Holocaust, maintaining instead that only 900,000 Jews were murdered.
He also called Israelis ?Judeo-Nazis? who were carrying out genocide against
Palestinian Muslims. Tudjman also denied the World War II Croatian Ustasha
genocide at Jasenovac, which he dismissed contemptuously as the ?Jasenovac
myth.?

Tudjman was a known racist who had plans to annex Bosnia-Hercegovina into
a Greater Croatia. Yet John Paul II 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. The
Pope had no sympathy for their rights or aspirations. All he ever cared about
was the expansion of Roman Catholicism.

A Pope Who Beatified Backers of the Ustasha?s Genocidal Regime

On his second official papal visit to Croatia, Pope John Paul II made the
shocking decision to beatify Croatian Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac, a man
who had supported the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Serbs,
Jews, and Roma. In Roman Catholicism, beatification is the step prior to
sainthood. The beatification occurred at a huge open-air ceremony at the
shrine of Marija Bistrica on October 3, 1998. This was meant as a slap in
the face to all Orthodox Serbs. It would be like the Nobel Peace Committee
awarding Adolf Eichmann a posthumous Nobel Prize for Peace. The action demonstrated
his total and profound contempt for the Serbian people, for the Orthodox
religion, and for the legacy of 60,000 Jews killed in Ustasha death camps.




Pope John Paul II prays next to body of convicted war criminal Stepinac in
Zagreb, 1998 (CNN photo; fair use)

The body of Stepinac is preserved and embalmed in a glass case in Zagreb.
In beatifying Stepinac, the Pope ignored a request from the Simon Wiesenthal
Center to await the results of an investigation into his role in genocide
and the Holocaust during World War II, angering Jewish organizations in the
process. But that didn?t deter the man who mass-produced more saints than
any other pope in history, by lowering the requisite standards. 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; he was to be revered as a ?martyr? in the conflict against Communism.

Who was Alojze 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.
The core around which the Ustasha movement was based was Roman Catholicism,
and it was accordingly backed by Pope Pius XII, otherwise known as "Hitler's
Pope.? No matter about that - the BBC reported that, as with Stepinac, Pope
John Paul II decided to put Pius XII ?on the road to sainthood,? despite
an outcry from Jewish groups.

The 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?
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.

The Roman Catholic Ustasha genocide against Orthodox Serbs shocked, disgusted,
and appalled even their Nazi minders 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, and 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 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.

It is hard to comprehend how such a brand of Roman Catholicism can be said
to be following the teachings of Jesus Christ. And this explains why it has
been so meticulously censored, suppressed, and covered-up in the so-called
West. 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 until the end.

Eleanor Roosevelt called the Ustasha genocide one of the worst crimes of
World War II. Yet it is one of the greatest cover-ups of the 20th century.
Mainstream historians in the West have always covered it up and suppressed
it, and thus it remains one of the major falsifications of the history of
the Balkans. And Pope John Paul II, though himself a Slav, did nothing to
expose this massive cover-up.

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 according to the
Yad Vashem.

This is a falsification of the facts. 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, Pavelic said: ?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, Nazi and Ustasha military officers, 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.

After World War II, Stepinac was arrested by the Communist regime and tried
and convicted for his complicity in war crimes and mass murder. 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.

Stepinac?s Yugoslav War Crimes Trial

The theory of command responsibility cited today by the Hague and international
war crimes law experts was employed in the postwar trial of Archbishop Stepinac.
He was found guilty according to this theory. A 1947 publication, The Trial
of Stepinac, relates the findings of the Yugoslav War Crimes Commission.
Here is what it says in this official Yugoslav Government report of the trial
published in Washington, DC:

?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 Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia.

Here 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 before World War II. It was the Vatican that was giving
refuge to Pavelic and preparing his possible takeover in Croatia. Stepinac
obviously knew about all of this.

Roman Catholic priests became administrators in the Ustasha state. Stepinac
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 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 state. He called on its 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.?

As we have seen, prominent Roman Catholic priests in Croatia praised and
supported the Ustasha, fascism, and Nazism. Official Roman Catholic publications
were guilty of incitement to genocide. Stepinac was the top of this hierarchical
ladder under command responsibility.

The Croat 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 and church. The Franciscans were militant
sponsors of the Ustasha state. Roman Catholic priests under the Ustasha regime
endorsed the Final Solution of Croat Jews. In Catholic media, they 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, Priest
Srecko Peric in Livno actually entreated his parishioners to ?kill and massacre
all Serbs.?

Stepinac took no action against these priests.

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 were in fact forcefully
converted ? something which for his supporters indicates the good archbishop?s
benevolence!

Stepinac was also Supreme Vicar of the Ustasha Army, and was made so by order
of the Vatican. In other words, not only was he part of the clerical and
political leadership of the Ustasha regime, he was also a member of the military.
Each Ustasha military unit had a Roman Catholic priest accompany it.

A huge number of Orthodox Serbs (estimates range from several hundred thousand
to 750,000) and about 60,000 Jews were murdered under the Ustasha regime.
Stepinac knew this crime was going on and actually sanctioned it, being one
of the top leaders of the regime.

When Stepinac concluded that Hitler would lose the war, he began to take
steps to make it appear as if he was against Pavelic and the Ustasha. But
this was a joke. He continued to help Pavelic until the last days of the
war.




Archbishop Stepanec greets Ustasha leader Ante Pavelic


The Vatican Expedites Nazi Escape

Following World War II, the Vatican helped many of the Croatian Ustasha war
criminals to escape through underground routes and channels. Croatian Roman
Catholic priest Krunoslav Draganovic organized the ?ratline? that allowed
Ustasha political leaders such as such as Ante Pavelic and Anrija Artukovic
to flee. The Pope has never acknowledged the role the Vatican played in allowing
these Nazi collaborators to escape from the Balkans to Argentina and other
countries in South America, despite the fact that the Vatican was later sued
for laundering hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gold and other items
which the Ustasha regime had seized from murdered Orthodox Serbs, Jews, and
Roma during World War II. The money was kept in the Swiss National Bank.
The Vatican allegedly used the Ustasha gold to finance and organize the rat
lines that allowed top Ustasha leaders to escape. But the Pope never apologized
for the role that Roman Catholic priests such as Alojize Stepinac and the
Croatian Roman Catholic Church in general played in the Ustasha genocide
committed in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina during World War II.

By beatifying a convicted war criminal, Pope John Paul II showed his utter
contempt for the Serbian people. He exacerbated the animosity and conflict
between Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians. He did not want reconciliation,
but conquest. Pope John Paul did nothing to reconcile the Catholic and Orthodox
communities in the Balkans. Indeed, he has made matters much worse. His legacy
will be one of failure and deliberately missed opportunities.

The Pope?s 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, Artemije accused the Vatican of having been
?amply implicated in the events? in Kosovo. Unlike in the later case of Iraq,
the Pope did not condemn the illegal and criminal NATO 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. But 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.

Despite speaking loudly and clearly in support of Christians the world over,
Pope John Paul II 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 centuries-old
presence of Serbian Christianity in Kosovo-Metohija. His silence was glaring.
Where was the condemnation of the March 2004 ?pogrom? or ?Kristallnacht?
in Kosovo, where over 35 Serbian Orthodox churches were destroyed and demolished
and Serbian Christians were brutally murdered?

Conclusion

Pope John Paul II will be remembered as the Pope who helped spark the carnage
and killing and displacement of the Balkan conflicts. By recognizing Croatia,
he started the ball rolling that resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent
people. It was his act of recklessly and arrogantly recognizing Croatia that
was partly to blame for the violent break-up of Yugoslavia. He could have
chosen the path of negotiation, rapprochement and reconciliation that many
world leaders were counseling at the time. Instead, he chose confrontation
and conflict. He chose something that he must have known would lead to war.

Diplomatic recognition is a matter appropriate to the political. The Pope
should have focused on religion, not politics. Like Alojze 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.

In the West, of course, the Pope will be remembered as the man who brought
down Communism, while traveling relentlessly and providing interfaith outreach
on a scale not seen by any previous pope. But his legacy will be remembered
differently in the Balkans. 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 use his enormous stature and respect in the eyes
of the world to make a difference for peace, but he chose not to do so. In
the end, he only exacerbated the historic conflict between Catholicism and
Orthodoxy. He made matters worse. In the Balkans at least, his legacy will
be one of failure.

Partial Bibliography

Braham, Randolph. The Vatican and the Holocaust. NY: Columbia University
Press, 2000.

Cornwell, John. Hitler's Pope. NY: Viking Penguin, 1999.

Dedijer, Vladimir. The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican. NY: Prometheus,
1988.

Manhattan, Avro. The Vatican's Holocaust. Springfield, MO: Ozark Books, 1986.

Ibid, Vatican Imperialism in the Twentieth Century. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,
1965.

Paris, Edmond. Genocide in Satellite Croatia. Chicago: American Institute,
1961.

Yugoslav Embassy. The Case of Archbishop Stepinac. Washington, DC: Yugoslav
Embassy, 1947.


__________________________________________________________________
Tiscali Adsl 3 Mega Flat con 3 MESI GRATIS!
Con Tiscali Adsl 3 Mega Flat navighi con la Supervelocita'
a soli 29.95 euro al mese, senza limiti di tempo. E se attivi
entro il 15 Aprile, 3 MESI sono GRATIS!
Scopri come risparmiare navigando veloce, su
http://abbonati.tiscali.it/adsl/sa/2flat_tc/

(en francais)
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/4328


Yes, Kouchner lied...
MICHEL COLLON

The co-author of one of the biggest media lies of the nineties has just confessed.
A good example for the future because ways of manipulations are always the
same...

Flash-back. Summer 92, war in Bosnia. Bernard Kouchner and his "doctors of
the world" (Médecins du monde) broadcasted into the press and on the walls
in Paris an advertisement, outstanding and expensive. The photograph showed
"prisoners" of a Serbian camp in Bosnia. Behind barbed wires, Kouchner sticking
the picture of a watchtower from Auschwitz. His text blamed Serbians for
"mass executions".

Was it right or wrong? Wrong, admits Kouchner twelve years later. His latest
book, the warriors for peace, recounts an interview with Izetbegovic (the
Muslim nationalist leader in authority at the time of Sarajevo), in his deathbed:

-Kouchner: those places were awful, but they didn't exterminate consistently.
Did you know about that?
- Izetbegovic: Yes. The assertion was false. There were no extermination
camps even if those places were terrible. I thought that my revelation would
bring faster bombings.

This media lie did actually change the opinion towards the support for bombings.
All the Western press broadcasted it massively but the latest rectification
was not communicated. The public could actually not be informed that they
get rolled.

The half-confession of Kouchner and this media silence makes us asking some
important questions:

1. Did Kouchner know all about it previously?
Answer: Yes. Since 1993, a journalist from France 2 channel, Jacques Merlino,
revealed the deception in his book with an eloquent title "All the truths
are not good to say". He was interviewing the director of Ruder Finn, US
agent for public relations. The latter, very proud to tell that his campaign
on" extermination camps" was just fake :
- "We got around three big Jewish organisations: B'nai B'rith, American Jewish
Committee et American Jewish Congress. And right away, we managed to make
the link between Serbians and Nazis concerning the public opinion. The case
was complex, nobody understood what was going on in Yugoslavia, but bolt
upright it was not really difficult to formulate who was the nice and the
good people.
- By lying, points out the journalist! Answer: We are professionals. We are
not paid to give moral lessons."
So, Kouchner knew since a long time and that's not nice to charge up the
entire blame on a dead person.

2. Did the media hide all the proofs of the deception?
Answer: Yes. A German journalist Thomas Deichmann showed since 1994 that
the photograph about barbed wires was fake, and also the prisoners were not
locked.
I reality, it was taken from an ITN reporting where they declare to be well-treated,
but the journalist took away those declarations!

You can find the Kouchner poster, Deichmann comments, and our paper about
special effects in our book Liar's Poker. Dated from 1998. So, we didn't
have to wait today to adjust.
Nota Bene for the url : this site is up to now in French (we look for help
from translators), but books and film are also available in English.
http://www.michelcollon.info/display.php?image=img/tm/tm_yougo34.jpg
www.michelcollon.info/display.php?image=img/tm/tm_yougo34.jpg
In a video-reporting "Under NATO bombings" (1999), we also showed the pictures
recorded by a local TV, where they were proving the cheating of the ITN reporting.

3. Did Kouchner receive protection, even from "media critics"?
Answer: Yes. One example: Daniel Schneidermann( Arrêts sur images, France
5 channel TV) contacted us about this paper, and he dropped us from Kouchner
in order to not annoy him.
No questions about the media lies on Kosovo and neither his disastrous statements
on this province were asked to Kouchner.
We are talking about media lies and not mistakes. His career plan focusing
the UN general secretary post, and he has to do whatever to please USA.

4. Why did they have to tell a story "simple", but false?
In order to hide the responsibilities of big Western powers in this conflict:
- Since 1979, the German CIA (the BND) was supporting extremists to collapse
Yugoslavia.
- In 1989, the IMF put neoliberal pressure to eradicate the auto management
and the workers rights, provoking the crisis and nationalisms.
- In 1991, German gave weapons to the Croatian and Muslim extremists before
the war.
- From 1992 to 1995, the USA intentionally extended and prolonged the conflict
as certified by a special European reporter in Bosnia, Lord Owen.
- Are there any advantages in those actions? Eradicate a social system too
much in the left side, and also control the strategic Balkans and the oil
roads.

5. Is it a matter to contradict all the crimes committed?
Not at all, but when our governments try to pull us into a war propaganda
"nice versus bad people", it is important to think about their hidden interests.
And their fake information. For example, concerning prison camp in Bosnia,
the UN counted six Croatians, two Serbians and one Muslim. And they were
rather gathering camp for exchanges, not extermination camp. But, the Croatian
and Muslim nationalists as being our allies or rather "our" agents, Kouchner,
Bernard Henri Levy and the permanent media guests whitewashed them.
We would have to judge the war criminals. All the war criminals, in all camps.
But not by phoney courts created by a justice of winners where the USA and
the NATO are sitting above the law and straight out outlaw since they are
violating the UN bill without embarrassment.

6. Are there any more media lies "well-done" in this war?
Yes. Just one example. When NATO started bombing Yugoslavia, in 1999, it
claimed
its action after the "massacre of 40 civilians" by the Yugoslavian army,
in Racak, Kosovo village. But Belgrad was talking about a fight between two
armies, caused by the Albanian separatist forces. The UN asked for a report
to a medical examiner commission led by a Finnish doctor, Mrs Ranta who confirmed
what Belgrad asserted. The media lie remains intact for the opinion.
Why? Because media lies of Kouchner, BHL and others, allowed to divide the
left and stopped it from opposing to the war in reality unfair. The public
opinion needs to be manipulated. And the next time, it will start again.

Books Liars' Poker and Monopoly (English) : ask to unwrittenhistory@...
Film The Damned of Kosovo (English) and Under the bombs of Nato (French)
: ask to nessa.kovic@...


Thanks to the translator Hanene Hamdoun !

__________________________________________________________________
Tiscali Adsl 3 Mega Flat con 3 MESI GRATIS!
Con Tiscali Adsl 3 Mega Flat navighi con la Supervelocita'
a soli 29.95 euro al mese, senza limiti di tempo. E se attivi
entro il 15 Aprile, 3 MESI sono GRATIS!
Scopri come risparmiare navigando veloce, su
http://abbonati.tiscali.it/adsl/sa/2flat_tc/

Questo è il fondo che compare sulla prima pagina de "La Stampa" di
oggi, a firma di Enzo Bettiza.
Nell'overdose mediatica oltre ogni limite di questi giorni sul Papa,
questo articolo merita di essere citato in quanto spicca per
faziosità e cinismo politico a livelli che forse il solo Bruno Vespa
può sperare di raggiungere. Ma è comunque un articolo utile a mettere
in luce la vera visione che l'ultra-destra cattolica integralista ha
dell'Europa: un'Europa (o meglio un'Eurasia) delle piccole patrie
stile Sacro Romano Impero, con l'unico collante ideologico (oltre
all'ideologia del denaro) costituito dalla religione del Dio
vendicativo, dei Santi guerrieri e della Militia Christi.


--------------------------
Il Santo Guerriero

Enzo Bettiza

Il ritratto di Karol Wojtyla, che si ricava da tutto ciò che è stato
scritto e detto in questi giorni, merita forse qualche puntino
sulle «i». A me è sembrato nell'insieme un ritratto piuttosto
convenzionale, incompleto, spesso ritoccato, talora adulterato per un
eccesso di calcolate e prudenti simmetrie ideologiche. L'impressione
è che si sia voluta ridimensionare la scomoda grandezza della sua
figura di pontefice politico, ruvido, dirompente, all'occorrenza
guerriero, facendola più simile all'evanescente Spirito Santo che al
Cristo fustigatore del tempio. Dipingendo Giovanni Paolo II di volta
in volta come un mistico lontano dalle competizioni mondane, un
pacifista assoluto, un equanime censore del comunismo e del
capitalismo, perfino come un angelico trasvolatore «no global» fra
più continenti, si è finito per edulcorare il robusto contorno e
significato storico del suo pontificato.

Che è stato un pontificato di rottura e restaurazione postconciliare,
di tensione antitotalitaria, di ardita diplomazia fra le confessioni
monoteiste, di spregiudicato dinamismo ecumenico all'interno della
cristianità e, in particolare, di difesa a oltranza dell'identità
delle piccole nazioni slave dell'altra Europa ove egli stesso era
nato. Appena eletto pontefice, lo slavo Wojtyla ha riorganizzato le
gerarchie della Santa Sede con un senso del comando che lo ha portato
a depotenziare quasi subito la tradizionale e diffidente Curia
italiana. Poi, col piglio di un antico re polacco, si è circondato di
prelati polacchi e mitteleuropei che hanno saputo assisterlo nella
sua iniziale e maggiore operazione storica: la spallata al comunismo
russo nel punto nevralgico in cui esso, cioè nella nativa Polonia,
era più vulnerabile. Egli avviò i ventisette anni di pontificato con
una dichiarazione di guerra. Invitò i connazionali a «spalancare le
porte a Cristo» soggiungendo che «il comunismo è la menzogna
sull'uomo raccontata all'uomo». Quando le porte furono spalancate da
Lech Walesa e da Solidarnosc, a Mosca qualcuno, probabilmente
Andropov, capo del Kgb, capì che quell'ignoto prete dell'Est europeo,
figlio di una ucraina e di un militare polacco, aveva messo alfine in
piedi le «divisioni del Papa» che il beffardo Stalin asseriva di non
vedere da nessuna parte. Non sbagliavano: avevano fiutato il Nemico
emerso dai loro territori imperiali.

Oggi molti sottolineano con calore partecipe il no del Papa, che
trattava i presidenti americani e russi da pari a pari,
all'intervento armato in Iraq. Ma poco, quasi niente, ho potuto
leggere sulla continuazione della lotta di Wojtyla al comunismo nella
sua versione nazificata dagli eredi serbi di Tito. Il Vaticano allora
si distinse, insieme con la Germania e con l'Austria, nel cogliere
l'insostenibilità delle coattive «federazioni» comuniste, nel
riconoscere quindi per primo le nuove sovranità della Slovenia e
della Croazia cattoliche e nell'identificare con chiarezza gli
aggressori e gli aggrediti. Egli fece intendere al mondo che la
politica di pace non va confusa col pacifismo generico e che in casi
di orrida infamia, come Vukovar o Srebrenica, tale politica può e
deve essere perseguita anche con le armi. Le visite in Croazia, in
Slovenia, nella martoriata Sarajevo, gli incontri con i nuovi
governanti croati e la beatificazione del cardinale Stepinac,
sigillarono vistosamente la strategia di protezione data dal Vaticano
wojtyliano alle piccole e rinascenti nazioni danubiane. Non si
dimentichi che quel Papa aveva alle spalle non una Polonia qualunque.
Aveva nei ricordi di famiglia la Polonia di Cracovia, la rispettabile
Polonia austroungarica, dove Lenin si rifugiava dalle persecuzioni
zariste in atto a Pietroburgo e a Varsavia, dove l'ebreo Joseph Roth
era di casa, dove fiorivano i circoli risorgimentali polacchi e anche
serbi e croati. La copertura morale e diplomatica che nei giorni dei
genocidi balcanici egli aveva dato ai cattolici di Lubiana e di
Zagabria, nonché ai musulmani della Bosnia, non proveniva dal nulla:
veniva da una conoscenza per così dire consanguinea del problema.
Altro che Mitterrand o Bush padre.

E' questo l'uomo di Stato e il santo guerriero, parzialmente ignorato
con astute omissioni dagli epitaffi d'occasione, che l'Europa e la
Prima Roma hanno perduto e a cui milioni di europei devono oggi la
libertà e la vita.