Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.

For The Record  

FTR #508 The Vatican Rag, Part II: Der Panzerkardinal

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RealAu­dio

Record­ed April 24, 2005

This pro­gram ana­lyzes the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the ele­va­tion to the papa­cy of Ger­man Car­di­nal Joseph Ratzinger—dubbed “Panz­erkar­di­nal” by wags because of his reac­tionary views. A for­mer mem­ber of the Hitler Youth and the Wehrma­cht, Ratzinger is an arch-reac­tionary and was very close to the late John Paul II. (A pic­ture of Ratzinger in mil­i­tary uni­form is at right.) The pro­gram advances the hypoth­e­sis that Ratzinger’s ele­va­tion may well have been con­duct­ed in order to insti­tute dam­age con­trol because of the emer­gence of two Vat­i­can scan­dals at the same time as the new pope was being cho­sen. As the car­di­nals were con­ven­ing to choose a new pope, four peo­ple were indict­ed for the mur­der of Rober­to Calvi, a for­mer Vat­i­can finan­cial advis­er and mem­ber of the infa­mous P‑2 lodge. This placed the Vat­i­can bank­ing scan­dals of the ‘70’s and ‘80’s onto the inves­tiga­tive front burn­er. In addi­tion, a U.S. court re-instat­ed a law­suit against the Vat­i­can Bank for har­bor­ing Nazi loot from World War II and using it to aid the flight of Nazi fugi­tives. This suit also placed the long­time Vat­i­can col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Third Reich into the fore­ground. It is Mr. Emory’s opin­ion that Ratzinger had to be ele­vat­ed to Pope for dam­age con­trol pur­pos­es. Ratzinger’s back­ground sug­gests the pos­si­bil­i­ty that he may have been com­plic­it in the Vat­i­can Nazi assis­tance net­works. Two of the church fig­ures involved in Ratzinger’s rise through the Vat­i­can ranks were Car­di­nal Joseph Frings and Pope Paul VI. Pope Paul VI ele­vat­ed Ratzinger to Car­di­nal and bish­op of Munich as he approached death. Frings front­ed for an orga­ni­za­tion that assist­ed Nazi war crim­i­nals. Ratzinger assist­ed Frings at the Sec­ond Vat­i­can Coun­cil.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: Dis­cus­sion of the Nazis’ plans to give anti-Nazi cre­den­tials for oper­a­tives cho­sen for post­war under­ground work; review of the Vat­i­can’s long­stand­ing con­nec­tions to fascism—the Third Reich in par­tic­u­lar; review of Car­di­nal Mon­tini’s role in devel­op­ing the Vat­i­can’s Nazi escape net­works; review of the rela­tion­ship between the Vat­i­can’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with fas­cism and the gen­e­sis of the Vat­i­can bank­ing scan­dals; dis­cus­sion of father Draganovic—architect of the Vat­i­can “Rat­lines”; the role of Arch­bish­op Stepinac in ele­vat­ing Draganovic to a posi­tion to assist Nazi fugi­tives; the use of Croa­t­ian fas­cist war loot to finance post­war anti-com­mu­nist activ­i­ties; doc­u­men­ta­tion of the Vat­i­can Bank’s role in har­bor­ing the Nazi war loot; John Paul II’s beat­i­fi­ca­tion of fas­cist col­lab­o­ra­tors; the ultra-reac­tionary Opus Dei’s role in elect­ing Ratzinger; Ratzinger’s rela­tion­ship with Neil Bush—the Pres­i­den­t’s broth­er; Ratzinger’s inter­fer­ence in the 2004 U.S. Pres­i­den­tial cam­paign.

1. Begin­ning with dis­cus­sion of Ratzinger’s close rela­tion­ship with his papal pre­de­ces­sor, the broad­cast notes their strong affin­i­ty through reac­tionary the­o­log­i­cal prin­ci­ples. Note the nick­name “Panz­erkar­di­nal’ bestowed on Ratzinger by fel­low priests. ” . . . The Pole and the Ger­man have been called intel­lec­tu­al bed­fel­lows. For almost 20 years, the two met at least once a week, usu­al­ly Fri­days, for a 90-minute dis­cus­sion of doc­trine and dis­ci­pline. A work­ing lunch fol­lowed, last­ing often until late in the after­noon. A the­o­log­i­cal lib­er­al of sorts in his youth, Ratzinger was lat­er nick­named the ‘Panz­erkar­di­nal’ for his iron hand in bring­ing Marx­ist priests in Latin Amer­i­ca and cler­ics with mushy views on sex­u­al ethics to heel. . .”
(“Analy­sis: Ratzinger in the Ascen­dance” by Uwe Siemon-Net­to; [Unit­ed Press Inter­na­tion­al]; The Wash­ing­ton Times; p. 2.)

2. In the numer­ous hagiogra­phies of Car­di­nal Ratzinger, it has been not­ed that he was in the Hitler Youth and served in a Wehrma­cht unit late in the war. (See “Papal Hope­ful Is a For­mer Hitler Youth” from the Sun­day Times [Lon­don].) The jour­nal­is­tic spin on these events has cast them as things thrust upon an unwill­ing Ratzinger, who (along with his fam­i­ly) has been por­trayed as anti-Nazi. As will be seen lat­er in the pro­gram, Ratzinger’s his­to­ry in the Vat­i­can sug­gests the dis­tinct pos­si­bil­i­ty that he is com­plic­it in the Vat­i­can’s long his­to­ry of aid­ing Nazi war crim­i­nals. The pro­gram notes that, as the Third Reich was prepar­ing its under­ground struc­ture for the post­war years, great care was giv­en to give “anti-Nazi” cre­den­tials to those who were tabbed for key, post­war under­ground posi­tions. Was that the case with the young Ratzinger? “Bor­mann and Himm­ler have stat­ed their hope of get­ting 200,000 to 300,000 men under­ground. Com­pared to the large size of the par­ty this is a small num­ber indeed. But an under­ground move­ment of 200,000 to 300,000 trained men, who know exact­ly what they have to do, who will make few mis­takes and can prof­it by all the mis­takes the oth­er side makes, can achieve a great deal.”
(The Nazis Go Under­ground; by Curt Riess; Dou­ble­day, Doran and Co. [HC]; Copy­right 1944 by Curt Riess; p. 96.)

3. “While every­thing has been done and is being done to denounce the Nazis whom the under­ground wants to throw over­board, no effort is being spared to make the lives of the prospec­tive under­ground Nazis as secure as pos­si­ble.” (Idem.)

4. “A great deal has been writ­ten late­ly about cer­tain Nazis who have fall­en out with Hitler. Rumors have sug­gest­ed that there have been at least a hun­dred of them. We have heard that Bal­dur von Schirach, for instance, for­mer Youth Führer and lat­er chief Nazi of Vien­na, has escaped abroad. Sim­i­lar rumors have been spread about a num­ber of offi­cials of the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs and, of course, many ambas­sadors and min­is­ters. In some cas­es these men may real­ly have decid­ed to leave the sink­ing ship. But in many cas­es all they want­ed was to cre­ate such an impres­sion. . . .” (Idem.)

5. ” . . . This sort of thing has been going on for a long time. Sev­er­al intel­li­gence ser­vices have com­ment­ed on the sud­den dis­ap­pear­ance of impor­tant per­son­al­i­ties from polit­i­cal and par­ty life. And it has become quite the accept­ed thing to every­body in Ger­many.” (Ibid.; p. 97.)

6. “But what has not yet become known is that all this also applies to a much greater num­ber of anony­mous per­sons all over Ger­many, those on the sec­ond and third lev­els of the Nazi stra­ta. These unknown per­son­al­i­ties may be used lat­er by the under­ground. Par­ty func­tionar­ies who may be known local­ly, but cer­tain­ly not nation­al­ly, can eas­i­ly be trans­ferred to anoth­er city or town, where they will sud­den­ly appear as anti-Nazis.” (Idem.)

7. “The par­ty helps in their mas­quer­ades. These men get new doc­u­ments which ‘prove’ that they have always been anti-Nazi. Notes are insert­ed in their per­son­al files say­ing they must be watched on account of their anti-Hitler atti­tudes and ‘unwor­thy’ behav­ior. Some of them will undoubt­ed­ly be sent to con­cen­tra­tion camps for crimes which they have nev­er com­mit­ted, but which will make them look depend­able in the eyes of the Allies; some have per­haps already suc­ceed­ed in join­ing anti-Nazi cir­cles and are pre­tend­ing to con­spire against Hitler. Lat­er on they will be able to use such activ­i­ties as ali­bis.” (Idem.)

8. Does this apply to Ratzinger?–” . . . Among the ‘peace­ful col­lab­o­ra­tors,’ the most promi­nent group numer­i­cal­ly will be formed by those who, to all out­ward appear­ances, were nev­er Nazis at heart, but who had to go along with the par­ty for rea­sons of bread and but­ter or because oth­er­wise they might have been thrown into a con­cen­tra­tion camp. . .” (Ibid.; pp. 176–177.)

9. Next, the pro­gram repris­es a sec­tion of FTR#504. The broad­cast recounts the his­to­ry of the Vat­i­can Nazi escape net­works begins by chron­i­cling the deep polit­i­cal his­to­ry of the rela­tion­ships that spawned the Vat­i­can bank­ing scan­dals that emerged into pub­lic view in the ear­ly 1980’s. “Hugh Angle­ton’s rise to pow­er was, in part, an acci­dent of geog­ra­phy. He lived in Milan for many years and made more than a few friends there before the war. It was Hugh Angle­ton who alleged­ly intro­duced Gio­van­ni Bat­tista Mon­ti­ni to Michele Sin­dona, a pre­war banker in Milan. Sin­dona was the cor­rupt financier who lat­er became the advis­er to the Vat­i­can Bank. Mon­ti­ni, who was Vat­i­can Under­sec­re­tary of State dur­ing the war, lat­er became Pope Paul VI.”
(The Secret War Against the Jews: How West­ern Espi­onage Betrayed the Jew­ish Peo­ple; John Lof­tus and Mark Aarons; Copy­right 1994 [HC]; St. Mar­t­in’s Press; ISBN 0–312-11057‑X; pp. 83–84.)

10. At the core of the gen­e­sis of the Vat­i­can bank­ing scan­dals is a fas­cist nexus that saw Car­di­nal Gio­van­ni Bat­tista Mon­ti­ni (lat­er Pope Paul VI) devel­op a rela­tion­ship with Mafioso Michele Sin­dona who, along with fel­low P‑2 mem­ber Rober­to Calvi, became a finan­cial advis­er to the Vat­i­can. The rela­tion­ship between Mon­ti­ni and Sin­dona came after an intro­duc­tion by Hugh Angleton—an Amer­i­can fas­cist and father of CIA coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence chief James Jesus Angle­ton. Both Mon­ti­ni and Sin­dona were intro­duced to OSS and CIA chief Allen Dulles by Angle­ton. (Dulles was the attor­ney who masked the Bush fam­i­ly’s invest­ments in Nazi Ger­many.) As will be seen, Mon­ti­ni (lat­er Pope Paul VI) played a key role in the rise of Ratzinger. Ratzinger’s ele­va­tion to Car­di­nal took place as Paul VI’s health was fail­ing. More about this lat­er in the descrip­tion. “There is some cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence that Hugh Angle­ton also intro­duced both of these friends to Dulles. Both Sin­dona and Mon­ti­ni alleged­ly became sources for the CIA after the war, with Hugh’s son, James Jesus Angle­ton, as their case han­dler. Sev­er­al his­to­ri­ans agree with our sources on this point, although, as we shall see, the Vat­i­can has gone to con­sid­er­able lengths to deny the alle­ga­tions.” (Ibid.; p. 84.)

11. Review­ing some of the his­to­ry of the Vat­i­can’s asso­ci­a­tion with fas­cism, the show notes the Vat­i­can’s finan­cial invest­ments in Nazi Ger­many and high­lights the finan­cial sup­port that the Church gave to Hitler in the imme­di­ate after­math of World War II. “One of James Angle­ton’s ene­mies, of whom he had many, insists that his father served as a minor point of con­tact and occa­sion­al couri­er for secret finan­cial trans­ac­tions between the Vat­i­can and Nazi Ger­many. That the Vat­i­can encour­aged such invest­ments and even donat­ed mon­ey to Hitler him­self can­not be denied. A Ger­man nun, Sis­ter Pas­cali­na, was present at the cre­ation. In the ear­ly 1920’s, she was the house­keep­er for the Arch­bish­op of the Vat­i­can-Nazi con­nec­tion, Euge­nio Pacel­li, then the papal nun­cio in Munich. Sis­ter Pas­cali­na vivid­ly recalls receiv­ing Adolf Hitler late one night and watch­ing the arch­bish­op give Hitler a large amount of Church mon­ey.” (Idem.)

12. Hav­ing received Church mon­ey after the First World War, Pacel­li con­vinced the Vat­i­can to invest large sums of mon­ey in Nazi Ger­many. (For more about Pacel­li and the Vatican/fascist polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic con­nec­tions, see RFA#17, avail­able from Spit­fire.) “Sis­ter Pas­cali­na had absolute­ly no motive to dis­cred­it Arch­bish­op Pacel­li. She was his great­est admir­er and remained his faith­ful ser­vant all her life, even after he became Pope Pius XII. Her sto­ry has the ring of truth, all the more pow­er­ful because it admits the worst blun­der of Pacel­li’s career. It was Pacel­li who lat­er con­vinced the Vat­i­can to invest mil­lions of dol­lars in the ris­ing Ger­man econ­o­my, mon­ey from the Vat­i­can’s land set­tle­ment with Mus­soli­ni that end­ed the Pope’s claim of sov­er­eign­ty over ter­ri­to­ry out­side the walls of Vat­i­can City. It was Pacel­li who nego­ti­at­ed the Con­cor­dat with Hitler’s Ger­many and then had to deal with the con­se­quences of his own mis­takes when he became Pope on the eve of World War II. . . .” (Idem.)

13. Next, the broad­cast reviews the com­bined efforts of Allen Dulles and the Vat­i­can to move Nazi mon­ey (and Nazi war crim­i­nals) to Argenti­na after the war. (Oper­a­tion Safe­haven is the code-name of the Trea­sury Depart­ment oper­a­tion to inter­dict the Nazi flight cap­i­tal pro­gram. That pro­gram, of course, was the Bor­mann flight cap­i­tal pro­gram. For more about the neu­tral­iza­tion of Safe­haven, see—among oth­er pro­grams—FTR#353.) ” . . . Soon after the Safe­haven inquiry into his own Nazi mon­ey smug­gling was buried, Allen Dulles resigned from the OSS and returned to New York to do what he did best: move mon­ey ille­gal­ly for his clients. One of the first names on his client list was a ‘per­son­al mat­ter’ for Thomas McKit­trick, the head of the pre­vi­ous­ly Nazi-dom­i­nat­ed Bank of Inter­na­tion­al Set­tle­ments (BIS) in Switzer­land. The BIS had over­seen the trans­fer of Nazi assets to Switzer­land. After the war, the Nazis moved the mon­ey via the Vat­i­can to Argenti­na.” (Ibid.; pp. 109–110.)

14. “Dulles rep­re­sent­ed a stag­ger­ing array of Argen­tine cor­po­rate and polit­i­cal enti­ties before and after the war. Pres­i­dent Juan Per­on and his fam­i­ly were ardent Catholics and vio­lent­ly anti-Com­mu­nist, as were many Argen­tines. In fact, Per­on was decid­ed­ly pro-Fas­cist and Argenti­na was the only South Amer­i­can coun­try that con­tin­ued rela­tions with the Third Reich well into the war. The Argen­tine econ­o­my boomed with the mas­sive post­war trans­fer of Nazi flight cap­i­tal. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 110.)

15. William Dono­van, who col­lab­o­rat­ed with British intel­li­gence ace William Stephen­son in a Nazi front group called the World Com­merce Cor­po­ra­tion, assist­ed Dulles in his mon­ey-laun­der­ing efforts. This orga­ni­za­tion helped to cycle Nazi mon­ey back into Ger­many in order to pump up the post­war Ger­man econ­o­my. ” . . . The ‘old spies’ say that Dulles did not have to try very hard to con­vince Dono­van that Tru­man was an idiot and that the only hope for the revival of an Amer­i­can intel­li­gence ser­vice was to end the Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty’s stran­gle­hold on the White House in the 1948 elec­tion.” (Idem.)

16. “In the mean­time, Dulles and Dono­van agreed that every effort must be made to sab­o­tage the Tru­man lib­er­als and qui­et­ly pre­pare for the Cold War. To this end, Dulles con­vinced Dono­van to serve on the board of a com­pa­ny that would help rebuild the Ger­man econ­o­my as a bul­wark against com­mu­nism. Dulles assured his old boss that there were a large num­ber of wealthy South Amer­i­can investors, espe­cial­ly in Argenti­na, who were will­ing to help rebuild Ger­many.” (Idem.)

17. It was the recy­cled Nazi war plun­der that fueled the eco­nom­ic “mir­a­cle” of post­war Ger­many. “Although Dono­van did not know it, Dulles had conned him into serv­ing as the front man for the Nazi mon­ey laun­der­ers. He and Sir William Stephen­son from British intel­li­gence joined the board of direc­tors of the World Com­merce Cor­po­ra­tion, with Allen Dulles, nat­u­ral­ly, as their lawyer. The Nazi mon­ey flowed in a great circle—out of the Third Reich, through the Vat­i­can, to Argenti­na, and back to ‘demo­c­ra­t­ic’ West Ger­many. The source of the mirac­u­lous West Ger­man eco­nom­ic revival in the 1950’s was the same mon­ey that had been stolen in the 1940’s.” (Idem.)

18. More about the Nazi mon­ey laun­der­ing: “One of our sources, Daniel Harkins, stum­bled across part of the mon­ey laun­der­ing in 1945. Harkins had vol­un­teered to work as a dou­ble agent for Naval Intel­li­gence before World War II. He posed as a Nazi ring­leader in Detroit and even had his pic­ture pub­lished in a news­pa­per giv­ing the Nazi salute. He was prompt­ly invit­ed to Berlin to meet the lead­ing mem­bers of Hitler’s cab­i­net. Hitler did not know it, but Harkin­s’s work helped close down the Nazi Bund oper­a­tion in the Unit­ed States.” (Ibid.; pp. 110–111.)

19. “After wartime ser­vice as a naval offi­cer, Harkins was post­ed to the Allied occu­pa­tion gov­ern­ment in Ger­many. Although he was gen­uine­ly anti-Nazi, Harkins loved and the respect­ed the Ger­man peo­ple who had to sur­vive in the ash­es of the bombed-out Third Reich. To Harkin­s’s hor­ror, his Ger­man sources revealed that the big Nazis had got­ten their mon­ey out before the war was over.” (Ibid.; p. 111.)

20. “Through Switzer­land, the SS had pur­chased stock in Amer­i­can cor­po­ra­tions and laun­dered their mon­ey through the unknow­ing Chase and Corn Exchange Bank. Even worse, the W.R. Grace Cor­po­ra­tion was using its Pan Am clip­pers to fly Nazi gems, cur­ren­cy, and bonds to South Amer­i­ca. Harkins had dis­cov­ered a small part of the Dulles mon­ey-laun­der­ing machine. Before he could find out any more, how­ev­er, he was sud­den­ly trans­ferred to the State Depart­ment, where the Dulles clique could keep an eye on him. To his sur­prise, he was then reas­signed to the out­posts of South­east Asia.” (Idem.)

21. Next, the pro­gram high­lights the Vat­i­can role in the Bor­mann mon­ey-go-round. “State Depart­ment records for South Amer­i­ca con­firm that the Ustashi Min­is­ter for Finance and the French Under Sec­re­tary of State of the Vichy Gov­ern­ment, went to Argenti­na via the Vat­i­can Rat­line. Accord­ing to Paul Man­ning, there were rumors of oth­ers. He cites the FBI’s copy of a sur­veil­lance file for­ward­ed by the Cen­tral de Intel­li­gen­cia of Argenti­na’s Min­istry of the Inte­ri­or: ‘In 1948, Mar­tin Bor­mann received the bulk of the trea­sure that had made up the finan­cial reserve of the Deutsche Bank. . . Like oth­er fugi­tives, he entered Argenti­na in 1948, com­ing from Genoa on a sec­ond-class tick­et, with forged Vat­i­can doc­u­men­ta­tion.’ ”
(Unholy Trin­i­ty: The Vat­i­can, the Nazis and the Swiss Banks; by John Lof­tus and Mark Aarons; St. Mar­t­in’s Press [SC]; Copy­right 1991, 1998 by Mark Aarons and John Lof­tus; ISBN 0–312-18199; p. 277.)

22. One of Dulles’s col­lab­o­ra­tors in his Nazi mon­ey-laun­der­ing efforts was Hans Bernd Gise­vius, a for­mer Gestapo agent and an ear­ly Dulles intel­li­gence con­tact. In FTR#445, we looked at Gise­vius’ close asso­ci­a­tion with Prescott Bush, Jr. (the cur­rent Pres­i­den­t’s grand­fa­ther.) ” . . . In 1945, the US Trea­sury Depart­ment accused Allen Dulles of laun­der­ing funds from the Nazi Bank of Hun­gary into Switzer­land. Sim­i­lar charges were made against Dulles’s agent, Hans Bernd Gise­vius, who had worked for Dulles as an OSS agent while serv­ing at the Reichs­bank. The State Depart­ment quick­ly took over the Trea­sury Depart­men­t’s mon­ey laun­der­ing alle­ga­tions, and the Dulles-Gise­vius inves­ti­ga­tion was qui­et­ly dropped.” (Idem.)

23. Gise­vius worked for the front group for the Amer­i­can por­tal of the Vat­i­can escape net­works that oper­at­ed on behalf of Nazi war crim­i­nals. Many of those war crim­i­nals wound up work­ing for U.S. intel­li­gence. (For more about this, see—among oth­er pro­grams—RFA#17, avail­able from Spit­fire.) “Gise­vius may have had some involve­ment with the Rat­lines. He was a senior mem­ber of the Black Orches­tra dur­ing World War II and was con­sid­ered to be ‘Allen Dulles’s pipeline to Admi­ral Canaris.’ After the war, Gise­vius per­son­al­ly briefed the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment on Amer­i­can efforts to reset­tle the sur­plus pop­u­la­tion of Europe in oth­er coun­tries, cit­ing the sup­port of the ‘Com­mit­tee for a Free Europe’, lat­er acknowl­edged as a clan­des­tine front for Dulles’s Cold War pro­grams. This was also the orga­ni­za­tion which served as the Amer­i­can end of the Vat­i­can Rat­lines.” (Ibid.; pp. 277–278.)

24. More about the World Com­merce Cor­po­ra­tion: “The most impor­tant front group was an enti­ty called the World Com­merce Cor­po­ra­tion estab­lished after World War II to rebuild German—South Amer­i­can trade net­works. The direc­tors of this cor­po­ra­tion were Sir William Stephen­son, for­mer­ly of British intel­li­gence and Gen­er­al William Dono­van, for­mer­ly of the OSS. One of the attor­neys for World Com­merce was Allen Dulles, whose assis­tant, Frank Wis­ner, was the State Depart­men­t’s deputy for cur­ren­cy and eco­nom­ic reform in the Amer­i­can zone of West Ger­many. Many of the staff mem­bers for the eco­nom­ic recon­struc­tion of occu­pied Ger­many came from the same inter­na­tion­al finan­cial firms which had invest­ed heav­i­ly in the pre-war Ger­man econ­o­my.” (Ibid.; p. 278.)

25. One of the major play­ers in the Dulles/Bormann mon­ey-go-round was Her­mann Abs of the Deutschebank—one of the most impor­tant Nazi bankers before, dur­ing and after World War II. “Accord­ing to sworn tes­ti­mo­ny before the US Sen­ate by a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Ger­man bank­ing indus­try, an orga­ni­za­tion did exist in 1950 which was ‘formed by Lord Shaw­cross of Eng­land and Mr. Her­mann Abs of Ger­many to bring about a Magna Car­ta for the pro­tec­tion of for­eign invest­ments of World War II.’ This is the same Lord Shaw­cross who led the recent cam­paign in the British House of Lords to pre­vent the re-open­ing of war crimes inves­ti­ga­tions in Britain. Despite alle­ga­tions by Man­ning, it is dif­fi­cult to believe that Shaw­cross would have lent his good name to Abs’s orga­ni­za­tion if he had known its real pur­pose. In a 1966 hear­ing before the Select Com­mit­tee on Stan­dards and Con­duct of the US Sen­ate, Abs was iden­ti­fied as the com­mon denom­i­na­tor of a group seek­ing return of vest­ed ene­my prop­er­ties of World War II.” (Idem.)

26. “When the Unit­ed States entered the war in 1941, all of the branch­es of Amer­i­can banks in France under Ger­man con­trol were closed, except two which had ties to Abs: Mor­gan et Cie and Chase of New York: ‘both received this spe­cial treat­ment through the inter­ces­sion of Dr. Her­mann Josef Abs of Deutsche Bank, finan­cial advis­er to the Ger­man gov­ern­ment. Accord­ing to US Trea­sury agent reports, the favor­able treat­ment was due to . . . an ‘old school tie,’ an unspo­ken under­stand­ing among inter­na­tion­al bankers that wars may come and may go but the flux of wealth goes on for­ev­er.’ ” (Ibid.; pp. 278–279.)

27. Abs was very close to Mar­tin Bor­mann, with whom he worked. Abs became a finan­cial advis­er to the Vat­i­can. In RFA#‘s 17, 21, we exam­ined Abs’ close col­lab­o­ra­tion with the late John Paul II after the break­ing of the Vat­i­can bank­ing scan­dals. Where­as John Paul I was mov­ing to clean out the P‑2 crowd around the late Paul VI, John Paul II (who suc­ceed­ed JP I after he precipitously—and conveniently—died after 28 days in office) brought Abs in to straight­en out the Vat­i­can bank­ing mess after the col­lapse of Rober­to Calvi’s Ban­co Ambrosiano. “Accord­ing to Nurem­berg records, Abs’s Deutsche Bank was the prin­ci­pal con­duit for laun­der­ing Nazi mon­ey into Argenti­na dur­ing the war under the super­vi­sion of Mar­tin Bor­mann. The Amer­i­can war crimes inves­ti­ga­tion of Abs, for­mer head of the Deutsche Bank, was qui­et­ly dropped and Abs was appoint­ed eco­nom­ic advis­er for the British zone of Ger­many. It should also be not­ed that Abs became a finan­cial advis­er to the Vat­i­can.” (Ibid.; p. 279.)

28. The pas­sages that fol­low set forth the Dulles/Abs/Bormann finan­cial net­work’s con­nec­tions to the prin­ci­pals in the Vat­i­can bank­ing scan­dals. Again, these scan­dals broke in the ear­ly 1980’s, and the Pope (John Paul II) brought in Her­man Abs to straight­en things out. In RFA#18, we exam­ined the untime­ly death of Pope John Paul I, who appears to have been mur­dered for mov­ing to neu­tral­ize the Montini/Sindona/Calvi net­works inside of the Vat­i­can. That show is avail­able from Spit­fire. “Accord­ing to Pen­ny Lernoux, the finan­cial col­lapse of Vat­i­can-sup­port­ed banks dur­ing the 1970’s involved the same group of peo­ple con­nect­ed to Dulles’s and Angle­ton’s net­work of mon­ey laun­der­ers. Pri­or to World War II, Angle­ton’s father had finan­cial inter­ests in Milan, and may have met both Mon­ti­ni and a Sicil­ian banker named Michele Sin­dona at this ear­li­er time.” (Idem.)

29. “Accord­ing to Lernoux, Sin­dona ‘wan­gled an intro­duc­tion to the pow­er­ful Gio­van­ni Mon­ti­ni in Milan, who would lat­er become Pope Paul VI.’ Mon­ti­ni intro­duced Sin­dona to the leader of the Chris­t­ian Democ­rats. Sin­dona served the younger Angle­ton for many years as a CIA ‘fun­nel for sup­port­ing funds’ to friend­ly Ital­ian politi­cians. In 1969, Sin­dona became the finan­cial advis­er to the Vat­i­can while Mon­ti­ni was the Pope. Sin­dona and his cohort, Rober­to Calvi, cre­at­ed a finan­cial scan­dal that cost the Vat­i­can Bank hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars.” (Idem.)

30. Note the role of the afore­men­tioned Mon­ti­ni (Pope Paul VI) in the rise of Joseph Ratzinger in the Vat­i­can. In 1977, Paul VI was in fail­ing health and a year from the grave. It was at this point that Ratzinger was pro­mot­ed to Car­di­nal and (three months lat­er) to bish­op of Munich. It was also at this point that Ratzinger met his even­tu­al close col­lab­o­ra­tor Karol Wojty­la. Note again, that the suc­ces­sion to the papa­cy hung in the bal­ance at this peri­od. As dis­cussed in RFA#18, John Paul I was mov­ing to elim­i­nate the P‑2 milieu, which had wrapped itself around the Vat­i­can. It is Mr. Emory’s con­sid­ered opin­ion that John Paul I was mur­dered so that a suit­able successor—Karol Wojtyla—could pre­serve the sta­tus quo in the Vat­i­can. As will be seen below, this series of events was pro­ject­ed onto the “front burn­er” pre­cise­ly as John Paul II’s suc­ces­sor was being cho­sen. ” . . . He was ordained in 1951, at age 24. Pope Paul VI appoint­ed him bish­op of Munich in 1977, and ele­vat­ed him to car­di­nal in just three months. He met Karol Wojty­la at a bish­ops’ syn­od that year. . . .” (“Ger­man Car­di­nal Has a Major Voice at the Funer­al” by Daniel J. Wakin and Mark Landler; The New York Times; 4/8/2005; p. 2.)

31. At the same time that Ratzinger was being elect­ed Pope, the tan­gle of Vat­i­can bank­ing scan­dals was once again in the news, with the indict­ment of four men for the mur­der of Rober­to Calvi, for­mer P‑2 mem­ber and Vat­i­can finan­cial advis­er. Was Ratzinger elect­ed (at least in part) as part of a dam­age con­trol effort? “Four peo­ple were ordered to stand tri­al in the death of an Ital­ian financier with close ties to the Vat­i­can who was found 23 years ago hang­ing under Lon­don’s Black­fri­ars Bridge. Rober­to Calvi had been pres­i­dent of Ban­co Ambrosiano. He was found with a fal­si­fied pass­port and thou­sands of dol­lars in var­i­ous cur­ren­cies. Indict­ed were busi­ness­man Flavio Car­boni; his ex-girl­friend Manuela Klein­szig; a man with alleged ties to the Mafia, Giuseppe ‘Pip­po’ Calo; and busi­ness­man Ernesto Dio­tal­le­vi.” (“4 Charged in 1982 Death of Banker” [Times Wire Ser­vice Reports]; Los Ange­les Times; 4/19/2005; p. 1.)

32. Anoth­er key Church fig­ure in Ratzinger’s rise to pow­er was Car­di­nal Joseph Frings. ” . . . Already in 1962, at 35, he achieved promi­nence at the high­est lev­els of the church. A mutu­al acquain­tance intro­duced him to Car­di­nal Joseph Frings, arch­bish­op of Cologne. Car­di­nal Frings asked him to serve as his expert assis­tant at the Sec­ond Vat­i­can Coun­cil. . .” (“A The­o­log­i­cal Vision­ary with Roots in Wartime Ger­many” by Daniel J. Wakin; The New York Times; 4/20/2005; p. 3 {of 4}.)

33. Inter­est­ing­ly, and per­haps sig­nif­i­cant­ly, Frings report­ed­ly served as a front man for a net­work that active­ly aid­ed Nazi war crim­i­nals. ” . . . But what exact­ly was the larg­er orga­ni­za­tion men­tioned by Kluf that both Princess Isen­burg and Count­ess Faber-Castell were said to be involved with? In June1958, three years after Ger­many had regained its full sov­er­eign­ty, some answers were pro­vid­ed by the right­ist jour­nal Deutsche Sol­dat­en Zeitung. It was here that Major Gen­er­al Hans Korte pub­lished a lengthy arti­cle describ­ing an under­ground ‘resis­tance’ net­work that had the active sup­port of both women.”
(Dream­er of the Day: Fran­cis Park­er Yock­ey and the Post­war Fas­cist Inter­na­tion­al; by Kevin Coogan; Autono­me­dia [HC]; Copy­right 1999 by Kevin Coogan; ISBN 1–57027-39–2; p. 403.)

34. “Korte report­ed that in 1948, a group of jurists who had served in Nurem­berg as defense coun­sels for major war crim­i­nals cre­at­ed a steer­ing com­mit­tee in Munich to attack the legal­i­ty of the war crimes process. Two of the lawyers were Rudolf Aschenauer and Ernst Achen­bach. A num­ber of fronts or sub­agen­cies were then cre­at­ed, includ­ing Die Andere Seite and the Com­mit­tee for Chris­t­ian Aid to War Pris­on­ers, whose spon­sors includ­ed Car­di­nal Josef Frings of Cologne and Bish­op Johann Neuhaeusler of Munich. [Ital­ics are Mr. Emory’s.] The Roman Catholic Car­i­tas orga­ni­za­tion and the Protes­tant Evan­ge­lis­ches Hil­f­swerk became involved as well.” (Idem.)

35. Note that key Ger­man indus­tri­al­ists financed the orga­ni­za­tion with which Frings was close­ly asso­ci­at­ed. As dis­cussed in FTR#305, one of the pro­vi­sions made in August of 1944 was for the Ger­man indus­tri­al­ists to pro­vide aid to Nazi war crim­i­nals. Was Ratzinger com­plic­it in Frings’ efforts on behalf of Nazi war crim­i­nals? “Car­di­nal Frings and a Stuttgart Protes­tant cler­ic named Theophil Wurm ran an orga­ni­za­tion called the Com­mit­tee for Jus­tice and Trade that had a mys­te­ri­ous bank account (‘Kon­to Gus­tav’) into which over 60 uniden­ti­fied lead­ers of Ger­man big busi­ness had deposit­ed large sums. [Ital­ics are Mr. Emory’s.] Accord­ing to the Deutsche Sol­dat­en Zeitung, the Com­mit­tee for Jus­tice and Trade was close­ly affil­i­at­ed with a pro­pa­gan­da cen­ter in Switzer­land called Cen­tro Europa that car­ried out a world­wide cam­paign for the ear­ly release of jailed Ger­man war crim­i­nals. Anoth­er branch of the oper­a­tion, Princess Isen­burg’s Stille Hil­fe, direct­ed its pro­pa­gan­da and fundrais­ing to mem­bers of high soci­ety and the old aris­toc­ra­cy, as did Helfende Haende (Help­ing Hands), a sim­i­lar char­i­ty direct­ed by Princess Stephany zu Schaum­berg-Lippe. More sup­port came from Otto Sko­rzeny’s Kam­er­aden Hil­fe, the Rudel Club, and var­i­ous Ger­man ‘relief,’ pro­pa­gan­da, and fundrais­ing cir­cles inside the Unit­ed States.” (Idem.)

36. In addi­tion to the mur­der tri­al for the alleged slay­ers of Rober­to Calvi, anoth­er legal case pro­ject­ed the Nazi/Vatican his­tor­i­cal axis onto the polit­i­cal and jour­nal­is­tic “front burn­er.” A U.S. court rein­stat­ed a law­suit against the Vat­i­can Bank for secret­ing Nazi loot tak­en from the vic­tims of the Ustachi, the bru­tal Croa­t­ian allies of the Third Reich. The law­suit also contended—accurately—that the loot was used to aid Nazi fugi­tives using the Vat­i­can escape net­works. Was this emerg­ing scan­dal anoth­er rea­son for Ratzinger’s ele­va­tion to the papa­cy? Was this anoth­er rea­son for “dam­age con­trol”? (For more about the Ustachi, see—among oth­er pro­grams—RFA#17 [avail­able from Spit­fire] and FTR#48. A link to the audio file for FTR#48 is at the top of this descrip­tion.) “A fed­er­al appeals court stepped into the con­tro­ver­sy over the Catholic Church’s rela­tions with Nazi regimes dur­ing World War II on Mon­day, rein­stat­ing a law­suit by Holo­caust sur­vivors against the Vat­i­can Bank for alleged­ly prof­it­ing from prop­er­ty loot­ed by the Ustasha pup­pet gov­ern­ment in Croa­t­ia. . . .” (“Court Revives Suit Against Vat­i­can Bank” by Bob Egelko; San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 4/19/2005; p. A6.)

37. ” . . . The Ustasha took pow­er in Croa­t­ia after the Ger­man inva­sion in 1941 and estab­lished death camps in which as many as 700,000 peo­ple, most­ly Serbs, were killed, accord­ing to a U.S. gov­ern­ment report cit­ed by the court. A sep­a­rate State Depart­ment report said Ustasha lead­ers found sanc­tu­ary in a papal insti­tu­tion in Rome after the war, with a trea­sury of over $80 mil­lion. The suit claims much of the mon­ey had been stolen from Serbs, Jews, Gyp­sies, Ukraini­ans and oth­ers under Ustasha dom­i­na­tion and was kept in the Vat­i­can Bank, where it was used in part to finance the relo­ca­tion of Nazi fugi­tives. [Ital­ics are Mr. Emory’s.] The plaintiffs—who seek class-action sta­tus on behalf of all those affected—want resti­tu­tion of their loss­es and any prof­its gained by the bank. . . .” (Idem.)

38. Next, the pro­gram sets forth doc­u­men­ta­tion of the verac­i­ty of the plain­tiffs’ charges in the afore­men­tioned law­suit against the Vat­i­can Bank. The Vat­i­can “ratlines”—the Church’s Nazi escape networks—were presided over by Bish­op Alois Hudal and Father Draganovic (the “Gold­en Priest”). Draganovic helped to spir­it the Ustachi plun­der out of Yugoslavia as well. In the imme­di­ate after­math of the war, the Ustachi loot was used, in part, to finance a gueril­la war against the Yugosla­vian regime. These recon­struct­ed Ustachis were termed “Krizari”—Crusaders. The Krizari cam­paign was admin­is­tered by British intel­li­gence, which assist­ed the Vat­i­can with the exo­dus of the Ustachi plun­der. The “Pavel­ic” referred to in the fol­low­ing pas­sage was Ante Pavel­ic, the Fuhrer of the Ustacha regime, who became a trust­ed advis­er to Argen­tine dic­ta­tor Juan Per­on after the war. ” . . . With the help of Catholic priests, Pavel­ic had begun to trans­fer large quan­ti­ties of gold and cur­ren­cy to Switzer­land in ear­ly 1944. Some of the trea­sure had been tak­en to Italy by British Lieu­tenant Colonel Jon­son to finance the Krizari forces. Anoth­er por­tion went to Rome with Draganovic and also end­ed up financ­ing the ter­ror­ist net­work.”
(Unholy Trin­i­ty: The Vat­i­can, the Nazis and the Swiss Banks; by John Lof­tus and Mark Aarons; St. Mar­t­in’s Press [SC]; Copy­right 1991, 1998 by Mark Aarons and John Lof­tus; ISBN 0–312-18199; p. 132.)

39. “But over 2,400 kilos of gold and oth­er valu­ables still remained secret­ed in Berne. It was sup­posed to be used to ‘aid refugees of the Catholic reli­gion’, but was real­ly ear­marked for the Ustashi’s clan­des­tine oper­a­tions. Although the Allies had tem­porar­i­ly pre­vent­ed them from gain­ing access to these funds, by ear­ly 1948 the time had come to use the Church to retrieve the loot.” (Idem.)

40. “In Berne, Roz­man’s Ustashi friends were engaged in whole­sale fraud, using the black mar­ket to con­vert the gold into dol­lars, and lat­er, into Aus­tri­an schillings. ‘Aid to the refugees is account­ed for at the offi­cial rate of exchange for dol­lars,’ the Amer­i­can offi­cers not­ed, adding that ‘mal­prac­tices have been car­ried on (offi­cial­ly, the dol­lar is worth 10 schillings; on the black mar­ket, 100 to 150). Accord­ing to reli­able infor­ma­tion: ‘Roz­man is going to Berne to take care of these finances. The mon­ey is in a Swiss bank, and he plans to have most of it sent through to Italy and from there to the Ustashis in [the] Argen­tine.’ ” (Ibid.; pp. 132–133.)

41. ” A short time lat­er Roz­man duly arrived in Berne, accom­pa­nied by Bish­op Ivan Sar­ic, the ‘hang­man’ of Sara­je­vo. By the end of May 1948, Roz­man had appar­ent­ly car­ried out this mon­ey laun­der­ing oper­a­tion for the Ustashi, for the vis­it­ed the U.S. Con­sulate in Zurich and was giv­en a ‘non-quo­ta immi­gra­tion visa as a min­is­ter of reli­gion.’ He then trav­eled to the Unit­ed States and set­tled in Cleve­land, Ohio. The cir­cle was now almost com­plete. Pavelic’s stolen ‘trea­sure’ had been tracked down through close mon­i­tor­ing of the move­ments and activ­i­ties of the quis­ling Bish­op of Ljubl­jana. . . .” (Ibid.; p. 133.)

42. “William Gowen and his CIC col­leagues had start­ed to unrav­el Britain’s role in the Krizari’s oper­a­tions dur­ing their hunt for Ante Pavel­ic in 1947. As already dis­cussed, they soon dis­cov­ered that the Vat­i­can was shel­ter­ing Pavel­ic, with the con­nivance of the British Secret Intel­li­gence Ser­vice. In the course of estab­lish­ing this, Gowen also con­firmed sen­sa­tion­al claims made by Fer­enc Vaj­ta. It will be recalled that the Amer­i­can’s Hun­gar­i­an Nazi con­tact had told him that SIS was behind the mil­i­tary and polit­i­cal revival of the Ustashi.” (Ibid.; p. 122.)

43. “Gowen inves­ti­gat­ed the Krizari’s finances and soon uncov­ered the unsa­vory truth: their mon­ey came part­ly from the ‘trea­sure’ which ‘Pavelic’s hench­men’ had car­ried out of Croa­t­ia. Accord­ing to Gowen, the Ustashi had fled with a large num­ber of truck­loads of this stolen booty. When the British SIS appre­hend­ed Pavel­ic in Aus­tria in may 1945, they also picked up some of his loot. Gowen believed that the fol­low­ing sto­ry of what real­ly hap­pened was ‘clos­est to the truth’: ‘British Lt. Colonel Jon­son was placed in charge of two (2) trucks laden with the sup­posed prop­er­ty of the Catholic Church in the British Zone of Aus­tria. These two (2) trucks, accom­pa­nied by a num­ber of priests and the British offi­cer, then entered Italy and went to an unknown des­ti­na­tion.’ ” (Ibid.; p. 123.)

44. “Major Stephen Clis­sold con­firmed that two such Ustashi ‘trea­sure trucks’ had indeed reached Aus­tria. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, Clis­sold did not men­tion the British role in remov­ing them to Italy, claim­ing instead that they ‘were deposit­ed in the safe-keep­ing of a monastery,’ but Gowen was cer­tain that the British were now using it to finance ‘the Croat resis­tance move­ment in Yugoslavia. The resis­tance forces . . . go by the name of Krizari (Cru­saders) . . . Radio con­tact is main­tained by means of a field radio oper­at­ed by Vran­cic, a for­mer Pavel­ic min­is­ter locat­ed in the British Zone of Aus­tria. The Ustachia couri­er ser­vice with­in the Aus­tri­an Zones is believed aid­ed by the Roman Catholic Church in Aus­tria. The Car­di­nal of Graz is known to be on close terms with . . . Pro­fes­sor Draganovic, Krunoslav, known Pavel­ic con­tact in Rome.’ ” (Idem.)

45. “Yet again, West­ern intel­li­gence found that Father Draganovic was at the cen­ter of the Ustashi’s clan­des­tine activ­i­ties. Indeed, he was wide­ly known in West­ern intel­li­gence and émi­gré cir­cles as ‘the gold­en priest’ because he con­trolled a large part of the stolen trea­sure. Although Colonel Jon­son had tak­en away two truck­loads in 1945, this was only a frac­tion of Pavelic’s loot.” (Idem.)

46. “Four hun­dred kilos of gold, worth mil­lions of dol­lars, and a con­sid­er­able amount of for­eign cur­ren­cy had been secret­ed at Wolfs­berg, where it was under the con­trol of for­mer Ustashi Min­is­ter, Lovro Susic. Draganovic dis­cov­ered this from senior Ustashi offi­cials dur­ing his vis­it to Aus­tria in mid-1945. They were appar­ent­ly deter­mined to main­tain some inde­pen­dence from the British, who they feared would seize the gold, so they asked Draganovic to save it. The priest was only too will­ing to oblige, for he con­tact­ed Susic and with his agree­ment took forty kilos of gold bars to Rome, con­cealed in two pack­ing cas­es. There is no doubt about Draganovic’s close con­nec­tions with the Ustashi hier­ar­chy in this mon­ey laun­der­ing scheme. . . .” (Ibid.; pp. 123–124.)

47. One of the key Church offi­cials involved with pro­mot­ing Draganovic to the posi­tion from which he could oper­ate the rat­lines was Arch­bish­op Aloy­ius Stepinac, a mem­ber of the Ustachi par­lia­ment. ” . . . Drag­onovic had returned to Rome in August 1943, rep­re­sent­ing the Ustashi and the Croa­t­ian Red Cross. This allowed him to build his escape routes for Nazi war crim­i­nals. He was sup­port­ed by Croa­t­i­a’s Arch­bish­op, Aloy­ius Stepinac, who had pro­vid­ed Draganovic with intro­duc­tions to influ­en­tial Vat­i­can con­tacts. As a result, he could move in the high­est cir­cles, meet­ing reg­u­lar­ly with Sec­re­tary of State Maglione, and even with Pope Pius XII. He also had close con­tacts with Axis diplo­mats at the Vat­i­can which would lat­er prove invalu­able.” (Ibid.; p. 57.)

48. More about Stepinac’s role in pro­mot­ing Draganovic into posi­tion to form and admin­is­ter the Rat­lines: “In anoth­er strik­ing par­al­lel with Cecel­ja’s career, Draganovic also worked on Croa­t­ian Red Cross mat­ters. In August 1943 Pavel­ic and Arch­bish­op Stepinac dis­patched him to Rome. Amer­i­can intel­li­gence observed that it was ‘a clas­sic exam­ple of kick­ing a man upstairs’ inas­much as it is fair­ly well estab­lished that the lead­ers of the Inde­pen­dent State of Croa­t­ia expect­ed the prelate, through his good con­nec­tions in the Vat­i­can, to be instru­men­tal in work­ing out the ori­en­ta­tion of Croa­t­ia towards the West rather then the East.’ ” (Ibid.; p. 97.)

49. One of the indi­ca­tions that the late Pope John Paul II’s alleged anti-Nazi sen­ti­ments are mytho­log­i­cal is the fact that he beat­i­fied Stepinac, as well as Father Escri­va de Bal­a­guer, the founder of the Opus Dei sect. (For more about the fas­cist con­nec­tions of Opus Dei, see—among oth­er pro­grams—FTR#422.) As dis­cussed in FTR#422, Opus Dei was involved with the afore­men­tioned Ban­co Ambrosiano scan­dal as well. “Pope John Paul II has cre­at­ed a record num­ber of saints dur­ing the 22 years he has reigned as head of the Catholic Church. He has bestowed saint­hood on almost 300 respect­ed fig­ures from the Church’s long his­to­ry who dis­played ‘hero­ic virtue’ dur­ing their lives. He has beat­i­fied about 800 more, putting them on the road to becom­ing saints.”
(“Remov­ing the Pol­i­tics from Saint­hood” by David Lloyd; Vision: Foun­da­tion for a New World; 3/9/2000; p. 1.)

50. “Often his choic­es have been con­tro­ver­sial and viewed as polit­i­cal state­ments. In 1998, his deci­sion to beat­i­fy the Croa­t­ian Car­di­nal Aloy­sius Stepinac received much crit­i­cism from Ortho­dox Serbs and Jews. Stepinac was arch­bish­op for Zagreb dur­ing World War II and after­wards was accused of col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Nazis in their mas­sacre of Serbs, Jews and Gyp­sies in Croa­t­ia. In 1992, he beat­i­fied Jose­maria Escri­va, the Span­ish founder of the ultra-con­ser­v­a­tive Opus Dei—a move­ment wide­ly viewed with sus­pi­cion as a secret soci­ety. . . .” (Idem.)

51. Opus Dei, whose founder, Father Escri­va de Bal­a­guer, praised Hitler and was an ardent admir­er of Span­ish dic­ta­tor Fran­cis­co Fran­co, appears to have been a major play­er in the elec­tion of Ratzinger. ” . . . Sev­er­al Euro­pean car­di­nals are sym­pa­thet­ic to Opus Dei, among the Car­di­nal Camil­lo Rui­ni, the Ital­ian prelate who runs the Dio­cese of Rome on behalf of the pope, and a con­tender to suc­ceed John Paul. Rui­ni last year opened pro­ceed­ings to declare Opus Dei’s Del Por­tillo a saint. But recent­ly, sev­er­al Ital­ian news­pa­pers breath­less­ly report­ed that the two Opus Dei car­di­nals were throw­ing their sup­port behind the can­di­da­cy of Car­di­nal Joseph Ratzinger, a Ger­man-born tra­di­tion­al­ist who has served as chief enforcer of church doc­trine for two decades.” (“Con­tro­ver­sial Opus Dei Has Stake in Papal Vote” by Lar­ry B. Stam­mer and Tra­cy Wilkin­son; The Los Ange­les Times; 4/19/2005; p. 2.)

52. Ratzinger/Benedict’s friend and pre­de­ces­sor John Paul II ele­vat­ed opus Dei. “Opus Dei flour­ished dur­ing John Paul’s pon­tif­i­cate. In 1982, he took the unprece­dent­ed step of mak­ing Opus Dei a per­son­al prela­ture of the church, answer­able not to local bish­ops in the dio­ce­ses where it oper­at­ed, but to the pope alone. In anoth­er sign of the group’s influ­ence, the pope placed Opus Dei’s founder, the Span­ish priest Jose­maria Escri­va de Bal­a­guer, on the fast track to saint­hood in 1992, leapfrog­ging over Pope John XXIII. In 2002, Escri­va was can­on­ized before a crowd of 300,000 in St. Peter’s Square, becom­ing St. Jose­maria a mere 27 years after he died. . . .” (Idem.)

53. Ratzinger was also involved in an “ecu­meni­cal” orga­ni­za­tion with that great expo­nent of ecumenism—Neil Bush, broth­er of the seat­ed Pres­i­dent. Anoth­er of these great ecu­meni­cal fig­ures was Jamal Daniel, a close friend and busi­ness part­ner of Neil Bush. As dis­cussed in FTR#438, Daniel’s fam­i­ly was among the founders of the Baath Par­ty in both Syr­ia and Iraq! “Neil Bush, the pres­i­den­t’s con­tro­ver­sial younger broth­er, six years ago joined the car­di­nal who this week became Pope Bene­dict XVI as a found­ing board mem­ber of a lit­tle known Swiss ecu­meni­cal foun­da­tion. The char­ter mem­bers of the board were all well-known inter­na­tion­al reli­gious fig­ures, except for Bush and his close friend and busi­ness part­ner, Jamal Daniel, whose fam­i­ly has exten­sive hold­ings in the Unit­ed States and Switzer­land, pub­lic records show. The Foun­da­tion for Inter­re­li­gious and Inter­cul­tur­al Research and Dia­logue was found­ed in Gene­va Switzer­land, in 1999 to pro­mote ecu­meni­cal under­stand­ing and pub­lish orig­i­nal reli­gious texts, said a foun­da­tion offi­cial. . . .” (“Neil Bush, Ratzinger Co-Founders” by Knut Royce and Tom Brune; New York News­day; 4/21/2005; p. 1.)

54. It was Ratzinger who issued the order to deny com­mu­nion to John Ker­ry, because of his stance on abor­tion. “Ger­man Car­di­nal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vat­i­can the­olo­gian who was elect­ed Pope Bene­dict XVI, inter­vened in the 2004 US elec­tion cam­paign order­ing bish­ops to deny com­mu­nion to abor­tion rights sup­port­ers includ­ing pres­i­den­tial can­di­date John Ker­ry. In a June 2004 let­ter to US bish­ops enun­ci­at­ing prin­ci­ples of wor­thi­ness for com­mu­nion recip­i­ents, Ratzinger spec­i­fied that strong and open sup­port­ers of abor­tion should be denied the Catholic sacra­ment, for being guilty of a ‘grave sin.’ (“New Pope Inter­vened against Ker­ry in US 2004 Elec­tion Cam­paign” [Agence France Presse]; 4/19/2005; p. 1.)

Discussion

3 comments for “FTR #508 The Vatican Rag, Part II: Der Panzerkardinal”

  1. On the pic­ture above Ratzinger wears a uni­form from the anti air­craft bat­tery he belonged to.His unit belonged to the Ger­man Airforce.NOT Hitler Youth.

    Posted by Samuel Samson | January 24, 2012, 1:07 pm
  2. I have a source from 1990, that says that Opus Dei is secret ser­vice, assist­ing the works of the Jesuits, because not enough priests are avail­able to do the work of the Jesuits.
    http://users.skynet.be/sky50779/jesuits.htm
    Agents believ­ing some­thing par­tic­u­lar, are used in many ways.

    What might be an addi­tion to the arti­cle, is the Luther­an Evan­gel­i­cal back­ground of Mar­tin Bor­mann, in rela­tion to this pope. When the Anabap­tists of Europe where mur­dered out, the Luther­ans often had an Alliance with the Catholics. From a the­o­log­i­cal view­point, this is to be expect­ed, because Mar­tin Luther cre­at­ed the Ger­man Lan­guage, and was not a cult. Nei­ther is Opus Dei a secret soci­ety, but is a spy net­work, that keeps their mem­ber list secret. Mar­tin Luther did not know, that Roman Catholi­cism as a spy asset of Rome, accord­ing to Alber­to Rivera. Jesus Christ did not come to cre­ate a spy asset for Rome.

    Ger­many is the coun­try that is allied by the lan­guage cre­at­ed by Mar­tin Luther and Melanch­ton, that was made from many dialects in that area of Europe. Luther had to invent a lan­guage, the cur­rent Ger­man Lan­guage. The same goes for Eng­lish, that one can under­stand by com­par­ing William Tyn­dale’s Eng­lish to King James Eng­lish, the lat­ter being a lan­guage also that was cre­at­ed from sev­er­al dialects.
    http://wesley.nnu.edu/sermons-essays-books/william-tyndales-translation/

    Hitler was not only lying about Jews being a race, he also lied about the his­to­ry of Ger­many.

    Why do so many still believe these lies?

    Posted by Geus | July 11, 2012, 9:17 am
  3. http://www.timesofisrael.com/nazi-hunters-condemn-mass-for-wwii-croatia-leader/#ixzz3NK7k5f8a
    Nazi-hunters con­demn Mass for WWII Croa­t­ia leader
    Cer­e­mo­ny mark­ing death of Hitler ally Ante Pavel­ic described as ‘badge of shame’ for Catholic Church
    By AFP Decem­ber 29, 2014, 10:21 pm

    ZAGREB, Croa­t­ia — The Nazi-hunt­ing Simon Wiesen­thal Cen­ter slammed Mon­day a Mass in Zagreb to com­mem­o­rate Croatia’s World War II pro-Nazi leader, claim­ing it was a “badge of shame” for the Catholic Church.

    “It’s hard to believe that in the cen­ter of the cap­i­tal of a mem­ber of the Euro­pean Union, very close to Zagreb’s Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, hun­dreds of peo­ple gath­ered yes­ter­day to com­mem­o­rate the mem­o­ry of one of Europe’s biggest mass mur­der­ers,” the head of the center’s Jerusalem office said in a state­ment.

    Efraim Zuroff labelled the ser­vice mark­ing the 55rd anniver­sary of Ante Pavelic’s death an “insult to the mem­o­ry of Pavelic’s hun­dreds of thou­sands of inno­cent vic­tims,” and a “badge of shame for the Catholic Church.”

    Mass­es on the anniver­sary of Pavelic’s death are reg­u­lar­ly held in a basil­i­ca in down­town Zagreb and in Split, on the Adri­at­ic coast.

    Pavel­ic head­ed a Nazi-allied Croat state from 1941 to 1945.

    He died in Madrid on Decem­ber 28, 1959, report­ed­ly from wounds inflict­ed in an attack on him two years ear­li­er in Buenos Aires, where he had fled after the Axis defeat in 1945.

    Pavelic’s World War II Ustasha regime killed hun­dreds of thou­sands of Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fas­cist Croa­t­ians in con­cen­tra­tion camps.

    Almost 90 per­cent of Croatia’s pop­u­la­tion of 4.2 mil­lion are Roman Catholics.

    The for­mer Yugoslav repub­lic joined the EU last year.

    Posted by Vanfield | December 29, 2014, 1:18 pm

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