Edmond Paris - The Secret History of the Jesuits

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

It was then with the Vatican's consent that members of the clergy sat in the Czechoslovak Parliament. Still more, one of these priests had to have (70) Francois Charles-Roux, op.cit., pp.127, 128.

(71) Frnacois Charles-Roux, op.cit., 127, 128.

(72) Cf. Walter Hagen: "Le Front secret" (Les lies d'Or, Paris 1950).

(73) R.P. de Soras, op.cit., p.96.

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the Holy See's approval when the Fuhrer himself invested him as head of state -and later conferred on him the highest hitlerian distinctions: the Iron Cross and the Black Eagle decoration.

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

"Catholicism and Nazism", proclaimed Monseigneur Tiso, "have much in common; they work hand in hand at reforming the world".(74) Such must have been also the Vatican's opinion as—in spite of the

"terrible" encyclical letter "Mit Brennender Sorge"—it did not haggle over its approval of the gauleiter priest.

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

"Tiso's regime, in Slovakia, was especially afflicting for the Protestant Church of that country, which comprised one fifth of the population.

Monseigneur Tiso tried to reduce the Protestant influence to its minimum, and even eliminate it... Influential members of the Protestant Church were sent to concentration camps".(76)

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

Let us see now what kind of apostolic gentleness was used by the gauleiter prelate Tiso towards the Jews: "In 1941, the first contingent of Jews from Slovakia and upper-Silesia arrive at Auschwitz; from the start, those who were not able to work are sent to the gas chamber, in a room of the building containing the crematory furnaces".(77) Who wrote this? A witness who could not be challenged, Lord Russell of Liverpool, a judicial counsellor at the trials of war criminals.

So, the Holy See had not "lent" one of its prelates to Hitler in vain. The Jesuit head of state was doing a good job and the satisfaction expressed by Radio Vatican is understandable. To have been Auschwitz's first provider, what a glory for this holy man and for the whole Company of Jesuits!

In fact, this triumph lacked nothing. At the time of the Liberation, this (74) and (75) Henriette Feuillet: "France Nouvelle", 25th of June 1949.

(76) "Reforme", 17th of August 1947.

(77) Lord Russell of Liverpool: "Sous le signe de la croix gammes", (L'Ami du livre, Geneva 1955, p.217).

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prelate was handed over to Czechoslovakia by the Americans, condemned to death in 1946 and hanged—the palm, for a martyr!

"Anything done against the Jews, we do it because of our love for this nation of ours. The love for our fellow-men and the love for our country have developed into a fruitful fight against the enemies of nazism".(78) Another high dignitary of the Roman Church, in a neighbouring country, could have appropriated this declaration of Monseigneur Tiso to himself. For, if the foundations of the Slovakian "City of God" were hatred and persecution, according to the steadfast tradition of the Church, what can be said of the eminently Catholic state of Croatia, offspring of the collaboration between the killer Pavelitch and Monseigneur Stepinac, and with the assistance of the pontifical legate Marcone!

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

The Croatian terrorist organisation of the "Oustachis", led by Pavelitch, had come to the notice of the French people through the assassination, in Marseille, of King Alexander the First of Yugoslavia and our Foreign-Affairs' minister, Louis Barthou, in 1934. "As Mussolini's government was obviously mixed up in the crime"(79), the extradition of Pavelitch, who had taken refuge in Italy, was demanded by the French government; the Duce obviously took care not to grant it, and the Assize Court of Aix-en-Provence had to impose the death sentence by default on the head of the "Oustachis".

This chief of terrorists, hired by Mussolini, "worked" for the Italian expansion on the Adriatic coast. When, in 1941, Hitler and Mussolini invaded and divided Yoguslavia, this supposed Croatian patriot was put. by them, at the head of the satellite state they created under the name of

"Independent State of Croatia". On the 18th of May of that same year, in Rome, Pavelitch offered the crown of that state to the Duke of Spolete who took the name "Tomislav II". Of course, he took care never to set foot on the blood-stained soil of his pseudo-kingdom. "On the same day, Pius XII gave a private audience to Pavelitch and his

(78) Henriette Feuillet: "France Nouvelle", 25th of June 1949.

(79) Francois Charles-Roux, op.cit., p. 132.

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'friends', one of whom was Monseigneur Salis-Sewis, vicar-general ot Monseigneur Stepinac. "So, the Holy See did not fear shaking hands with a certified murderer,

sentenced to death by default for the murder of King Alexander the First and Louis Barthou, a chief of terrorists having the most horrible crimes on his conscience! In fact, on the 18th of May 1941, when Pius XII gladly welcomed Pavelitch and his gang of killers, the massacre of Orthodox Croats was at its height, concurrently with forced conversions to Catholicism".(79a)

It was the Serbian minority of the population they were after, as the author Walter Hagen explains: "Thanks to the 'Oustachis', the country was soon transformed into a bloody chaos... The deadly hatred of the new masters was directed towards the Jews and Serbians who were officially outlawed... Whole villages, even whole regions were sytematically wiped o u t . . . As the ancient tradition wanted Croatia and the Catholic Faith, Serbia and the Orthodox Church to be synonymous, the Orthodox believers were constrained to join the Catholic Church. These compulsory conversions constituted the completion of "croatisation".(80) Andrija Artukovic, minister of the Interior, was the great organiser of these massacres and compulsory conversions; but, while doing it, he "morally"

defended himself, according to a witness in a high position.