Edmond Paris - The Secret History of the Jesuits

Indeed, when the Yugoslav government asked for his extradition from the United States where he had taken refuge, someone spoke on his behalf: the R.P. Jesuit Lackovic, residing also in the United States, and secretary to Monseigneur Stepinac, archbishop of Zagreb, during the last war.

"Artukovic", states the Jesuit, "was the lay spokesman of Monseigneur Stepinac. Between 1941 and 1945, not one day went by without seeing him in my office or myself going to his. He asked the archbishop's advice on all his actions, as far as their moral aspect was concerned".(81) When we know what the "actions" of this executioner were, we realise what kind of edifying "moral" advice Monseigneur Stepinac gave him.

Massacres and "conversions" took place until the Liberation, and the good-will of the Holy-Father towards the killers never altered.

One must read, in the Croatian Catholic newspapers of that time, the exchanges of compliments between Pius XII and Pavelitch, the

"Poglavnik", to whom Monseigneur Saric, Jesuit archbishop of Sarajavo and a poet in his spare time, dedicated verses impregnated with a rapturous adoration.

(79a) Cf. Herve Lauriere: "Assassins in the Name of God", (Ed. Dufour, Paris 1951, pp.40 ss) (80) Walter Hagen op.cit., pp. 168,176,198,199.

(81) "Mirror News" of Los Angeles, 24th of January 1958.

(82) With other catholic ecclesiastics such as Monseigneur Aksamovic, the Jesuits Irgolis.

Lonacir, Pavunic, Mikan, Polic, Severovic, Sipic, Skrinjar, Vucetic (note of the author).

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But this was only a show of good manners: "Monseigneur Stepinac becomes member of the "Oustachi" parliament (82). He wears "Oustachi"

decorations, he is present at all important "Oustachi" official manifestations at which he even gives speeches... "Must we then wonder at the respect given to Monseigneur Stepinac by the satellite state of Croatia'? or that his praises were sung by the "Oustachi" press? It is, alas, too evident that, without the support of Monseigneur Stepinac, on the religious and political side, Ante Pavelitch would never have obtained the collaboration of Catholic Croats to such an extent".(83)

To comprehend the full extent of that collaboration, one must read the Croatian Catholic press, the "Katolicki Tjednik", the "Katolick List", the

"Hrvatski Narod", and so many other publications which vied with each other in flattering the bloody "Poglavnik"; Pius XII was so pleased that he was a

"practising Catholic", and the high esteem of the Sovereign Pontiff embraced even the accomplices of the great man.

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

The goodwill of His Holiness Pius XII is easily explained by the apostolic zeal of these killers. Another "practising Catholic", Mile Budak, minister for Worship, exlcaimed in August 1941, at Karlovac: "The

"Oustachi" movement is based on religion. All our work rests on our loyalty to religion and the Catholic Church".(84) Besides, on the 22nd of July, at Gospic, the same minister for Worship had perfectly defined this work: "We will kill some Serbians, deport others, and the rest will be compelled to' embrace the Roman Catholic religion".(85) This fine programme was carried out to the letter. When the Liberation put an end to this tragedy, 300,000 Serbians and Jews had been deported and more than 500,000 massacred. By this means the Roman Church had also made 240,000 Orthodox believers enter its fold... who quickly went back to the religion of their ancestors when their freedom was restored.

But, to obtain this ridiculous result, what horrors fell on that unfortunate country! One must read, in the book of M. Herve Lauriere

"Assassins in the Name of God", details of the monstrous tortures that (83) "Le Monde" 27th of May 1953.

(84) Cf. Herve Lauriere: "Assassins in the Name of God", (Ed. Dufour, Paris 1951, p.97).

(85) "L'Ordre de Paris", 8th of February 1947.

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these practising Catholics who were the Oustachis inflicted on their poor victims."

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

"In Croatia, the Jesuits implanted political clericalism".(87) It is the present invariably offered by the famous Company to the nations which welcome it.

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

Ten years after this was written, the one who wrote the foreword of the Jesuit Father Muckermann's book sat on the throne of Saint-Peter and, during his pontificate, "the blood for Christ" literally flowed in Europe; but Croatia suffered the worst of the atrocious deeds of that "new epoch".

There, not only were the priests advocating all out slaughter from the pulpit, but some even marched at the head of the murderers. Others held, apart from their sacred ministry, official posts as prefects or chiefs of the

"Oustachi" police, even as chiefs of concentration camps where horrors were not outdone by even Dachau or Auschwitz.

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

Brother Filipovitch's fate was the same as Monseigneur Tiso's, in Slovakia: when Liberation came, he was hanged, wearing his cassock. But many of his rivals, not very anxious to win the palm of the martyr, fled to (86) "Nineteenth Century and After", August 1943. (87) and (88) Herve Lauriere, op.cit., pp.82,84,85.

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Austria, pell-mell with the assassins they had assisted so well.

But what was the "hierarchy" doing, when confronted with the blood-thirsty frenzy of so many of its subordinates?

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

His Holiness Pius XII was personally represented at Zagreb by an eminent monk, the R.P. Marcone. This "Sancti Sedis Legatus" was given the place of honour at all the ceremonies of the "Oustachi" regime, and had himself sanctimoniously photographed at the home of the chief of killers— Pavelitch—