RCC Denials, Concealment & Revisionism

[JenJen]

I've been having a discussion in the following thread. I'm saying that the Catholic Church has a history of denials, concealment, and history revision.

JREF Thread

I've mentioned, specifically, Anti-semitism during WWII and up to Pope JPII who attempted to bring change to the Church. I've also presented the Inquisition as an example of revisionism - that some people now seem to be claiming that the church was actually protecting people??? And how can any Catholic stand behind Cardinal Mahoney - and he still enjoys the support of the Vatican. As far as I can tell, he should be in jail.

The only support that I've found so far to support some of these revisionist ideas are from Catholic sources - which is what these issues (and I'm sure many others) have in common. It seems like the Church (and Catholics in general) has the inability to accept past errors and move on - instead they try to re-write history and justify. Pope JPII did try to make some changes but even he seemed unwilling to face the issues directly and forcefully.

Obviously, the RCC has done a lot of good in the past and in the present but they've done wrong, also. Some of it is likely a matter of perspective.

I'm going to continue to research but I wanted to get this issue out of the other thread and put it in it's proper place.

Jen

 

[ceo_esq]

This is a broad, historically intensive topic. Examining these things in detail is likely to prove time-consuming. Allow me to propose a broad strategy for proceeding.

With regard to each of the larger issues (the Inquisition; the Church and Nazism; Cardinal Mahoney; or any others), why don't you sketch out what you think is the accurate, even-handed historical account, and why you think so. Then describe what you understand to be the Church's alternative account, why you ascribe that account to the institutional Church, and why any discrepancies between the two accounts arise from denial or dissimulation on the part of the Church. The more fact-specific, the better, obviously.

At that point we can subject your argument to critical scrutiny.

 

[JenJen]

This is a broad, historically intensive topic. Examining these things in detail is likely to prove time-consuming. Allow me to propose a broad strategy for proceeding.

With regard to each of the larger issues (the Inquisition; the Church and Nazism; Cardinal Mahoney; or any others), why don't you sketch out what you think is the accurate, even-handed historical account, and why you think so. Then describe what you understand to be the Church's alternative account, why you ascribe that account to the institutional Church, and why any discrepancies between the two accounts arise from denial or dissimulation on the part of the Church. The more fact-specific, the better, obviously.

At that point we can subject your argument to critical scrutiny.

I was thinking on this earlier and I think you're right - the subject is too broad. I'm just trying to decide how much I really care to get into the WWII issues. I've been curious about the Inquisition and some of claims that are being made but I should do some work before I open any topic on that. Since I'm in LA, I've followed the Mahoney issue pretty closely and the whole thing stinks - but I can open another thread on that, too, when I care enough.

I mostly just wanted to get this stuff out of the other thread. We were on the anti-semitism issue and we can stick with that. I am interested in reading more about the anti-semitism issue - just going to have to find the time. But I'm the one that jumped in to it!

This article ... A Righteous Gentile is interesting for you POV but it's not enough to convince me.

Sorry for the confusion - I was just jumping in the forum between tasks at work and didn't give enough thought to what I was doing.

Jen

 

[ceo_esq]

This article ... A Righteous Gentile is interesting for you POV but it's not enough to convince me.

Is it because it's not detailed enough, not a piece of scholarly writing, not written by a qualified researcher ... why?

This raises another interesting question. What specifically convinced you in the first place that the point of view rebutted by Rabbi Dalin in that article is the correct one, and why?

 

[Kopji]

The WW2 'Ustase' issues at seem still inconclusive.

It might be helpful if the Vatican just came out and strongly denied it's involvement outright. Maybe there is such a document.

This seems to have started with a US State Department paper a few years ago. I don't see anything that looks like actual evidence that gold was shipped to the Vatican though.

So no RCC denials or anything, just silence.

http://www.pavelicpapers.com/documents/jasenovac/
"From concentration camps run by Germans in the occupied territories, two things distinguished Jasenovac: the brutal methods of execution preferred by the Ustase and the participation of dressed Catholic clergy in the atrocities committed."

http://www.pavelicpapers.com/documents/vatican/va0010.html
The Vatican's continuing secrecy means the evidence is incomplete, but already declassified documents from the archives of the United States and other nations suggest that - with the aid of Croatian Catholic priests - Ustasha plunder made its way from Croatia to Rome, and possibly to the Vatican itself. Some of the stolen wealth was used to help Croatian war criminals flee to South America.

"We make no charges against the Vatican, but we keep building a very damning picture," says Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress. "Because of their silence in the face of accumulated evidence, the failure to uncover the truth can only be laid at the doors of the Vatican"...

http://www.vaticanbankclaims.com/
Alperin v. Vatican Bank was originally filed in Federal Court in San Francisco in November 1999. The plaintiffs are concentration camp survivors of Serb, Jewish, and Ukrainian background and their relatives as well as organizations representing over 300,000 Holocaust victims.

The plaintiffs seek an accounting and restitution of the Nazi Croatian Treasury that according to the US State Department was illicitly transferred to the Vatican bank and other banks after the end of the war.

Name defendants currently include the Vatican Bank, Franciscan Order, and the Croatian Liberation Movement. These defendants combined to conceal assets looted by the Croatian Nazis from concentration camp victims, Serbs, Jews, Roma and others between 1941-1945.

Levy v. CIA is a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act seeking release of US Intelligence agency files regarding the notorius Vatican spymaster, Fr. Krunoslav Draganovic. New records on Draganovic
were released as a result of that lawsuit in 2001.

http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/B67C07DCC082AC598825701A007626F4/$file/0315208.pdf?openelement
alperin v vatican bank

A. WORLD WAR II AND THE USTASHA TREASURY

The events at issue relate back to the actions of the Vatican
during and in the years following World War II.2 Following
Germany’s blitzkrieg through Yugoslavia in 1941, a government
composed of members of the Ustasha was proclaimed
the head of a protectorate of Italy. See Ustasha Treasury Report3
at 141. The Ustasha regime was supported throughout World
War II by German and Italian occupation forces. Id.
2Regarding terminology, the Vatican City and the Holy See are closely
related but not interchangeable entities:
The term “Holy See” refers to the composite of the authority,
jurisdiction, and sovereignty vested in the Pope and his advisers
to direct the worldwide Roman Catholic Church. . . . . Created in
1929 to provide a territorial identity for the Holy See in Rome,
the State of the Vatican City is a recognized national territory
under international law. The Holy See, however, enters into international
agreements and receives and sends diplomatic representatives.
See U.S. Dep’t of State, Background Note: The Holy See (Oct. 2004),
available at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3819.htm (“Vatican Background
Note”). See generally Robert John Araujo, The International Personality
and Sovereignty of the Holy See, 50 Cath. U. L. Rev. 291 (2001)
(providing historical overview of the Holy See’s foreign relations and
arguing that it is a subject of international law). These nuances are not critical for purposes of this opinion. Therefore, for convenience, the term
“Vatican” will be used to refer generally to the Catholic leadership centered
in the Vatican City.
3In the late 1990s, the U.S. Government prepared a report on the
Ustasha wartime treasury as part of a larger effort “to confront the largely
hidden history of Holocaust-related assets after five decades of neglect.”
Bureau of Public Affairs, U.S. Dep’t of State, Pub. No. 10557, U.S. Allied
Wartime and Postwar Relations and Negotiations With Argentina, Portugal,
Spain, Sweden, and Turkey on Looted Gold and German External
Assets and U.S. Concerns About the Fate of the Wartime Ustasha Treasury,
Supplement to the Preliminary Study on U.S. and Allied Efforts to
Recover and Restore Gold and Other Assets Stolen or Hidden by Germany
During World War II iii (1998) (“Ustasha Treasury Report”).
6654 ALPERIN v. VATICAN BANK

http://www.pavelicpapers.com/documents/vatican/va0012.html

(As far as I can tell the case was dismissed on grounds, but still makes interesting reading)