[A-List] Pius XII ? The Tainted Saint

["Jim Yarker" <sjy_estrien@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.vaticanbankclaims.com/pius.htm

Vatican Bank Lawsuit Plaintiffs

www.vaticanbankclaims.com

resistk@xxxxxxxxx



For Immediate Release May 15, 2007



Pius XII ? The Tainted Saint






While the debate about proposed sainthood for Pius XII rages between the 
Vatican and its critics, a lawsuit pending since 1999 against the Vatican 
Bank and its ultimate disposition may prove the case for or against Pius.



The pending lawsuit, Alperin v. Vatican Bank (USDC ND CA No. C99-4941), 
filed in federal court in San Francisco and backed by a coalition of 
Serbian, Jewish, Roma and Ukrainian individuals and organizations seeks 
compensation for Axis plunder from Yugoslavia laundered through the Vatican 
Bank in 1946, well after the atrocities of the Second World War were 
revealed in full.



The funds in question were the proceeds of genocide by the Ustasha, Nazi 
allied Croatian forces, who murdered over 500,000 Jews, Serbs, and Roma in 
former Yugoslavia 1941-1945 and plundered their possessions. In addition to 
the money and gold in question, the Vatican also sheltered the top Ustasha 
leadership including wanted war criminals.



So far, testimony in the Alperin case by a former US Army 
counterintelligence agent, William Gowen, who investigated the Ustasha in 
Rome in 1947 for the US Army, has stopped short of directly implicating 
Pius, instead pointing to Montini, Pius? Undersecretary of State, who later 
became Pope Paul VI.  According to the witness, a top Vatican official 
tasked with overseeing Croatian affairs in Rome, Monsignor Draganovic, who 
reported directly to Montini, admitted being the mastermind behind the 
smuggling and deposit of the Ustasha ?treasure? at the Vatican bank.



To date, the Vatican attorneys have taken a hard line with the case, 
insisting that the Vatican Bank?s money laundering scheme for Axis plunder 
violated no international law since the Ustasha?s victims, mainly Orthodox 
Christian Serbs, were technically citizens of ?Independent? Croatia. The 
unrepentant tone of the Vatican bodes poorly for Pius XII and the current 
controversy involving his elevation to sainthood.



While Jewish organizations like The Anti-Defamation League have concentrated 
on Pius? wartime record, the Vatican?s sheltering of the perpetrators of 
genocide and their funds after the Second World War may be even more 
significant.



For more information:



www.vaticanbankclaims.com









Dr. Jonathan Levy

resistk@xxxxxxxxx

Tel 843-837-8413