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According to Croatian media, the Vatican shall declare Alojzije Stepinac a saint by the end of the year, as his cause met the last condition for canonisation… the competent Medical Commission determined one case of a “miraculous healing through Blessed Alojzije Stepinac’s intercession”.
Efraim Zurof, the Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem, said in announcing a letter of protest to the Vatican, “We should state that all associates of Ante Pavelić, all those who supported the policy of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), are war criminals, not saints. As soon as we learn more on this, we’ll address a letter of protest to the Vatican. This is outrageous! I don’t know how come, and about the process, but it’s on Pope Francisco to make the right decision”.
Dr Veljko Djuric Mišina, historian and director of the Belgrade Museum of Genocide Victims explained, “Stepinac was the ranking military vicar for the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) armed forces; therefore, he’s responsible and bore the blame for the monstrous crimes of Catholic priests in the Ustaša militia and Domobrani units. He advocated the forcible conversion of Orthodox Serbs [in Croatia]; in a mid-1943 letter to Pope Pius XII Pacelli, he related the forcible conversion of some 244,000 Serbs… and that’s one of his ‘good points’. There isn’t any evidence that Stepinac ever protested against the crimes committed against the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) or against those committed against the Serbian and Jewish peoples. His intervention remained limited to only a few cases, even though he acknowledged what was going on in concentration camps throughout Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, being aware of the murder of many thousands Serbs, Jews, and Roma. Certain Croatian and German claims that Stepinac protested and intervened against Nazi crimes in Croatia are dishonest, as not a single notation of such is in his papers or in his diary, which are in the BIA archives in Belgrade, earlier, they were in the UDBA archives. After World War II, Tito (a Croat) and Bakarić (another Croat) made a backdoor deal, so, the monstrous Bishop wasn’t tried for crimes against Serbs, Jews, and Roma, but for ”pronounced anti-communism, hiding treasures and archives of the Ustaša régime, and for aiding terrorist groups infiltrated into Yugoslavia“.
Historian Predrag Markovic emphasised the risk in perceiving Stepinac as a victim of the communist government, as an ordinary Catholic priest who merely followed Pius XII’s policy, whose crime laid in not speaking out against the Holocaust, saying, “We have similar cases in Estonia and Hungary; they rehabilitated Nazi criminals under the guise of rehabilitating victims of communism. However, Stepinac was a far more complex personality than the majority thinks. He wasn’t a criminal, but we can talk about his personal responsibility for abetting the suffering of over a million victims in the NDH. After all, the Ustaša killed his brother”. Archpriest Velibor Džomić of the SPC said, “It’s their (Catholic) decision about who they declare saints. If they want to make Alojzije Stepinac a saint… well, I think that he’s far from embodying the Christian virtues that adorn all the holy men that we learn about in the Gospels”.
12 February 2014
M R Petrović
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Milojko Budimir, the President of the Association of Croatian Serbs, said that the Vatican’s intention to declare Stepinac a saint is fiercely condemned by the descendants of those whose fathers and grandfathers experienced the heinous crimes of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) (1941-45). He pointed up that Stepinac supported these atrocities within the Catholic Church, saying, “It’s a proven fact that Stepinac called on his clergy to support and defend the Catholic State of Croatia and that he was aware of the atrocities at Jasenovac and other camps around the NDH, but he didn’t publicly oppose them. Even after the liberation, Stepinac didn’t change his mind, which is why the Supreme Court of the People’s Republic of Croatia sentenced him to 16 years in prison and the loss of civil and political rights for three years, but they commuted his sentence to house arrest. This seems to me to that they rewarded him for his contribution to the NDH’s creation and for the crimes committed against Serbs, Jews, Roma, and others who opposed the fascist state. During this time, including physical liquidation, they violently repressed 250,000 Orthodox Serbs, who didn’t have a choice in the matter. I hope that progressive forces amongst Catholics could organise, oppose such an action, and stop this shameful canonisation, for this person was no saint, he did nothing to deserve such”.
The Vatican officially confirmed that it would soon declare Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac a saint. In Rome, at Mass commemorating the 54th anniversary of Stepinac’s death in Krašić, held at the Chiesa San Girolamo dei Croati a Ripetta at the Pontifical Croatian College of St Jerome, Cardinal Angelo Amato SDB, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, announced that Pope Francisco declared that Stepinac would be a saint, based on the findings of a medical commission that found that the “Blessed” interceded for a “miraculous healing” of a believer. We expect that Stepinac’s canonisation will occur later this year.
12 February 2014
Blic Online
http://www.blic.rs/Vesti/Drustvo/442045/Ustaski-nadbiskup-Stepinac-ce-postati-svetac
Editor’s Note:
Blic is a mid-market tab… in orientation, it’s centre-left, with populist leanings. Therefore, I wouldn’t discount this report, but I’d wait for more Vatican confirmation before going ballistic about it. As for Francisco… nothing will change that I find his politics and societal stance congenial. However, if he allows this canonisation to go through, he’s our enemy. It’d torpedo all chances of any real dialogue with the Vatican. I’d hope that the papists would pull back from this one. Truly, they should… I don’t want to see more petrol tossed on the fire. There’s enough bad blood already, isn’t there? If this does happen, DO NOT take it out on individual papists… they didn’t propose it nor did they approve it. Keep it focused and keep it clean. We can oppose one another without rancour or hate… we’re Christians, after all…
BMD
Voices from Russia 
Tom Perkins Apologises for “Kristallnacht” Reference… Accuses Occupy Wall Street of “Class War”
Tags: Anti-Defamation League, Holocaust, Jews, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Kristallnacht, Occupy movement, political commentary, politics, Tom Perkins, United States, USA, Wall Street Journal
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The oligarch regretted comparing the Occupy Movement with Nazi Germany… but he stands by his words that a “minority” of rich people are being “demonised” by a “majority” and that “it’s wrong and dangerous”.
Venture capitalist pioneer Tom Perkins apologised for a reference he made comparing the anger directed at the wealthiest 1 percent of people in the USA to the Nazis’ treatment of Jewish people at the beginning of the Holocaust. The debacle began when Perkins, a now-retired founder of leading venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, wrote a letter to The Wall Street Journal titled Progressive Kristallnacht Coming? In the letter, Perkins wrote, “I’d call attention to the parallels of Nazi Germany to its war on its ‘One Percent‘, namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American One Percent, namely the ‘rich'”. Perkins likened people involved in the Occupy Movement and those protesting the Google buses in San Francisco CA to the Nazis that rounded up Jews in 1938 during Kristallnacht. During this event, “the Night of Broken Glass”, around 90 Jewish people died and the authorities arrested 30,000 more. Perkins wrote, “This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent ‘progressive’ radicalism unthinkable now?”
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It didn’t take long for a backlash to all that to occur. Not only did the Anti-Defamation League protest Perkins’ statements, Kleiner Perkins also quickly condemned the letter. Leading venture capitalist Marc Andreessen tweeted, “I wish to express my extreme displeasure with Tom Perkins. His positions just go to prove that he’s the leading [a%()&#e] in the state”. On Monday, in an interview with Bloomberg, Perkins apologised for referring to Kristallnacht, saying, “It was a terrible word to have chosen. I, like many, have tried to understand the 20th century and the incomprehensible evil of the Holocaust. It can’t be explained. Even to try to explain it is questionable. It’s wrong. It’s evil”. He said that he came up with the comparison when he thought about how people in the Occupy Movement broke bank and retail store windows. In an apology letter to the Anti-Defamation League, Perkins wrote that his late partner at Eugene Kleiner “fled Hitler from Austria and fought in the US Army. We became the deepest of friends during our long association and he taught me, ‘Never imagine that the unimaginable cannot become real”.
Whilst Perkins said that he regrets making the comparison to Nazi Germany, he also said that he still stands behind his message about protesters’ rage toward rich Americans, noting, “I feel, however, that as a class I think we’re beginning to engage in class warfare. The message is, any time the majority starts to demonise a minority, no matter what it is, it’s wrong and dangerous. No good ever comes from it”.
27 January 2014
Darra Kerr
cnet.com
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57617897-93/tom-perkins-apologizes-for-his-kristallnacht-reference/
Editor’s Note:
BOO-HOO! I feel SO sorry for this self-centred sack o’ shit. Warren Buffett was more concise… “We’ve had a class war for the past thirty years… we won it”. Indeed… it’s time for “the rest of us” to push back. As for Mr Perkins… at least, he’s honest… he’s an unrepentant thief, who hollers, “Catch me if you can!” It’s honesty… but not much else. By their fruits ye shall know them…
By the way, a rightwing conspiracy theory kook and religious nutters dominated the commboxes for this post. Please, don’t be tempted to “comment” on ANYTHING that you see on the web… all that happens is that all the crazies crawl out of the woodwork and spout their particular absorptions (every so often, I’ve fallen to that temptation, only to find logic trumped by idiots… take heed, kids). Cross yourself, pour a drink, and sigh… the world hasn’t gotten any less crank in the last 24, has it?
BMD