Deeds Done In Darkness

God Almighty knows everything. He is omniscient. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. -- 1 John 3:20 A simple enough teaching, yet one easily overlooked or forgotten. Every day, I read in the newspaper of people who ran afoul of the law, or got in trouble with their bosses, or were caught in wrongdoing by their spouses, etc. Brokerage firms are censured by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Huge corporations are penalized by the Internal Revenue Service for irregularities in their books. Even great nations are called to account for some of their secret doings. No one, individual or corporate, can expect to successfully hide his affairs from the merciless white light of government and media scrutiny. How strange it is to me that men and churches who profess to know God and His ways should behave as though their dark deeds never will be discovered. How strange that so-called men and women of God should think God a fool. Could it be they really do not know the God whose power they flout? A case in point is the Vatican's relationship with the Fascist Independent State of Croatia during WWII and her continuing support for Ustashe and other war criminals following the conclusion of hostilities in Europe. In the face of an increasing volume of evidence being made available as the United States and other governments declassify wartime intelligence documents, the Vatican denies any complicity in supporting the murderous Ustashe or in helping war criminals and their plunder escape from Europe. In the early 1980's, Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, was deported from Bolivia. He went on trial in France and was sentenced to spend his remaining days in prison. One consequence of the interest in Barbie was the examination of the archives of U.S. intelligence agencies. A number of files were declassified, some of which implicated the Vatican in hiding war criminals and their loot and in helping both to flee Europe. Two of these files were quoted in a Catholic Online News Update on August 4, 1997. Citing a Reuters report, the update informed that there had been clandestine transactions between Vatican financial agencies and Nazi Germany, according to allegations in American intelligence files. Pertinent sections from those reports were quoted in the article. The documents in the National Archives reportedly charge that the Institute for Religious Works used Swiss banks to arrange illegal transfers with banks in Germany and other Axis countries. One confidential document, dated January 27 1945, lists a November 12 1944 transaction in which the Swiss bank, Credit Suisse, sent the following message to the Vatican bank: "We credit you 6,407.50 francs on order of the Reichsbank Berlin." The Reichsbank was Nazi Germany's central bank. -- Catholic World News, More US documents accuse Vatican of World War II Nazi ties, August 4, 1997, copyright 2007 Trinity Communications Interesting, don't you think? Both Switzerland and the Vatican supposedly were neutral nations during World War II, yet here is a record of money being sent from Nazi Germany to the Vatican Bank by way of Switzerland. You reckon the money was sent by a private citizen in Germany who had saved his pfennigs over the years to build a retirement nest egg? Perhaps it was booty plundered from victims of Germany's genocidal war. Naah, seems to be too small an amount to be pirate treasure. It occurs to me that the money could have been sent to pay for forged identity documents and passage out of postwar Europe. Of course, that can never be proved one way or the other. Another report mentioned in the news update lends substance to the suspicion that the Vatican Bank was messing in clandestine activities, utilizing conduits of questionable legitimacy. A second document labeled "Secret Intelligence Material Confidential," said that in April 1945, the Vatican Bank instructed the Union Bank of Switzerland to pay 100,000 Swiss francs and asked the Swiss central bank to pay 200,000 francs to the Bank Swiss Italienne of Lugano, which the Allies had placed on its blacklist in June 1940. A third document, also in 1945, said the Vatican bank asked a Portuguese bank to "forward 2,500 large dollar notes in a sealed packet to the Vatican through the medium of the papal nuncio in Lisbon. -- Ibid. Hmmmm. Shipping a considerable amount of money to a blacklisted bank smacks of sneaky goings-on but the clincher is the instruction concerning the paper money. One has but to wonder what plans the Vatican Bank had for those large bills which would, coincidentally, fit quite comfortably in a briefcase or small carry-on bag. Could this have been traveling money for war criminals on the run? Once again, we likely never will know the facts, but the update concluded by mentioning a claim that the Vatican had transfered a large amount of money to Croatian fascists at the end of the war. The Vatican, as is to be expected, denied the reports and allegations, declaring that" "the allegations are old news resurfacing as part of a witch hunt against the Swiss banks." -- Ibid. Don't you just have to love the practiced smoothness of the Vatican in deflecting attention from her own doings by tossing out a red herring? For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops. -- Luke 12:2-3