Vatican

`aided
Nazis'
by Cristina Odone
VATICAN OFFICIALS were instrumental in hiding and aiding the escape of Nazi war criminals at the end of World War 11, according to a newlydiscovered United States government document.
The allegations are contained in high-level intelligence reports retrieved last week from the National Archives in Washington and Fort Meade. The documents were filed between 1945 to 1950 by the American Army's Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC), and allege that Ante Pavelic, leader of the fallen Nazi puppet state of Croatia, was hidden and helped in his escape to Argentina by various Vatican officials.
According to the reports, Pavelic and other top members of his Nazi collaborationist government had contact with various figures within the Vatican curia — including the then under-secretary-of-state, Mgr Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI.
The documents shed new light on allegations that have surfaced in the past that the Catholic Church helped war criminals escape from Europe.