Oct 1, 2005 3:10 AM

Is the Vatican really hiding a war criminal?

*It would kind of explain a lot, as this Gotovina

guy has been missing in action for four solid years.

If he's not in a monastery, maybe they've got

him on cryogenic ice with Walt Disney.

I know it's kind of hard to believe that

"the Vatican" (whatever that is) would really do something

this bonkers, but you might Google up, say,

"Licio Gelli," "P-2 conspiracy," and "Operation Gladio."

HAGUE PROSECUTOR SAYS VATICAN SHIELDING TOP CROATIAN WAR CRIMES FUGITIVE.

Carla Del Ponte, who is the Hague-based war crimes

tribunal's chief prosecutor, told London's "Daily Telegraph"

of 20 September that she believes that leading fugitive indictee and

former Croatian General Ante Gotovina is hiding in an undisclosed

Franciscan monastery in Croatia. She also charged that the Roman

Catholic Church is refusing to cooperate on the matter.

The daily noted that she has "been 'extremely

disappointed' to encounter a wall of silence from the Vatican.

Frustrated by months of secret but fruitless appeals to leading

Vatican officials, including a direct appeal to Pope Benedict XVI,

Mrs. Del Ponte has decided to make the matter public."

The pope has yet to reply to her written request that he intervene in the matter, she noted. The paper quoted her as saying that she has "information [Gotovina] is hiding in a Franciscan monastery, and so the [Roman] Catholic Church is protecting him. I have taken this up with the Vatican, and the Vatican refuses totally to co-operate with us."

She thinks that the Vatican could "pinpoint in a few days" in

which monastery of about 80 in Croatia Gotovina is allegedly hiding

if it wanted to do so. The daily added that "Del Ponte traveled to

Rome [in July] to share her intelligence with the Vatican's

'foreign minister,' Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo. He refused to

help, telling her the Vatican was not a state and thus had 'no

international obligations' to help the UN to hunt war criminals." (((You'd think that a CHURCH would have some kind of obligation to pursue those charged with crimes against humanity, but I guess opinions vary.)))

Del Ponte stressed that her hosts "said they have no

intelligence, [but] I don't believe that. I think that the

Catholic Church has the most advanced intelligence services." She

added: "Mgr. Lajolo said to me: 'Let me know in which monastery

Gotovina is hiding.' I said, if I knew, I would not be here in

Rome." Del Ponte pointed out that she is "doubly disappointed" by the Vatican because she is a Roman Catholic.

She also asked the Holy See for a repudiation of a recent

statement by Mile Bogovic, the bishop of Gospic and Senj, denouncing the tribunal as a "political court" seeking to blacken Croatia's past. Bogovic also called Gotovina "a symbol of victory" because of his role in the August 1995 Croatian military campaign known as Storm that ended the Serbian insurgency in the Dalmatian hinterland that threatened Bogovic's diocese.

If Del Ponte does identify the alleged monastery, it will be

interesting to see exactly where it is. The Franciscans in western

Herzegovina – outside Croatia's frontiers – have a particular

and centuries-old reputation for Croatian nationalism and

independence of both the Zagreb-based church hierarchy and the

Vatican itself. Those Franciscans are often local men with a strong

identity with their flock and a tradition of self-assurance. If

Gotovina is indeed hiding with Franciscans in western Herzegovina or in neighboring areas of Croatia, it might pose a challenge for the

Holy See and the Roman Catholic Church in Croatia as well as for the

tribunal.

Gotovina has been on the run since 2001, when the tribunal

charged him with crimes against humanity for alleged atrocities