New Revelations of Pope as CIA Spook: A Fitting Christmas Present
by M A Shaikh
New revelations, from the horse's mouth, linking the Pope to the
CIA and US foreign policy during the cold war confirm allegations,
first made in a 1996 book but dismissed as wild by commentators,
that 'his holiness' was locked in an anti-communist alliance with
American intelligence - an alliance Muslims are justified to
conclude is now chiefly directed against them, given that Islam has
since replaced communism as the west's principal enemy.
The revelations, which come in a BBC documentary, are made by
such unassailable insiders as general Vernon Walters, former CIA
deputy director, and Richard Allen, president Reagan's national
security adviser, among others. Walters describes how Pope John
Paul II was roped in as CIA and white house operative, while Allen
hails the collaboration between the Catholic Church's leader and
the genocidal global imperial power as 'the greatest secret alliance
of modern times.'
The film, Rivals for Paradise, recently shown by BBC television as
an Everyman documentary, is not confined to the current Pope,
tracing, as it does, the history of relations between the Vatican and
the Kremlin from the beginning of the communist revolution in
Russia to the present day. It also deals with certain shady
transactions between the Vatican and Hitler and Mussolini, which
were billed at the time as an anti-communist pact but in fact served
to secure the Catholic Church's silence over the invasions of
Poland and the slaughter of Jews there by the Nazis.
The muck unearthed by the documentary's researchers surprised
even its producer, Paul Sapin, a non-Catholic, who apparently used
to believe the Vatican to be a non-political, non-secular
organization. 'I was surprised at how political over the years the
Vatican has been,' he said in a newspaper interview. 'What kept
disturbing me was that this very religious institution has such a
complex political profile. I was shocked at how secular were their
interests and pursuits.'
Our readers, unlike Sapin, will not find the Vatican's political
agenda surprising. The paper has throughout the years highlighted
the Christian Church's efforts to fight Islam, not only as a faith but
also as a political force, and to back up western imperial strategies
and policies in Muslim countries. The crusading visits to Southern
Sudan by both the Pope and the British archbishop George Carey,
which seek to support Uncle Sam's determination to secure the
secession of South Sudan to form a belt of Christian States across
Central Africa, is a case in point.
The claim that Church and State are kept totally separate in
Christian countries is a mere myth, if not a disinformation designed
to delude Muslim elites into resisting the introduction of Islamic
revolutions in their countries. In Britain, the claim is even
theoretically untrue, as the queen is the head of the Anglican
Church as well as head of State.
The film certainly shows that the Catholic Church has been
enmeshed in the political games of the period it covers. It opens by
exposing, for the first time, that shortly after the Russian
Revolution Pope Benedict XV despatched two archbishops to
negotiate secretly with Lenin. Then it goes on to deal at length with
the Vatican's anti-communist treaties with Hitler and Mussolini.
The then Pope Pius XII felt too compromised to object when Hitler
invaded Poland, which was not communist at the time.
More startling, however, is the exposure of how closely the current
Pope collaborated with president Ronald Reagan, not only in
fighting communism globally but also in defusing opposition to
Reagan's costly star war defence programme by Church leaders.
Richard Allen explains how Reagan was first alerted to the
usefulness of Pope Paul's popularity to US foreign policy
strategies. According to Allen, the two of them - before Reagan
became president - were watching television in Santa Barbara
(California) and an item on the Pope's first visit to Poland
appeared. The people's enthusiastic reception of the Pontiff
(himself a Pole) convinced Reagan that they were ready to
challenge communism.
Under president Carter, the CIA was already supplying striking
Polish workers with photocopiers, video cameras, underground
radio broadcasting equipment and even devices to help them break
into official broadcasts. When Reagan took over as president, the
process was immediately stepped up.
According to Vernon Walters, previous US presidents were content
to contain the Soviet Union - unlike Reagan who dreamed up the
Star Wars programme to emboil Moscow in a costly counter
defence plan that would destroy its economy. But the plan was
vulnerable to criticism on grounds of cost and fear of a new arms
race, and the Reagan administration was anxious to prevent any
attack from Church leaders, especially the Pope, who had
condemned the arms race earlier.
The president then sent the CIA chief to make the Pope Star Wars-
friendly. 'It was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my
life, briefing the Pope,' Walters says. 'I would like to think that it
had some success. He did not criticise our defence programmes and
that was all we wanted.'
But that was not all. Pope Paul acted to water down the text of a
document on Star Wars by US bishops, and to censor a highly
damaging report by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, whose
members he had hand-picked.
When at a later stage Reagan demanded that he discipline priests
who supported liberation theology - which resisted US hegemony
there - the Pope quickly complied, visiting Nicaragua and publicly
humiliating Ernesto Cardinale, a priest and cabinet minister. At
Managua, he also shouted at a congregation chanting 'peace, peace'
to shut up.
These startling revelations by the BBC film confirm those made in
a book published in late 1996. A biography of the Pope by Carl
Bernstein, of the Watergate scandal fame, reveals the details of how
the sinister alliance between a ruthless superpower and the head of
the Catholic Church was first constructed to combat communism
and then expanded to fight 'terrorism' in Central America and
Muslim countries.
When the book was first published, its revelations were discounted
by commentators. With confirmation coming from the horse's
mouth they cannot now be brushed aside. The film and the book
should serve as an eye-opener to 'moderate' Muslims who believe
the separation of Church and State as an ideal to be copied, and see
Islamic movements as a throw-back to the 'Dark Ages.'
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