UNITED STATES
Market Watch
By Brett Arends
Published: Feb 10, 2015
It’s time for Pope Francis to confess.
His Holiness has said he wants to bring a new era of openness and light to the Roman Catholic Church.
Good for him.
He can start by at last throwing open the Vatican’s secret records about its shady dealings with Hitler, Mussolini and their allies before, during and after World War II.
What did the Vatican know about the Holocaust and other atrocities taking place? How much did it cover up? And, most of all, how much did it profit from them?
Those issues have been given new life by the publication of Gerald Posner’s new book, “God’s Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican,” which details for the first time all that we do know about the financial shenanigans in the Holy See from that time. But it is tantalizing how much remains buried in the Vatican’s so-called “Secret Archive,” hidden from prying eyes.
These are not private or confidential Roman Catholic Church matters that have no business being aired in public. These relate directly to the church’s conduct during and after the war — as a moral authority in the world, a sovereign state, an investor and as an offshore bank.
Here are the questions that Posner’s book raises and which the pope should answer if he seriously wants to be considered “the People’s Pope.”
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