For Immediate Release - Jonathan Levy and Tom Easton, Attorneys - Tel. 513-528-0586 - E mail: resistk@yahoo.com www.vaticanbankclaims.com

January 2, 2002

His Holiness John Paul II tells us:

The enormous suffering of peoples and individuals, even among my own friends and acquaintances, caused by Nazi and Communist totalitarianism, has never been far from my thoughts and prayers. I have often paused to reflect on the persistent question: how do we restore the moral and social order subjected to such horrific violence? My reasoned conviction, confirmed in turn by biblical revelation, is that the shattered order cannot be fully restored except by a response that combines justice with forgiveness. The pillars of true peace are justice and that form of love which is forgiveness.

Yet the Vatican Bank owned by John Paul II and answerable to his commands remains mired in litigation in a San Francisco Federal Court. The plaintiffs, Serbs, Jews, and Ukrainians who were the victims of the Holocaust during World War II by the puppet Nazi regime of the Croatian Ustasha seek an accounting of wartime loot allegedly laundered by the Vatican bank and Franciscan Order during the 1940s and 1950s.

The Vatican Bank contends it is above the law and immune to any court action in the United States while the Franciscans deny their part even though their Treasurer, functioned as part of the infamous postwar "ratline", the Nazi escape route to South America funded by the Ustasha treasury.

The US State Department in a 1998 report as well the recently dissolved Catholic Jewish Historical Commission have also encountered Vatican stonewalling on the issue of the Croatian Ustashas relationship to Rome. It seems that justice is but an abstract concept to the Vatican Bank whose direct assets are valued at $3 billion dollars. Perhaps the real message for the lawsuit plaintiffs is "Justice delayed is justice denied."

The Popes message can be viewed in full at:http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/messages/peace/documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_20011211_xxxv-world-day-for-peace_en.html

For more information see: www.vaticanbankclaims.com