Apparently individual experiences of the paranormal can, on some occasions, be shown to arise largely out of the broadest social forces, including even those that result in cross-national warfare.
-Raymond A. Eve
Medjugorje
Located in Bosnia-Herzegovina, travel agencies now offer a wide-range of group packages catering to the lucrative “religious tourism” market. 1 It is here, on June 24, 1981, six Catholic schoolchildren claimed to see the Virgin Mary holding an infant in her arms. The next day, the spirit confirmed she was indeed the Virgin Mary and set about providing messages that were to be disseminated around the world. As is so often the case, there is not much room for free-will when these “holy visions” come calling.
Since then, estimates of between 15 and 20 million pilgrims have visited Medjugorje in the 23 years since the apparitions, which included Kronzer and his wife who were both initially under its spell. However, the two drifted apart, his wife falling happily into the arms of the Medjugorje’s “miracle” much to his understandable consternation which it appears he allowed himself to express in a variety of unpleasant ways. Despite his wife obtaining a 30 year restraining order and his family not wishing to see him for the foreseeable future, it does suggest that here is a man that was zealous and emotionally blinded enough to part with his money and objectivity when Dolan made her appearance. Since then his life’s work has apparently been to retrieve his love from the clutches of what he and others perceive to be a classic example of a modern-day cult getting extremely rich on a distortion of the Catholic faith.
During the Dolan tangle Kronzer was also in a protracted legal wrangle with another Medjugorje off-shoot in the form of Caritis (the Latin word for “love”) based in the US and founded by Terry Colafrancesco. Kronzer caused lawyers to react for Carita’s when he claimed that the group was nothing more than “a massive smuggling and money laundering scheme;” its work in Medjugorje was a “front for weapons dealings ...and other forms of contraband, possibly including illicit drugs;” and that “Colafrancesco was being financed by the Italian Mafia.”2
Both are suing each other for deformation and counter-deformation, with Birmingham, Alabama Jewish Community leader, Daniel J. Burnick of the Sirote Permutt law firm leading the legal attack on behalf of Caritas. Things do not seem to be going Kronzer’s way on this particular occasion 3
Medjugorje is still busy fighting off rumours of being a “psychological terrorist site;”4 comparisons to the Heaven’s gate cult, and an experiment in mind control to obtain money and property – all of which may or may not be true. Christine Dolan went to Medjugorje and discovered orphans and babies could be bought from the “holy” monks there. This is not surprising if we remember that the Franciscan order has quite an historical past which may not be about the exclusive promotion of the whimsy of the Virgin Mary apparitions. Indeed, the Bishop of Mostar, Rarko Peric, his predecessor, Bishop Pavao Zanic, and the Yugoslavian bishops’ conference in l99l, have declared that no supernatural events have ever taken place at Medjugorje.
In World War II up to 700,000 Jews, Serbs and Roma were murdered by the Nazi inspired Croatian Ustashe bands that were often indirectly or directly helped by less than holy Franciscan monks. Nazi loot was filtered through the Vatican bank, the Franciscan Order, and Croatian Liberation Movement which eventually led to a lawsuit being filed in November 1999 by Serb, Jewish, and Ukrainian Holocaust survivors, arriving at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals October 7, 2004.
The action was brought on behalf of the plaintiffs by Kronzer’s colleague and renowned attorney Jonathan Levy who describes himself as an attorney: “…licensed in California and the District of Columbia [who] has represented organizations and individuals in a variety of Holocaust and World War II related lawsuits including banking, insurance, and slave labor matters.” Levy has invested enormous amounts of time, energy and no doubt money in what appears to be a noble cause.
The Franciscans were also implicated in nationalistic fanaticism during the Western sponsored ethnic cleaning round of the Balkans war, Medjugorje being the centre of Croatian ultra-nationalism in Herzegovina. It seems convenient that Dolan was investigating trafficking in these parts due to the overwhelming statistics in these regions. It is also no coincidence that the warlords, who were having a high old time following the dictates of Western powers and busy raping and murdering many hundreds of women and children, obviously moved into the nearest market available - the burgeoning network of the mafia. Grief stricken, war-torn countries are fertile grounds for such mafia-lords.
In 1998 to 1999 while Dolan was either investigating (or networking with) the mafia in the Balkans for the UN, or other interested US agencies Mirko Miskovic, a Belgrade based independent journalist suggested that associates, entrepreneur Maurice Alexander and journalist Jeff Pickett “arranged very odd financial contracts and merged all Balkan mafia groups, moving them into a higher criminal level.”5 He also believes that a covert power struggle was taking place between the noble families of the Houses of the Portuguese Braganca and Karađorđević and agents of the Vatican bank and Opus Dei who sought their demise. This involved Bishop Pavel Maria Hnilica (best known for his involvement in the Roberto Calvi case) and Fr. Jozo Zovko, the original pastor of St. James in Medjugorje, who was initially expelled from Medjugorje for molesting some of the young pilgrims in the village. He is now employed as a fundraiser for orphans at a Medjugorje centre.
We must not forget the Bosnian Franciscan priest-psychologist, Slavko Barbaric, who is said to be the key facilitator of indoctrinating methods use by Opus Dei as a tool for the Vatican Bank interests, where through the Ustasha Gospa they continue: “…to raise multimillions of Euros every year from unsuspecting pilgrims. This money then funds the Croat militias and the so-called Republic of Herceg-Bosna.”6 This in turn, goes to fund arms and trafficking. While it is not within the scope of this series to explore possible Masonic-Vatican-Opus Dei links, when Dolan came on the scene she may have been used as a convenient cover to further their activities.
The mysterious Maurice Alexander founded Liverpool-based Film & T.V. Company Network five in 1993 employing roving reporter Jeff Picknett. They encountered a spot of trouble in Bijakovaci, near Medjugorje in West Hercegovina in February 27th of 1998. Pickett and his cameraman Mike Grimes disappeared for a day only to be found by Croatian police of the Hercegovina-Neretva Canton in the settlement of Buna in Mostar on Saturday, 28 February. Maurice Alexander and Philip Kronzer reported their disappearance promptly and described how the two were “physically attacked in Bijakovici, beaten up, and threatened with pistols” by persons unknown. After having their cameras and tapes confiscated, later confirmed by Croatian police, 7 the pair ran in fear of their lives spending the night and the following day wandering over the hills of Hercegovina. The report goes on to say that the police claimed Pickett and his cameraman were filming private houses in Medjugorje, which the police cited as a possible reason for the confiscation of their equipment. It is interesting that Maurice Alexander himself made a point in several public appearances to state that:
…his colleagues had been researching into the story of the disappearance of money collected in Britain and the United States for humanitarian aid for children and refugees in Bosnia Hercegovina. According to Maurice, Franciscan brothers Jozo Zovko and Slavko Barbaric were involved in the fundraising, collecting on behalf of the poor in Medjugorje (orphanage), and a British millionaire was also involved, the owner of the Bernard Ellis steel factory. This British industry baron, according to Maurice, is alleged to have bought arms for the Croatian Military Council (HVO) with the collected money.
However, Brother Slavko Barbaric, who serves in a monastery in Medjugorje, rejected all such accusations, maintaining that the money ‘never had any kind of connection with buying arms for anyone.’ It would appear that the case of the two British journalists, and their hike in Medjugorje, is still a mystery. Individual journalists have tried to contact the independent Liverpool production studio Network Five International, and have located, up till now, nothing but a PO Box number. 8
Network Five International have moved to New Jersey after completing two more videos outlining the evidence that the Medjugorje messages from the Virgin Mary are an elaborate hoax.
In late 2003 Maurice Alexander was arrested by Surrey Police in connection with a harassment campaign aimed at Kronzer. When police found pictures of underage girls on his computer Kronzer was understandably perturbed. However, revelations surfaced that Alexander had sexually assaulted his grandchildren which soured their business relationship. Kronzer did what he does best and filed a complaint against him. From this point the plot thickens to the point where it is almost impossible to see beneath the labyrinth of back-stabbing and double-agendas.
A Catholic publishing company included a news clipping on their website detailing the reasons for the curious disappearance of Alexander’s “Network Five.” It was said to be due to the uncovering of a multi-billion pound hoax which created the Virgin Mary visions at Medjugorje. The report stated that “Network Five productions is moving from its city centre base and will also place two of its staff under aid protection for the next four weeks.” This included a badly manipulated image of Alexander clearly designed to keep his face from being recognized. 9
Picknett and Grimes were said to have received death threats regarding the making of the film Visions on Demand - The Medjugorje Conspiracy which was released in 1997 with help from an American cultural studies author and journalist E. Michael Jones, also a Catholic and friend of Kronzer. The documentary accuses Franciscan priests of organizing a hoax for a variety of nefarious reasons under investigation from the Vatican. It doesn’t stop there.
Returning to Dolan’s allegations of paedophilia, we find further half-truths and ancillary truths endlessly moving back and forth, both playing each other’s game. Strangely, Kronzer in full awareness or in complete naivety, employed many convicted paedophiles in and around the whole central nexus of Medjugorje which, way before Dolan’s mission had long been deemed a haven for such activities.
Kronzer’s employees include one David Hoop who went to Medjugorje to get away from the police in Texas, where he was facing many charges for molesting young boys. He lived and worked in Medjugorje for nine years until he invited a “boy lover” from Texas to Medjugorje while the priests turned a blind eye, presumably because it was nothing out of the ordinary for such a place where holy visions and abuse and if we are to believe it, just about every other covert activity from trafficking, drugs, terrorism was taking place.
Then there is gay priest Richard Brown now serving a 20 year prison sentence for molesting children and Francis Steers, a close friend and employee of both Kronzer and Alexander. He was jailed for two years at Liverpool Crown Court in 2003 after Police discovered over 22,000 indecent images of young children on his computer, while the Kronzer Foundation’s religious researcher Tom Falco confessed to sexually assaulting a teenage boy when in Bosnia during an FBI interview. 10
Although aware that he had been jailed for several years a result the Kronzer Foundation employed Falco on his release. This lends some credence to Dolan’s belief that Kronzer was in fact, a paedophile. Dolan made it plain to all who were associated with the new and improved organisation, that Kronzer molested his children, abused his wife Ardie Talley, and that in reality, the Kronzer Foundation was actually a cover for an international ring of paedophiles that trafficked children to all and sundry. Though why it prevented her from responding to a simple request for accounting statements and thus to bolster her case by remaining within the law is more than puzzling.
Meanwhile, there are a few reasons why Dolan decided to quickly form another organization, the most obvious of which was her anticipation of a default judgement pending from Kronzer’s growing list of lawsuits. Thus she began to transfer her operations to what Kronzer and others believe was to be an identical front for her to continue her source of income from those that were unaware of the preceding actions. Another reason was her professed disquiet with Kronzer’s attorney Jonathan Levy. She had confided to Marie Coady a colleague and editor at Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) that Levy was not to be trusted. In Coady’s words: “She broke the bad news to me that she had only recently discovered that Jonathan Levy, the man who owns and operates the Vatican Bank Claims Web site, is also the lawyer for the Raelian Movement, a bizarre cult that has been in the news recently.” 11
While most had no idea of Dolan’s past (except her father Tom Dolan who was happy to do his daughter’s bidding it seems) it was becoming all apparent to many that far from being an expert on child abuse Dolan was using her connections to defame, threaten and intimidate Kronzer, who, it seems wasn’t averse to employing the same tactics in kind. What may be the case in this particular long standing spat between spook and possible paedophile chief, both are acting as inlets for ponerological channels and thus both have a pedigree that cannot be trusted.
Notes
1 http://www.medjugorje.org/ The website has to be seen to be believed. It represents a blatent use of advertising, selling and marketing with very little to do with so called spirituality.
2 The Los Gatos Cultbuster The dark crusade of Phillip J. Kronzer By Justin Nyberg , September 15-21, 2004 issue of Metro, Silicon Valley's Weekly Newspaper.
3 Phillip Kronzer: 'Cult fighter' jailed on contempt in Caritas case The Birmingham News/July 13, 2006 By Nancy Wilstach “Phillip J. Kronzer to spend 15 hours in jail for contempt of court. Joiner found that statements Kronzer made about Caritas of Birmingham in a widely distributed letter violated terms of a confidnential settlement in a lawsuit involving Kronzer and Caritas.”
4 ‘Masters of Persuasion Power, politics, money-laundering, Nazis, Mind-Control, Murder and Medjugorje’ article by David Guyatt, deepblacklies.co.uk.
5 ‘Who Reaps the Windfalls of War?’ By Mirko Miskovic, 2004, www.skynemesis.org. [now defunct] [This man has also been called “a Serbian ultra-nationalist fake journalist” by cyberjournalist katheryn Cramer. He seems to know Kronzer quite well and has defended his actions. As to his affliations – that’s anyone’s guess, though he does appear to have para-military connections].
6 Ibid.
7 ‘Adventures of two British Journalists’ Media News No.1-March 9, 1998, Medienhilfe Ex-Jugoslawien.
8 Ibid.
9 ‘Opposing Medjugorje Leads to Death Threats’Unity Publishing.com.
10 ‘The Kronzer Foundation for Religious Research Linked to Raelians Cult’ June 8, 2005 PR News Now.
11 Mary Coady quoted on Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) forum. A posting of her article ‘Bring in the Clones but leave me alone’ which was found by Coady on Levy’s website www.vaticanbankclaims.com was apparently not appreciated due to Levy not having the courtesy to ask her for permission.
Conmen and CoIntelpro Part V
