The Vatican and the Kosovo Equation

https://www.lastampa.it/vatican-insider/en/2020/10/07/news/relations-between-kosovo-and-the-vatican-1.39391883

The article is co-written by an official affiliated with the Pristina government – which is (functionally) an arm of the US State Department. Kosovo has been called the Fifty-First state by more than a few commentators.

The country was essentially created by the United States in the aftermath of Washington's 1999 bombing campaign. The Albanians are American proxies within the region. From the governments in Tirana and Pristina to the KLA during the Balkan Wars, to elements within its significant spectrum of organised crime groups, the Albanians have for the past twenty years been agents of Washington and have helped the US run its pipelines of weapons and fighters into Turkey and from there to the larger Middle East. There are other questions concerning drugs and money laundering but such questions become so murky and difficult it's impossible to speak in conclusive terms.

The article's second author is a figure connected with Harvard's Kennedy School – a well-known and acknowledged mouthpiece for the State Department. In other words the article is a production of US policymakers working in concert with the Vatican in an attempt to establish even deeper ties with not just Kosovo – but the larger Albanian community – which though mostly Muslim also contains significant numbers of Orthodox and Roman Catholics. If successful this campaign would produce outcomes even in places like North Macedonia and Montenegro.

The goal is Westernisation, liberalism, and as the article hints – a more Washington and Brussels-oriented mindset. There's also hope of a beachhead into Serbia itself – something far more dubious. Washington, Brussels and even the Vatican would love to see Belgrade (and the Serbs in general) turn their eyes toward the West and yet given the history I find it strange that the campaign is being launched through the vehicle of the Catholic Church – one of the most despised institutions within the Orthodox world.

Serbs will not soon forget the grasping treachery and tyranny of the Habsburgs. And they certainly won't forget the Vatican's partnership with the Ustaše during World War II and John Paul II's actions in 1998 when he visited Marija Bistrica and beatified the wartime pro-Ustaše Archbishop of Zagreb, the Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac  - a move considered outrageous by Serbs. To them Stepinac was a war criminal, a participant in genocide with Serb blood on his hands. The Vatican is not an institution that has any kind of standing within Serbia and so in that regard the outreach is not only foolish but doomed to fail.

Turkey would be a logical choice if the West was engaging in outreach exclusively to the Albanians, though the Serbs would have little interest in anything coming from Turkey – their other historic enemy. And under Erdogan, the US can't even count on cooperation. His military and intelligence services work with Germany and the United States to a point – when the policies overlap. But generally speaking Turkey's relationship with NATO has soured, especially since the 2016 coup attempt which Erdogan believes (with reason) found its origin within NATO itself.

In most nations the Western Establishment would attempt to use a pop culture figure as an ambassador to 'get the ball rolling' and provide the optics for a diplomatic meeting. But much of the Orthodox world is disenchanted with the West and its godless values. Maybe someone thought the Vatican would be a good vehicle for such rapprochement – but whoever suggested it either hasn't read a lot of history or they belong to the naive and now wholly discredited 'End of History' notion that all nations and societies are destined to embrace the Classical Liberalism of the West. This notion has been proved false. But even if I did believe it, to use the Catholic Church as the ambassador and facilitator – would not be my first choice.