NEWS STORY: Pope faces controversy in weekend trip to Croatia

c. 1998 Religion News Service ZAGREB, Croatia _ The Croatian government, preparing for the second trip of Pope John Paul II to the war-scarred country, is portraying the weekend visit as an endorsement of the young nation and its nationalist policies, but the pontiff will be arriving at a time when Croatia’s new Catholic leadership […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

ZAGREB, Croatia _ The Croatian government, preparing for the second trip of Pope John Paul II to the war-scarred country, is portraying the weekend visit as an endorsement of the young nation and its nationalist policies, but the pontiff will be arriving at a time when Croatia’s new Catholic leadership is sharply distancing itself from the bellicose militancy that accompanied Balkan state’s war for independence.

The pope is scheduled to begin his three-day visit Friday, Oct. 2, in Zagreb and then will visit the historic coastal town of Split.


During the visit, John Paul will face not only contemporary controversy but also the contentious issue of Croatia’s fascist past in his scheduled beatification of a cardinal adored by Croats but whose role during World War II remains in dispute.

President Franjo Tudjman said the pope’s visit can be”seen as support for Croatia”against those who still oppose the nation’s independence. He said the church and state have”common tasks”because”our democratic government is based on the principles of Christian civilization.” But if the actions of John Paul’s newly appointed archbishop of Zagreb are any indication, the authoritarian Tudjman will not be in for a cozy chat with the pontiff when they meet Saturday.

Archbishop Josip Bozanic electrified the nation’s opposition groups last Christmas when he denounced government corruption. Croatian television even censored part of the message in which Bozanic denounced the”rapid enrichment of some individuals and even bigger impoverishment of many people.”It is a sin, enabled by the laws and committed by the structures who didn’t care for people and the community,”the archbishop said.

The 49-year-old archbishop has also called for greater tolerance of ethnic diversity in a land which saw some of the Balkans’ worst ethnic cleansing, not only in the wars following the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, but also in World War II and earlier.

The Roman Catholic Church, led by Bozanic’s predecessor, Archbishop Franjo Kuharic, was widely viewed as encouraging the virulent nationalism stoked by Tudjman that accompanied Croatia’s war for independence during the 1991-92 breakup of the former Yugoslavia and the subsequent ethnic bloodletting in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

But Bozanic is”definitely not the man Tudjman wanted to see,”said a journalist from the former Yugoslavia. For the first week or so after his appointment, the president refused to congratulate the new archbishop, who was plucked from the obscure diocese of Krk, rather than from Kuharic’s inner circle.

Many Croatians believe Tudjman, 75, who has recovered from one bout with cancer, is in the twilight of his reign, and his nationalist Croatian Democratic Union party has been losing in recent local elections.


With most Serbs purged from their towns in past military actions, the country is more focused now on internal economic woes such as double-digit unemployment brought on by war, the disruption of economic ties and problems leftover from a calcified socialist system.

But while many opposition groups were emboldened by Bozanic’s sharp attack on the regime, one liberal journal said the archbishop challenge appeared to be simply positioning the church for the post-Tudjman era.

Bozanic realized”that the only chance the church has to preserve its unprecedented privilege is to jettison Tudjman’s ship before it sinks and takes the church with it to the bottom,”said the Zagreb monthly ARKzin.

The ghost of nationalism past, however, will also hover over the pope’s visit as John Paul is scheduled to beatify the late Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, bringing the revered Croatian churchman just one step away from sainthood.

The church praises Stepinac for being a martyr under communism and for defending Jews, Serbs and Gypsies who were slaughtered by Croatia’s fascist, pro-Nazi Ustasha puppet state during World War II.

But detractors say Stepinac was a collaborator with the Ustasha and did not speak out forcefully enough. Stepinac died under house arrest by Yugoslavia’s communist government in 1960, and the Vatican has officially ruled him a martyr.


The European office of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center wrote to the pope in late September, urging him to delay the beatification until Stepinac’s actions in World War II could be examined. The Vatican dismissed the request, calling Stepinac a man of conscience.

On Wednesday (Sept. 30), a group called the Coordination of Jewish Municipalities in Croatia issued a statement praising Stepinac.

After his arrival at Zagreb’s airport Friday, John Paul will visit Stepinac’s tomb, which has become a national shrine. The pope will beatify the cardinal on Saturday in nearby Marija Bistrica, site of a Marian shrine where Stepinac often went on pilgrimage.

After meeting with Tudjman and other Croatian leaders, the pope will fly to Split, on the Adriatic coast, for a Mass and a meeting with youths.

As he did in his 1997 visit to Sarajevo, the pope will conspicuously avoid the nearby pilgrimage site at Medjugorje in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina, where countless faithful have thronged over the past two decades after children began reporting visions of the Virgin Mary.

In late September, the Vatican reiterated that it has no evidence of such visions. Many tourists in Split make side trips to Medjugorje.


DEA END SMITH

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