NEWS STORY: Pope in Croatia presses democracy, reconciliation

c. 1998 Religion News Service ZAGREB, Croatia _ Pope John Paul II beatified a cardinal revered by Croatians as a national hero and met with the country’s strongman leader Saturday (Oct 3), preaching a message of reconciliation and an end to hatred. After the joyous outdoor beatification ceremony for Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac in Marija Bistrica […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

ZAGREB, Croatia _ Pope John Paul II beatified a cardinal revered by Croatians as a national hero and met with the country’s strongman leader Saturday (Oct 3), preaching a message of reconciliation and an end to hatred.

After the joyous outdoor beatification ceremony for Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac in Marija Bistrica _ a rural shrine to the Virgin Mary _ John Paul returned to the capital city for his meeting with President Franjo Tudjman in the presidential palace.


John Paul’s remarks to Tudjman, who has wrapped himself in the militant Croatian nationalism that aided Croatia in wresting its independence from the former Yugoslavia but that has also been criticized for its intolerance of other faiths and ethnic groups, were not immediately made public.

But they were expected to mirror the calls the pontiff has made since his Friday arrival for further democratization and increased tolerance and to reflect some of the criticism Archbishop Josip Bozanic has leveled at the government.

Bozanic has accused the Tudjman government of aiding the”rapid enrichment”of the favored few and the”even bigger impoverishment of many people”in the wake of the collapse of communist Yugoslavia which saw the country gain its independence in 1991.

On his arrival Friday John Paul urged”an ever greater democratization of society.” And in his remarks in Marija Bistrica at the beatification ceremony, John Paul appealed to the estimated 400,000 people in attendance to”forgive and reconcile and to purify one’s memory of hatred”_ hard words in a region riven with ethnic and religious divisions and long memories.

But it was the beatification of Stepinac _ and John Paul’s ardent anti-communism _ that were at center stage on Saturday as he pointedly responded to criticism that Stepinac, who died while under communist house arrest, was a collaborator of the murderous, pro-Nazi Ustasha regime that ruled Croatia during World War II.

Stepinac, the pope said of his fellow Slav and, to many Croats, a heroic anti-communist,”having endured in his own body and his own spirit the atrocities of the communist system is now entrusted to the memory of fellow countrymen with the radiant badge of martyrdom.”He is now in the joy of heaven, surrounded by those who, like him, fought the good fight, purifying their faith in the crucible of suffering,”the pontiff added.

In rejecting the criticism of Stepinac, John Paul said the cardinal’s life sums up”the whole tragedy which befell the Croatian people and Europe in the course of this century marked by the three great evils of fascism, national socialism and communism.” To Croats _ as well as the Vatican and some Croatian Jewish groups _ Stepinac vigorously spoke out against Ustasha policies and did what he could to protect Serbs, Jews and Gypsies from death camps.


The post-war Communist government of Josip Tito convicted Stepinac of war crimes, imprisoned him for five years and put him under house arrest for another 10 before he died in 1960. The pope declared him a martyr due to the accumulated hardships of confinement.”He faced suffering rather than betray his conscience,”the pope said.

And he quoted a sermon delivered by Stepinac during World War II that seems as appropriate for the current Balkan situation as when delivered, condemning”the injustices, all the killing of innocent people, the burning of peaceful villages, the destruction of the labor of the poor.” Bozanic, a successor to Stepinac, noted that the beatification came on the anniversary of Stepinac’s defense at his trial on Oct. 3, 1946.”It was a confession of faith in the holy things for which he lived, the holy things which he defended and the holy things for which he was prepared, with a clear conscience, to die at any moment,”Bozanic said.

Many Croatians viewed the beatification, and the pope’s visit, as validating the aspirations of this young nation, which broke away from the former Yugoslavia after the brutal Balkans war of the early 1990s.”Many governments come in Croatia, but nobody can reach us like the pope,”said Davorin Jurkovic, 19, who hiked all night to Marija Bistrica.

Remembering that the Vatican was the first government to recognize an independent Croatia, he said if the rest of the world had followed, the Balkan wars”from Bosnia to Kosovo would not have happened.” Stepinac’s beatification”is very important to us,”said Katarina Cicak, 20, of Zagreb.”We were nothing until our independence.” Tudjman set the tone for such sentiments when he greeted the pope on Friday, denouncing”the forces which would wish to impose on the Croatian people, the Catholic Church and this democratic Croatia the blame for fascist sins and crimes.” Later Saturday, the pope met with cultural leaders in Zagreb and urged them to take advantage of Croatia’s post-war freedoms by promoting”a dialogue between culture, scholarship and faith.” This will mark ”the moral and spiritual re-birth of your country, which for many years was subjected to the devastations of atheistic materialism.” He is scheduled to fly to the coastal city of Split on Sunday to celebrate its 1,700th anniversary and to meet with young people before returning to the Vatican.

DEA END SMITH

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