Aloysius Stepinac

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Aloysius

Aloysius Viktor Stepinac (Croatian: Alojzije Viktor Stepinac, 8 May 1898 – 10 February 1960) was a Croatian prelate of the Catholic Church. Made a cardinal in 1953, Stepinac served as Archbishop of Zagreb from 1937 until his death. He served during the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, as well as during World War II when the Axis-supported Croatian fascist Ustaše regime ruled the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). Following the war, he was tried by the communist Yugoslav government and convicted of treason and collaboration with the Ustaše regime. The trial was depicted in the West as a typical communist "show trial", and was described by The New York Times as biased against Stepinac. However, John Van Antwerp Fine Jr. was of the opinion that the trial was "carried out with proper legal procedure". In a verdict that polarized public opinion both in Yugoslavia and beyond, the Yugoslav authorities found him guilty on the charge of high treason (for collaboration with the Ustaše), as well as complicity in the forced conversions of Orthodox Serbs to Catholicism. Stepinac advised individual priests to admit Orthodox believers to the Catholic Church if their lives were in danger, such that this conversion had no validity, allowing…Citește mai mult

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All in all, Croats and Serbs are two worlds, the north and south poles, which will never become close except by a miracle of God. The schism is the greatest curse of Europe, almost greater than Protestantism. In it there is no morality, no principle, no truth, no justice, no honesty. On the same day he issued an encyclical to his clergy, calling on them to pray for the young king, and that Croatia and Yugoslavia would be "spared the horrors of war". This was consistent with long-standing practice of the Catholic Church to show loyalty to the state and its leadership. Stepinac was well aware that an estimated 200,000 mostly Croatian Catholics had converted to the Serbian Orthodox Church in the interwar period. He later claimed that Catholics were forced to convert to Orthodoxy during the period between the wars, but according to the historian Jozo Tomasevich, the principal reason for their conversions was the pro-Serb public policy in the Serb-dominated Yugoslav state meant that it was advantageous both politically and for career prospects to be a member of the dominant religion. Tomasevich also notes that despite the fact that it was the national church of the dominant nation…Citește mai mult

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If Germany wins [the war], there will be appalling terror and the destruction of little nations. If England wins, the masons, [and] Jews will remain in power ... If the USSR wins, then the devil will have authority over both the world and hell. West describes Stepinac as a "puritanical zealot", who gathered together those opposing communism, liberalism, secular education, divorce reform, profanity, sexual intercourse outside of marriage, and birth control, under the umbrella of the Croatian Catholic movement. Stepinac even railed against "mixed sunbathing and swimming". West also observes that by 1934, Stepinac had developed into an

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Early life Alojzije Viktor Stepinac was born in Brezarić, a village in the district of Krašić in the Austro-Hungarian Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia on 8 May 1898, to a wealthy viticulturalist, Josip Stepinac, and his second wife Barbara (née Penić). He was the fifth of nine children, and he had three more siblings from his father's first marriage. His mother, a devout Roman Catholic, prayed constantly that he would enter the priesthood. The family moved to Krašić in 1906, and Stepinac attended primary school there, then attended high school in Zagreb from 1909 to 1915, boarding at the Archdiocese of Zagreb orphanage. This was followed by study at the lycée of the archdiocese, as he was seriously considering taking holy orders, having sent in his application to the seminary at the age of 16. He was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian Army for service in World War I, and had to accelerate his studies and graduate ahead of schedule. Sent to a reserve officers school in Rijeka, after six months training he was sent to serve on the Italian Front in 1917 where he commanded Bosnian soldiers. In July 1918, he was captured by Italian forces who held him as a prisoner…Citește mai mult

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Political situation Stepinac's appointment came at a time of acute political turmoil in Yugoslavia. In June 1928, the popular leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (Hrvatska seljačka stranka, HSS) Stjepan Radić and several other Croatian deputies had been shot by a Serb deputy, Puniša Račić, in the Yugoslav Parliament. Two had died immediately and Radić had succumbed to his wounds two months later, the incident causing widespread outrage among Croats. In January of the following year, King Alexander had prorogued Parliament and had effectively become a royal dictator. In April 1933, the new leader of the HSS Vladko Maček had been sent to prison for three years on charges of separatism after he and other opposition figures had issued the Zagreb Points condemning the royal regime and its policies. While Maček was in prison, his deputy Josip Predavec was apparently murdered by the police. When Stepinac wanted to visit Maček in prison to thank him for his well-wishes on Stepinac's appointment as coadjutor bishop, his request was denied. In response to the many messages of support, Stepinac "was sincerely thankful for all the congratulations, but said that he was not enthusiastic about the appointment because it was too heavy a…Citește mai mult

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ardent, almost obsessive, Croatian nationalist whose bigotry was softened only by his piety and a measure of human kindness. According to the journalist Marcus Tanner, by the time he became coadjutor bishop, Stepinac had become a determined opponent of the Serb-centric approach of the Yugoslav government, and by the time he became archbishop he was a strong supporter of the HSS, making it clear that he had voted for Maček in the 1938 elections. Stella Alexander wrote of Stepinac's political outlook:

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loyalty to the state as it is, but with the condition that the state acts towards the Catholic Church as it does to all just denominations and that it guarantees them freedom. After his consecration, Stepinac visited Belgrade to pledge his allegiance to King Alexander. The journalist Richard West quotes Stepinac:

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Other activities In 1936, he climbed Mount Triglav, the tallest peak in Yugoslavia. In 2006, the 70th anniversary of his climb was commemorated with a memorial chapel being built near the summit. In July 1937, he led a pilgrimage to the Holy Land (then the British Mandate of Palestine). During the pilgrimage, he blessed an altar dedicated to the martyr Nikola Tavelić, who had already been beatified at that time, and was later canonised as a saint. After his return from Palestine, Stepinac began a campaign for the canonisation of Tavelić, and proposed that a monument to him be built in the Velebit mountains overlooking the Adriatic Sea.

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During his period as coadjutor archbishop and as Archbishop of Zagreb up to the German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, Stepinac made his views clear on a number of political and religious issues. Foremost among these statements were those regarding Protestantism, Eastern Orthodoxy, communism and Freemasonry. Stepinac criticized Protestantism, stating in a speech in 1938 that "the Catholic Church was the greatest civilising force in human history", and railed against those that wanted to deprive the Catholic Church of any influence in public life. He referred to the Reformation as the "Deformation", and denounced Luther as a false prophet who "demolished the principles of legal authority given by the Lord". He went on to blame Protestantism for the "hell in which human society suffers today", and said that it had opened the road to "anarchy in all forms of human life." Stepinac was also highly critical of Eastern Orthodoxy, seeing it as a serious danger to both the Catholic Church and Croats in general. The day after the Yugoslav coup d'état of 27 March 1941, carried out by British-supported Serb officers against a pact with the Axis powers, he wrote in his diary:

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Appointment Stepinac was appointed coadjutor bishop to Bauer on 28 May 1934 at the age of 36 years, having been a priest for only three-and-a-half years, being selected after all other candidates had been rejected. Both Pope Pius XI and King Alexander I of Yugoslavia agreed with his appointment, and although the king wanted to withdraw his assent after he received further information about Stepinac, he was dissuaded by Bauer. According to some sources, Stepinac was the fifth or even eighth candidate to be considered for the role, which brought with it the right to succeed Bauer. Stepinac's decision to join the Yugoslav Legion in 1918 made him a more acceptable candidate to King Alexander. According to Stepinac's biographer, Friar Šimun Ćorić, Bauer asked Stepinac if he would give his formal consent to being named as Bauer's successor, but after considering the issue for several days, Stepinac refused, saying that he considered himself unfit to be appointed as a bishop. In this version of events, Bauer persisted, and once it was clear that King Alexander had agreed to his appointment, Stepinac consented. Upon his naming, he took In te, Domine, speravi (I place my trust in You, my Lord) as…Citește mai mult

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I told the King that I was not a politician and that I would forbid my clergy to take part in party politics, but on the other hand I would look for full respect for the rights of Croats. I warned the King that the Croats must not be improperly provoked and even forbidden to use the very name of Croat, something which I had myself experienced. On 9 October 1934, King Alexander was assassinated in Marseille by a Bulgarian gunman backed by the Croatian nationalist organisation, the Ustaše. Stepinac, along with Bishops Antun Akšamović, Dionizije Njaradi and Gregorij Rožman, were given special permission by the Papal Nuncio in Belgrade to attend the Serbian Orthodox funeral. Less than a month after the assassination, Stepinac was among those who signed what became known as the "Zagreb Memorandum", which listed a number of demands, including the exoneration of Maček, a general amnesty, freedom of movement and association, restrictions on the activities of government-authorised paramilitaries, and free elections. The key demand of the Memorandum was that the regency that had succeeded the king should address the "Croatian question", the desire of many Croats for self-determination.

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On 7 December 1937, Bauer died, and though still below the age of forty, Stepinac succeeded him as Archbishop of Zagreb. Presaging the Ustaše reign of terror during World War II, Stepinac addressed a group of university students during Lent in 1938, saying,

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Love for one's own nation must not turn a man into a wild animal, which destroys everything and calls for reprisal, but it must enrich him, so that his own nation respects and loves other nations. In 1938, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia held its last election before the outbreak of war. Stepinac voted for Maček's opposition list, while Radio Belgrade spread the false information that he had voted for Milan Stojadinović's Yugoslav Radical Union. In the latter half of 1938, Stepinac had an operation for acute appendicitis. In 1940, Stepinac received the regent Prince Paul at St. Mark's Church as he arrived in Zagreb to garner support for the 1939 Cvetković–Maček Agreement, which had created the autonomous Banovina of Croatia within Yugoslavia. The Agreement was intended to address the "Croatian question", but did not satisfy those demanding full independence. Pope Pius XII declared the period from 29 June 1940 to 29 June 1941 as a jubilee year to celebrate 1300 years of Christianity among the Croats. In 1940, the Franciscan Order celebrated 700 years in Croatia and the order's Minister General Leonardo Bello came to Zagreb for the event. During his visit, Stepinac joined the Third Order of Saint Francis,…Citește mai mult

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The most ideal thing would be for the Serbs to return to the faith of their fathers, that is, to bow the head before Christ's representative, the Holy Father. Then we could at last breathe in this part of Europe, for Byzantinism has played a frightful role in the history of this part of the world. Of all the threats he perceived to the Croatian people and the Catholic Church, Stepinac railed most against the dangers of communism. In August 1940, in response to the recent establishment of diplomatic relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, Stepinac sermonised that there could be no co-operation between the Church and communists, stated that the Church was not afraid of communists, and that communists would make Croatia "a nation of killers and robbers, debauchees, and thieves". Stepinac was particularly obsessed with Freemasonry, which was closely associated with support for the unification of Yugoslavia and opposed what it considered the Catholic Church's "authoritarianism and anti-liberal ideology." In 1934 Stepinac wrote in his diary: "In Yugoslavia, today, Freemasonry rules. Unfortunately, in the heart of the Croatian nation also, in Zagreb, this hellish society has entrenched itself, a lair of immorality, corruption, and all kinds of…Citește mai mult

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He was in many ways a typical son of the Church in Croatia of that time, fervidly pious, narrow and dogmatic, believing, in his own words, that "Jews, freemasons and communists" were "the worst enemies of the Church", and that the Orthodox Serbs, the schismatics must whenever possible be brought back to the true Church. This was coupled not only with great courage, but with social concern and charity, especially when he was confronted with individual cases; he was a good pastor and felt close to his people. The impression he makes is also, unexpectedly, one of simplicity and personal modesty. He was conscious of the dignity and weight of his office but never of himself. His courage, which was always great, increased as the pressures on him grew heavier and in the end could be described as heroic; this and his devotion to duty made flight or even withdrawal from his diocese unthinkable. But his political short-sightedness limited his grasp of the apocalyptic events of 1941 to the immediate future of Croatia and the Catholic Church in Croatia, and this left him open to the charge of complicity in the terrible crimes of the ustaše. The same blinkered outlook…Citește mai mult