Involvement of Croatian Catholic clergy with the Ustaša regime
n 1941 the Independent State of Croatia was established by the Ustaša regime with Ante Pavelic as its leader (Poglavnik). The Independent State of Croatia was one of several Nazi puppet states. The Ustaša regime pursued a genocidal policy against the Serbs (who were Eastern Orthodox Christians), Jews and Roma.
The involvement of the Catholic church as a whole is controversial. There were several meetings and public sightings of Ante Pavelić, the leader of the Ustaše, with the bishops and even the archbishop Alojzije Stepinac. The creation of the Independent State of Croatia was initially welcomed by many Roman Catholic priests and the hierarchy of the Church. In the initial aftermath of the declaration of independence on April 10, 1941, many leading churchmen viewed the rise of an independent Croatia in the context of a rebirth of a Catholic state intent on following what were viewed as Christ's laws. Stepinac initially was an active supporter of the Ustaša regime headed Ante Pavelic.
Author Hubert Butler reviewed documents and newspaper accounts from the period in Zagreb after the war. According to Butler:
"I did not expect to find outspoken criticism or condemnation in the Church papers because, if it had been published, the papers would certainly have been suppressed. But I was wholly unprepared for the gush of hysterical adulation which was poured forth by almost all of the leading clergy upon Pavelitch, who was probably the vilest of all war criminals. He was their saviour against Bolshevism, their champion against the Eastern barbarian and heretic, the Serb; he was restorer of their nation and the Christian faith, a veritable hero of olden time."
"Turn, for example, to Katolicki Tjednik (The Catholic Weekly), Christmas 1941, and read the twenty-six verse ‘Ode to Pavelitch’, in which Archbishop Sharitch praises him for his measures against Serbs and Jews."(Butler, cited in Agee).
During World War II a number of Croatian Catholic priests, not only cooperated with the regime but were allegedly implicated in murders or forced religious conversions of Serbs and Jews. In a few cases the whole population of villages was killed because they were Serb Orthodox; conversely, there have been cases where villagers were superficially converted and remained alive. There were cases of local involvement in genocide, including Friar Majstorovic. Majstorovic was removed from the priesthood as a result of his participation in genocide against Orthodox Serbs in a village in north-western Bosnia.
According to Dr Mishitch, the Bishop of Mostar, even newly-converted Serbs were rounded up and murdered:
"While the newly-converted are at Mass they seize them, old and young, men and women, and hunt them like slaves. From Mostar and Chapljina the railway carried six waggons full of mothers, girls, and children under eight to the station of Surmanci, where they were taken out of the waggons, brought into the hills and thrown alive, mothers and children, into deep ravines. In the parish of Klepca seven hundred schismatics from the neighbouring villages were slaughtered. The Sub-Prefect of Mostar, Mr Bajitch, a Moslem, publicly declared (as a state employee he should have held his tongue) that in Ljublina alone 700 schismatics have been thrown into one pit."(Mishitch, cited in Butler, 1956).
Beginning in May 1941, Archbishop Stepinac began to protest the crimes of the Ustase, including the massacre of Serbs at Glina and the establishment of the Jasenovac concentration camp. Indeed, local bishops, including Aksanovic and Misic began to protest to the Ustase authorities regarding its crimes. However, according to Butler, while the Catholic leaders were willing to protest the most murderous incidents, some felt that forcible conversion offered an opportunity:
"The Archbishop’s letter reveals the regret and revulsion which the violent methods used by Pavelitch’s missionaries inspired in the Catholic hierarchy. The formal resolution, which was passed in conclave in November, 1941, was an attempt to bring the conversion campaign under the control of the Church, and to check the rule of violence. The attempt was belated since the fury had spent itself by July, 1941, three months earlier."
"If we exclude Archbishop Sharitch [of Bosnia], the author of the celebrated odes to Pavelitch and the fervent advocate of all his designs, the letters of Mgr Stepinac and the four bishops, whom he quotes, are moderate and humane. Why was the hierarchy so utterly impotent to check this inroad of fanatical barbarians into the purely ecclesiastical domain of conversion? I think the answer can be seen by a close examination of the letters [of the four bishops]. Pity for the heretic had always to be qualified, and was sometimes neutralized, by zeal for the extension of the Catholic Church. Never once did they say, ‘Let there be an end to conversions! There can be no talk of free will and voluntary change of faith in a land invaded by two armies and ravaged by civil war!’ Their concern is all for the right ordering of things…. A great opportunity had come to them. They must use it wisely, and not barbarously, for the saving of souls, but use it they must. . . "(Butler, cited in Agee).
By the end of the war, a large number of Croatians fled Croatia. This number included at a minimum several hundred Croatian priests. It is unclear how many were involved with the Ustase regime.
After the war, Cardinal Stepinac was indicted by the Communist government for collaboration with the fascist regime. There was less than one month from the moment charges were laid against him, in which he was permitted to meet with his legal counsel once before the commencement of trial. Stepinac was found guilty and sentenced to 16 years of hard labour. He served 5 years in the infamous Lepoglava prison before the sentence was commuted to home arrest due to his poor health. He was transferred back home to the village of Krašić in 1953 and died in his residence seven years later.
