Alojzije Stepinac

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Alojzije Cardinal Stepinac (around 1937)
Coat of arms of Cardinal Stepinac as Archbishop of Zagreb. His Latin motto was In te domine speravi (“In you, O Lord, I have set my hope”), corresponding to the beginning of Psalm 71 ( Psalm 71.1  EU ).

Alojzije Viktor Cardinal Stepinac ( German: Alois Viktor Cardinal Stepinac; born  May 8, 1898 in Brezarić zu Krašić , Austria-Hungary ; †  February 10, 1960 ibid.) Was a Roman Catholic theologian and cardinal and from 1937 to 1960 the Archbishop of Zagreb . Stepinac was beatified as a martyr by Pope John Paul II in 1998 .

Life

After Stepinac had passed his Abitur, he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army in 1916. He was used on the Isonzo front . Returning from the war at the end of 1918, he first attended the agricultural school in Zagreb, where he briefly studied agricultural science. Stepinac then switched to the Pontifical Gregorian University . He studied the subjects Catholic theology and philosophy , doctorate in both disciplines and received on 26 October 1930 in Rome , the ordination . He then worked as a pastor in Zagreb and at the same time performed the task of the official at the diocesan curia. In 1931 Stepinac founded the Diocesan Caritas in the Archdiocese of Zagreb .

Episcopate

After several candidates for the office of coadjutor had been rejected for political reasons, Pope Pius XI. In 1934 Alojzije Stepinac took on this task, although he had not yet reached the prescribed canonical age of 40 or more. In 1934 he received the episcopal ordination from Archbishop Antun Bauer of Zagreb, whose successor he was three years later.

In 1937 he was appointed by Luigi Barlassina , the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and "Rector and Permanent Administrator of the Order" to be Knight of the Order of Knights of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and invested in the Papal Lay Order on July 15, 1937 in Jerusalem. Patriarch Luigi Barlassina later appointed him Grand Officer and Grand Prior of Croatia.

Under the Ustasha rule

Stepinac with the Croatian dictator Ante Pavelić (left)

Stepinac was accused when Pope Pius XII. Military vicar appointed to the Ustasha Army in 1942 to have participated in the murder of the Serbian population during World War II, to have collaborated with the occupying powers and to have enabled the Vatican to interfere in the internal affairs of Yugoslavia. Entries in his diary already in the 1930s, in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia , documented his distrust of Belgrade, hostility towards the Orthodox Church and his idea of ​​an autonomous or even separatist solution for Croatia. He welcomed the emergence of a Croatian state and, due to his extremely anti-communist attitude, saw the collaboration with Nazi Germany as the lesser evil. Contrary to later Yugoslav accusations, he did not support this. In April 1941, a pastoral letter published throughout Croatia at Easter, Stepinac appealed to the clergy and the Croatian people to support the new regime with all their might. However, his tone towards the Ustaše government became more critical as the war progressed.

When Orthodox Serbs converted to Catholicism, Stepinac criticized the means used and less the aims pursued. Stepinac reacted to the anti-Semitic legislation of the Ustasha by intervening with Ante Pavelić and succeeding in getting the Jews to take off the star in September 1941. Stepinac reacted more slowly to the increasing disenfranchisement of the Serbs. In April 1941 the use of the Cyrillic script was banned, and six weeks later all kindergartens and schools operated by the Orthodox Church were closed. In his letter of May 22nd, Stepinac demanded that the anti-Serb and anti-Jewish laws should be carried out without violating human dignity, but there is no known criticism of the laws themselves. When the deportations to Serbia began in July 1941 and all the rules of humane treatment were disregarded, Stepinac protested in writing to Pavelić, not against the deportations as such, but against their implementation. The conflict between Stepinac and Pavelić intensified after the massacre in the Glina municipality, where all 260 male Serbs were murdered by the Ustasha on May 13, 1941. A day later, Stepinac wrote to Pavelić, "It is not permissible to kill a Serb as long as he is not proven guilty for which he deserves to die". From the spring of 1942 Stepinac denounced the crimes of the Ustasha in his sermons in the Zagreb cathedral, and these texts were soon circulating in the opposition underground. In a sermon on October 25, 1942, Stepinac said:

"All peoples and all races come from God ... Every people, every race, as they are today on earth, have the right to a decent life and treatment."

The communist partisans used them in their propaganda and used Stepinac's undeniable authority to win the support of the Croats. It should be noted that his criticism of the Ustaše related more to the means used than to the aims pursued. His supporters claim that he saved many victims of the fascist regime under Pavelić. According to Stepinac's own testimony, the fate of 7,000 people, most of whom were Serbian orphans, depended on him in 1942.

The Stepinac trial

Stepinac in court (1946)

Stepinac was arrested by the Yugoslav government as early as 1945. But due to protests among the population, he was released again, only to be tried a year later. In 1946, Stepinac was sentenced by a Yugoslav court in a political show trial to 16 years in prison with forced labor. The defense was severely hindered by the court, so only seven of the 47 witnesses summoned were admitted. The accusation was in summary of the cooperation with the Ustaše regime, the forced conversion of the Orthodox Christians and resistance to the new power. Before the process, which was heavily criticized, especially by the Vatican , the Yugoslav government offered the Apostolic Nuncio to transfer Stepinac, but received no response. Pope Pius XII described the proceedings against Stepinac as "the saddest trial ( tristissimo processo ) in church history". In addition to the Vatican, western statesmen and clergy protested against the imprisonment.

In his closing speech in court on October 3, 1946, Stepinac said:

“I can only respond to all the accusations that have been brought against me here, even if the audience laughs because my conscience is clear. It is not my intention to defend myself or to appeal against the judgment. I am ready for my conviction not only to be laughed at or despised and humiliated, but also, because my conscience is pure, to die at any time ... I was by no means " persona grata " with the Germans or the Ustaschas. I was not a Ustaše and I never took an oath (the Ustaše) as some of your officials who are here did. The Croatian people made a plebiscitary decision (1941) for the Croatian state, and I would have been an unworthy one if I hadn't felt the pulse of the Croatian people who were slaves in the former Yugoslavia ... What I have to say about the rights of the Croatian people Having said freedom and independence, everything is in accordance with the basic principles of the Allies in Yalta and the Atlantic Charter . If, according to these resolutions, every people has the right to independence, why should that only be denied to the Croatian people ... "

After six years in prison, Stepinac was released to his home parish Krašić, where he was placed under house arrest in his parents' house with constant police surveillance. The arrest lasted until his death and also prevented him from exercising the office of cardinal to which he was appointed on November 29, 1952.

beatification

Stepinac Shrine in Zagreb Cathedral

The first step was taken by Franjo Kuharić , who later became the Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of Zagreb , on November 14, 1969. Later, as Archbishop, he and Franjo Šeper , Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , submitted the corresponding application to the Congregation for the Blessed on February 17, 1979. and canonization processes .

According to a 1996 report by the Catholic newspaper Glas Koncila , an autopsy of the remains by the Croatian authorities in 1993 revealed that Alojzije Stepinac's body had been interred without a heart . From this, Croatian church circles concluded that the cardinal was poisoned and that the authorities then wanted to destroy the traces. The postulator also advocated this thesis in the beatification process.

On October 3, 1998, Stepinac was beatified by Pope John Paul II in Marija Bistrica . The not undisputed ceremony was attended by more than 300,000 believers, cardinals and bishops from all over the world, as well as the Croatian President Franjo Tuđman .

His feast day is February 10th , the day of his martyrdom .

Rejected award of the title "Righteous Among the Nations"

Stepinac at a communist rally for Tito (September 1945). From left: three representatives of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the commanding Partisan General of Zagreb, the Secretary of the Apostolic Nunciature, Auxiliary Bishop Josip Lach , Archbishop Stepinac, the Croatian Prime Minister Vladimir Bakarić , the Soviet Military Attaché and the Interior Minister Andrija Hebrang

Amijel Shomrony , who was the secretary of the Zagreb Chief Rabin Miroslav Šalom Freiberger from 1941 to 1943 , twice applied to the Yad Vashem memorial to grant Stepinac the title of Righteous Among the Nations . Both in 1970 and 1994, when he submitted the application together with Igor Primorac , the application was denied. Although, according to a report in the newspaper Jutarnji list, he still refuses to reveal the exact number of those rescued because of an alleged promise to Stepinac, according to an anonymous source in these otherwise secret decisions, it was not out of question that he helped Jewish citizens. The reason given for the rejection is that the gravity of his guilt for keeping the crimes of the clergy secret was ultimately rated higher after much deliberation.

Honors

Statue of Stepinac in Novi Zagreb ( Tomislav Ostoja , 1998)

His wish to be buried in the Zagreb Cathedral was granted.

In 1998, on the occasion of the 100th birthday of Stepinac , the Republic of Croatia issued a gold coin worth 500 kuna and a silver coin worth 150 kuna.

literature

  • Claudia Stahl: Alojzije Stepinac: The biography . Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2017, ISBN 978-3-657-78773-9 .
  • Jure Krišto: The Catholic Church and the Jews in the Independent State of Croatia . In: Review of Croatian History . No. 3 , 2007, p. 13-47 .
  • Klaus Buchenau: Saint or War Criminal? About the Zagreb Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac and his perception among Croatians and Serbs . In: The Christian East . tape 53 , no. 3–4 , 1998, pp. 147-162 .
  • Menachem Shelah: The Catholic Church in Croatia, the Vatican and the Murder of the Croatian Jews . In: Holocaust and Genocide Studies . 4th year, no. 3 , 1989, pp. 323-339 .
  • Stella Alexander: The triple myth. A life of Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac . Boulder (CO), New York 1987, ISBN 0-88033-122-4 .
  • Richard Pattee: The case of Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac . Milwaukee 1953.
  • Anthony Henry O'Brien: Archbishop Stepinac, the man and his case . Westminster 1947.

Web links

Commons : Alojzije Stepinac  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Andreas Resch : Die Blessed Johannes Pauls II.: 1996-2000 . Ed .: Imago Mundi. tape 4 . Resch Verlag, S. 189 .
  2. ↑ Apostolic Journey of His Holiness John Paul II. To Croatia (October 2–4, 1998): HOMILY OF THE HOLY FATHER AT MARIJA BISTRICA FOR THE BEATIFICATION OF THE VENERABLE SERVANT OF GOD CARDINAL ALOJZIJE STEPINAC, October 3, 1998 . April 2015 .
  3. ↑ Historical links between Croatia, the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem and the HolyLand. (PDF) In: OESSH. Holy See Press Office , April 26, 2017, accessed April 26, 2017 .
  4. ^ Report on the Investiture in Zagreb 2017. In: OESSH Austria. Order of Knights of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem , July 6, 2017, accessed on July 6, 2017 .
  5. ^ A b Shelah, Menachem: The Catholic Church in Croatia, the Vatican and the Murder of the Croatian Jews . In: Holocaust and Genocide Studies . tape 4 , no. 3 , 1989, pp. 325 ff .
  6. ↑ Jure Krišto: Katolicka Crkva i Nezavisna Država Hrvatska . tape 1 . Zagreb 1998, p. 187 .
  7. ^ A b Klaus Buchenau: Orthodoxy and Catholicism in Yugoslavia 1945–1991 (=  Balkanological publications of the Free University of Berlin . Volume 40 ). Wiesbaden 2004, p. 68 .
  8. ↑ Ivan Mužić: Pavelić i Stepinac . Split 1991, p. 72 .
  9. ↑ a b Ivan Cerovac (ed.): Politically captured Croatians in Yugoslavia . Documentation. Munich 1977, p. 12 (translation: Dr. Ernest Bauer, co-design: Karl Datter).
  10. ↑ Klaus Buchenau: Orthodoxy and Catholicism in Yugoslavia 1945–1991 (=  Balkanological publications of the Free University of Berlin . Volume 40 ). Wiesbaden 2004, p. 69 .
  11. ↑ a b Carl Gustaf Ströhm : "I would be worthless if I didn't feel for the Croatians". In: The world . July 11, 1998, accessed May 9, 2014 .
  12. ↑ http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/BiographienA/Alois_Stepinac.html
  13. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives:@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.jutarnji.hr
predecessor Office successor
Antun Bauer Archbishop of Zagreb
1937–1960 		Franjo Cardinal Šeper
personal data
SURNAME Stepinac, Alojzije
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stepinac, Alojzije Cardinal (full name); Stepinac, Aloisius Viktor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Theologian, Archbishop of Zagreb, cardinal and martyr
DATE OF BIRTH May 8, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Krašić , Croatia
DATE OF DEATH February 10, 1960
Place of death Krašić