Alojzije Stepinac

Blessed Alojzije (Aloysius) Viktor Cardinal Stepinac (May 8, 1898 – February 10, 1960) was a Croatian Catholic Prelate. He was Archbishop of Zagreb from 1937 to 1960. In 1946, in a verdict that polarised opinion both in Yugoslavia and beyond, a Belgrade court found him guilty of collaborating with the Ustaše and complicity in allowing the forced conversion of Orthodox Serbs to catholicism. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison, but after five years was released and confined to his home parish of Krašić. He was appointed a Cardinal in 1952. In 1998 Pope John Paul II declared him a martyr and beatified him, which again polarised public opinion. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... is the 128th day of the year (129th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1898 (MDCCCXCVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... is the 41st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Look up prelate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Location of Zagreb within Croatia Coordinates: , Country RC diocese 1094 Free royal city 1242 Unified 1850 Government  - Mayor Milan Bandić Area [1]  - Total 641. ... Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full 1946 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... During World War II a number of Croatian Catholic priests, and some of the then bishops in the territory, cooperated with the UstaÅ¡a regime, who ran a Nazi puppet state that pursued a genocidal policy against the Serbs (who were Eastern Orthodox Christians), Jews and Roma. ... Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations · Other religions Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Luther Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Archbishop of Canterbury · Catholic Pope Coptic Pope · Ecumenical Patriarch Christianity Portal This box:      As a... Coat of arms of KraÅ¡ić KraÅ¡ić is a village in central Croatia, located near Jastrebarsko and Ozalj, south of Žumberak and north of Kupa, about 50 km southwest of Zagreb. ... For other uses, see Cardinal (disambiguation). ... Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... Coat of Arms of Pope John Paul II. The Letter M is for Mary, the mother of Jesus, to whom he held strong devotion Pope John Paul II (Latin: , Italian: Giovanni Paolo II, Polish: Jan PaweÅ‚ II) born   []; 18 May 1920 – 2 April 2005) reigned as the 264th Pope of... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Early life

Stepinac was born in the village of Brezarić in the parish of Krašić. He was the fifth of eight children in his peasant family. In 1909 he moved to Zagreb to study in the classical gymnasium and graduated in 1916. Just before his eighteenth birthday he was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian Army, trained and sent to serve on the Italian Front during World War I. In 1918 he suffered a leg wound and was captured by the Italians who held him for five months. After the formation of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, he was no longer treated as an enemy soldier, and he instead volunteered for Yugoslav legion that went to Salonica. A few months later, he was demobilised and returned home in the spring of 1919. Year 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... Location of Zagreb within Croatia Coordinates: , Country RC diocese 1094 Free royal city 1242 Unified 1850 Government  - Mayor Milan Bandić Area [1]  - Total 641. ... Year 1916 (MCMXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Friday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... The Austro-Hungarian Army was the ground force of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. ... “The Great War ” redirects here. ... 1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ... Flag Capital Zagreb Language(s) Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian Government Republic President¹ Anton KoroÅ¡ec Vice presidents¹ Ante Pavelić Svetozar Pribićević Historical era World War I  - Independence 29 October, 1918  - Joined Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes 1 December, 1918 ¹ President and vice presidents of the National Council. ... The White Tower The Arch of Galerius Map showing the Thessaloníki prefecture Thessaloníki (Θεσσαλονίκη) is the second-largest city of Greece and is the principal city and the capital of the Greek region of Macedonia. ... Year 1919 (MCMXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ...

For service in the Allied army during WWI, he was awarded the "Star of Karađorđe", an award for heroism in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. After the war he enrolled at the faculty of agronomy of the University of Zagreb, but left it after only one semester and returned home to help his father. In 1924, he travelled to Rome to begin studying to become a priest, and was ordained on October 26, 1930. In 1931 he became a parish curate in Zagreb. KaraÄ‘orÄ‘e (Карађорђе, also Black George, George Czerny), (November 3, 1768? – July 13, 1817) was the leader of the First Serbian uprising against the Turks, and the founder of the House of KaraÄ‘orÄ‘ević. He was born ĐorÄ‘e Petrović. Because of his dark complexion and short temper he... Motto: One nation, one king, one country Anthem: Medley of Bože pravde, Lijepa naÅ¡a domovino, and Naprej zastava slave Capital Belgrade Language(s) Serbo-Croato-Slovenian (see: Serbo-Croat and Slovenian) [1] Government Value specified for government_type does not comply King  - 1918-1921 Peter I  - 1921-1934 Alexander... The University of Zagreb (Croatian SveučiliÅ¡te u Zagrebu, Latin Universitas Studiorum Zagrabiensis) is the oldest Croatian university in continuous operation and also the oldest university in southeastern Europe. ... For the rap album, see 1924 (album). ... For other uses, see Rome (disambiguation). ... is the 299th day of the year (300th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1930 (MCMXXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display 1930 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1931 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Location of Zagreb within Croatia Coordinates: , Country RC diocese 1094 Free royal city 1242 Unified 1850 Government  - Mayor Milan Bandić Area [1]  - Total 641. ...

He was appointed coadjutor to the see of Zagreb in 1934, after some other candidates had been rejected by Pope Pius XI for political reasons. In 1937, though still below the prescribed canonical age of 40, Stepinac succeeded Anton Bauer as the archbishop of Zagreb, becoming one of the youngest archbishops in the Church's history. Archbishop Jerome Hanus of the Archdiocese of Dubuque, Dubuque, Iowa. ... Year 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display full 1934 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Pope Pius XI (Latin: ; Italian: Pio XI; May 31, 1857 – February 10, 1939), born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, reigned as Pope from February 6, 1922 and as sovereign of Vatican City from 1929 until his death on February 10, 1939. ... Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Canonical age is, in Roman Catholic canon law, the age at which a Catholic becomes capable of incurring certain obligations, enjoying special privileges, embracing special states of life, holding office or dignity, or receiving the sacraments. ... In Christianity, an archbishop is an elevated bishop. ...

In 1936, he climbed the Slovenian mountain Triglav, then the tallest peak of Yugoslavia. To date, he is the only prelate to have accomplished such a feat, and in 2006 this climb was commemorated by a memorial chapel being built on the mass on Kredarica, near the summit. Year 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Triglav (disambiguation). ... Motto: One nation, one king, one country Anthem: Medley of Bože pravde, Lijepa naÅ¡a domovino, and Naprej zastava slave Capital Belgrade Language(s) Serbo-Croato-Slovenian (see: Serbo-Croat and Slovenian) [1] Government Value specified for government_type does not comply King  - 1918-1921 Peter I  - 1921-1934 Alexander... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

World War II

Alojzije Stepinac, Roman-Catholic Archbischop of Zagreb with Ante Pavelic, leader of the NDH-state.

Stepinac was the archbishop of Zagreb during World War II in the Independent State of Croatia, a satellite state formed by the Axis Powers in part of the territory of Yugoslavia after their occupation of Yugoslavia in April 1941. A movement of fanatical Croatian nationalists, the Ustaša, governed the new puppet state under German protection. In the early days of this regime Stepinac, like other influential Croatian leaders (notably Vladko Maček of the Croatian Peasant Party), supported the new state and its regime and welcomed the demise of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Although most states around the world, including the Vatican, never recognised the Independent State of Croatia as a sovereign nation, Stepinac publicly exorted his hierarchy to pray for the new entity, and he asked God to fill the Ustaša leader Ante Pavelić with a spirit of wisdom for the benefit of the nation. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... The title given to this article lacks diacritics because of certain technical limitations. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Capital Zagreb Language(s) Croatian Religion Roman Catholicism Political structure Puppet-state King  - 1941-1943 Tomislav II Poglavnik  - 1941-1945 Ante Pavelić Legislature None Historical era World War II  - Established April 10, 1941  - Disestablished May 8, 1945 Population  - 1941 est. ... The UstaÅ¡e (often spelled Ustashe in English; singular UstaÅ¡a or Ustasha) was a Croatian far-right organisation put in charge of the Independent State of Croatia by the Axis Powers in 1941. ... Vladko Maček (June 20, 1879 – May 15, 1964) was a Croatian politician from the first half of the 20th century. ... The Croatian Peasant Party (Croatian: Hrvatska seljačka stranka, HSS) was formed in 1905 by Stjepan Radić, a leading Croatian politician. ... Motto: One nation, one king, one country Anthem: Medley of Bože pravde, Lijepa naÅ¡a domovino, and Naprej zastava slave Capital Belgrade Language(s) Serbo-Croato-Slovenian (see: Serbo-Croat and Slovenian) [1] Government Value specified for government_type does not comply King  - 1918-1921 Peter I  - 1921-1934 Alexander... Ante Pavelić (July 14, 1889 – December 28, 1959) was the leader (Poglavnik) and founding member of the Croatian national socialist/fascist UstaÅ¡e movement in the 1930s and later the leader of the Independent State of Croatia, a puppet state[1] [2] of Nazi Germany during World War II. // Paveli...

From the outset the Ustaša leadership was committed to a policy of extreme intolerance towards its Serb (orthodox Christian), Jewish and Roma minorities, but in his reports to the Vatican Stepinac spoke only favourably about the regime. On March 28 1941 he had made his own position clear:

All in all, Croats and Serbs are of two worlds, northpole and southpole, never will they be able to get together unless by a miracle of God. The schism (Eastern Orthodoxy) is the greatest curse in Europe, almost greater than Protestantism. Here there is no moral, no principles, no truth, no justice, no honesty.

Later, Stepinac called on government officials to stop the persecution of Jews and others and urged them to distinguish between people allegedly implicated in wrongdoings and others who were racially profiled or just held as "hostages". He also sought tolerance for people in mixed marriages and people who converted to Catholicism. By the time of these representations, knowledge of the Ustaša concentration camps at Jasenovac and Stara Gradiška was widespsread but Stepinac made no mention of them. “Jasenovac” redirects here. ... Stara GradiÅ¡ka was the fifth subcamp of the Jasenovac concentration camp, established in 1941 to the east of the main camp near the village of Stara GradiÅ¡ka. ...

He did use the pulpit to condemn ethnic genocide against minorities and said:

All men and all races are children of God; all without distinction. Those who are Gypsies, Black, European, or Aryan all have the same rights.... for this reason, the Catholic Church had always condemned, and continues to condemn, all injustice and all violence committed in the name of theories of class, race, or nationality. It is not permissible to persecute Gypsies or Jews because they are thought to be an inferior race.

He was also involved directly and indirectly in numerous efforts to save hundreds of Jews, before and during the war. Dr. Amiel Shomrony alias Emil Schwartz was the personal secretary of Miroslav Šalom Freiberger, the chief rabbi in Zagreb, until 1942. In the actions for saving Jews, Shomrony acted as the mediator between the chief rabbi and Stepinac. He later stated that he considered Stepinac blessed since he did the most and the best he could for the Jews during the war.^[1] Reportedly the Ustaša government at this point agitated at the Holy See for him to be removed from the position of archbishop of Zagreb.^{[citation needed]} This is the list of Croatian Righteous Among the Nations. ... For the town in Italy, see Rabbi, Italy. ... Location of Zagreb within Croatia Coordinates: , Country RC diocese 1094 Free royal city 1242 Unified 1850 Government  - Mayor Milan Bandić Area [1]  - Total 641. ... Year 1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link will display the full 1942 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

One of the main issues the Catholic Church in Croatia at the time seems to have had was their lenience towards the fact that the religious conversions carried out by the clergy aligned with the Ustaša were merely a part of the persecution scheme aimed at the undesirable minorities — primarily the Serb Orthodox faithful. Stepinac did not seem to make any public attempts to criticize the government for persecuting the Serbs per se, but he was later quoted as giving out a secret message to the priests that "when this time of madness and savagery passes, those who converted out of their beliefs will remain in our Church, and the rest will, when the danger is gone, return to their own". Religious conversion is the adoption of a new religious identity, or a change from one religious identity to another. ... Early history The Serbs migrated to the Balkans during the reign of Byzantine emperor Heraclius (610-641). ...

Post-war period

After the war, on May 17, 1945, Stepinac was arrested and held until June 3, when he was released. On June 4 he met with Josip Broz Tito but no agreement was reached between them. On June 22, the bishops of the People's Republic of Croatia released a public letter describing injustices and crimes done to them by the new authorities, and in September 1945, a synod of bishops discussed these issues. On October 20, Stepinac published a letter in which he stated that 273 clergymen had been killed since the Partisan take-over, 169 had been imprisoned, and another 89 were "missing" and presumed dead. It is argued that most of these executions had not been ordered by the Yugoslav high command and were, for the most part, spontaneous retributions against pro-nazi clerics by the people and isolated partisan groups and, thus, had nothing to do with the Yugoslav government. In response to this letter Tito spoke out publicly against Stepinac for the first time by writing an editorial in a daily newspaper accusing Stepinac of declaring war on the fledgling new Yugoslavia. is the 137th day of the year (138th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar). ... is the 154th day of the year (155th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Josip Broz Tito (Cyrillic: Јосип Броз Тито, May 7, 1892 [May 25th according to official birth certificate] – May 4, 1980) was the leader of the Second Yugoslavia, which lasted from 1943 until 1991. ... Flag of Peoples Republic of Croatia from January 18, 1947 Coat of arms of Peoples Republic of Croatia from January 18, 1947 Peoples Republic of Croatia (Narodna Republika Hrvatska in Croatian) was a name of Croatian state from November 29, 1945 (called Federal State of Croatia before...

In forging a new republic out of the war-ravaged remnants and deep-seated bitternesses of the former kingdom, Tito had established brotherhood and unity as the state's over-arching central objective and nothing was allowed to challenge it. In such a climate Stepinac's persistence had been both brave and reckless. On November 4 he had stones thrown at him by a crowd in Zaprešić and in January 1946 Yugoslavia asked the Holy See to post him elsewhere. The request was refused. Brotherhood and unity (known locally as Bratstvo i jedinstvo or Bратство и јединство or Bratstvo in enotnost) was the catch phrase for the official policy of inter-ethnic relations in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. ... ZapreÅ¡ić is a town in Zagreb county, Croatia, population 23,125 (2001). ...

By September of the same year the Yugoslav authorities indicted Stepinac on several counts - collaboration with the Nazis, relations with the genocidal Ustaša regime, having chaplains in the Ustasha army as religious agitators, forceful conversions of Serb Orthodox to Catholicism at gunpoint and high treason against the Yugoslav government. Stepinac was arrested on September 18, 1946 and his trial started on September 30, 1946. Collaboration is a process defined by the recursive interaction of knowledge[1] and mutual learning between two or more people working together[2] toward a common goal typically creative in nature. ... is the 261st day of the year (262nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 273rd day of the year (274th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full 1946 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Milovan Djilas, a Yugoslav official close to Tito, said that Stepinac "would probably not have been brought to trial for his dubious conduct in the war...had he not continued to publicly oppose the new Yugoslav state." Milovan Đilas Milovan Đilas (1911-1995) was a Communist politician and theorist in Yugoslavia. ...

Stepinac was tried alongside former officials of the Ustaša government including Erih Lisak (sentenced to death) and Ivan Šalić in a case that reflected determination by the Yugoslav government to tackle the collaboration that had gone on between the puppet state and elements of the Catholic Church (see Involvement of Croatian Catholic clergy with the Ustaša regime). Altogether there were 16 defendants. During World War II a number of Croatian Catholic priests, and some of the then bishops in the territory, cooperated with the UstaÅ¡a regime, who ran a Nazi puppet state that pursued a genocidal policy against the Serbs (who were Eastern Orthodox Christians), Jews and Roma. ...

The way trial was conducted was criticized by the Catholic church and nationalists. Stepinac claimed that it was a show trial. He gave a long, 38-minute speech on October 3rd as part of the fourth day of the proceedings when he stated that his conscience was clear with regard to all of the accusations, and that he did not intend to defend himself or appeal against a conviction. Instead, he stated he would take not only ridicule, disdain and humiliation, but also death, for his beliefs. He further stated that he was being attacked in order for the state to attack the Church and that no religious conversions were done in bad faith. He claimed that the military vicariate was created in the Independent State of Croatia just as it was in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, to address the needs of the faithful among the soldiers and not for the army itself, nor as a sign of approval of all action by the army. Furthermore, he asserted that he was never an Ustaša and that his Croatian nationalism stemmed from the nation's grievances in the Yugoslav Kingdom, and that he never took part in any anti-government or terrorist activities against the state or against Serbs. The term show trial serves most commonly to label a type of public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the accused: the actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as an impressive example and...

He also once again claimed that 260-270 priests were executed by the Partisans and deemed these summary death sentences uncivilized. He also decried the nationalization of Church property - schools, seminaries, orphanages, printing presses, and the prevention of Church involvement in education, press, charitable work (mercy was considered degrading by socialists), teaching of religion in school, as well as intimidation and molestation of clergy. He also complained against issues such as atheism, evolution, materialism, and communism in general.

The state brought forth evidence and witnesses concerning the executions and forced conversions members of his military vicariate performed, pointing out that even if he did not order them, he also did nothing to stop them. They also pointed out the disproportionate number of chaplains in the NDH armed forces and attempted to present in detail his relationship with the Ustaša authorities. Foreign affairs politics of the time also demanded that the Vatican be implicated as much as possible in these accusations. Whether the accusations were true or not, no opportunity was missed that could further imply its complicity in the matter.

The trial was, thus, soon condemned by the Holy See. Many Catholics and others considered the Judicial process to be fatally compromised by extorted witness statements, false testimonies and falsified documents. Some such critics have cited as an example a letter entered in evidence which was addressed to the Pope and was alleged to have been written by Stepinac in 1943. The letter was incriminating in that it expressed support for the Ustaša's mass conversion programme and for the state itself, but Stepinac denied writing it. The prosecutor claimed that a copy signed by Stepinac existed, but he did not produce it.

On October 11, 1946, the court found Stepinac guilty of high treason and war crimes. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison (considered a mild punishment for treason charges). All Catholics who had taken part in the court proceedings, including most of the jury members, were promptly excommunicated by the Pope. is the 284th day of the year (285th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full 1946 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Treason (disambiguation) or Traitor (disambiguation). ... In the context of war, a war crime is a punishable offense under International Law, for violations of the laws of war by any person or persons, military or civilian. ...

After serving five years of his sentence in Lepoglava prison, where he had had better-than-usual accommodation in recognition of his clerical status (two cells plus an additional cell as his private chapel), Alojzije Stepinac was released in a conciliatory gesture by Tito, on condition that he either retired to Rome or was confined to his home parish of Krašić. He refused to leave his country and opted to live out his last years in Krašić, where he was transferred on December 5, 1951. He said: "They will never make me leave unless they put me on a plane by force and take me over the frontier. It is my duty in these difficult times to stay with the people.". He deemed himself too old to move to another country. Lepoglava (German: ) is a city in Varaždin County, Croatia. ... is the 339th day of the year (340th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

On November 29, 1952, his name appeared in a list of cardinals newly created by Pope Pius XII. In response Tito's government severed diplomatic relations with Vatican on December 17 1952. Pope Pius XII (Latin: ), born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (March 2, 1876 – October 9, 1958), reigned as the 260th pope, the head of the Roman Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City, from March 2, 1939 until his death. ... Josip Broz Tito (May 7, 1892 - May 4, 1980) was the ruler of Yugoslavia between the end of World War II and his death in 1980. ... Year 1952 (MCMLII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Death and legacy

In 1953, Stepinac was diagnosed with polycythemia, a rare blood disorder. Seven years later, at the age of 61, he died of a thrombosis. He was buried in Zagreb during a service in which the protocols appropriate to his senior clerical status were, with Tito's permission, fully observed. January 7 - President Harry S. Truman announces the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb. ... Polycythemia is a condition in which there is a net increase in the total number of red blood cells in the body. ... Thrombosis is the formation of a clot or thrombus inside a blood vessel, obstructing the flow of blood through the circulatory system. ...

Notwithstanding that Stepinac died peacefully at home, he quickly became a martyr in the view of his supporters and many other Catholics. There is no evidence that he was killed, but they argue that the declining health of his last years was in some way a consequence of his imprisonment, perhaps exacerbated by the fact that he was treated at home rather than in a hospital (as was dictated by the law). Against this, others argue that he enjoyed favoured treatment in Lepoglava in comparison with other prisoners, being allocated double the normal entitlement of living space and an adjoining cell as his personal chapel.

For Catholics at least, Pope John Paul II resolved the debate in Zagreb on October 3, 1998 when he declared that Stepinac had indeed been martyred. John Paul had earlier determined that where a candidate for sainthood had been martyred, his/her cause could be advanced without the normal requirement for evidence of a miraculous intercession by the candidate. Accordingly he beatified the late cardinal after saying these words: One of the outstanding figures of the Catholic Church, having endured in his own body and his own spirit the atrocities of the Communist system, is now entrusted to the memory of his fellow countrymen with the radiant badge of martyrdom. Coat of Arms of Pope John Paul II. The Letter M is for Mary, the mother of Jesus, to whom he held strong devotion Pope John Paul II (Latin: , Italian: Giovanni Paolo II, Polish: Jan PaweÅ‚ II) born   []; 18 May 1920 – 2 April 2005) reigned as the 264th Pope of... is the 276th day of the year (277th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... In Catholicism, beatification (from Greek μακαριος, makarios) is a recognition accorded by the church of a dead persons accession to Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their name (intercession of saints). ...

In 1984 a community of Croatians who had emigrated to Cleveland, Ohio, built a Croatian American Home named after Stepinac and placed a larger-than-life statue of Archbishop Stepinac in its hallway. The Croatian American Lodge is located in Eastlake, Ohio.

On the other hand many non-Catholics have remained unconvinced about Stepinac's martyrdom and about his saintly qualities in general. Some saw his promotion to within one step of sainthood as a gratuitous provocation, one result of which is that to his most severe critics he has become known as the patron saint of genocide. Without question the beatification re-ignited old controversies between Catholicism and Communism and between Serbs and Croats. The Jewish community in Croatia, some members of which had been helped by Stepinac during World War II, did not oppose his beatification but the Simon Wiesenthal Center asked for it to be deferred until the wartime conduct of Stepinac had been further investigated. The Vatican ignored this representation. The Simon Wiesenthal Center The Simon Wiesenthal Center is an international Jewish organization that declares itself to be a human rights group dedicated to preserving the memory of the Holocaust by fostering tolerance and understanding through community involvement, educational outreach and social action. ...

On February 14, 1992, the Croatian Parliament symbolically condemned the 1946 court decision and the process that led to it, amid protests. However, the verdict has not been formally challenged nor overturned in any court (even between 1997 and 1999 when that was possible under Croatian law). is the 45th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1992 Gregorian calendar). ... The parliament of Croatia is called Hrvatski Sabor in Croatian - the word sabor means an assembly, a gathering, a congress. ...

Stepinac was unsuccessfully recommended on two occasions by two individual Croatian Jews to be added to the list of the Righteous Among the Nations. One of those Croatian Jews, Dr. Amiel Shomrony, has recently the Serb lobby for preventing the inclusion of Stepinac into Yad Vashem's Righteous list.^[1] Esther Gitman, a Jew from Sarajevo living in the USA who holds a PhD on the subject of the fate of Jews in the Independent State of Croatia, said that Stepinac did much more for Jews than some want to admit.^[1] However the reason stated by Yad Vashem for denying the requests were that the proposers were not themselves Holocaust survivors, which is a requirement for inclusion in the list; and that maintaining close links with a genocidal regime at the same time as making humanitarian interventions would preclude listing. Righteous Among the Nations (Hebrew: חסידי אומות העולם, Hasidei Umot HaOlam), in contemporary usage, is a term often used to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust in order to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis. ... “Shoah” redirects here. ...

External links

• Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac
• Online Book: Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac - Basic Facts about His Person and Work by Simun Sito Coric
• Patron Saints Index - Blessed Alojzije Stepinac
• "The Case of Archbishop Stepinac", by Sava N. Kosanovic, Ambassador of the FNR Yugoslavia in Washington
• Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac, A Servant of God and the Croatian People
• Archbishop Stepinac High School - A Catholic High School in White Plains, New York (USA) named for Archbishop Stepinac. Includes a shrine featuring a bust of Stepinac by the Croatian artist Ivan Meštrović.
• Cardinal Stepinac Village (Retirement & nursing home)

For other places with the same name, see White Plains (disambiguation). ... Ivan Meštrović (August 15, 1883 – January 16, 1962) was a Croatian sculptor. ...

References

• Tanner, Marcus, Croatia New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1997

1. ^ ^{a b c} Serbian Lobby Prevents the Inclusion of Stepinac in Yad Vashem (article in Croatian), Večernji list, June 5, 2005

• http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=512