147 Facts About Aloysius Stepinac

Aloysius Viktor Stepinac was a Croat prelate of the Catholic Church.

Aloysius Stepinac was tried by the communist Yugoslav government after the war and convicted of treason and collaboration with the Ustase regime.

Aloysius 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 them to return to their faith once the danger passed.

Aloysius Stepinac was sentenced to 16 years in prison, but served only five at Lepoglava before being released, with his movements confined to his home district of Krasic.

Aloysius Stepinac was unable to participate in the 1958 conclave due to government restrictions on his travel.

On 10 February 1960, still confined to Krasic, Aloysius Stepinac died of polycythemia, for which he had been receiving treatment for a number of years.

Alojzije Viktor Aloysius Stepinac was born in Brezaric, a village in the district of Krasic in the Austro-Hungarian Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia on 8 May 1898, to a wealthy viticulturalist, Josip Aloysius Stepinac, and his second wife Barbara.

Aloysius Stepinac was the fifth of nine children, and he had three more siblings from his father's first marriage.

The family moved to Krasic in 1906, and Aloysius Stepinac attended primary school there, then attended high school in Zagreb from 1909 to 1915, boarding at the Archdiocese of Zagreb orphanage.

Aloysius Stepinac was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian Army for service in World War I, and had to accelerate his studies and graduate ahead of schedule.

Aloysius Stepinac's family was initially told that he had been killed, and a memorial service held in Krasic.

Aloysius Stepinac was held in various Italian prisoner-of-war camps until 6 December 1918.

Aloysius Stepinac's father wanted him to marry, and in 1923 he was briefly engaged to a teacher, Marija Horvat, but the engagement was broken off.

In 1922, Aloysius Stepinac was part of the politically conservative Catholic Hrvatski orlovi youth sport organisation, and traveled to the mass games in Brno, Czechoslovakia.

Aloysius Stepinac was at the front of the group's ceremonial procession, carrying the Croatian flag.

On 28 October 1924, at the age of 26, Aloysius Stepinac entered the Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum in Rome to study for the priesthood.

Aloysius Stepinac was ordained on 26 October 1930 by Archbishop Giuseppe Palica, Vicegerent of Rome, in a ceremony which included the ordination of his eventual successor as Archbishop of Zagreb, Franjo Seper.

Aloysius Stepinac wanted to serve the common people, and wanted to be a parish priest.

Aloysius Stepinac celebrated his first mass in his home parish of Krasic on 1 July 1931, but instead of being appointed to a parish he was appointed as liturgical master of ceremonies to the Archbishop of Zagreb Antun Bauer on 1 October.

Aloysius Stepinac temporarily administered the parishes of Samobor and Sveti Ivan Zelina.

Aloysius Stepinac was considered "conscientious and devoted to his work".

Aloysius 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.

At the time of his consecration on 24 June 1934, Aloysius Stepinac was the youngest bishop in the Catholic Church, and was completely unknown to the Croat people.

Aloysius Stepinac's appointment came at a time of acute political turmoil in Yugoslavia.

Less than a month after the assassination, Aloysius Stepinac was among those who signed what became known as the "Zagreb Memorandum", which listed a number of demands, including the exoneration of Macek, a general amnesty, freedom of movement and association, restrictions on the activities of government-authorised paramilitaries, and free elections.

On 7 December 1937, Bauer died, and though still below the age of forty, Aloysius Stepinac succeeded him as Archbishop of Zagreb.

Aloysius Stepinac voted for Macek's opposition list, while Radio Belgrade spread the false information that he had voted for Milan Stojadinovic's Yugoslav Radical Union.

Aloysius Stepinac was unable to achieve this, probably because he was young and relatively inexperienced, and did not command the level of respect and authority usually accorded an Archbishop of Zagreb.

Aloysius 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.

Aloysius Stepinac 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".

Aloysius Stepinac was well aware of the fact that an estimated 200,000 mostly Croatian Catholics had converted to the Serbian Orthodox Church in the interwar period.

Aloysius Stepinac 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.

Aloysius Stepinac was sensitive to the fact that the Concordat had been vetoed in the Yugoslav parliament partly due to pressure exerted by the Serbian church.

In 1937 Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac founded the Committee for Refugee Assistance in Zagreb, which extensively helped the Jews fleeing from Nazi Germany.

Aloysius Stepinac preached against racism in several sermons, starting from 1938.

Aloysius Stepinac considered Nazis as "pagans", and always held a reserved attitude in any contact with German representatives.

Tomasevich further observes that despite papal encyclicals against both Italian fascist abuses against Catholic Youth organizations in 1931 and German Nazism in 1937, Aloysius Stepinac refrained from condemning or even mentioning Fascism or Nazism, pointing out that in 1938 the Catholic Church was supporting the Italian and German allies of Franco Spanish Civil War, and public criticism of their political ideologies would not have been helpful.

Nevertheless, Aloysius Stepinac was a member of the Yugoslav Catholic Bishops' Conference that issued warnings against both Nazism and Communism after the 1937 papal encyclical against Nazis ideology.

Aloysius Stepinac feared both Nazism and communism, even as he disdained western parliamentary democracy.

West observes that by 1934, Aloysius Stepinac had developed into an.

Aloysius Stepinac 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.

Aloysius Stepinac was conscious of the dignity and weight of his office but never of himself.

That evening, Aloysius Stepinac hosted a dinner party for Pavelic and the leading Ustase.

Aloysius Stepinac's letter captured what was a common sentiment among Croatian nationalists and much of the Catholic Church in the new state.

Aloysius Stepinac already knew of the planned racial laws, which Pavelic signed only 2 days after Aloysius Stepinac issued his letter praising Pavelic and the Ustase state.

Croatian historian, Hrvoje Klasic, notes Aloysius Stepinac supported actions that today's courts would classify as ethnic cleansing of Serbs.

Phayer writes that Aloysius Stepinac arranged the audience with Pius XII, and "recommended the dictator to the Holy See".

Ester Gitman writes that "Aloysius Stepinac chose not to join Pavelic" and that he was given a private audience with the Pope.

Pavelic put pressure on Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac to write to Pope Pius XII, via Cardinal Maglione, to request official recognition of the Independent State of Croatia.

Pavelic met Hitler for the first time on 7 June 1941, and told him that many younger clergy were supportive of the Ustase regime, but mentioned that Aloysius Stepinac had advised him that he could only rule if he was "as forebearing as possible".

Biondich notes that Aloysius Stepinac was unhappy that many younger priests were overtly supporting the Ustase.

On 26 June 1941, Aloysius Stepinac met with the Archbishop of Vrhbosna and the bishops of Belgrade, Banja Luka, Split, Hvar, Sibenik and Senj-Modrus.

At the reception with Pavelic, Aloysius Stepinac stated that "love of religion and country spring only from God", then promised Pavelic their loyalty and co-operation.

Aloysius Stepinac objected to the persecution of Jews and Nazi laws, helped Jews and others to escape and criticized Ustase atrocities in front of Zagreb Cathedral in 1943.

Aloysius Stepinac had very limited formal authority over the suffragan bishops of his province, being more of a "first among equals" than a superior.

Biondich states that Aloysius Stepinac did not have the power to dictate policy or control the behaviour of the Sarajevo-based Archbishop of Vrhbosna, Ivan Saric, or the other bishops in the NDH.

Yet Goldstein notes that Aloysius Stepinac communicated with Sarajevo Archbishop Ivan Saric, but apparently never even privately condemned his public support for the Ustase genocides, unlike the Croatian Peasant Party members in London who vehemently condemned Saric.

Aloysius Stepinac served as the military Vicar of the NDH army throughout the war.

Aloysius Stepinac appeared in photographs numerous times in Ustase newspapers, alongside Pavelic and other Ustase leaders.

Aloysius Stepinac personally greeted Pavelic and stated that the bishops were visiting him "as the legitimate representatives of the Church of God in the NDH, with the promise of sincere and loyal cooperation for a better future of our homeland".

In October 1941, shortly after the Ustase destroyed the main synagogue in Zagreb, Aloysius Stepinac preached a sermon in which he said,.

In November 1941, Aloysius Stepinac chaired a bishop's conference, during which he heard reports from various bishops within the NDH.

Aloysius Stepinac stated that he believed that the worst of the atrocities were over, and that he believed they were the work of individuals.

Yet contrary to Aloysius Stepinac blaming individuals, historians state the Ustase regime carried out systematic genocidal policies against Jews, Serbs and Roma.

Cornwell states that Aloysius Stepinac was "wholly in accord with the general goals of the new Croatian state".

In May, 1943, Aloysius Stepinac sent a report to the Papal secretary of state, on the attitude of the Catholic Church in Croatia towards the Ustase regime.

Aloysius Stepinac admitted that atrocities had been committed against Serbs by irresponsible people without the sanction of the NDH authorities, and claimed that many of those responsible had been executed by the government.

Aloysius Stepinac deplored and condemned the atrocities, but stated that they were a reaction to Serb behavior during the interwar period during which, he claimed, Serbs had violated all the rights of the Croatian people.

Aloysius Stepinac reminded the Cardinal of the assassination of the Croatian deputies in the Parliament in 1928.

Pavelic attended services at Zagreb Cathedral only once in the four years he was in power, and Aloysius Stepinac did not greet him at the entrance on that occasion.

Aloysius Stepinac lost control of the Archdiocese's publication Katolicki List under the new regime.

Aloysius Stepinac opposed this and received guarantees from the Holy See that diocesan boundaries would not change during the war.

In 1943, Aloysius Stepinac travelled to the Vatican and came into contact with the Croatian artist Ivan Mestrovic.

When Mestrovic replied that Pavelic must know everything, Aloysius Stepinac went pale and burst into tears.

The historian Martin Gilbert wrote that despite initially welcoming the Independent State of Croatia, Aloysius Stepinac later "condemned Croat atrocities against both Serbs and Jews, and himself saved a group of Jews in an old age home".

West states that Aloysius Stepinac was one of the priests and father-confessors to senior Ustase such as Pavelic, Budak, Kvaternik and Artukovic.

In 1944, the NDH Ministry for Justice and Religion proposed, and Aloysius Stepinac accepted the Order of Merit medal from Pavelic, for "having as archbishop unmasked inside and outside the country the opponents of the Independent State of Croatia".

Furthermore, Aloysius Stepinac expressed much of his criticisms only after the Ustase had already committed most of their genocidal crimes.

Biondich concludes that claims that Aloysius Stepinac was an Ustase sympathiser, and even the spiritual leader of the regime are unfounded.

However Biondich states that Aloysius Stepinac was not the outspoken critic of the Ustase regime that many of his defenders claim.

Aloysius Stepinac repeatedly appeared in public with the Poglavnik, and issued Te Deum's on the anniversary of the NDH's creation.

On 10 April 1945, Aloysius Stepinac held a mass in the Zagreb Cathedral for the 4th anniversary of the NDH's founding, and Te Deum's were sung for what was left of the Ustase state.

On 24 May 1942, Aloysius Stepinac condemned racial persecution in general terms, although he did not mention Serbs.

Aloysius Stepinac blames these "sins" for the fact that "God like thunder today brings down not just cities and villages, but entire peoples".

Aloysius Stepinac proclaims it was not the Church that "created in the souls of people the dissatisfaction and insatiability which has produced such sad consequences", instead he blames "certain circles, organizations, and members of other national groups", which some sources state is a reference to Serbs and perhaps Jews.

Aloysius Stepinac then criticizes Communism, its denial of private property rights, its approval of divorce, negation of God, refusal to allow religious education in schools, etc.

Aloysius Stepinac was involved directly and indirectly in efforts to save Jews from persecution.

Aloysius Stepinac later stated that he considered Stepinac "truly blessed" since he did the best he could for the Jews during the war.

Aloysius Stepinac arranged for Jews to travel via these territories to the safe, neutral states of Turkey and Spain, along with Istanbul-based nuncio Angelo Roncalli.

Aloysius Stepinac sent some Jews for safety to Rev Dragutin Jeish, who was killed during the war by the Ustase on suspicion of supporting the Partisans.

Aloysius Stepinac initially responded to these mass killings with private letters of protest.

Aloysius Stepinac clearly knew of the May 1941 Glina massacre, and early on that the Ustase state was sending Jews, Serbs and others to concentration camps.

Aloysius Stepinac again wrote to Pavelic on 21 July 1941 in the wake of mass deportations of Jews and Serbs to concentration camps, stating he was sure that Pavelic was not aware of the atrocities, and that others might not be willing to tell him about them.

Aloysius Stepinac wrote that this situation meant there was an even greater obligation on Stepinac to bring them to Pavelic's attention.

Goldstein, on the other hand, notes that in his letter to Pavelic, Aloysius Stepinac did not question the deportation of Jews to concentration camps, instead only urged that these be carried out more "humanely".

On 3 December 1941, Aloysius Stepinac sent the pope a report, wherein he notes "the best prospects exist for the conversions".

Later Aloysius 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 them to return to their faith once the danger passed.

On 18 May 1943, Aloysius Stepinac wrote a letter to the pope, in which he estimated 240.000 conversions to date.

Stella Alexander, author of The Triple Myth, a sympathetic biography of Aloysius Stepinac, writes about him that.

Aloysius Stepinac feared Communism above all ; and he found it hard to grasp that anything beyond the boundaries of Croatia, always excepting the Holy See, was quite real.

Aloysius Stepinac lived in the midst of apocalyptic events, bearing responsibilities which he had not sought.

Aloysius Stepinac made repeated private interventions in individual cases, he refused to allow converted Jews to wear the yellow star in church, and he forbad military chaplains to administer the ustaSa oath if a crossed dagger and revolver were lying in front of the crucifix.

Mark Biondich stated that Aloysius Stepinac was not an "ardent supporter" of the Ustase regime legitimating their every policy, but neither was he an "avowed opponent" publicly denouncing their crimes in a systematic manner, that many of his defenders claim.

One day later, Aloysius Stepinac met with Tito, during which Tito's prime goal was to promote the idea of an autonomous Catholic Church for Yugoslavia with its own primate.

Aloysius Stepinac urged Tito to meet with representatives of the Croatian Peasant party and even the Ustase to help heal the wounds of war.

Simultaneously, Aloysius Stepinac continued to publicly support the same NDH which committed those crimes, until the very end.

Aloysius Stepinac refused to break from the Vatican, and continued to publicly condemn the communist government.

Finally, Aloysius Stepinac was himself asked to leave the country, which he refused.

Aloysius Stepinac publicly condemned the new Yugoslav government and its actions during and after World War II, especially for murders of priests by Communist militants.

Aloysius Stepinac was arrested on 18 September 1946 and his trial started on 30 September 1946, where he was tried alongside former officials of the Ustase government including Erih Lisak and Ivan Salic.

Aloysius Stepinac defense acknowledged he paid courtesy calls on Pavelic and other Ustase leaders as soon as they arrived, but this could be considered normal for the head of the Catholic Church.

Aloysius Stepinac had accepted Ustase archives without examining them, and stowed them in the archbishopric, but later handed them over to the Partisans when they came looking for them.

Aloysius Stepinac admitted meeting with former Ustase chief of police, Erih Lisak, who had secretly returned to Zagreb to fight the new authorities, but Stepinac blamed his secretary for the meeting.

Alexander states that Aloysius Stepinac seemed most uncertain when defending himself against the most serious accusations of forced conversions of the Serbian Orthodox population to Catholicism.

Aloysius Stepinac claimed that the process was a "show trial", that he was being attacked in order for the state to attack the Church, and that "no religious conversions were done in bad faith".

Aloysius Stepinac claimed that the military vicariate in the Independent State of Croatia was created 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.

Aloysius Stepinac stated that he was never an Ustasa and that his Croatian nationalism stemmed from the nation's grievances in the Serb-dominated Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and that he never took part in any anti-government or terrorist activities against the state or against Serbs.

Aloysius Stepinac pointed to the fact that Yugoslav communists killed a great number of Catholic priests - on 20 September 1945 he already published a letter to the faithful where he brought to light the fact that at least 243 Catholic priests were summarily executed by the communist Yugoslav army for collaboration with the NDH, with other 169 imprisoned and 89 missing priests.

Aloysius Stepinac served five years in the prison at Lepoglava until he was released in a conciliatory gesture by Tito, on condition that he either retire to Rome or be confined to his home parish of Krasic.

The Yugoslav Communist trial against Aloysius Stepinac's is seen by some as a part of coordinated effort by the Eastern Europe communist regimes to severe Catholic Church in their countries from Rome, and was near contemporaneous with the Communist trials against the Cardinals Josyf Slipyj of Ukraine, Jozsef Mindszenty of Hungary, Josef Beran of Czechoslovakia, and Stefan Wyszynski of Poland.

Aloysius Stepinac offered that he sign a plea for amnesty to Yugoslavia's leader Josip Broz, who would, in turn, allow Stepinac to leave the country.

Aloysius Stepinac offered to explain his actions to the Croatian people on the largest square in Zagreb.

At a meeting of the Central Committee on 1 August 1947 Saili was chastised for allowing pictures of Aloysius Stepinac to be carried during the pilgrimage, as long as the pictures were alongside those of Yugoslav leader Josip Broz.

Aloysius Stepinac eventually served five years of his sixteen-year sentence for high treason in the Lepoglava prison, where he received preferred treatment in recognition of his clerical status.

Aloysius Stepinac was allocated two cells for personal use and an additional cell as his private chapel, while being exempt of all hard labor.

Aloysius Stepinac was released as a precondition for American aid, on the condition that he either retire to Rome or be confined to his home parish of Krasic.

Aloysius Stepinac refused to leave Yugoslavia and opted to live in Krasic under a form of house arrest, to which he was transferred on 5 December 1951.

Aloysius Stepinac did not attend the ceremony on 12 January 1953, afraid that if he travelled to Rome he would not be allowed to return to Yugoslavia.

Aloysius Stepinac was prevented by his house arrest from participating in the 1958 conclave to elect a new pope, despite calls from the Bishops' Conference of Yugoslavia for his release.

Aloysius Stepinac was treated for the disease by internationally known German hematologist, Dr Ludwig Heilmeyer.

On 10 February 1960 at the age of 61, Aloysius Stepinac died of a thrombosis.

Aloysius Stepinac was buried in the Zagreb Cathedral following a service in which the protocols appropriate to his senior clerical status were, with Tito's permission, fully observed.

Archbishop Franjo Seper, who became archbishop of Zagreb upon Aloysius Stepinac's death, presided in place of Cardinal Franz Konig, Archbishop of Vienna, who was scheduled to preside, but was injured in a traffic accident en route and had to be hospitalized.

In 1998, traces of arsenic were detected in Aloysius Stepinac's bones, leading many to believe he had been poisoned by his captors.

Mestrovic did not return to Yugoslavia until 1959 and upon his return met again with Aloysius Stepinac, who was then under house arrest.

Aloysius Stepinac made no distinctions as to whether a man in need was a Croat or a Serb, whether he was a Catholic or an Orthodox, whether he was Christian or non-Christian.

In 1970, Glas Koncila published a text on Aloysius Stepinac taken from L'Osservatore Romano which resulted in the edition being confiscated by court decree.

In May 1979, Archbishop Franjo Kuharic told Croatian pilgrims and Pope John Paul II at St Peter's Basilica in Rome that Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac should be beatified.

The authors claim that Aloysius Stepinac was a much greater opponent of communism than he was of Nazism and fascism, and that his story was used by Croatian President Franjo Tudjman to legitimise Croatian independence and to bolster the role of the Catholic Church as a central pillar of Croatian statehood.

Aloysius Stepinac's remarks were interpreted by Croatian commentators and prelates as a clear indication that there would be no progress in Stepinac's cause under Pope Francis.

The declaration states that the true reason of Aloysius Stepinac's imprisonment was his pointing out many communist crimes and especially refusing to form a Croatian Catholic Church in schism with the Pope.

In 2008, a total of 119 streets in Croatia were named after Alojzije Aloysius Stepinac, making him the tenth most common person eponym of streets in the country.

Several Croatian Jews recommended that Aloysius Stepinac be added to the list of the Righteous Among the Nations because he saved some Jews on condition of conversion to Catholicism.

Aloysius Stepinac's diary, discovered in 1950, was confiscated by the Yugoslav authorities.

Juraj Batelja, the official Church Postulator advocating Aloysius Stepinac's canonization, has for years selectively used parts of the diary for his books, without other researchers having an opportunity to see the original text.

Despot notes that Aloysius Stepinac did not write the diary as a private person, but as the Archbishop, and the diary is an extremely important source for Croatian history.

Father Josip Vrankovic kept a diary from December 1951 to 10 February 1960, recording what Aloysius Stepinac related to him each day; that diary was used by Franciscan Aleksa Benigar to write a biography of Aloysius Stepinac, but Benigar refused to share the diary with any other researcher.