Numerous countries have their own national patron saints. The Irish celebrate St. Patrick, the Germans St Bonifacio, the Hungarians St. Stephan, the French St Martin… Each of these Saints have left an indelible mark on the history of these people in the field of evangelization as well as in the field of spiritual, cultural and intellectual heritage. When we study the biographies or research the history of evangelization in Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, we see that a large number of them suffered martyrdom, evangelizing the pagan people of the time. Deep The knowledge of the importance of these individuals and the value of their heritage, which marks their own traditional way, we can safely say, has mutated to the extent that it has almost no connection with the original and spiritual.
Croatian Catholics around the world are celebrating the Memorial Day of Blessed Alojzije Stepinac, a bishop and martyr who ended his earthly life on February 10, 1960. Since the verdict was pronounced in a show trial on October 11, 1946, this Catholic prelate has been in the ground for years. One of the most important (but not only) cause of his death also lies in the proven fact that he was poisoned in the early phase of his captivity in the Yugoslav dungeon. His martyr’s death, conceived “out of hatred for the faith”, was a process that lasted about 14 years.
While previously, prominent saints were martyred or naturally died whilst evangelizing, Alojzije Stepinac was killed defending the evangelized flock of the Croatian people from waste in their recent history. That is why there is almost no Croatian Catholic parish today that does not commemorate his memorial day in one way or another. This gradually places the Blessed Martyr in the most prominent position amongst the Croatian people. Thus, from year to year, Stepincevobecomes a general religious and national event of the “Church among the Croats”.
A large number of facts irrefutably testify to his heroic virtues, which his martyrdom crowned, raised on the altar and included in the liturgical calendar. Documentation and evidence of his activities in the whirlwind of World War II have largely been published in numerous volumes and publications, while the future will probably being new and still unknown historical facts that will further substantiate the existing ones.
The staged trial, supported by falsified evidence and subsequent systematic propaganda, imposed an omnipresent narrative regarding Stepinac’s actions and historical responsibility during World War II. Historical and documented facts stand in contrast to the popular tradition of his opponents, whose main argument today is expressed in the simple formulation “he did not do enough”. However, the sources that tell us all he did for the persecuted Jews, Roma, Serbs, Croats and all other unidentified people are lined up in volumes and, of course, go beyond counterarguments. While there is still controversy about how much and what he did or could have done for the persecuted in the territory of the Independent State of Croatia, essential and important information about this martyr that could be very relevant today pass under the radar.
The falsified evidence used in the show trial had the ultimate goal of removing Alojzije Stepinac from the chair of the Archbishop of Zagreb and the leader of the Church in Yugoslavia. The reason and the final intention for such a historical-legal battle should be sought a little deeper. Alojzije Stepinac stood on the side of the Magisterium of the Church in terms of Marxist materialistic-atheistic philosophy and doctrine. The Church condemned this teaching as early as 1937 with the encyclical of Pope Pius XI. Divini Redemptoris and declared it incompatible with Catholic Revelation and teachings. It was the Yugoslav communists who asked Stepinac to separate the members of the Roman Catholic Church from Rome and establish a national Church modelled on the autocephalous Orthodox. This would give them a kind of organization within the natural state borders with which they would communicate and institutionally control. Today, it is clear that Stepinac’s case was not a showdown with one prominent person, but ultimately with the Catholic Church. His uncompromising rejection of such a proposal, his constancy in Catholic teaching and his faithfulness to the Holy Father eventually led to the direction of the entire process in which falsified evidence, and a narrative was introduced that is still operational in his case, and through which it is indirectly “served” to the Catholic Church. In order not to leave these sentences without cover, we call on the crown of witness of the time and process to help. This is the then regent of the Apostolic Nunciature in Yugoslavia, the American bishop Mons. Joseph Patrick Hurley. He knew Alojzije Stepinac, met with him before his imprisonment, during the trial and after the verdict was pronounced in the Yugoslav dungeons.
The Vatican Archives preserves their original notes that prove the previously stated assertions and here will be brought a few that confirm them.
After one of his first meetings with Stepinac, Hurley noted the following: “In Archbishop Stepinac the Catholics of the Archdiocese and of the entire country have a worthy champion. He is deeply pious, profoundly attached to the Holy See, prudent in counsel and courageous under constant danger. His health is good though it would be too much to say that he has not suffered from some nervousness due to the constant attacks made upon him and his long continued confinement to his house. He enjoys the respect and the confidence of those Bishops with whom I have had an opportunity of speaking. (…) It is fortunate for the Church that its most important See in Yugoslavia is filles by a man so well qualified to lead the resistance against persecution.” These words reflect the impression of the American prelate that he recorded in April 1946 while questioning the situation in the Archdiocese of Zagreb.
Pope Pius XII would send several encouraging messages to such a firm and fearless Stepinac in which he motivates him to endure by reminding him of the historical merits of the Croatian people as “Antemurale Christianitatis”. At these words, Stepinac once told the Holy Father: “(…) to renew to Him the pledge that the Catholics of Croatia, in union with the Holy See, will suffer all things, if need be, even death for the Faith of Christ.” It was not long before he was given the opportunity to confirm what had been said during a show trial that began in September and ended with the pronouncement of the verdict on October 11. 1946.
After one of his visits to prisoner Stepinac in the Lepoglava prison, Hurley wrote the following: “Whatever he has suffered and whatever remains before him, he will accept it in the spirit of his Master. His demeanor in prison is the same as it was in court, kind, charitable to all, but uncompromisingly firm. He asked me to tell the Holy Father that he is ready to serve sixteen or sixty years in prison, and that he is prepared for a death itself, if that be necessary for the defense of the Faith in his beloved country. One senses in his conversation that he is deeply concerned only for the welfare and safety of his priests and faithful. When I told him of the profound and energetically active interest of the Holy Father and of the Church Universal in his behalf, and of the world-wide indignatio at his sentence, he was much encouraged. It is his continuing conviction that a decisive battle for Christian civilization is in progress in Croatia, and that we must use every means in our power to win that battle.”
These short testimonies illustrate several things that both Croatian and other Catholics need to know about the Blessed martyr Stepinac:
- His trial is part of a broader ideological struggle and revanchism against the Catholic Church for its condemnation of Marxist-atheist philosophy and ideology.
- His belief was that there was a battle for the future Christian civilization in Croatia, where Croatian Catholics with him at the head were called upon to justify the title “Antemurale Christianitatis”.
- Stepinac is an example of unwavering fidelity to Christ, the Revelation, the Catholic Church, the Holy Father and the Church’s Magisterium.
- Love for the Church and one’s own people is not mutually exclusive, because the Church is supranational.
- With his life in prison, uncompromising firmness and martyr’s death, Stepinac for the most part prevented the infiltration of atheistic-materialistic ideology in his flock.
Today, no one examines Patrick’s, Boniface’s, Martin’s or Stephen’s holiness, unlike Stepinac’s, which has been the object of questioning the invited and the uninvited for decades. No one wonders whether Patrick, Boniface, Martin or Stephen could have done more, better and differently. While, as a small example, these saints are venerated in certain nations because they evangelized them, it would not be presumptuous to say that Alojzije Stepinac in modern history defended bother Catholic compatriots and others from apostasy with his life and example.
Therefore, as Catholics, we are called to follow the example of the saints and to pray for their intercession with the Lord. Faced today with the infiltration of worldviews inspired by materialistic and atheistic philosophy, we need to pray in a special way for the intercession and follow the example of Blessed Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac in order to remain faithful to Christ’s Church with Peter at its head, to preserve and build Christian civilization, to live and defend values at the cost of public lynching and even life. Stepinac’s is a reminder to us to question ourselves and our values for which we are ready to sacrifice. Let these few lines also be an incentive to move away from the polemic “did he do enough or could he have done more” and approach the extremely important study of the figure of Blessed Alojzije Stepinac from the perspective of the worldview and ideological attack of aggressive atheism on the Church.
B.I
