Blessed Cardinal A. Stepinac - In memoriam

http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/24034 ----PLEASE FOLLOW THIS LINK for the dissertation paper of Esther Gitman, a Jewish historian who holds a ph.d. degree in Jewish history. She wrote her dissertation on the rescue of Jews, under the direction of Cardinal Stepinac, in the Independent State of Croatia during WWII.

http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/24034


more info at...
http://www.churchinhistory.org/pages/booklets/croatia%28n%29-4.htm

http://www.croatianhistory.net/etf/jews.html

"Today, decades after Stepinac's death, the conditions under which he worked and all other facts concerning his persona and life are known in full detail. All of this tells us that Stepinac, with his dignified bearing and work, transcended the boundaries of his homeland, as well as the temporal limitations of his earthly life. He managed to gain the admiration of more than one religious community. Recognizing in Cardinal Stepinac an innocent martyr who fell victim to the cruel delusions of communism, and a staunch advocate of rights for each man and each people during the greatest evils of the 20th century, whose faith was inspired and fed by his true faith in God and desire for the benefit of each and every one man - the Catholic Church has good cause, and indeed, is honour bound to beatify Stepinac."

"Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac took over the helm of the Church in Croatia in the worst period of the 20th century, in the time of rampant Nazism, Fascism and Communism. Even before the Foreign Ministers of France and England (Daladier and Chamberlain) tried to once again reach an agreement with the monstrous Hitler in Munich in 1938 and before the powerful statesmen, F. D. Roosevelt and W. Churchill, drew maps drinking whiskey with that other world criminal Stalin in Tehran in 1943, Stepinac, though almost powerless in the face of those murderous powers, was completely aware of all the evils of the century directly threatening the planet and his people. He witnessed how Serbian hegemony enslaved the Croatian people and recognized that it was only in its sovereign state that the Croatian people could survive with such neighbors. These were harsh circumstances in which one had to be very careful lest the remedy might be worse than the illness and in which sometimes the only possibility was to choose the lesser of two evils. Neither the Nazis nor Communists loved Cardinal Stepinac, and since they could not win him over, they accused him of sympathizing with the other side. After World War 2 he was arrested and brought to trial by the communists for collaborating with the nazis. In a staged trial the cardinal was found guilty and sentenced to 16 years in jail. While in prison he was slowly poisoned to death by the communists. Cardinal Stepinac was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1997. Cardinal Stepinac will be forever remembered as a man of great faith, a man of great integrity and above all a great servant of God and his Croatian people".

"In 1941 Stepinac released the Croatian bishops' statement against a forced conversion of the Orthodox to Catholicism, demanding that conversion to Catholicism should be totally voluntary and beyond the reach of public authorities. In 1943 he lodged a strong protest with an Italian minister against the Italian atrocities in the south of the country and enraged the Croatian government by condemning mass reprisals for acts of sabotage. At the same time, he was constantly engaged in relieving the sufferings of the Jews, Orthodox and other victims of the persecution and saved many lives" (The Times, London, 11 February, 1960).

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[Bhouncer]

i hope i am wrong. i have a genuine question from an objective point of view.

did cardinal stepinac abhor killing of all people? serbs, jews and other ethnic minorities as well as croats?

If he did confront pavelic and tell him to fuck off then tip my hat to stepinac =)

[KatarinaZrinska]

@Bhouncer Did you watch this video or not..Cardinal Stepinac spoke out many times against the killing of all people..no matter the race or nationality or religion...through his sermons in chruch, through his letters to Ante Pavelic. This is all well documented. Do you think that the American Jewish Society, The US Senate and US house of Represenatives would condemn the imprisonment of Cardinal Stepinac if they thought he was a nazi collaborator. No..of course the would not.

[BillyJimmyLee]

@Bhouncer

I think it is for the common wellfare for anyone to investigate and be cautious about these contradictory events. Why don't you keep questioning instead of asking for 'permission'. It is obvious that this guy got covered from the Roman church. How valid is this report? When was this recorded? Churches often even sanctify personas much more often forgive 'sins' ;) And even if he didn't condone the killings he was there during CONVERSIONS.

[KatarinaZrinska]

@BillyJimmyLee Cardinal Stepinac did say that conversions can be perfomed in order to save peoples lives but that those people would be free to return to their faith once the war was over. I guess to you it would have been better to have them all killed rather than allow them to convert to catholicism.

[domrat5]

CARDINAL STEPINAC - H E R O

All those who believe otherwise stop reading ugly disgusting serbian propaganda.

[VeritasVosLiberabii]

Cardinal Stepinac was a hero. May he rest in peace.

[Paintballerfromhell1]

@BillyJimmyLee Stepinac's diary is in Belgrade,Serbia.It has been there since Stepinac's trial.Croats want it pblished,Serbs don't.Strange isn't it.Serbs want to make all Croats look like some nazis from outer space.It's part of their nationalist propaganda.

[retardinho]

She also found some 30k documents of which 5k was directly related to cases of people helping Jews, Serbs and other persecuted people. She also came up on extremely numerous occasion on the name Stepinac.

It should be noted that she knew basically nothing about this period and she never heard about Cardinal Stepinac. She also admitted of being prejudiced ... especially about catholic priest helping to save Jewish people. She witnessed in her book that Stepinac was indeed an honorable person.

[SuperGreatSphinx]

After foreign and domestic pressure, Stepinac was released from Lepoglava prison. In 1952 he was appointed cardinal by Pope Pius XII. Stepinac died while still under confinement in his parish, almost certainly as the result of poisoning by his Communist captors. In October 3, 1998, Pope John Paul II declared him a martyr and beatified him before 500,000 Croatians in Marija Bistrica near Zagreb. This again polarized public opinion.

[SuperGreatSphinx]

In a verdict that polarized public opinion both in Yugoslavia and beyond, the Yugoslav authorities found him guilty of collaboration with the fascist Ustaše movement and complicity in allowing the forced conversions of Orthodox Serbs to Catholicism.

[SuperGreatSphinx]

After the war he publicly condemned the new Yugoslav government and its actions during World War II, especially for murders of priests by Communist militants. Yugoslav authorities indicted the archbishop on multiple counts of war crimes and collaboration with the enemy during wartime. The trial was depicted in the West as a typical communist "show trial", biased against the archbishop; however, some claim the trial was "carried out with proper legal procedure".

[SuperGreatSphinx]

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

[SuperGreatSphinx]

During World War II, on 6 April 1941, Yugoslavia was invaded by Nazi Germany, who established the Ustaše-led Independent State of Croatia. As archbishop of the puppet state's capital, Stepinac had close associations with the Ustaše leaders during the Nazi occupation, had issued proclamations celebrating the NDH, and welcomed the Ustaše leaders.

[SuperGreatSphinx]

Stepinac was ordained on October 26, 1930 by archbishop Giuseppe Palica, and in 1931 he became a parish curate in Zagreb. He established the archdiocesan branch of Caritas in 1931, and was appointed coadjutor to the see of Zagreb in 1934. When Archbishop Anton Bauer died on December 7, 1937, Stepinac succeeded him as the Archbishop of Zagreb.

[SuperGreatSphinx]

Aloysius Viktor Stepinac (Croatian: Alojzije Viktor Stepinac, 8 May 1898 - 10 February 1960) was a Croatian Catholic cardinal and Archbishop of Zagreb from 1937 to 1960. In 1998 he was declared a martyr and beatified by Pope John Paul II.

[alen1122]

GOD BLESS CARDINAL STEPINAC!