Blessed Aloysius Stepinac

Blessed Aloysius Stepinac was Archbishop of Zagreb and a cardinal. He led the Church in Croatia during the Second World War and the communist persecution. Condemned in a show trial, he spent the rest of his life in prison and in confinement. The Church commemorates him on February 10.

He was born on May 8, 1898, in the village of Brezarić, in the parish of Krašić near Zagreb, into a farming family. In 1915 he entered the seminary, but after a few months he was drafted into the Austrian army and fought in the First World War. After the war he did not return to the seminary: he worked on his father’s farm and was active in Catholic associations.

In 1924, now sure of his vocation, he left for Rome, for the German-Hungarian College. He was ordained a priest on October 26, 1930. In Zagreb he organized help for the poor. On May 28, 1934, he was appointed coadjutor archbishop, and after the death of Archbishop Antun Bauer on December 7, 1937, he took charge of the archdiocese. As his motto he chose the words of the psalm “In Te, Domine, speravi,” that is, “In you, O Lord, I have hoped.”

During the war Croatia was ruled by the Ustasha regime, which depended on Nazi Germany. The decree on his martyrdom states that the archbishop openly defended the dignity of every human being, regardless of origin, nationality, or religion, and brought help to refugees and exiles. Benedict XVI called him a defender of the Jews, the Orthodox, and all the persecuted. Croatian Catholics and Serbian Orthodox, however, judge his stance in those years differently.

After the war the communists took power in Yugoslavia and the persecution of the Church began. The archbishop refused to break with the Apostolic See and to head a “national Church.” On September 18, 1946, he was arrested, and on October 11 he was sentenced to sixteen years of forced labor. He spent more than five years in the prison at Lepoglava. He could have gone free if he had asked for a pardon and left the country, but he refused.

In December 1951 he was moved to his home parish of Krašić, where he lived in the rectory under guard. On January 12, 1953, Pius XII made him a cardinal. Prison and confinement ruined his health: among other illnesses he developed polycythemia, a serious blood disease. He died in Krašić on February 10, 1960, and was laid to rest in the cathedral of Zagreb. In his will he asked for forgiveness and himself forgave those who had made him suffer.

John Paul II beatified him as a martyr on October 3, 1998, at the shrine of Marija Bistrica. He said that the cardinal had not shed his blood in the strict sense of the word, but that his death was caused by long suffering. In 2016 a court in Zagreb annulled the verdict of 1946. A commission of Catholic and Orthodox experts, set up by Pope Francis, stated in 2017 that the assessments of the two sides remain divergent. The decision on his canonization belongs to the pope.