About Aloysius Stepinac
Aloysius Viktor Stepinac (Croatian: Alojzije Viktor Stepinac, 8 May 1898 – 10 February 1960) was a Croatian prelate of the Catholic Church. Made a cardinal in 1953, Stepinac served as Archbishop of Zagreb from 1937 until his death. He served during the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, as well as during World War II when the Axis-supported Croatian fascist Ustaše regime ruled the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). Following the war, he was tried by the communist Yugoslav government and convicted of treason and collaboration with the Ustaše regime. The trial was depicted in the West as a typical communist "show trial", and was described by The New York Times as biased against Stepinac. However, John Van Antwerp Fine Jr. was of the opinion that the trial was "carried out with proper legal procedure". In a verdict that polarized public opinion both in Yugoslavia and beyond, the Yugoslav authorities found him guilty on the charge of high treason (for collaboration with the Ustaše), as well as complicity in the forced conversions of Orthodox Serbs to Catholicism. 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. Jozo Tomasevich notes that Stepinac and the Church were "willing to cooperate with the regime's forced conversions, provided the canonical rules were followed", when in fact the Ustaše ignored these rules, committing atrocities, including the mass killing of converts. 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 Krašić. In 1953 he was elevated to the rank of cardinal by Pope Pius XII. He was unable to participate in the 1958 conclave due to government restrictions on his travel. On 10 February 1960, still confined to Krašić, Stepinac died of polycythemia, for which he had been receiving treatment for a number of years. On 3 October 1998, Pope John Paul II declared him a martyr and beatified him before 500,000 Croatians in Marija Bistrica near Zagreb. His record during World War II, conviction for treason, and subsequent beatification remain controversial. Some point to Stepinac's efforts to save individual Jews, while others note that his public support of the Nazi-puppet NDH gave it legitimacy, helping the Ustaše maintain power and commit genocides against Jews, Serbs and Roma. Criticism has also been levelled for Stepinac's failure to speak out publicly against the genocide of the Serbs, against forced conversions and the killing of 157 Orthodox priests and 5 bishops, among other Ustaše crimes against Serbs. On 22 July 2016, the Zagreb County Court annulled his post-war conviction due to "gross violations of current and former fundamental principles of substantive and procedural criminal law". Pope Francis invited Serbian prelates to participate in canonization investigations, but in 2017 a joint commission was only able to agree that "[i]n the case of Cardinal Stepinac, the interpretations that were predominantly given by Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs remain divergent". At the time of his consecration on 24 June 1934, Stepinac was the youngest bishop in the Catholic Church, and was completely unknown to the Croat people.
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