CROATIAN BISHOPS’ CONFERENCE
Letter on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the End of the Second World War (1 May 1995)
In May of this year [1995], a half century will have elapsed since the end of the Second World War. Among the peoples of Europe and the world commemorating this anniversary, the Croatian people will revive their historical memory of the significance of May 1945.
The Croatian Conference of Bishops has decided to join in this historical commemoration. However, the Church will observe this occasion in it own wy: a remembrance of Jesus’ suffering, death, resurrection and glorious ascension–during a commemorative celebration of the Mass. On Saturday, May 13, 1995, in all our cathedrals, the local bishops together with all the priests and parishioners will celebrate the Holy Mass, offering and uniting all the joy and hope, sadness and suffering of May 1945 with Christ’s sacrifice.
Remembrance of Wartime Suffering
The cessation of armed conflict, bombing, destruction and killing on the fronts and elsewhere was experienced by the peoples of Europe with great relief, as the establishment of peace and freedom. This was likewise anticipated by the Croatian people, especially because a large number of Croats had fought on the side of the Allies, However, May 1945 is remembered in Croatia as the month of the terrible slaughter of imprisoned soldiers and civilians turned over to the Yugoslav Army by the Western Allies. Remembrance of this suffering is closely connected with Bleiberg and the forced death march referred to as “the Way of the Cross.” Moreover, during May 1945, unlike other nations to whom freedom and democracy were restored–for us the arrival of the Marxist totalitarian system signified a new beginning of persecution, imprisonment and the killing of innocent people. Many suffered, were imprisoned or killed merely because they were Catholics, including Catholic priests, monks, nuns, and Catholic bishops. This martyrology is an indictment of the executioners, but it is even more–the glory of Christ’s Church.
The postwar victims, unfortunately, were only a continuation of the sufferings that, especially in Croatia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina, characterized these lands from April 1941 to May 1945 while the Second World War raged here. The Croatian people, desiring freedom, instead found themselves denied freedom by forces intent on their destruction according to the political agenda of Greater Serbia. The suffering of the Croatian population, the destruction of entire villages, and the torture and killing of unarmed civilians characterized these war years with crimes and cruelties of great magnitude. On the other hand, actions taken by the regime in Croatia founded on an ideology of racial and national exclusivity, led to vengeance and indefensible acts that must be called crimes. Thus armed conflicts, camps, and crimes left a large number of victims and terrible destruction. The numbers who perished on all sides caught up in the war escalated to many hundreds of thousands, according to sober and objective students of our tragic period, although they acknowledge that their investigations have not been completed.
It is only now possible in freedom having liberated ourselves from a totalitarian regime that tolerated only its own version of “history,” to propose the possibility of paying the necessary respects to all the victims. During the past fifty years, public honors have only been awarded to the victims of one side. It was not permitted to mention the other victims. It was even dangerous to know that they existed. Therefore, today we publicly pray for our fellow Croats, the sons and daughters of the Catholic Church. Our thoughts take us to known and unknown mass graves, scattered throughout the homeland. Thereby, we also calm the souls of the living: relatives, friends and fellow nationals of all who have perished. With God’s mercy, we heal souls wounded by the cruelty and injustice inflicted upon them so that hatred and thoughts of revenge do not spring from their hearts. The faith that the departed are in God’s peace provides reconciliation.
For fifty years, an opposite attitude toward the war victims was systematically and officially promoted. The victims were said to be only on one side and the killers were said to be only on the other side. The attitude inflamed thoughts of vengeance, as tragically attested by the victims of the current war imposed against, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Thus, our war did not end fifty years ago, as it did for the nations. Spirits were not disarmed. When communism fell and the direct will of the people should have been respected, armed forces intervened in order to maintain domination, Bloodshed has again erupted. Its consequences will follow us for many years to come if injustices are not corrected and if the purpose of life and death, guilt, and exoneration is not sought on Christ’s path: in his person, in his work, in his words.
Therefore, on this anniversary humbly before God and sincerely before people, we shall pay Christian homage to all the victims, in the first place to the victims of the Second World War but also to the victims of today, as well as to those preceding the Second World War in our lands, filled with blood and tears for nearly all of our twentieth century. We shall pray for the eternal peace of all the victims. The right to life and the dignity of each individual is under God’s protection. Thus, we owe equal respects to each innocent victim. There cannot be differences based upon race, nationality, religion or politics. The fundamental equality of the dignity of all people issues from the very nature of a person, created in the image and after the likeness of God. Individual and mass liquidations without any court or evidence of guilt have always and everywhere been serious crimes against God and humanity.
Therefore, at the holy altar, we shall commemorate the victims among the Croatian people and the Catholic Church. We shall mention the victims who were of Serbian nationality and members of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Croatia. We shall mention the victims who were Jews, Romes, and all who were killed here during the Second World War merely because they were of another nation, another religious affiliation or another political conviction.
However, in addition to the commemoration of the victims, it is necessary to mention the murderers, to mention those who were responsible for such numerous victims. The murderers have first and last names. Their responsibility is primarily personal. The excuse that they were only obeying orders cannot absolve them of their personal guilt as the direct perpetrators of crimes. However, there is the even greater guilt of the commanders, ideologues, and creators of a system that plots the extermination of persons of a different mind. Built is not absolved by. the fact that crimes are committed in every war. Legal defense and crime cannot be equated. The guilty in our lands were members of specific nations, foreign (in the Second World War particularly German and Italian), and domestic (especially Serbian and Croatian), whose names have been defiled by their enemies. Many of them were members of a particular Church or religion. However, in order for a court of law to be just, it is necessary to seek and respect the truth about the victims and the murderers. To exaggerate the number of victims for the purpose of more forcibly branding an entire nation or group with guilt commits an injustice upon the innocent that cannot be permitted by a single sincere conscience.
Repentance and Reconciliation
The chief weight of the question is not how to mourn the victims of your own community and how to recognize the guilty among another community. Croats and Serbs, Catholics and Orthodox, muslims and others confront a serious moral question: How to mourn the victims of another community, how to admit guilt in one’s own community? And then: How to repent for a crime, how to obtain the forgiveness of God and man, good conscience and reconciliation among people and nations? How to begin a new era based on justice and truth?
We find the answer in the Lord’s Prayer. We call all people brothers, especially those who together with us turn to God as the Father. Together with them we pray: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” In yearning for God’s forgiveness, we mutually forgive one another. In our historical memory, we do not store unsettled accounts calling for revenge. We remember evil that occurred and should not have been permitted to occur. We learn how not to repeat sin and to preserve in a good decision. Our historical memory includes those of the Church who condemned crime while the Second World War raged and who ardently sheltered and helped endangered persons. Such Christian decisiveness and self-sacrifice, especially by the Catholic bishops in Croatia, inspire and encourage today’s generation. On our path to create good and attempts at forgiveness and reconciliation, our resolve is strengthened by the Holy Father John Paul II who told us the following in Zagreb: “Seek forgiveness and forgive–this could be a summary of the task before all, if it is desired to establish firm foundations for achieving a true and lasting peace.” (Homily at the Mass in Zagreb, September 11, 1994)
Commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War leads us to preparations for a great jubilee: 2000 years since the birth of Jesus Christ. In an Apostolic epistle on preparation for this jubilee, the Holy Father reminds us that the joy of this jubilee is in a special way the joy of the forgiveness of sin, the joy of conversion. “It is therefore right–continues the Holy Father–for the Church to become aware of the sins of her sons…the Church, because she is holy by her embodiment of Christ, does not tire of performing penance: she always acknowledges her sinful sons as her own, before God and before man.” Consequently, the Church of God in Croatia performs penance and calls for penance for a! its sons who did not bear witness for Christ but were scandalous in their thoughts and acts. Thus is also our attitude toward the perpetrators of the crimes against the victims we commemorate who arose from the Catholic milieu. In this spirit, we repeat the words of the servant of God Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, written on February 19, 1943, when he called the camp at Jasenovac a “shameful stain” and proclaimed that the executioners were “the greatest misfortune of Croatia.” This judgment by the shepherd of the Church has not lost its force during more than fifty years since it was issued. We would like to meet with other Christians who share the same attitudes toward the guilty among their own milieus. We particularly would want the Catholics and Orthodox in Croatia to adopt a joint Christian attitude toward the victims and toward those guilty for suffering, toward sin and toward reconciliation. If there has been manipulation of historical facts in the past, let us hasten the hour when we, in freedom and in responsibility to God and to mankind, will proclaim publicly a uniform Christian attitude toward victims and toward the guilty. We pray for that time to come as soon as possible!
The Church weeps for victims; the Church weeps for murders. She fights against sin and performs the service of reconciliation with God and among people. In faith and humility, the Church heals the wounds of the soul and body and thus promotes a more humane future for individuals and nations. The Church believes in the resurrection of the body of eternal life. it leaves the final judgement of sufferings and guilt to God who is full of truth, perfect justice and infinite love. We urge our priests and the faithful to present God with their sufferings of the past and current wars and to invoke God’s peace for our times in their prayers and Holy Masses.
May the Lord accept our prayers and penance!
[Signatures]
Franjo cardinal Kuharić, archbishop of Zagreb, president of the Croatian Conference of Bishops
Srećko Badurina, bishop of Šibenik, vice president of the Croatian Conference of Bishops
Anton Tamarut, archbishop of Rijeka
Ante Jurić, archbishop of Split
Marijan Oblak, archbishop of Zadar
Ćiril Kos, bishop of Đakovo
Slavomir Miklovs, bishop of Križevci
Autun Rogetić, bishop of Poreč and Pula
Slobodan Štambuk, bishop of Hvar
Josip Bozanić, bishop of Krk
Želimir Puljić, bishop of Dubrovnik
Ivan Prenđa, coadjutor archbishop of Zadar
Đuro Kokša, auxiliary bishop of Zagreb
Marin Srakić, auxiliary bishop of Đakovo
Juraj Jezerinac, auxiliary bishop of Zagreb
Marko Culej, auxiliary bishop of Zagreb
Marin Barišić, auxiliary bishop of Split
Zagreb
May 1, 1995
Pope Francis, Fratelli tutti.
Encyclical letter on fraternity and social friendship, 3 October 2020
253. When injustices have occurred on both sides, it is important to take into clear account whether they were equally grave or in any way comparable. Violence perpetrated by the state, using its structures and power, is not on the same level as that perpetrated by particular groups. In any event, one cannot claim that the unjust sufferings of one side alone should be commemorated. The Bishops of Croatia have stated that, “we owe equal respect to every innocent victim. There can be no racial, national, confessional or partisan differences”.[235]
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