Abstract (eng)
This paper examines the role and position of the church hierarchy during the time of the Independent State of Croatia 1941 – 1945 with special emphasis on the Zagreb Archbishopric. In order to obtain better insight into the issues of concern, the paper gives a short overview of the time in which Serbs and Croats were living in a common South Slavic state from 1918 – 1941, highlighting a number of significant facts.
In addition to the conflicts among South Slavic peoples, which are highly characteristic of that period, the paper describes the circumstances of the foundation of the state. Moreover it explains the role which the Catholic Church played in respect to unification and points out how the Archbishop of Zagreb, Antun Bauer, behaved in that situation. In that context the paper examines the attitude of Bauer's successor to the archiepiscopal see, Alojzije Stepinac, after the declaration of the Independent State of Croatia in 1941.
The central question is what position the Catholic clergy of Croatia adopted in respect to those two forms of government. The paper discusses the question whether the clergy were in favour of or against the South Slavic state (1918-1941) and the national state of Croatia (1941-1945), posing the question whether the clergy was actively engaged in politics and/or in underground opposition, with special emphasis on examining the attitude of upper church hierarchy towards the Ustasha regime. Naturally, the question arises whether one can speak of a uniform attitude among the episcopacy and among the lower clergy towards the regime or whether there were actually different attitudes, and if so, where and when those differences occurred. In summary we are faced with the question whether or not the Catholic clergy had sympathized with the Ustasha regime.
Likewise, the paper describes the position of the Catholic clergy towards the Orthodox and Jewish religious communities. This examination is confined to the territory of the Zagreb archbishopric, since it was there that the majority of Orthodox and Jewish people were living.