Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac
History always balances its accounts. For years the Communists endeavoured to seperate Croat Catholics from the Pope. They used all means to sever Church unity: vane pledges threats; bribery and murder;trickery and torture.
The focal point in that artificial conglomeration, Yugoslavia, and othe satellite countris to Moscow - was identical: the communist notion of the state must not allow the existence of any "alien powers" on its territory, much less that these "powers" be somehow tied to "foreign" or "supra-national institutions". What disturbed the communist dream were the tight ties of local Churches with the Pope.
In Tito`s Yugoslavia, that Yugoslavia where communism had a "human face", Stepinac was arrested in 1946, sentenced during a shameful trial, imprisoned and detained until his death ( 19 February 1960 ) because his response to those communist efforts was calm and firmly "No!" He said "no" to attractive proposals and then confirmed his "no" when faced with force.
"My conscience is clear and calm. If you will not give me the right, history will give me that right", he said during that "deplorable trial".
It was the victory of history that was witnessed om Saturday, 3 October 1998 when St. Peter`s Successor - that Peter that Stepinac remained loyal to, to the point of martyrdom - as he pilgrimaged to the Marija Bistrica shrine, to the place whre Stepinac himself most liked to pilgrimage to and pray. A pilgrimage that reached its peak in the beatification that recognised that Croatian cardinal as martyr. ( Giampaolo Mattei, in: Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, A heroic life in testimony of those who, together with him, were victims of the persecution of Communist Yugoslavia,).
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