Excerpts from: National Catholic Reporter

08 October, 1993 ......... pages 10-12.

By Tim McCarthy (NCR "Special Report Writer")

begin quote-

ZAGREB, Croatia -- In front of the Zagreb railroad station is an imposing equestrian statue of Tomislav, the 10th century warrior king who wrested the Croats free from Byzantine rule. The bronze sculpture is powerful, invincible, and the king is wielding a cross. It could as well symbolize the militant Catholicism that dominates Croatia today. .

..............................

Unfortunately, the Croatian Catholic mentality is much closer to that of

Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac,

the archbishop of Zagreb during WW II,

than to Strossmayer.

................................

It was on his [Cardinal Stepinac] watch that right-wing zealots

[ USTASHI / USTASHA ], including a good many Franciscan priests,

butchered up to 400,000 Orthodox Serbs

in the Nazi puppet state of Croatia.

Other Serbs were forcibly converted to Roman Catholicism.

..............................

He [ Cardinal Stepinac ] was a fierce Croat nationalist,

who welcomed the Nazis to Zagreb

.....................

The Vatican, especially under its current Slavic pope,

has all but canonized him [ Cardinal Stepinac ].

.........................................

the murder of so many Serbs in his [ Cardinal Stepinac ]

see has everything to do with the hideous brutality

of the war in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina today."

- END QUOTE -

AFTER WW II, Stepinac was elevated to Cardinal.

Therefore the "Holy See / Vicar of Christ" found archbishop Stepinac's

"pastoral shepherding" of his Croatian flock to be worthy of reward.

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From ............ National Catholic Reporter

15 October 1993 ............. page 25.

begin quote-

BACKED BY PIUS XII

In your Sept.17 editorial on "exYugoslavia" you say, 'Surely, we have

no difficulty discerning which side we should have taken in 1943.'

We -- by which I mean the Vatican -- did have difficulty.

In fact, Pius XII backed the Catholic Ustasha during the war

and after the war hid Croatians who were wanted for genocide.

-- Michael Phayer ......... Milwaukee, Wis.

Phayer is a professor of history at Marquette University.

END QUOTE from NCR.

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