BARGAINING ABOUT THE THE POPE'S VISIT TO ZAGREB

AIM, ZAGREB, August 29, 1994

Although Jure Radic as the man in Croatian leadership in charge of odd jobs and relations with the Church, recently declared that the arrival of Pope John Paul II to Croatia (on September 11 and 12) is a fulfillment of Providence, this has not reduced the completely earthly commotion about the motives and objectives of Woylila's arrival. The commotion started at the very moment the Vatican sent word that the Pope was coming, which was a signal for the state and church authorities to begin claiming the visit: the first declared that it was a visit to the Croatian state and the Catholic Church, and the latter maintaned exactly the same thing but the other way round.

A short lull occurred only when unverfied news appeared in the papers that the Pope was cutting his visit from the expected two to a single day only. Both parties shrank away a little, because it could now be speculated who the Pope was cutting the expected attention to and refusing his blessing - the state or the Church. But, everything started swirling again when it was officially announced by the Vatican that the Pope would stay for two days after all, not whole two days though (the originally announced visit to Virgin Mary Sanctuary in Marija Bistrica was cancelled, which, according to rumours, caused great disappointment in the circles around the Church). This, somewhat childish bargaining about Pope John Paul II has nothing much to do with his forthcoming visit, because surely the Pope, who is equipped with the attributes of double sovereignty - earthly and celestial, and who never reveals which of them is more dear to him - will certainly not do it in Zagreb. But, this entire flustered race for the prestige between the Croatian state and the Church which will, by a happy turn of circumstances, culminate on Zagreb horse racetrack since it is the only place big enough to take the expected half a million or even a million believers and Pope's fans, did not come out of nowhere. On the contrary, it reflects the present state the relations between the Church and the state authorities are in. In the first years of Tudjman's mandate, the two resembled identical twins, but in the meantime, their roads have, if not completely separated, then obviously drawn apart.

In any case, Franjo (Tudjman) and Franjo (Kuharic) do not resemble each other any more, and the warm ambiguity which radiated when until recently the hypocoristic "Francek" was uttered, which could refer to one or the other, and most frequently to both at the same time, has disappered. The differences occurred over Bosnia where Tudjman's policy of division caused migration of hundreds of thousand Croats from their century old settlements in Cantral Bosnia, and sent the Catholic Church away from some of its oldest estates and sanctuaries. The Church reacted as an authentic victim although its reaction was not instantenous, because the pressing of propaganda from Zagreb that preservation of Bosnia means preservation of the last and the most persistent remainder of Yugoslavia, wavered even the traditionally pro-Bosnian Franciscans. The change actually came from the Vatican which recognized the perniciousness of Croatian policy in Bosnia even before the Church in Croatia and in Bosnia realized it. It can be claimed with certainty that the Vatican was induced to do it by more than just an earthly grief about the lost Church estates in Bosnia, because it was just a top of a much greater misfortune. Namely, had Tudjman's previous intimacy with the Church remained unmarred, his adventure in Bosnia could draw the entire Catholic Church into a conflict which smelt badly, and still does, of a religious one (which is an anachronism of the highest order, at least in Europe).

The present Pope cannot allow this to happen. Although he had at times given his blessing to dubious connections of the Church with political powers whose views were clearly nationalistic (especially in his native Poland), there is now too much at stake for him to make a false move. About three decades after the symbolic reconciliation between the two highest priests of the Christian churches (Pope Paul VI and Constantinople Patriarch Athonagora) and after similar signs of good will concerning the Muslims, and especially most recently the Jews - it would mean not only to be regressing back below the level of Pope's Cold War predecessors, but to be directly accused of destroying the comparatively stable architecture of world peace. Therefore, it should not be astonishing that, having taken a firm position against the division of Bosnia (resulting in his stubborn intention to visit Sarajevo), the Pope started to turn the blade of his criticism towards the chief protagonists of the idea of national exclusiveness and separation. His statements against "excessive nationalism" followed, which although addressed to noone in particular obviously reached their target in Zagreb, since the Croatian press carried them either without the usual thundering explosion or did not publish them at all. Tudjman later spoke openly about them, mentioning sad manifestations of "Catholic universalism" which proved to be increasingly indifferent to the aspirations of small nations.

The Vatican paid no attention to this, but several articles appeared in the Croatian Catholic press opposing the attempt to draw the Church into plans to form a new "bulwark of Christianity" in Croatia and in a part of Bosnia (although there were some discrete lamentations because the Croats, unlike the Serbs and the Muslims, could not count on the protection of their own world religious community). Zivko Kustic wrote recently in the journal of the Catholic Church, the "Glas koncila", that "identification of Christianity with Western civilization and a new posting of Croatia on some antemural of Christianity and the West leads only to great delusions". He also condemned the idea of Croatia "converting" the Muslims to the West, because to consider oneself better than the others is "chauvinism". Towards the end of last year, at a Round Table discussion titled "The Serbs and the Croats" in Zagreb, Kustic sourly declared that the "nation and religion seem to acquire the features of werewolves", and added that "homeland should be defended, but all racism and nazism resisted". Should nebulousness such as "thoroughbred Croats" continue, he said sarcastically, the only thing to do would be to "adopt the practice of determining Croatian blood type, to determine the formula of a Croatian blood count, so whoever applies for citizenship would have his/her blood tested and everything will be clear" (the allusion referred to rumours about "vague" origin of some of the Croatian leaders which occasionally mentioned even Tudjman himself). Condemnation of all ultra-nationalist phenomena as "potential or actual crimes", led the Church further than ever and further than it could ever be conceived. Cardinal Kuharic condemned mining of Serbian houses on several occasions, and was accused of "jeopardizing morale" of the Croatian army for it, and lately the Church started insisting that evictions of former members of the Yugoslav People's Army from their apartments be stopped immediately. Burdened by these heavy issues, certain unresolved questions were pushed even further aside, such as the question of returning Church property, social protection of the clergy (but other members of the society as well), presence in the media etc., which are now opened with more distrust and politicization than even in the communist era. Voices coming from the Church occasionally quite bluntly make this comparison, sounding "subversive" to such an extent - the Church was the toughest and the best organized opposition to communism - that one must inevitably wonder how the recognition of Croatia by the Vatican should now, post festum, be assessed, since it was the first to do it, even before Germany. Reconstruction of the motives for it, viewed from the present angle of basic, even doctrinary differences with Zagreb leads to the conclusion that the Holy See was motivated solely by the wish to stop the war in Croatia. And all the other components of the recognition - the evaluation about the level of democracy reached by its authorities, the level of ethical, confessional and other tolerability - were obviously left for the future. Now, there is some regret concerning it, which does not mean that the Vatican would not act the same, but that it would now probably seek better guarantees from Zagreb.

The new stance of the Vatican seems to be the basis of the more and more frequently heard thesis among the Croatian opposition that Croatia is just "formally" recognized and that its "true" recognitoon is a process which has began but still lasts. In the case of the Vatican this is especially present, because the ruling party in Croatia is erecting its political identity in the world on pronounced Catholic foundations (now on the eve of Pope's visit it is emphasized that he is coming to a "Catholic state"), meaning that it wishes to use the Church as a road to quick inclusion into the family of European countries. The Croatian Church sharply opposed such "Christian Democratic" identity of the Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ), so that the allegations coming from the Serbian press and broader that the arrival of the Pope to Zagreb is a "doubtless support to Tudjman's regime" - after he had corrected his worst errors in Bosnia - sound strained and burdened with too much ideology.

Should it be true, all mentioned antagonisms would have to be forgotten, as if they were just casual squabbles, or even aasumed that the Pope is coming to Croatia to repent for them to Croatian leadership. But, although the dogma about the "undeceivability" of Roman superiors, present as way back as in Strossmayer's works, has almost died out, they still do not repent publicly to anyone.

MARINKO CULIC

(6 pages)