THE POPE FOR THE SECOND TIME AMONG THE CROATS

AIM Zagreb, 4 October, 1998

The actors are the same, even the casting is the same, but - the performance is quite different. This would be the shortest description of the recent visit of the Pope John Paul II to Croatia, which was much more spectacular than the one in 1994, but that is definitely the only thing for which the second visit was greater than the first. It is true that the Pope has appealed for tolerance among people of different points of view and religions, for democratic and patient solving of problems, solidarity... Nevertheless, those were badly mistraken who optimistically predicted that John Paul II was coming to repeat his colossal metaphor about the rivers Sava and the Danube because it had not been understood correctly the first time.

It is much more convincing that this time the Pope was not quite sure what message to address to the Croatians and indeed what to do with the second visit he has paid to this country in a comparatively short time. The objective difference between the two visits of the Pope is that the first visit followed the series of wars in this space, among which the Croat-Bosniac one had been terminated with great difficulties a few months before his first visit, while the Serb-Bosniac war was still raging to be ended only several months later. Nowadays, all these small but savage wars have been ended and the Pope has faced the troubled and hardly explicable change of the situation in which great hatred was replaced by plenty of small hatred. And this is a job for the politicians, not for Christ's peace-makers.

But, if God's word has withdrawn under the influence of external circumstances, the impression is that it has also withdrawn in front of certain terrestrial forces which are this time much more powerful and more violent than the first time. The key role in it was, without any doubt, given to beautification of Stepinac, which Tudjman had tried and to a great extent succeeded to turn into a great performance of the state protocol and state media. With a great deal of pomp and pathos, Tudjman's favourite "priest" - who had never had any doubts that national state (even the imperfect one like the Independent State of Croatia - NDH) and the Church were two inseparable blood sisters - was promoted at the ceremony into a kind of a state saint (that is why certain regime media must have been confused and reported that Stepinac had been proclaimed a saint and not just blessed).

Nevertheless, even without Stepinac's beautification, concerning which it was the most evident, it was obvious that the Pope was received with much more political impertinence to use his visit than four years ago. Everything was, of course, done in the name of religion, but with such an extent of orthodox aggressiveness and phoney piety that it offered sufficient reason for the guests to thank for the exaggerated, unbearable hospitality - which they did not do after all. Despite critical articles in independent newspapers, the police continued to visit apartments along the street where the Pope was expected to pass and question the tenants about their creed. Except for people of different religions, the Pope was protected from various ideological and even aesthetic disturbances. Not long before his arrival to Split, the memorial tablet devoted to the Italian partisan batallion called Garibaldi was taken off the Bishop's Palace where the Pope rested, and some time before that a rock concert scheduled to take place at Hajduk's stadium was banned.

It was obvious that the intention was, exactly like during the first visit of the Pope, to create an image of Croatia as the most reliable stronghold of Catholicism, but this time a step further was taken and it was practically openly demanded from the Vatican to be the ally of Croatia at the time when all the other Croatia's allies have been spent. A few days before the Pope's arrival, Tudjman uttered a sentence which would gladly be copied by any fundamentalist, regardless of the kind: "Catholic Church is the main obstacle to spreading of the decadence from the West". It is extremely interesting that this incredible fabrication might even have some far-fetched connections with the Pope - who is nowadays truly critical of the West, perhaps just slightly less than he until recently was of the East - but it has absolutely nothing to do with Tudjman.

It is known that he has aways suspected the Catholic Church of being too devoted to ideas of universalism, along with internationalism of communist and Coca-Cola orientation, and that it was forgetting nations and national states. This essentially blasphemic statement which is closer to Christianity of Protestant and Orthodox than Catholic orientation, cannot be understood otherwise than as a demand that Catholic Church in Croatia become more Croat than so far. And this means that Tudjman has come quite close to Broz's wish to have "his own" Catholic church, which is one of the main sins that the babbling regime propaganda lay at his door while waiting for the Pope.

But, since Tudjman never questions ideological origin of his stands because he is convinced that they are from the beginning to end original, that is his own, this ingratiating with the distinguished guests from the Vatican continued after their arrival. In the same, crude way. He even declared that the Croatian people remained more Catholic than any other in Europe and in this way he explained international pressure exerted on Croatia (which was not just pressure on the Croat nation but Catholicism in general). In order to make the connection between the state and the Church as firm as possible, Tudjman calmly declared that the pressure was directed not only against "this democratic Croatia" and the "Croat people", but also against the "Church of the Croats".

Indeed, no matter how trite and pathetical this may sound, Croatian head of the state did not spill all these verbal pearls at the Pope's feet with no calculation. At a press conference, on the eve of the Pope's arrival, he declared that persistent international demands for democratization of Croatia were coming not only from opponents of independent Croatia but they are also stated by those who could not accept "good relations between the modern Democratic Croatia and the Catholic Church and the Vatican". Obviously, Tudjman is appealing on the Vatican to be his protector in quite tangible temptations Croatia is facing in its relations with the international community, still trying to be linked to it, but on condition that no conditions are imposed on it.

Tudjman's comical evaluation that the Vatican is nowadays the most important diplomatic force on the international scene also goes along these lines. Had this been said in the presence of the Pope - fortunately, it was not, but to the journalists - he would certainly have had to discreetly mock that there still existed people who thought so highly of the power of the Holy See. However, it is even less humorous that Tudjman remarked that beautification of Stepinac was also the reason of increased external pressure on Croatia, because it is something concerning which interests of Zagreb and the Vatican were, at least for a short while, interwoven. This, as noted, is the most fragile point in the second arrival of the Pope to Croatia, although the two parties had quite different motives for the beautification.

In the explanation of the beautification, the Vatican had stated only the persecution Stepinac suffered after 1945 and by doing it honoured anti-communism not only of Stepinac but of the Croatian Catholic Church and some of the still living Stepinac's followers (Kuharic). Events during the Second World War were not even mentioned, so that hopes of some have not been gratified (father Bono Zvonimir Sagi) that the Pope would speak about the crimes from that time, as well as about the silence of a part of the Church. And this suited Tudjman just fine, because in his interpretation Stepinac was equally an anti-fascist and an anti-communist, which enables Tudjman to erect a monument to himself and his own curriculum vitae, or at least the way he sees it. Yet, there can be no doubt: the Vatican has built at least one brick into this monument.

MARINKO CULIC