Aloysius Stepinac, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetAloysius Stepinac
Croatian cardinal and Archbishop of Zagreb
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Krašić, Zagreb County, Croatia
About Aloysius Stepinac
- Aloysius Viktor Stepinac (Croatian: Alojzije Viktor Stepinac, 8 May 1898 – 10 February 1960) was a Croatian prelate of the Catholic Church.
- A cardinal, Stepinac served as Archbishop of Zagreb from 1937 until his death, a period which included the fascist rule of the Ustaše over the Axis puppet state the Independent State of Croatia (Croatian: Nezavisna Država Hrvatska or NDH) from 1941 to 1945 during World War II.
- He was tried by the communist Yugoslav government after the war and convicted of treason and collaboration with the Ustaše regime.
- The trial was depicted in the West as a typical communist "show trial", and was biased against the archbishop.
- However, some claim the trial was "carried out with proper legal procedure".
- In a verdict that polarized public opinion both in Yugoslavia and beyond, the Yugoslav authorities found him guilty on the charge of high treason (for collaboration with the fascist Ustaše regime), as well as complicity in the forced conversions of Orthodox Serbs to Catholicism.
- He was sentenced to 16 years in prison, but served only five at Lepoglava before being transferred to house arrest with his movements confined to his home parish of Krašic. In 1952 he was designated for elevation to cardinal by Pope Pius XII.
- He was unable to participate in the 1958 conclave due to the house arrest to which he had been sentenced.
- On 10 February 1960, still under confinement in Krasic, Stepinac died of polycythemia and other illnesses he contracted while imprisoned.
- On 3 October 1998, Pope John Paul II declared him a martyr and beatified him before 500,000 Croatians in Marija Bistrica near Zagreb.His record during World War II, conviction, and subsequent beatification remain controversial.
- On 22 July 2016, the Zagreb County Court annulled his post-war conviction due to "gross violations of current and former fundamental principles of substantive and procedural criminal law".
- However, some claim the trial against A.
- Stepinac was "carried out with proper legal procedure".Stella Alexander, author of The Triple Myth, a sympathetic biography of Stepinac, writes about him that "Two things stand out.
- He feared Communism above all (especially above fascism); and he found it hard to grasp that anything beyond the boundaries of Croatia, always excepting the Holy See, was quite real.
- ...
- He lived in the midst of apocalyptic events, bearing responsibilities which he had not sought.
- ...
- In the end one is left feeling that he was not quite great enough for his role.
- Given his limitations he behaved very well, certainly much better than most of his own people, and he grew in spiritual stature during the course of his long ordeal."Croatian historian Jozo Tomasevich wrote that while Stepinac is to be commended for his actions on behalf of individuals and groups, as well as his general proclamations of human rights, Stepinac's failure to publicly condemn the genocide against the Serbs "cannot be defended from the standpoint of humanity, justice and common decency".
- The historian Robert McCormick states, "for all the Archbishop’s hand wringing, he continued to be a tacit participant in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH).
- He repeatedly appeared in public with the Poglavnik (the Ustaše leader Ante Pavelic), and issued Te Deum's on the anniversary of the NDH’s creation.
- His failure to publicly denounce the Ustaše's atrocities in the name of the NDH, was tantamount to accepting Pavelic's policies".
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