ZAGREB, February 11, 2020 – The 60th anniversary of the death of the Blessed Alojzije Stepinac was commemorated with a Mass and a formal meeting of the municipal council in his native town of Krašić on Monday.
The events were attended by Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković, several government ministers and local government officials.
Mass was celebrated by Bishop Ratko Perić of Mostar-Duvno, who said that “communist authorities feared Alojzije Stepinac more when he was dead than when he was alive because he was an intrepid defender of human and church rights, a resolute promoter of people’s freedoms, while he himself was without external freedom.”
After the Mass government officials laid wreaths at the monument to Stepinac and the faithful visited the memorial home where he died under house arrest 60 years ago.
At the municipal council meeting, Plenković pledged financial support for the renovation of the presbytery, a cultural heritage monument, and for other purposes relating to growing religious tourism in the area.
Plenković said that this was necessary because of the greatness of the Blessed Alojzije Stepinac who knew how to stand up to the racial laws of the Nazi-allied Ustasha regime during the Second World War. “He was persecuted by communist authorities, but successfully defended the Catholic Church and its affiliation with the Holy See,” he said.
The Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Željko Reiner, said that Stepinac refused to abandon his people even when his life was in danger, when he was offered to go abroad and save himself from persecution and death.
“This is shown by the fact that on 4 June 1945 he declined Tito’s proposal to establish a national Catholic church separate from Rome, which would have put a stop to persecutions of him and the Church,” Reiner said, adding that for him Stepinac was a saint even before his formal canonisation.
More news about Alojzije Stepinac can be found in the Politics section.
