Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States

ecame Croatia’s law, granted permanent financial assistance to the Church
from the state budget. Parishes were entitled to financial aid, and the clergy
obtained pensions from the state pension fund (officials of other faiths were
not granted this privilege). The law set terms and deadlines for a swift restitution
of Church property confiscated under communism (no other religious
institution or private individual or firm received such guarantees). It
also established a military vicariate, with 18 priests and a bishop military
vicar (the auxiliary bishop of Zagreb, Juraj Jezerinec) placed on the Defense
Ministry’s payroll. Needless to say, no other faith was allowed to delegate its
cleric to the armed forces, not even without pay. The law also introduced
Catholic catechism in all schools and even in preschool and daycare centers.
Candidates for positions in state bureaucracy had to provide letters of recommendation
from parish priests and bishops as well as warrants about
holy communion, confirmation, and children’s participation in religious
training. According to a U.S. State Department report on religious freedom
in Croatia, Catholicism was de facto a state religion in Croatia, while discrimination
against other faiths was also practiced. 11
Tudjman’s close aide Jure Radić (earlier a prominent Catholic layman
and counsel to top Church leaders) became vice-premier and minister for
religious affairs. Radić said in an interview that all state laws should be
based on the Holy Gospel and announced the abolition of “the communist
abortion law that violates the Gospel.” 12 According to the Evangelical pastor
Peter Kuzmič, all decisions concerning religious affairs and Church-state
relations were made through secret channels between President Tudjman
and the Bishops’ Conference. 13 Kuzmič revealed in an interview that, in the
midst of a public debate about the teaching of an ecumenical religious culture
in public schools, Tudjman and the bishops’ conference of the Catholic
Church, ignoring the debate as well as protests by religious minorities,
reached a secret agreement about teaching only Catholic doctrine in
schools. 14 The Church launched a national Catholic radio station (“Radio
Marija”) and obtained considerable air time on state-run television. Constructions
of Catholic religious facilities were booming. According to a Croatian
weekly, the Catholic Church had become the largest construction investor
in postcommunist Croatia—in 1999, in Zagreb and Split alone, the
Church had under construction new churches and other church facilities
worth 104 million German marks. 15 The gothic Zagreb cathedral was thoroughly
renewed and a new shrine to Cardinal Stepinac was built behind the
main altar. Croatia became a “Catholic nation.” According to a Croatian
sociologist, the number of people who declared themselves practicing Catholics
rose from 64.8 percent in 1988 to more than 90 percent by the late
1990s. 16
At the fourth general party Convention held in February 1998 in Zagreb,
the ruling Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ) officially presented itself
as a “Christian-Democratic party” and HDZ adopted the social teachings of
the Roman Catholic Church as official party doctrine. President Tudjman’s
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