Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States

ecognize as martyrs any of its rather numerous clergy and members who
sided with the forces of the Left against Nazism and fascism, the grand Myth
of the Three Evils of the Twentieth Century will be sustained by inventing
a more “balanced” approach, even in cases where it did not exist (e.g., the
remarkable right-wing figures Pope Pius XII and Cardinal Stepinac, both
tolerant of Nazi-fascism and rigid nationalism).
Finally, from a historian’s perspective, one of the presumably weakest
components of the Myth of the Three Evils of the Twentieth Century will
be convincing historical interpretation of one of the milestone events in the
history of the Roman Catholic Church: the Second Vatican Council, 1962–
65. As noted in chapter 2, this church council is still considered one of the
boldest church reforms in the long process of the church’s accommodation
to the modern world. Yet what were the aims of the council perceived in
the light of the mythical past according to the Myth of the Three Evils of
the Twentieth Century? Did the Church make an attempt to come to terms,
to collaborate with then seemingly powerful and growing forces of global
socialism and communism? If this is not so, if the Council inaugurated a
subtle trickery aimed at deceiving and weakening the enemy, as some recent
reinterpretations of the council have argued (see chapter 2), what about the
council’s ecumenical agenda—was that a trickery, too? Were, for that matter,
Serbian Orthodox zealots right? How could rival faiths trust Catholic
leaders who began to engage in a dialogue, that is, collaborate with the
communists? Did John XXIII and Paul VI, in fact, carry out similar policies
with regard to communism as Pius XII did regarding fascism and Nazism?
In other words, has the Church always been ready to collaborate with whatever
form of evil predominates in order to preserve its own privileged status
in society? How could the Church proclaim via the council its, if not overt
accommodation with, than at least toleration of a system that had been all
along inherently evil, as Pope John Paul II has recently discovered? Neither
“Gaudium et spes” (“The Church in the Contemporary World”) nor any
other council’s document indicated that church leaders had been aware that
communism was evil. Pope John Paul II declared communism evil in retrospect.
Yet if this becomes an official Church stance, it will require a new
council to revise Vatican II.
In conclusion, a myth-in-the making termed here the Myth of the Three
Evils of the Twentieth Century has already become one of the dominant
perspectives on twentieth-century history. Many secular historians have already
accepted it. The Catholic Church (and many other religious organizations,
too) will turn this myth into an object of mass worship and as such
it will become true history. Yet many will oppose it. Contrary to the mythmakers’
desire to foster consensus and cement order, myth cannot indefinitely
maintain order. After all, the collapse of the one-time powerful and
enduring communist mythology within only a few years in the late 1980s
is one very instructive lesson from history. Where are now the myths of the
international workers’ movement and proletarian revolution? Where are
conclusions 233