Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States

no official state religion, the dividing line between the Roman Catholic Church
and the State often was blurred, and the ruling party throughout the period
covered by this report attempted to identify itself closely with the Catholic
Church.” From Voice of America, Croatian Service, 10 September 1999.
12. Feral Tribune, no. 685, 2 November 1998.
13. Feral Tribune, no. 781, 2 September 2000.
14. Ibid.
15. Globus, no. 458, 17 September 1999, pp. 58–61.
16. Interview with Srdjan Vrcan in Feral Tribune, no. 814, 21 April 2001.
17. According to Christian theology, transubstantiation is the mode by which
Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is brought about through the conversion of
the whole substance of the bread into the body of Christ and of the whole
substance of the wine into the blood. “After the inauguration of the term pretvorba
by Tudjman in 1990,” writes Letica, “the notion of the pretvorba has become
the generic term for all operations aimed at transferring socialist state
property into private hands, thereby abusing the religious sentiments of the
people. ...[T]he greatest mystery of Christianity would come to designate the
‘miracle’ performed by the Croatian nouveau riches by the conversion of nothing
into substantial personal wealth.” Globus, no. 418, 11 December 1998 (my free
translation).
18. Feral Tribune, no. 753, 19 February 2000.
19. According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Newsline, 26 March 2001.
20. Slobodna Dalmacija, 2 June 2001.
21. Nacional, No. 309, 18 October 2001.
22. Ibid.
23. Globus, 8 June 2000; Voice of America, Croatian Service, 17 July 2000.
24. Voice of America, Croatian Service, 20 June 2000.
25. Feral Tribune, no. 779, 19 August 2000.
26. Slobodna Dalmacija, 27 November 1992,
27. Voice of America, Croatian Service, 10 November 1999.
28. Feral Tribune, no. 789, 28 October 2000.
29. Among many texts about the Church’s shady business see, for example,
a articles in the otherwise pro-HDZ daily Slobodna Dalmacija, 6, 28, and 30 January
2000. According to the 6 January article, the prominent HDZ supporter
priest Anto Baković, had benefited from unlawful privatization, through which
he became the owner of a firm that under his management quickly went bankrupt.
30. In November 2000, the District Court in Zagreb opened an investigation
into Tudjman’s daughter Nevenka, who was charged with corruption. Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty, Newsline, Southeastern Europe, 3 November 2000.
31. Slobodna Dalmacija, 2 February 2000.
32. Feral Tribune, no. 800, 13 January 2001.
33. Feral Tribune, no. 7811, 2 September 2000.
34. Bono Z. S ˇ agi, “Kriza morala” (The moral crisis), Kana—Christian Family
Review, June 1997; and “Neokomumizam i postkomunizam” (Neocommunism and
postcommunism), Kana, September 1997.
35. Vijenac, no. 106, 29 January 1998.
36. Feral Tribune, nos. 821, 822, June 2001.
37. Davor Butković, Slaven Letica, and their collaborators contributed with
a valuable analysis of Church-state relations in Globus, 11 October 1996, pp. 9–
10.
notes to pages 190–194 299