Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States

formed as part of Germanus’ Avala commemorations. After 1966, Germanus
focused his attention on worsening Serbo-Albanian ethnic relations in Kosovo.
Patriarch Germanus was amiable with state officials, used the official
rhetoric of socialism, brotherhood, and unity, and, in contrast to the Catholic
Church, officially accepted financial aid from the state, including pensions
for the clergy. Annual reports of the governmental commission for
relations with the religious communities of Croatia contain sections on financial
aid given to religious organizations. In its annual report for the year
1980–81, the commission reported that out of 24 religious communities in
the republic, 6 were awarded governmental financial aid. Out of total sum
of 37,760,000,000 Yugoslav dinars (in 1980 a new Yugoslav-made car could
be purchased for 5 million dinars) allocated by the government for this purpose,
75 percent was given to the Serbian Orthodox Church. 112 According
to a federal government report from the same period, in Bosnia-Herzegovina
and Macedonia republican authorities assisted the Serbian Orthodox
Church, the Islamic Community, the Macedonian Orthodox Church, and
some minor groups; no assistance to the Catholic Church was shown. 113
Even without government support, the Catholic Church’s relative wealth
grew, thanks to a large Croat diaspora. In addition to traditional Croatian
migrations overseas, between the 1960s and 1970s, western Europe had
employed and uprooted over 500,000 native Croatians. 114 The total number
of Yugoslav guest-workers with their families in western Europe reached an
all-time record in 1973, with 1,110,000 people registered, plus 160,000 who
migrated overseas; again, Croat Catholics were predominant among the migrants.
115 In order to serve these guest-workers in western Europe and provide
supportive spiritual assistance to numerous Croatian migrants worldwide,
the Bishops’ Conference of Yugoslavia (BKJ) began, in 1969,
systematically administering an emerging church abroad.
The Croatian export-church benefitted from Vatican II’s emphasis on ethnicity.
The Council noticed a revival of ethnicity worldwide as well as the
phenomenon of global-scale migration. The Church sought to deploy priests
of the same ethnic background to serve their ethnic communities abroad. 116
In November 1969, the Bishops’ Conference established a new permanent
Conference body: the Council for Croatian Migrants, with the National Office
for Pastoral Care of Croat Migrants located in Zagreb with an outpost in
Rome. This was the inception of the popular idea of the “Croatian foreign
flock.” Throughout the period 1970–80, a total of 180 Croatian Catholic
Missions with 250 priests (let alone monks, nuns, and laypeople employed
with the missions) operated worldwide. 117 According to Monsignor Vladimir
Stanković, the head of the National Office for Pastoral Work among Croats
Abroad, the Church deployed, after 1969, a total of 515 pastoral workers
and their assistants abroad, including 252 priests and 263 nuns and laypersons,
to work in 192 Croatian missions and parish centers (114 in western
Europe and 78 in the Americas, Australia, and South Africa). 118 Croatian
40 balkan idols