Aloysius Stepinac

During the Second World War, under the fascist Ustaše regime of Ante Pavelić, Archbishop Stepinac vigorously opposed the criminal excesses of the authorities. From the Cathedral of Zagreb, he publicly denounced racial laws, anti-Semitism, ethnic cleansing, and the forced conversions of Orthodox Serbs, reminding everyone that all men are children of God. He organized aid networks, saving thousands of Jews, Serbs, Roma, and refugees by hiding them or providing them with false baptismal certificates. At the end of the war, the communist regime of Josip Broz Tito took power. Tito attempted to force Archbishop Stepinac to break with the Holy See to found a "national Church" subject to the state. Faced with the Archbishop's categorical refusal, the regime decided to eliminate him politically.

Arrested on September 18, 1946, Archbishop Stepinac underwent a politicized show trial. Despite the slander, he declared: "My conscience is clear and tranquil." Sentenced on October 11, 1946, to 16 years of forced labor, he spent five years in Lepoglava prison, where his health deteriorated severely. In December 1951, his sentence was commuted to house arrest in Krašić. On November 29, 1952, Pope Pius XII created him a cardinal, provoking the rupture of diplomatic relations between Yugoslavia and the Vatican. Stepinac refused to go to Rome so as not to be banished from his homeland. Afflicted with polycythemia and weakened by deprivation, he died in internal exile in Krašić on February 10, 1960, uttering his final words: "Fiat voluntas tua."

After the fall of communism, the Croatian Parliament solemnly rehabilitated his memory in February 1992. On October 3, 1998, Pope John Paul II beatified Alojzije Stepinac as a martyr of the faith at the Marija Bistrica shrine, before 500,000 faithful, highlighting his endurance in the face of communist atrocities to defend freedom of conscience. His body rests today in the Zagreb Cathedral. In 2016, a joint commission of Croatian Catholic and Serbian Orthodox experts was created by Pope Francis to study his historical figure. This work concluded in 2017 without hindering his cause for canonization, which remains open.

The life of Blessed Alojzije Stepinac was guided by his episcopal motto: "In te, Domine, speravi" (In you, O Lord, I have hoped). His spirituality rested on an absolute trust in Divine Providence, a Marian devotion, and an unwavering attachment to the See of Peter. He left a legacy of courage in the face of the totalitarianisms of the 20th century (fascism, Nazism, and communism). His spiritual testament bears witness to his detachment from material goods and his sincere forgiveness toward his persecutors, for whom he never ceased to pray.