Zagreb, (IKA) – Msgr. Vladimir Stanković, a retired priest of the archdiocese of Zagreb, canon and longtime associate of three cardinals, died on Saturday, July 11, at the St. Joseph Home for Retired Priests in Zagreb at the age of 85 in the sixtieth year of his priesthood.
Msgr. Vladimir Stanković was born in Kutina on February 24, 1930. He began his studies at the Faculty of Theology in Zagreb in 1949, with a pause during his military service from 1952 to 1954, and graduated on February 3, 1957.
He was ordained to the priesthood on June 29, 1956, in the Zagreb Cathedral by Archbishop Franjo Šeper, and served his first Mass on July 15 of the same year in Kutina. In 1957, he began serving as chaplain in the Parish of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Sisak, and in 1961 was named pastor of the newly established Parish of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in that city. From 1963 to 1968, he was Secretary to the Archbishop and Notary of the Archdiocesan Consistory. He accompanied Archbishop Franjo Šeper in Rome at the Second Vatican Council and was also a member of the Managing Board of the Catholic newspaper Glas Koncila.
For the period of one year, he served as the pastor of the Parish of St. Blaise in Zagreb. From 1969 to 1999, he was in charge of pastoral ministry for Croats in foreign countries, while at the same time serving as the Secretary and Head of the Office of the Council of the Conference of Bishops for Croatian Migration. From 1970 to 1975, he was a member of the Vatican office Consilium superius pro migrationibus [Superior Council for Migration]. Pope Paul VI awarded him the title of monsignor in 1973.
From 1975 to 1989, Msgr. Stanković was the representative of the Bishops’ Conference of Yugoslavia at the International Catholic Migration Commission in Geneva, and then was appointed as the Ecclesiastical Assistant of this commission for the subsequent decade by the Secretary of State of the Holy See.
At the Catholic Faculty of Theology in Zagreb, he taught Theologia pastoralis migrantium from 1989 to 2000. On April 21, 1988, he was appointed Canon Master of the Archdiocese of Zagreb. Among other offices, he was also Chairman of the Central Committee of Caritas of the Bishops’ Conference of Yugoslavia (1989–1993), President of Caritas Croatia (1993–1998), Member of the Executive Council of the publishing house Kršćanska sadašnjost (1994–2011), Chairman of the Executive Council of the Diakonia Pharmacy of Caritas Croatia, Member of the Executive Council of Caritas Croatia, General Vicar and Moderator of the Archdiocese of Zagreb (1998–2006), President of the Committee for the Construction of the Catholic Faculty of Theology in Zagreb (1998–2005), President of the Committee of the Archdiocese of Zagreb to Welcome Pope John Paul II (1998), as well as a member of various administrative bodies of the Archdiocese of Zagreb: Advisory Council, Council of Presbyters, Economic Council, Commission for the Cultural Heritage, Committee for Sacred Art, Committee for the Restoration of the Cathedral, and the Committee of the St. Joseph Retirement Home for Priests (1998–2006). On December 12, 2005, he was appointed as the Canon-Custodian of the Archdiocese of Zagreb. In 2006, he was named a judge in the cause for the beatification of the Servant of God Marica Stanković, and in 2007 Head of the Liaison Office with the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome in the cause of Bonifacije Pavletić, about whom he published books and pamphlets. Archbishop Ivan Prenđa of Zadar appointed Msgr. Stanković as General Secretary of the Croatian Branch of the World Conference of Religions for Peace. In 1996, the President of the Republic of Croatia, Dr. Franjo Tuđman, awarded Msgr. Stanković the Order of Danica Hrvatska with the image of Katerina Zrinski. On November 19, 1999, Pope John Paul II awarded him the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice (Cross of Honor) medal. In 2008, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the city of Kutina.
For nearly thirty years (1970–1999), Msgr. Stanković accompanied Croatian bishops, especially Cardinal Franjo Kuharić, on pastoral visits to Croatian emigrants in the United States and Canada (15 times), Australia (8), South Africa (4) and twice each to New Zealand and the countries of South America. He visited the countries of Western Europe every month. During the period when he headed the Croatian pastoral ministry abroad, 110 new Croatian Catholic missions were established.
For his students, he published several translated books in the field of pastoral ministry to migrants and his most important work was the encyclopedic edition of the anthology Katolička Crkva i Hrvati izvan domovine [The Catholic Church and Croatians in Foreign Lands]. After the death of Cardinal Kuharić, he published the five-volume work Kardinal Kuharić u hrvatskom iseljeništvu [Cardinal Kuharić among the Croatian Diaspora], about the Archbishop of Zagreb’s travels to five continents. Hundreds of Msgr. Stanković’s articles and reports on Croats outside the homeland were published in Glas Koncila, Kana and other religious publications.
Msgr. Stanković was also one of the founders of the Servant of God Ivan Bonifacije Pavletić Scholarship Foundation for Students in the Diocese of Sisak.