“In circumstances of the darkest totalitarianism, the Archbishop Stepinac deserves the place of a righteous man,” said MEP Zovko and pointed out that her wish was to contribute to the preservation of the figure of the Blessed Stepinac and promote the truth about his life and legacy. “This event has additional weight because at the center is a person who was also a victim of a totalitarian regime. As a member of the group for fostering the culture of remembrance, I am strongly committed to condemning all totalitarian regimes,” Zovko said.

Postulator of the cause for the Blessed Aloysius Stepinac, Mgr Juraj Batelja, said that greater Serbian and Communist propaganda had spread untruths and half-truths about the Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac of Zagreb for decades, and that their government had convinced the public that the Catholic Church was a fascist and anti-Semitic institution.

“The regime of godless government has forbidden the Church any possibility of bringing the truth to the public. That is how the judicial murder of the Archbishop Stepinac had practically begun and was committed, and they tried to impose the lie as the truth,” said Mgr Batelja also added that when the first exiled Jews from Germany and Poland began arriving to Zagreb in 1936, the Coadjutor Archbishop Stepinac put himself at the head of the committee for the care of these people and raising funds to enable them to live a decent life and get employed. “Numerous letters of appreciation by Jews-private individuals and Jewish institutions are witnesses of such widespread and lively activity,” Batelja said.

Conseiller of the Apostolic Nunciature to the EU, Mgr Hrvoje Škrlec, spoke in his lecture about who Alojzije Stepinac was and in what social and political environment he acted as Archbishop of Zagreb. “Abroad, many believed in Stepinac’s innocence. For example, the French Nobel Laureate François Mauriac wrote that Aloysius Stepinac was convicted for refusing to cut ties with the Pope. In Serbia, critical talk about this verdict has always been and still remains an almost taboo topic. While the majority of bishops and priests of the Serbian Orthodox Church and public opinion in Serbia consider Stepinac guilty, there were those who did not share this opinion, such as for instance, Bishop Dositej of Zagreb, whose life was saved by Alojzije Stepinac, and Bishop Dionysius of Canada,” said Mgr Škrlec.

The English translation of Mgr Batelja’s book “Blessed Alojzije Stepinac – Saving Jews and Serbs in the World War II” was presented at the Conference. The historians Dr. Robin Harris and Dr. Ester Gitman spoke more about the book, while Ivan Vučak, the parish priest from Krašić, spoke about Stepinac and his attitude towards the Jews in Krašić.