Cardinal Alojzije StepinacPrint Page

The portrait bust commemorates Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac.

In May 1943, Cardinal Stepinac openly criticised the Nazis and put his own life in danger. At the end of World War Two, Stepinac was found guilty of Nazi collaboration at a mock trial, by the communist government and was convicted and sentenced sixteen years` hard labour on October 11, 1946. He spent five years in the prison of Lepoglava, and in 1951, Tito`s government released him and confined him to the village of Krasic.

Even though he was forbidden by the government to resume his duties, Stepinac was named Cardinal by Pope Pius XII on January 12, 1953. Due to pain caused by the many illnesses he contracted while imprisoned, Cardinal Stepinac died in Krasic on February 10, 1960. In 1985, his trial prosecutor Jakov Blazevic admited publically that Cardinal Stepinac`s trial was entirely framed, and that Stepinac was tried only because he refused to sever thousand year old ties between Croatians and the Roman Catholic Church. On October 3, 1998 in Marija Bistrica, Pope John Paul II beatified Cardinal Stepinac, and referred to him as one of the outstanding figures of the Catholic Church.

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