No one has been called to account for the crime that happened more than 60 years ago, despite the fact that there are enough witnesses and testimonies, Bozanic said in his sermon, urging Croatian authorities to launch an investigation.
The cardinal went on to say that there was still no clear voice of condemnation that would say that Croatian soldiers and civilians had been killed at the Bleiburg Field after World War II without trial and proof of guilt.
Bozanic recalled a statement made in 1979 by one of Tito's closest associates, Milovan Djilas: "To be honest, we did not understand why the British were sending those people back to us. Most of them were peasants. They had not killed anyone. Their sole crime was their fear of Communism. The British did something very wrong by sending those people back across the border, just as we were wrong to have killed them all."
Bozanic said the Croatian faithful and citizens were rightfully expecting state institutions to investigate those crimes and state who was responsible for them, to take a clearer stand on the Communist regime and its crimes, and to promote values that have nothing in common with what he called Communist forgeries.
"We expect Croatian authorities... to see that the 2006 resolution of the European Parliament on the international condemnation of totalitarian Communist regimes is implemented."
"The Church must not keep silent about the victims of the foibe, about horrible places of death, about the pits and suffering left by Fascism and Communism... the clergy and the faithful were persecuted both during the Fascist and the Communist terror, because Christianity cannot coexist peacefully with any inhumane rule."
The cardinal also said that in Croatia anti-Fascism was being equated with Communism lightly and that justified aspirations and struggle for freedom were being equated with what he called a godless Bolshevik ideology and great-Serbian plans.
"As we are commemorating the terrible Bleiburg tragedy, I am also thinking with horror of the Ustasha-run camp at Jasenovac. I believe that it is necessary to state here, for the sake of our faith in God and love for Croatia, that we must not turn a blind eye to anyone's crimes."
Bozanic said the Bleiburg tragedy and the events that followed it had impoverished the Croat people spiritually and culturally because a large number of intellectuals, notably Catholic priests, were killed, silenced or sent into exile so that the Marxist ideology could take root more easily.
The commemoration at Bleiburg, where a new altar was built this year, was attended by some 10,000 pilgrims from Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and other countries.
Croatian Parliament Deputy Speaker Darko Milanovic laid a wreath at the field on behalf of the parliament.
In May 1945, Croatian Ustasha and Home Guard troops and civilians retreated to Bleiburg in order to surrender to the allies, who turned them over to Yugoslav Partisans. Several dozen thousand soldiers and civilians were killed or went missing at the Austrian field and on Way of the Cross marches back to Slovenia, Croatia and other parts of the former Yugoslavia.