DECREE ON BEATIFICATION OF ALOJZIJE STEPINAC ANNOUNCED BY VATICAN

( Editorial: --> 5415 ) VATICAN CITY, July 3 (Hina) - The Catholic Church has officially released a list of 13 people who will be beatified or canonised by Pope John Paul II, including Croatia's late Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac. The Pontiff attended a meeting of the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints on Friday which issued a decree placing Cardinal Stepinac on its Servants of God list. It is expected that John Paul II will declare Stepinac "blessed" during his visit to Croatia at a ceremony at the shrine of Marija Bistrica, near Zagreb, on October 3. Also at the meeting was a delegation of the Catholic Church in Croatia, headed by Zagreb Archbishop Josip Bozanic. Cardinal Stepinac was the Archbishop of Zagreb during World War II, and following the war Communist authorities sentenced him to prison in a rigged political process. Retired Zagreb archbishop Cardinal Franjo Kuharic told Hina that the delivery of the decree on beatifying the late Cardinal Stepinac was a "victory for truth, justice and love". "Irrevocably consistent in the principles of the Gospel, he performed all his activities under dictatorship before the war and during the war in a horrific clash of conquering war and ungodly ideologies, in a division of the world according to the interests of powerful forces," Cardinal Kuharic said. "When after the war a totalitarian authority with Marxist ideologies was introduced into the country, Zagreb Archbishop Alojsije Stepinac performed bravely, despite all ominous threats, according to his conscience... He was an opponent of every ungodly ideology, every form of totalitarian authority, every attack against the freedom and rights of man regardless of his religious, national, race or other belonging. "He was a prophetic voice in difficult historic times for justice, freedom and peace." Cardinal Kuharic said the Communist regime tried to shut out Stepinac's "voice of freedom and justice" and forced the court to deliver the verdict it wanted, at the same time using propaganda and the worst slander to blacken the late Cardinal personally as well as the Church. "The persistent propaganda against an innocent condemned man filled libraries, entered encyclopaedias and found its place in diplomatic archives," he said. "Some people even believe this today and use it to base their judgements, deprived of sensitivity to truth and justice. "All this has been questioned, checked and documented with thousands of documents in the process for declaring blessed the Servant of God Alojzije Stepinac. "His beatification is not only satisfaction for overcoming these injustices to him personally. "It is satisfaction for all innocent victims in which we include all those killed without trial and justice, all those persecuted because of their religious beliefs and Christian patriotism, all those who suffered violence no matter what political system because they remained faithful to their conscience," Cardinal Kuharic said. (Hina) mbr jn 031747 MET jul 98