VATICAN: POPE SPEAKS OF HIS VISIT TO CROATIA

( Editorial: --> 6442 ) ROME, Oct. 7 (Hina) - Pope John Paul II spoke of his recent pastoral visit to Croatia on Wednesday during the general audience on St. Peters square in Rome, stressing that the main event of his pilgrimage was the beatification of Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac in Marija Bistrica (the Croatian national Marian shrine near Zagreb). During his homily the Holy Father repeated that Cardinal Stepinac was an integral figure of this century and a victim of three totalitarian systems - fascism, nazism and communism. The Pope stressed that Stepinac remained faithful to the Vatican and was subjected to a 'farce process' and convicted after he refused to separate from the Holy See and form the Croatian Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II mentioned that he had long desired to visit Marija Bistrica and that he had finally done so on the event of the beatification of Cardinal Stepinac, who during his life time lead pilgrimages to the Holy Shrine all up to when the communist authorities banned all religious manifestations. The Pope also spoke of his visit to Split and nearby Solin where the earliest evidence of Christianity in the regionlies lies. He added that he prayed with the youth for the future of the Church and the Evangelisation, calling on all Croatian Christians to take part in a moral reconstruction of society which was affected by totalitarianism. (hina) ab jn/it 071435 MET oct 98