VATICAN II AND YUGOSLAVIA 89(It was revealed after the Brioni meeting that the UDB-a kept 1.3
million personal dossiers in Croatia alone, and 172,274 in Bosnia
and Herzegovina.)
The fall of Ranković was a major victory for the federalist bloc,
leading to a sense, especially in Serbia, that it represented a reck-
oning with the Serb cadres. Ranković had favored concessions to
the Holy See during the negotiations, especially in matters involv-
ing the Pontifical College of St. Jerome in Rome. For example,
the Yugoslav government demanded that the college be opened
to non-Croat bishops and to members of Yugoslav-sponsored
priests’ associations, seeking also the exclusion of émigré priests,
the naming of a rector who would be a government-approved Yu-
goslav subject, and the flying of the Yugoslav flag on state holi-
days. Nonetheless, Ranković’s fall was interpreted as the result of
his supposed resistance to the protocol. After the fall of Ranković,
notably in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo, where
secret police repression was pronounced, the signing of the proto-
col was regarded as more evidence of relaxation.
The gains for more rights in Yugoslavia were not interpreted
so generously by the emigration. The Yugoslav authorities, as
early as 1961, saw every Vatican move against the émigré priests
as a victory: “The essential moment was reached when the Vati-
can saw that the state reacts sharply to the influence of hostile
emigration on the Church at home and when it was clearly stated
that the rejection of the hostile emigration... is a condition for
normalization of church-state relations. This was best expressed
in the stand that was taken toward Draganović and in the chang-
es that were applied to date in the College of St. Jerome, from
which the individual émigrés are being gradually excluded. [The
new] rector Kokša established relations with our embassy and re-
quested a permanent Yugoslav passport.”35
- ABH, RKVP 1961, Referat o odnosima sa RKC razmatran na sjednici Savezne
komisije za vjerska pitanja 9. decembra 1961. godine, 6.