78 IVO BANAC
Italy for the overseas countries.7 The postwar refugee wave was
over by the end of the 1950s: as a result, first the bishops and
then the student-clerics from Yugoslavia started residing in the
college, and Draganović was obliged to leave the St. Jerome. At
the time of the first sessions of Vatican II, when several Croat
bishops had quarters in the college, he was succeeded by other
priests equally unpalatable to the regime.
The Yugoslav Communists saw the election of John XXIII to
the papal throne as a “consequence of a temporary preponderance
of those forces in the Church that are in favor of accommodation
to the contemporary circumstances in the world.” Moreover, they
expected that this would “abet an increasingly stronger differen-
tiation in the ranks of the lower clergy and especially, although in
a slow and a limited way, in the ranks of the episcopate.”8 In line
with this they saw the representation of the Yugoslav episcopate
to the federal government (SIV) of October 3, 1960, as a “major
change in the position of the Catholic Church toward the state.
For the first time, the episcopate expressed its readiness to regu-
late the relations with the state based on the constitution and the
laws.” 9
In fact, the bishops demanded the end of atheist propaganda
in the schools and the workplace, the removal of various obsta-
cles to religious practice in state institutions, the return of na-
tionalized Church properties, permission to build new places of
worship and start new publications, and various other demands
that the authorities had no intention of accepting. Nonetheless,
these could be discussed at length, with the aim of establishing a
“corresponding modus vivendi.” To that end, Edvard Kardelj, the
deputy chair of the SIV, responded to the BKJ presidency on No-
- Akmadža, ed., Krunoslav Draganović: Iskazi komunističkim istražiteljima (Za-
greb: Hrvatski institut za povijest, 2010), 222. - Razvoj odnosa izmedju SFRJ-Vatikana-RKC od 1960. godine, 1, ABH, RKVP
- Ibid., 5.