VATICAN II AND YUGOSLAVIA 97members of the Croat Party organization, encompassing arrests
and severe sentences for notable figures from cultural and eco-
nomic life, as well as the leadership of the student movement.
The wave of repression, the most intensive since the purge of
the pro-Soviet Cominformists in 1948–50, introduced the long
years of “Croat silence.” These were, nonetheless, occasionally
brightened by a few hopeful events, including the election of Kar-
ol Wojtyła to the papacy (1978), Tito’s death (1980), the beginning
of the Kosovo crisis (1981), and perestroika in the USSR (1985). The
dénouement of the Yugoslav crisis cannot be understood without
recognition that, through this long period of agony, the Catho-
lic Church was the only autonomous institution at the disposal
of society—especially in Croatia. It was, moreover, the only space
that the regime did not control.
After the Karađorđevo meeting, the Church was faced with
the official accusation that it gave aid and comfort to the “na-
tionalists.” Individual issues of Catholic journals and newspapers
were banned on various—often banal—charges, as in the case
of the benign calendar Istarska Danica (Istrian morning star) for
1972, because of an article by a prominent literary historian, Ivo
Frangeš, entitled “Croatia and Istria are one.” The official Zagreb
daily Vjesnik (Herald) repeatedly attacked Franjo Kuharić, the
archbishop of Zagreb since 1970, for his supposed departures
from the principles of Vatican II. Glas Koncila calmly recorded the
course of the anti-Church campaign “in light of the new develop-
ments,” occasionally using all sorts of allusions about the ongo-
ing repression. On the millennial anniversary of the veneration
of St. Blaise, the patron of Dubrovnik, in February 1972, Isaiah’s
words were intoned: “Comfort, comfort my people... speak ten-
derly to Jerusalem, and announce to her that her time of forced
labor is over.”49
- Kustić, “ ‘Oj, Dubrovniče, sveto rodu mjesto,’ ” Glas Koncila, February 20, 1972.