VATICAN II AND YUGOSLAVIA 83the struggle to prevent the Church from becoming again a hand-
maid of the state, the struggle to prevent the priesthood from be-
coming a more or less well-paid and self-satisfied profession, the
struggle to have the clergy serve the people and not become an ap-
pendage of the ruling class—everything that in Central America can
be called revolutionary or under the imprint of the Second Vatican
Council—all of that here was post-revolutionary, that is, under the
imprint of Stepinac. 21
The Communist authorities permitted the conciliar renewal
under the impression that it favored those forces in the Church
that accepted the long-term perspective of Communist rule. In
an initial internal assessment of the Council, the official state
analysts concluded that
the first part of the Council’s sessions to a certain extent acted posi-
tively on a few of the bishops in Yugoslavia. Some returned “disap-
pointed” from the Vatican, and a few openly attacked the policy of
Pope John. Individual bishops from Asia, Africa, and even from cer-
tain European countries, and moreover some Vatican functionaries
and even the late pope, exercised a positive influence on the bishops
from our country in the sense of favoring a more tolerant relation-
ship toward the state, and some even reproached them their less-
than-objective view on the position of the RCC [Roman Catholic
Church] in Yugoslavia. One Indian bishop openly told them that the
age of “crusades” and “martyrdom” was over and that the Catholic
Church above all must turn to “pastoral work.” 22
The Church leaders were aware of the officials’ need to find
out how the Council would benefit them. In an imaginary con-
versation with “Him” (obviously, a Party functionary), the anon-
ymous author in Glas Koncila satirized the eagerness of the au-
thorities. “He” is reassured that the angel of the Lord has stirred
the waters (Jn 5:4), and thereby set the whole Church into mo-
- Ibid., 125.
- Razvoj odnosa izmedju SFRJ-Vatikana-RKC od 1960. godine, Belgrade, No-
vember 19, 1963, 9–10, ABH, RKVP 1963.