"He loved the criminal Serbian Church": Croatian media criticizes the Pope

Cover of the Croatian publication Hrvatski tjednik

The Croatian publication Hrvatski tjednik ("Croatian Weekly") published on its April 24, 2025, cover a photo of the recently deceased Pope Francis with an offensive caption, the UOJ reports from Serbia.

"Farewell, Pope, he is not worth a single Croatian tear, because he loved the criminal Serbian Orthodox Church more than Croatian Catholics and Stepinac," reads the caption under the photo of the Pontiff, who passed away on April 21, 2025.

As stated in the article, the editor-in-chief Ivica Marijačić and his colleagues accused the late Pope Francis of refusing to complete the canonization of Alojzije Stepinac, whom many researchers consider a war criminal from the World War II era.

Stepinac, currently recognized as "Blessed" by the Catholic Church, actively cooperated with the pro-Nazi regime of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH). According to historical sources, he was involved in the forced conversion of over 240,000 Orthodox Serbs to Catholicism.

According to the International Commission for the Establishment of the Truth about Jasenovac, around 1,400 Catholic priests, monks, and nuns directly participated in the mass killings of Serbs during World War II – a crime historians often refer to as "Serbocide."

Pope Francis repeatedly postponed a final decision on Stepinac’s canonization, taking into account Stepinac's controversial role in World War II events and the position of the Serbian Orthodox Church on the matter.

The cover of the controversial issue also features the phrase "Jasenovac and Stara Gradiška are the home of Tito’s butchers!" – a direct reference to a well-known Ustaše song glorifying concentration camps where hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Roma were exterminated.

The publication also lists other sites of mass executions during World War II (Jazovka, Huda Jama, Tezno), which the authors claim were allegedly the work of communist partisans rather than the Ustaše.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that, according to a statement from the Vatican, the Roman Catholic Church would not canonize Cardinal Stepinac without the consent of the Serbian Church.

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