Magnum Crimen
Magnum Crimen is a book about clericalism in Croatia from the end of ninetheen century until the end of the Second World War. The book, whose full title is Magnum crimen - pola vijeka klerikalizma u Hrvatskoj[1] (The Great Crime - a half-century of clericalism in Croatia), was written by a Catholic priest and professor and historian at Belgrade University, Dr. Viktor Novak.
Dr. Novak says he spent more than forty years on collecting documents and books that should be used for writing this book. He started collecting this material since his secondary school days, then continued it as the university student, and the seminary student in Rome, then as the university professor in Belgrade. He was wrote a trilogy, of which the last part is Magnum crimen. (The first two parts of this trilogy are: Magnum tempus and Magnum sacerdos). His misfortune was that he was forced to destroy all collected material facing the danger of being arrested and killed by the German occupying forces and their collaborators in Belgrade - immediately after destruction and occupation of Kingdom of Yugoslavia, in the year of 1941. He was among the first ten people arrested in Belgrade by Germans. Continued working on this book after liberation of Belgrade - 20 October 1944.
Observing the Roman Catholic Church activities in Yugoslavia for more than fifty years, he concluded that this Church replaced idea of serving to God by serving to the Roman Curia, i.e. to the government of Roman Pontificate in the role of the world leader. As a result of this idea, in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Roman Catholic Church identified the Roman Catholicism to the Croatian nationhood which turned most of her priesthood into ardent Ustashe supporters.[2]
Content
The book has two distinct parts. The first one has fifteen chapters covering the Roman Catholic clericalism from the end of nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century in Austria-Hungary, then in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and the second one, last four chapters - rise and fall of the so-called Independent State of Croatia, and the active support of the Roman Catholic Church clergy to this morbid fascist/Nazi state and the active support and involvement of the clergy in the atrocities against Serbs, Jews, and the Roma people. The book is full of quotes of the documents (newspaper articles, books, speeches, court testimonies) showing graphically the activity of the Roman Catholic clergy in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, their intentions and activities to be above the state, to control the state and every day's life of common people.
The main doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was[3]
a) the clergy shall be paid by the state as the state officials
b) the state cannot have any control over the Church
c) the Church has right to be fully involved in the political life of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
d) the Church doctrine/religious education shall be a part of primary and secondary school curricula
e) the Roman Catholic Church curricula in the schools shall be obligatory to all pupils whose at least one parent is a Roman Catholic.
In order to achieve these goals, the Roman Catholic Church was actively involved in preventing Kingdom of Yugoslavia from separating the state from the Church. These activities were in supporting clerical political parties, confronting them to other confessions - primarily to the Serbian Orthodox Church - by publicly preaching hatred against the Orthodox population and advocating Croatian and Slovene separatism and intolerance against others.
The great ideas of Strossmayer - serving God equaled to serving people[4], creating close relations between Croats and Serbs by introducing the Old Slavonic language as the language of the Roman Catholic Church in the Balkans[5] - were aggressively suppressed by the Roman Catholic clergy in Croatia and Slovenia. The clergy put the Roman Curia in between the God and the people - demanding from the Roman Catholics - ultimate obedience to the Roman Curia and unconditional love of the Roman Pope. The clergy remaining faithful to the Strossmayer was marginalized, the most ardent supporters excommunicated by the Zagreb archbishop. Nevertheless, Strossmayer was embraced as a great Roman Catholic bishop by the same clergy - but his teaching was distorted or not mentioned ever. The same destiny faced Racki, Trumbic, and Radic - three Croatain politicians advocating actively and fighting for the Yugoslavism - as a common denominator of togetherness and life among the Slavic people of the kingdom of Yugoslavia. Racki was not even allowed to attend the Strossmayer's funeral ceremony - even though that he was an ordained Roman catholic Church priest and true Strossmayer's friend and follower. The Trumbic and Radic's struggle against centralism was interpreted as the Croatian and Slovene separatism support.
The Pavelic's political activities in Kingdom of Yugoslavia, his Ustashe terrorism and embracement of fascism was supported by the Roman catholic clergy in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Dr. Novak showed that even anti-Croatian activities of the Italian fascists in the Croatian and Slovene lands which Italy has got as her compensation for the WWI involvements on the Entente side - were not counteracted by the Croatian and Slovene Roman catholic clergy in Yugoslavia. Expulsion of the Croatian and Slovene clergy from these lands and their replacement by the Italians - was perceived by silence and accepted without resistance or protest among their Catholic brethren in Yugoslavia.
The second part of this book, the XV-XVIII chapters are all about establishment of the Independent State of Croatia, active support of the Roman Catholic clergy to this state, and the Roman Catholic clergy involvement and support in the extermination and/or forceful conversion of the Serbs and extermination of the Jews and the Roma people. The book is full of testimonies and documents shoving the active involvements of the Catholic clergy in supporting, organizing, and executing extermination of Serbs, Jews, and Roma people of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. One of the most bizarre events was that the Roman catholic priests Matijevic, Brekalo, Filipovic and others who were the Jasenovac concentration camp butchers and whose every day's work there were the most gruesome ways of killings of the camp inmates - had a chapel where they prayed to the God regularly each day.
Catholic clergy defended themselves, at the end of the WWII, claiming their opposition to forceful conversion and extermination in some letters and instructions directed to the priesthood. The book gave a great number of documents and testimonies demonstrating that these letters and directions were not public and not respected or followed. Moreover, from an article from "Novi list"' it is visible that a Jew cannot be save by converting to the Roman Catholicism.
Perception of the book as an academic reference
Among scholars-historians this book is accepted as a powerful academic reference and as such - cited and referenced a great number of times. That way the book became a reference book in the libraries of the most prestigious universities around the globe [1].
William P. Bundy [6] gave a short survey of this book, which reads: A Jugoslav historian's lengthy indictment of clericalism in Croatia over the past half-century. The latter half of the book, covering the period of "independent" Croatian state of Ante Pavelic on the basis of a wealth of material from many sources, pays particular attention to the role of Achbishop Stepinac.
However, there is a number of ultimate rejections of this book. Slobodan Kljakic [7] wrote about this book: A major piece, written by the academician Viktor Novak, "Magnum Crimen" had been placed by the Vatican on the Index librorum prohibitorum, and anathema had been pronounced against the author. Neubauer [8] claims that this book was commissioned to aid in Tito's post war show trials. Harris [9]wrote that the book has been criticized for exaggerating the atrocities that occurred at Jasenovac concentration camp in an attempt to slander the Catholic Church.
The book has six full editions [2] and one abridged [10]
References
- ^ Magnum crimen - pola vijeka klerikalizma u Hrvatskoj by Viktor Novak, Nakladni zavod Hrvatske, Zagreb 1948
- ^ ibid., pages I-XV
- ^ ibid., pages 158-159
- ^ ibid., page XIV
- ^ ibid., page 257: Uvodjenje starog slavenskog jezika u bogosluzenje katolickih Hrvata Strossmayer je punih pet decenija smatrao kao jedno od sredstava za zblizavanje zapadne s istocnom crkvom. Napori Strossmayera, koje je on ucinio za te ideale u Rimu, Petrogradu, Beogradu i na Cetinju, ogromnih su razmjera
- ^ Foreign Affairs Bibliography by Council on Foreign Relations, by William P. Bundy, Archibald Cary Coolidge, Council on Foreign Relations, Hamilton Fish Armstrong - vol. 57, no. 3 - page 340
- ^ A Conspiracy of Silence: Genocide in the Independent State of Croatia and Concentration Camp Jasenovac by Slobodan Kljakic Published 1991 Ministry of Information of the Republic of Serbia. page 35
- ^ Neubauer, John (2004). History of the literary cultures of East-Central Europe. John Benjamin Publishing Company. ISBN 9027234523. Retrieved 2008-06-30.
- ^ Harris, Robin. "On Trial Again". Catholic Culture. Trinity Communications. Retrieved 2008-07-16.
- ^ Velika optužba (Magnum crimen) by Viktor Novak, Svjetlost Sarajevo 1960 (abridged)