Universalist Religions in Yugoslavia [Volume: 7(1988), pp. 57-74]

UNIVERSALIST RELIGIONS
63
in Croatia (and still more so in the rest of Yugoslavia) frequently do not
distinguish between Croat national sentiment and nationalism (and especially since they equate every type of Croat nationalism with Ustasism), the
church is by default being cast in the role of the Croat national champion,
which is then interpreted in the worst possible way, as the champion of
Croat nationalism (understood as Ustasism). Moreover, the default of
national sentiment often assumes absurd forms. A Catholic priest was
publicly attacked in 1985 because one of his funeral services ended with
the words "May the Croatian soil be light" to the deceased. This was taken
as an example of the "misuse of religion for political purposes, especially
since members of other nationalities were present at the funeral."l6 The
church's defense of the priest logically included the defense of his right
to refer to his native land by its national name, thereby making the authorities appear anti-Croat and, indeed, foolish.
The peculiar problem of the relationship between the Catholic church
and the Croat nation has been treated by the church in two ways. The
first is the way of incarnation, that is, the view that Christianity incarnated
itself in the pre-Christian forms of Croat natural religion, thereby becoming
a part-though not necessarily the decisive part-of the Croat nation. This
position has been held by Tomislav Sagi-Bunic, Croatia's most distinguished
Catholic theologian, who greeted the new age of ecumenism in 1966 with
a clear statement on the differences between nationality and confessionality.
The ecumenical course among the Catholics, according to Sagi-Bunic, cannot
aim at solving the outstanding political issues between the Croats and Serbs,
because ecumenism is a purely religious movement. It will not change the
national individuality of the two peoples, but only lead to the "visible
unity between the Catholic and Orthodox churches in Christ Jesus."17
Moreover, "to be a Catholic and to be a Croat is not the same. We should
have been aware and convinced of this not only by the existence of a Muslim
religious community of our language and blood, but also because we have
a significant number of people among us who have no religion.... Surely
nobody, not even in jest, would claim that our atheists are not Croats
or Serbs."18
Sagi-Bunic has accented the national character of the church ("Christians cannot stand outside the people and nation, they cannot be indifferent
and irresponsible toward their earthly homelands"), but he has also denounced the explicitly anti-Christian nature of egotistical nationalism
(this type of nationalism "must be condemned, it cannot be considered
worthy of man, and it cannot be reconciled with the Christian understanding of man and with the life stand of a Christian").l9 Moreover, he has
argued for a politically powerless church that is responsible to the people,
not to the establishment: "As much as this might seem odd at first sight,
the people and the homeland are more important to the church than is
the state. The Catholic church was not always sufficiently conscious of