Posted on 06/05/2020 4:53:01 PM PDT by marshmallow
WARSAW, Poland -- Bosnian church leaders defended their decision to hold a Mass for civilians and former soldiers slaughtered by victorious communist forces in Yugoslavia, despite international condemnations and domestic protests.
Msgr. Ivo Tomasevic, secretary-general of the Sarajevo-based bishops' conference, told Catholic News Service the Mass in Sarajevo's Sacred Heart Cathedral, led by Cardinal Vinko Puljic, marked the 75th anniversary of the massacre of mostly ethnic Croatian internees sent back to what was then Yugoslavia from a camp in Bleiburg, Austria.
The annual Mass, held at Bleiburg since Yugoslavia's 1991 breakup, has been criticized by some European politicians for alleged far-right links, while Austrian bishops have urged the avoidance of nationalist slogans.
The Bosnian bishops' conference said Cardinal Puljic had agreed to host the May 16 Mass in Sarajevo after the COVID-19 pandemic made cross-border gatherings impossible.
"This was not a commemoration, but a holy Mass for people killed without trial and sentence," Msgr. Tomasevic told CNS June 1. He urged critics "to respect religious freedom, leave historians to research what happened, and show respect for the deceased, ensuring all victims and crimes are judged by the same criteria."
Croatians implicated in their country's Nazi-aligned wartime Ustasha regime fled to Austria with their families and army remnants to escape communist forces led by Josip Broz Tito. They asked the Allies, led by the British, to grant them temporary asylum, but the British sent them back to Yugoslavia after false assurances from Tito that they would not be harmed.
At least 70,000 men, women and children -- including Slovene and Montenegrin refugees -- were killed and dumped in mass graves, many of which are still being identified.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicregister.org ...
How very....Orwellian of those who oppose this mass.
It would be fine to have a mass for victims of racism...you know it would.
Wow.. chastised for commemorating victims of communism.. you’d think they were in the US.
“Wow.. chastised for commemorating victims of communism”
Well, for the people who collaborated with Hitler, and considering the HORRIFIC things they did to the Serbs (and Muslims, for that matter), I’m not sure they were really ‘victims of Communism’ - more like it ended for the best.
I think some were Ustashi but many were ordinary people who didn’t want to live under Communism, and some were Chetniks who had good reason to be anti-Tito. Slovenia was not part of the Ustashi puppet state. Montenegro had been under Italian occupation and not part of the so-called Independent State of Croatia so probably most of them favored the Chetniks.
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