A monastic estate in the northern coastal Croatian region of Istria has become the focus of an unparalleled falling out between the Vatican and the authorities in Zagreb.
It’s a case which highlights the continued uncertainty over property
rights in the former Yugoslav republic and has prompted fears of a wave
of restitution claims by Italian religious orders, among others.
When in 1519 Pope Leo X proclaimed Croatia to be the Antemurale
Christianitatis – the Bulwark of Christianity – in acknowledgement of it
repelling the attacks of the Muslim-led Ottoman Empire, it represented a
rare instance of international recognition for Croatia, which was still
very much terra incognita for much of Western Europe.
That recognition is arguably a key reason why Croatia is generally
such a loyal follower of the fiats issued by the Vatican, which was one
of the first international organisations to recognise its succession
from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.
But barely two months after Pope Benedict XVI drew massive crowds on
his visit to Croatia and delighted audiences with his promotion of the
country as the perfect next candidate for European Union entry, Zagreb
now finds itself at odds with its religious master in Rome over a
seemingly minor dispute that potentially threatens to open a real estate
Pandora’s box.
At the heart of the dispute is the Dalja monastery and associated
400-hectare estate that was passed on to the Italian Benedictine order
in 1841 by an Italian nobleman Federico Grisoni.
Under the 19th century
equivalent of a modern day ‘use it or lose it’ clause, the Benedictines
faced the prospect of being disinherited if they ever left the property.
Which is what happened in 1948 when the Benedictines were thrown out
of Croatia by Yugoslav leader Josip Broz (aka Tito) on suspicion that
they had connived with Benito Mussolini, to establish an Independent
State of Croatia in 1941, a puppet regime which rivaled Nazi Germany for
its callous treatment of both political and religious opponents.
No
longer ‘using’ their property, they lost it.
It’s a testament to the strength of support for the Roman Catholic
Church in Croatia that Tito later signed the Osimo Agreements in 1975,
which normalised relations between Italy and Yugoslavia and awarded the
Benedictines with 1.7 billion liras for the confiscation of their
property in Istria.
But with the establishment of an independent Croatia in 1991, the
Benedictines lost the monastery and its surrounding lands to the
Croatian arm of the Roman Catholic Church in 1999.
In recent years, the
Bendictines have pursued a number of court cases seeking the return of
the monastery to their management, but all had ended in favour of the
Poreč-Pula diocese in Istria.
In another turn of unfortunate fate for the Benedictines, a
pontifical commission convened to consider the inter-church grievances
recently found in favour of the Benedictines and ordered the local
church authorities to hand over the monastery and pay millions of euros
in compensation.
When the Poreč-Pula Bishop Ivan Milovan refused to accept the
decision of commission, he was temporarily suspended from his position
and replaced by Spanish bishop Santosa Abrila y Castella who signed the
handover agreement in his stead.
The Vatican’s actions have prompted claims of Italian irredentism, a
particularly contentious issue in Istria and its southerly neighbouring
region of Dalmatia, which were handed over to Italy in 1941 as the price
for Italian support for the Croatian fascist regime.
For his part,
Croatian president Ivo Josipovic, a legal professor who unusually in a
nation of apparently fervent Catholics is a self-confessed agnostic, is
less than enamoured by the Vatican’s actions.
He did, however, call for mediation between the Rome and the Croatian
government over the best future use of the Dalja monastery and its land
in an effort to maintain the historically good diplomatic relations
between Croatia and the Vatican.
In the meantime, the actions of the Poreč-Pula diocese have come
under close scrutiny on the back of revelations about their stewardship
of the Dalja estate.
In what Ante Tomic, a political satirist for
Croatian daily Slobodna Dalmacija, calls a classic example of
‘Corporate Catholicism’, vast tracts of the estate have been sold off
for commercial use as olive groves, vineyards and most controversially a
luxury golf and hotel development.
Playing golf, as Tomic points out,
is of course “a traditional pastoral pastime in Croatia.”
Even in a country where roughly 90 per cent of the population
declares themselves to be faithful Roman Catholics those land sales by
Croatian priests have proved to be controversial.