Ivan Šaric
Encyclopedia
Ivan Šarić was a Roman Catholic
priest who became the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vrhbosna
(Sarajevo
) in 1922. He was a benefactor to the Bosnian Croats who became a controversial figure because of his pro-Ustaše
activities and rhetoric during World War II
.
family near Travnik
on September 27, 1871. He attended high school
in Travnik
from 1882 to 1890, entered the seminary in Travnik, and completed his studies in Sarajevo
in 1894. He was made a priest in the Vrhbosna Archbishopric
on July 22, 1894.
He worked as a catechist at the Institute of St. Vinko in Sarajevo from 1894. In 1896 he became a canon
of Vrhbosna. Between 1896 and 1908 he edited the Vrhbosna newspaper, and, for a time, Balkan newspaper. In 1898 the Seminary Faculty in Zagreb awarded him a doctorate. On June 27, 1908 Šarić was named the bishop-coadjutor of Vrhbosna and the titular bishop Caesaropolitanus. On October 28, 1908 Šarić gave the well-known Croatian realist poet Silvije Strahimir Kranjčević
his last rites before his death on the following day. On May 2, 1922 he was made the archbishop and metropolitan of Vrhbosna.
Šarić was a pioneer of Catholic Action
(a project of Pope Pius XI
for the inclusion of laiety in the hierarchical apostolate of the Church), and took particular interest in the Catholic press. In 1922 he started and for a time edited the weekly Nedjelja ('Sunday'), which was banned by the authorities of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
, then renamed Križ ('The Cross') and finally renamed Katolički Tjednik ('Catholic Weekly'). He also printed the Vrhbosanske savremene knjižice, small books about the contemporary affairs of the archbishopric, a total of 55 issues up to 1941. He wrote twenty other assorted printed works. In 1925, a year in which the Catholic Church celebrated the Jubilee
and the Croats
celebrated the 1000th anniversary of the Croatian Kingdom, Šarić led the Second National Pilgrimage of Yugoslavia to the Vatican.
Archbishop Šarić invested much effort into the financing of the two seminaries, and encouraged the work of Caritas
and missionary activities. He attempted to attract new male orders into the diocese (the Franciscans were already there). He took much interest in the national activities of the Bosnian Croats, and he helped the Croatian cultural society Napredak
.
, when Bosnia and Herzegovina
became part of the Independent State of Croatia
. Saric used the Catholic newspapers of the Sarajevo diocese he headed as an outlet for his political musings as well as his amateur poetry. He expressed goodwill and enthusiasm towards the new Ustaše
leadership of Ante Pavelić
in the early months of 1941. This piece appeared a month after the Ustaše took power:
At Christmas 1941 he penned a eulogy to Pavelić, Kada Sunca Sija ('When the Sun Shines') and had it published by his own diocesan press. It included these lines:
And more in similar vein.
Šarić's own paper also published these words by one Pitar Pajić:
Šarić publicly supported the forced conversions of Orthodox Serbs to Roman Catholicism. In his book The Balkans in Our Time Professor Robert Lee Wolff referred to Ustaše gangs killing tens of thousands of Serbs, and wrote:
According to French writer Jean Hussard, who witnessed the four years of Ustaše governance, Šarić not only knew about but also encouraged the persecution of Serbs. The bishop became known among his enemies as The Hangman of the Serbs.
He was the mentor of Krunoslav Draganović
, the organizer of ratlines
, and the United States Department of State
considered him "perhaps the most rabid opponent of the Orthodox Serbs and the Yugoslav Royal family" . Another one of his subordinates was Franjo Kralik, who published anti-Semitic and anti-Serb hate speech
in the Katolički Tjednik under Šarić.
, Bishop of Ljubljana
, lived under British supervision at the Bishop’s Palace at Klagenfurt
, Austria. (Foreign Office 371), in October 1946. After spending a period of time with Rožman, Šarić then moved to Madrid, Spain with the assistance of the Roman Catholic Church
. There he made a new translation of the New Testament
into Croatian, and published a book extolling the virtues of Pope Pius XII
.
He died in Madrid on July 6, 1960; his body is now buried in the Church of St. Joseph in Sarajevo
.
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
priest who became the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vrhbosna
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vrhbosna
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vrhbosna is an ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in eastern Bosnia. Its episcopal see is the city of Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was elevated to an archdiocese on July 5, 1881. The Diocese of Vrhbosna is much older...
(Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
) in 1922. He was a benefactor to the Bosnian Croats who became a controversial figure because of his pro-Ustaše
Ustaše
The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
activities and rhetoric during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Early life and career
Ivan Šarić was born to a CroatianCroats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
family near Travnik
Travnik
Travnik is a city and municipality in central Bosnia and Herzegovina, 90 km west of Sarajevo. It is the capital of the Central Bosnia Canton, and is located in the Travnik Municipality. Travnik today has some 27,000 residents, with a metro population that is probably close to 70,000 people...
on September 27, 1871. He attended high school
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
in Travnik
Travnik
Travnik is a city and municipality in central Bosnia and Herzegovina, 90 km west of Sarajevo. It is the capital of the Central Bosnia Canton, and is located in the Travnik Municipality. Travnik today has some 27,000 residents, with a metro population that is probably close to 70,000 people...
from 1882 to 1890, entered the seminary in Travnik, and completed his studies in Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
in 1894. He was made a priest in the Vrhbosna Archbishopric
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vrhbosna
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vrhbosna is an ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in eastern Bosnia. Its episcopal see is the city of Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was elevated to an archdiocese on July 5, 1881. The Diocese of Vrhbosna is much older...
on July 22, 1894.
He worked as a catechist at the Institute of St. Vinko in Sarajevo from 1894. In 1896 he became a canon
Canon (priest)
A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....
of Vrhbosna. Between 1896 and 1908 he edited the Vrhbosna newspaper, and, for a time, Balkan newspaper. In 1898 the Seminary Faculty in Zagreb awarded him a doctorate. On June 27, 1908 Šarić was named the bishop-coadjutor of Vrhbosna and the titular bishop Caesaropolitanus. On October 28, 1908 Šarić gave the well-known Croatian realist poet Silvije Strahimir Kranjčević
Silvije Strahimir Kranjcevic
Silvije Strahimir Kranjčević was a Croatian poet. His reflexive poetry, reaching its zenith in the 1890s, was a turning point that ushered modern themes in Croatian poetry.-Early life:...
his last rites before his death on the following day. On May 2, 1922 he was made the archbishop and metropolitan of Vrhbosna.
Šarić was a pioneer of Catholic Action
Catholic Action
Catholic Action was the name of many groups of lay Catholics who were attempting to encourage a Catholic influence on society.They were especially active in the nineteenth century in historically Catholic countries that fell under anti-clerical regimes such as Spain, Italy, Bavaria, France, and...
(a project of Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...
for the inclusion of laiety in the hierarchical apostolate of the Church), and took particular interest in the Catholic press. In 1922 he started and for a time edited the weekly Nedjelja ('Sunday'), which was banned by the authorities of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
, then renamed Križ ('The Cross') and finally renamed Katolički Tjednik ('Catholic Weekly'). He also printed the Vrhbosanske savremene knjižice, small books about the contemporary affairs of the archbishopric, a total of 55 issues up to 1941. He wrote twenty other assorted printed works. In 1925, a year in which the Catholic Church celebrated the Jubilee
Jubilee (Christian)
The concept of the Jubilee is a special year of remission of sins and universal pardon. In the Biblical Book of Leviticus, a Jubilee year is mentioned to occur every fifty years, in which slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven and the mercies of God would be particularly...
and the Croats
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
celebrated the 1000th anniversary of the Croatian Kingdom, Šarić led the Second National Pilgrimage of Yugoslavia to the Vatican.
Archbishop Šarić invested much effort into the financing of the two seminaries, and encouraged the work of Caritas
Caritas (charity)
Caritas Internationalis is a confederate of 164 Roman Catholic relief, development and social service organisations operating in over 200 countries and territories worldwide....
and missionary activities. He attempted to attract new male orders into the diocese (the Franciscans were already there). He took much interest in the national activities of the Bosnian Croats, and he helped the Croatian cultural society Napredak
HKD Napredak
HKD Napredak is a cultural society of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina...
.
War time collaboration and the Ustaše
Šarić was the archbishop of Sarajevo during World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, when Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
became part of the Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...
. Saric used the Catholic newspapers of the Sarajevo diocese he headed as an outlet for his political musings as well as his amateur poetry. He expressed goodwill and enthusiasm towards the new Ustaše
Ustaše
The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
leadership of Ante Pavelić
Ante Pavelic
Ante Pavelić was a Croatian fascist leader, revolutionary, and politician. He ruled as Poglavnik or head, of the Independent State of Croatia , a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany in Axis-occupied Yugoslavia...
in the early months of 1941. This piece appeared a month after the Ustaše took power:
"I was with our Ustaše in North and South America. The bishops there, Americans, Germans, Irish, Slovaks and Spaniards, with whom I came into contact, all praised the Croat Ustaše as good, self-sacrificing believers, as godly and patriotic people... How many times have I heard the Ustaše ask where they would be without their priests!
...I sang with the Ustaše with all my heart and voice the song 'Our Beautiful Homeland', all with big tears in our eyes. And with eager hope in its beautiful, its sweet and its golden freedom, lifting ourselves upwards to God, we prayed to the Almighty to guide and protect Ante Pavelić for the liberation of Croatia. The good God heard and, behold, he answered our cries and supplications."
At Christmas 1941 he penned a eulogy to Pavelić, Kada Sunca Sija ('When the Sun Shines') and had it published by his own diocesan press. It included these lines:
- For God himself was at thy side, thou good and strong one,
- So that thou mightest perform thy deeds for the Homeland...
- And against the Jews, who had all the money,
- Who wanted to sell our souls...the miserable traitors...
- Dr Ante Pavelić! The dear name!
- Croatia has therein a treasure from Heaven.
And more in similar vein.
Šarić's own paper also published these words by one Pitar Pajić:
"Until now God spoke through papal encyclicals, sermons, the Christian press ... And they were deaf. Now God has decided to use other methods. He will prepare missions! World missions! They will be upheld not by priests but by army commanders led by Hitler. The sermons will be heard with the help of cannon, machine guns, tanks and bombers."
Šarić publicly supported the forced conversions of Orthodox Serbs to Roman Catholicism. In his book The Balkans in Our Time Professor Robert Lee Wolff referred to Ustaše gangs killing tens of thousands of Serbs, and wrote:
"To some they offered the choice between conversion from Orthodoxy to Catholicism or instant death.... It must be recorded as a historic fact that certain members of the Croatian hierarchy, notably Archbishop Sharich [sic] of Sarajevo, endorsed this butchery."
According to French writer Jean Hussard, who witnessed the four years of Ustaše governance, Šarić not only knew about but also encouraged the persecution of Serbs. The bishop became known among his enemies as The Hangman of the Serbs.
He was the mentor of Krunoslav Draganović
Krunoslav Draganovic
Krunoslav Stjepan Draganović was a Croatian Roman Catholic priest and historian who is accused as being one of the main organisers of the ratlines which aided the escape of Nazi war criminals from Europe after World War II.-Biography:Draganović was from Travnik...
, the organizer of ratlines
Ratlines (history)
Ratlines were a system of escape routes for Nazis and other fascists fleeing Europe at the end of World War II. These escape routes mainly led toward havens in South America, particularly Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile. Other destinations included the United States and perhaps...
, and the United States Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
considered him "perhaps the most rabid opponent of the Orthodox Serbs and the Yugoslav Royal family" . Another one of his subordinates was Franjo Kralik, who published anti-Semitic and anti-Serb hate speech
Hate speech
Hate speech is, outside the law, any communication that disparages a person or a group on the basis of some characteristic such as race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or other characteristic....
in the Katolički Tjednik under Šarić.
Post-war life
After the war, in 1945, he answered to no war crime charges as he fled abroad. Šarić and Gregorij RožmanGregorij Rožman
Gregorij Rožman was a Slovenian Roman Catholic clergyman and theologian. Between 1930 and 1959, he served as bishop of the Diocese of Ljubljana. He is most famous for his controversial role during World War II...
, Bishop of Ljubljana
Ljubljana
Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
, lived under British supervision at the Bishop’s Palace at Klagenfurt
Klagenfurt
-Name:Carinthia's eminent linguists Primus Lessiak and Eberhard Kranzmayer assumed that the city's name, which literally translates as "ford of lament" or "ford of complaints", had something to do with the superstitious thought that fateful fairies or demons tend to live around treacherous waters...
, Austria. (Foreign Office 371), in October 1946. After spending a period of time with Rožman, Šarić then moved to Madrid, Spain with the assistance of the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
. There he made a new translation of the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
into Croatian, and published a book extolling the virtues of Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII
The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....
.
He died in Madrid on July 6, 1960; his body is now buried in the Church of St. Joseph in Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
.
See also
- Collaboration during World War IICollaboration during World War IIWithin nations occupied by the Axis Powers, some citizens, driven by nationalism, ethnic hatred, anti-communism, anti-Semitism or opportunism, knowingly engaged in collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II...
- Ante PavelićAnte PavelicAnte Pavelić was a Croatian fascist leader, revolutionary, and politician. He ruled as Poglavnik or head, of the Independent State of Croatia , a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany in Axis-occupied Yugoslavia...
- Ustaše
- Gregorij RožmanGregorij RožmanGregorij Rožman was a Slovenian Roman Catholic clergyman and theologian. Between 1930 and 1959, he served as bishop of the Diocese of Ljubljana. He is most famous for his controversial role during World War II...
- Krunoslav DraganovićKrunoslav DraganovicKrunoslav Stjepan Draganović was a Croatian Roman Catholic priest and historian who is accused as being one of the main organisers of the ratlines which aided the escape of Nazi war criminals from Europe after World War II.-Biography:Draganović was from Travnik...
- Partisans (Yugoslavia)Partisans (Yugoslavia)The Yugoslav Partisans, or simply the Partisans were a Communist-led World War II anti-fascist resistance movement in Yugoslavia...
- Yugoslavia during the Second World War
- RatlinesRatlines (history)Ratlines were a system of escape routes for Nazis and other fascists fleeing Europe at the end of World War II. These escape routes mainly led toward havens in South America, particularly Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile. Other destinations included the United States and perhaps...