Croatia-bound

Pope Benedict goes to Croatia this weekend, where it's possible that he will somehow refer to the Ustashi, the local brand of fascists, who under the Nazis did their bit to kill Jews, Muslims and Serbs.

Given that a fanatical Catholicism was a basic component of the Ustashi ideology, and given the pope's own tangles with Nazism, it might seem odd if he doesn't address this ugly part of the country's history in some way.


On Sunday afternoon, Benedict will pray before the tomb of the Blessed Alojzije Stepinac, the WWII-era archbishop of Zagreb, who was beatified by Pope John Paul II as a martyr to the Communists, but whom Orthodox Serbs accuse of having been an Ustashi sympathizer.


According to the Tablet, a Croatian Catholic bishop has told a German radio station that Serbian Orthodox bishops have written to the pope protesting his visit to Zagreb.