Jugoslav – Vatican Link

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31096, 27 June 1966, Page 13

Jugoslav - Vatican Link

(N Z. Press Assn. —Copyright? BELGRADE, June 26. Jugoslavia has become the only Communist country in Europe to have diplomatic relations with the Vatican by signing an agreement in Belgrade to exchange special envoys.

The Vatican will send an apostolic delegate to Belgrade —a churchman who does not rank as ambassador or nuncio and whose main function is normally to represent the Holy See to the local bishop. But the apostolic dc.egate will act also as envoy to the Jugoslav Government, according to an announcement made simultaneously in Belgrade and at the Vatican yesterday. The Jugoslav Government will in turn send a representative to the Vatican. Both erwovs will enjoy diplo* atic privileges and immunity. Jugoslavia, the last Com-

munist nation to break ..iploniatic ties with the Vatican, is the first to resume them. Belgrade broke diplomatic relations with the Holy See in December, 1952, when

Pope Piux XII awarded the Cardinal’s hat to the late Archbishop Alojsius Stepinac. The Jugoslavs had con- ■ demned him as a war col--1 laborator. i The agreement was signed by Monsignor Agostino Casaroli, the Vatican’s top negotiator with East European countries, and Mr Milutin Moraca, of the Jugoslav Government, who is president of its commission for religious questions. It followed long negotiations. A Protocol

Technically, the document was a protocol rather than a full diplomatic agreement. Under it, the Jugoslav Government guarantees the Roman Catholic Church in Jugoslavia the free exercise of her religious affairs and worship within the framework of the Jugoslav constitution and laws. It recognises the Holy ; See’s competence in religious

matters, provided they are not contrary to “internal order,” and guarantees the Jugoslav bishops the possibility of maintaining contacts with the Vatican. The Holy See, on the other hand, recognises in the protocol that priests should not misuse their religious functions for political purposes. Church-State relations have progressively improved in Jugoslavia since the death of Cardinal Stepinac in 1960. Jugoslav bishops headed by Fronjo Cardinal Seper, who succeeded Cardinal Stepinac as Archbishop of Zagreb, attended all sessions of the Vatican Council. An authoritative article in the Vatican newspaper, “Observatore Romano,” emphasised that full diploma ic relations had not been resumed. The agreement provided for “a different type of relations which—at least in the Holy See’s practice—constitutes something new." The protocol was important as a point of arrival, and “even pore significant because of the introductions which it makes for further developments.”