The Problem with Courtesy: Wooing the Catholic Church in Late Socialist Slovenia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35469/poligrafi.2025.471Keywords:
Church-State relations, Yugoslavia, Slovenia, self-management socialism, civil rights of believersAbstract
Particularly in comparison with the neighbouring republic of Croatia, where the ethnicization of religion, beginning in the early 1970s, was rather pronounced, relations between the Catholic Church and state authorities in Slovenia – the northernmost republic of Yugoslavia – remained relatively calm and cooperative throughout the late socialist period. Based on an analysis of a wide range of public and archival documents, this paper demonstrates how Slovenian religious policy was proposed as a sophisticated example of how believers could be successfully integrated into modern socialist society, and was presented as such to Vatican diplomats, international experts, and foreign journalists. Up until 1990, the communication between Party officials and the Church hierarchy conveyed a distinct tone of courtesy, and local priests generally encountered a supportive or at least unobstructive attitude when, for instance, proposing the construction of new churches. At the same time, however, the more independent intellectuals, Catholics and Marxists alike, who urged the Party to abandon its orthodox Marxist-Leninist understanding of religion in favour of a genuine dialogue, were marginalized. Thus, a proper debate about a topic so essential for socialist secular society never took place, and the late socialist religious policy left behind an ambiguous legacy.
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