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.
Downloads
References
Arhiv Republike Slovenije [Archives of the Republic of Slovenia, Ljubljana]:
- SI AS 1211, Komisija Republike Slovenije za odnose z verskimi skupnostmi [Commission for Relations with Religious Communities of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia].
- SI AS 1277, Edvard Kardelj, osebni fond [Edvard Kardelj personal fonds].
- SI AS 1589, Centralni komite Zveze komunistov Slovenije [Central Committee of the League of Communists of Slovenia].
Diplomatski arhiv Ministarstva spoljnih poslova Republike Srbije [Diplomatic Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Serbia]:
- Politička arhiva [Political Archive].
Akmadža, Miroslav. Katolička crkva u komunističkoj Hrvatskoj 1945.-1980. Zagreb & Slavonski Brod: Despot Infinitus & Hrvatski institut za povijest, 2013.
Bizilj, Ljerka. Cerkev v policijskih arhivih. Ljubljana: self-published, 1991.
Buchenau, Klaus. Orthodoxie und Katholizismus in Jugoslawien 1945–1991. Ein serbisch-kroatischer Vergleich. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004.
Buchenau, Klaus. “What went wrong? Church–state relations in socialist Yugoslavia.” Nationalities Papers 33, no. 4 (2005): 547–567. https://doi.org/10.1080/00905990500354046.
Buchenau, Klaus. “Socialist secularities: The Diversity of a Universalist Model.” In Multiple Secularities Beyond the West, edited by Marian Burchardt, Monika Wohlrab-Sahr and Matthias Middell, 261–282. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614514053.261.
Gabrič, Aleš. “Odnos slovenske politike prema ‚maspoku‘.” Časopis za suvremenu povijest 42 (2010): 7–22.
Gabrič, Aleš. “Odnos komunistične oblasti do katoliških intelektualcev po letu 1945.” In Nečakov zbornik: procesi, teme in dogodki iz 19. in 20. stoletja, edited by Kornelija Ajlec, Bojan Balkovec and Božo Repe, 367–378. Ljubljana: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete, 2018.
Kardelj, Edvard. Smeri razvoja političnega sistema socialističnega samoupravljanja. Ljubljana: Komunist, 1977.
Kavčič, Stane, and Lev Modic. Socialistične sile, religija, cerkev. Ljubljana: Komunist, 1968.
Kovačič Peršin, Peter. “Misliti, da prevrati niso več mogoči, je naivno.” Delo-Sobotna priloga, July 2, 2011.
Kralj, Albin. Teologija osvoboditve in slovenski katoličani. Ljubljana: Nova revija, 2009.
Kukoč, Mislav. “Problem religije u hrvatskoj marksističkoj filozofiji.” In Religija i sloboda. Prilog ‘socioreligijskoj karti Hrvatske’, edited by Ivan Grubišić, 67–82. Split: Institut za primijenjena društvena istraživanja, 1993.
Lusa, Stefano. Razkroj oblasti: Slovenski komunisti in demokratizacija države. Ljubljana: Modrijan, 2012.
Mojzes, Paul. Religious Liberty in Eastern Europe and the USSR: Before and after the Great Transformation. Boulder: East European Monographs, 1992.
Morozzo della Rocca, Roberto. “Le religioni e la dissoluzione della Jugoslavia.” In Dopo la pioggia: Gli stati della ex Jugoslavia e l’Albania, edited by Antonio D’Alessandri and Armando Pitassio, 469–488. Lecce: Argo, 2011.
Pečovnik, Izidor. “Če bi pomagal k skupni blaginji in če bi lahko, bi postal komunist.” Novi tednik NT&RC, December 28, 1989.
Pacek, Dejan. Od konflikta h kompromisu: Oris odnosa med državo in Katoliško cerkvijo v Sloveniji 1966–1991. Ljubljana: Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino, 2023.
Pelikan, Egon, and Gašper Mithans. “Political Representations and the Confrontation of Marxism and Christianity in Interwar Slovenia: The Christian Socialist Journal Beseda o sodobnih vprašanjih as Case Study.” In Christian Modernity and Marxist Secularism in East Central Europe: Between Conflict and Cooperation, edited by Jure Ramšak, Gašper Mithans and Mateja Režek, 21–42. Zagreb: Srednja Europa, 2022.
Perica, Vjekoslav. Sveti Petar i Sveti Sava. Sakralni simboli kao metafore povijesnih promjena. Beograd: Biblioteka XX vek, 2009.
Radić, Radmila. “Politička ideologija kao sekularna religija i njena integrativna funkcija.” In Dijalog povjesničara/istoričara IV, edited by Hans-Georg Fleck and Igor Graovac, 467–483. Zagreb: Friedrich Naumann Stiftung, 2001.
Radić, Radmila. “The Yugoslav Authorities and the Christian–Marxist Dialogue of the Late Sixties and Early Seventies.” In Christian Modernity and Marxist Secularism in East Central Europe: Between Conflict and Cooperation, edited by Jure Ramšak, Gašper Mithans and Mateja Režek, 71–93. Zagreb: Srednja Europa, 2022.
Ramet, Pedro. “Catholicism and Politics in Socialist Yugoslavia.” Religion in Communist Lands 10, no. 3 (1982): 256–274. https://doi.org/10.1080/09637498208431033.
Ramet, Pedro. Cross and Commissar: The Politics of Religion in Eastern Europe and the USSR. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
Ramšak, Jure. “Between ideology and pragmatism: Polemic on the civil rights of Christians in the socialist Slovenia of the 1970s.” Religion, State and Society 43, no. 2 (2015): 168–183. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2015.1053188.
Ramšak, Jure. (Samo)upravljanje intelekta: družbena kritika v poznosocialistični Sloveniji. Ljubljana: Modrijan, 2019.
Ramšak, Jure. “The Crumbling Touchstone of the Vatican’s Ostpolitik: Relations between the Holy See and Yugoslavia, 1970–1989.” The International History Review 43, no. 4 (2021): 852–869. https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2020.1819859.
Ramšak, Jure. “A Close Flirtation with the Revolution: Slovenian Left-Wing Catholics, the Vatican’s Ostpolitik, and a Test of Faith for Socialist Self-Management.” In Christian Modernity and Marxist Secularism in East Central Europe: Between Conflict and Cooperation, edited by Jure Ramšak, Gašper Mithans and Mateja Režek, 95–115. Zagreb: Srednja Europa, 2022.
Repe, Božo. Jutri je nov dan: Slovenci in razpad Jugoslavije. Ljubljana: Modrijan, 2002.
Repe, Božo. Rdeča Slovenija: Tokovi in obrazi iz obdobja socializma. Ljubljana: Sophia, 2003.
Režek, Mateja. Med resničnostjo in iluzijo: slovenska in jugoslovanska politika v desetletju po sporu z Informbirojem (1948-1958). Ljubljana: Modrijan, 2005.
Režek, Mateja. “Cuius regio eius religio: The relationship of communist authorities with the catholic church in Slovenia and Yugoslavia after 1945.” In The Sovietization of Eastern Europe: New Perspectives on the Postwar Period, edited by Balázs Apor, Péter Apor and E. A. Rees, 213–233. Washington: New Academia Publishing, 2008.
Režek, Mateja. “Searching for a path to dialogue between Christianity and Marxism in early socialist Slovenia.” In Christian Modernity and Marxist Secularism in East Central Europe: Between Conflict and Cooperation, edited by Jure Ramšak, Gašper Mithans and Mateja Režek, 43–55. Zagreb: Srednja Europa, 2022.
Roter, Zdenko. “Odnos med katoliško cerkvijo in državo v osemdesetih letih (1).” Teorija in praksa 24 (1987): 280–297.
Roter, Zdenko. “Konec nekega obdobja (odnosov med katoliško cerkvijo in državo v Sloveniji).” Teorija in praksa 27 (1990): 265–276.
Roter, Zdenko. Padle maske: Od partizanskih sanj do novih dni. Ljubljana: Sever & Sever, 2013.
Saresella, Daniela. Catholics and Communists in Twentieth-Century Italy. Between Conflict and Dialogue. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.
Sedmi kongres Zveze komunistov Jugoslavije. Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba, 1958.
Sklepi in odloki. Prvo zasedanje Slovenskega narodnega osvobodilnega sveta. Ljubljana: Prop. kom. IOOF, 1945.
Stres, Tone. “Cerkev je tolerirana, ne pa tudi spoštovana.” Teleks, May 19, 1988.
Velikonja, Mitja. “Slovenian and Polish Religio-National Mythologies: A Comparative Analysis.” Religion, State & Society 31 (2003): 233–260.
Zrinščak, Siniša. “Odnos Crkve i države u Hrvatskoj od 1945. do 1990. godine.” In Religija i sloboda. Prilog ‘socioreligijskoj karti Hrvatske’, edited by Ivan Grubišić, 107–126. Split: Institut za primijenjena društvena istraživanja, 1993.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Jure Ramsak
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Open Access Policy and Copyright
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors grant the publisher commercial rights to produce hardcopy volumes of the journal for sale to libraries and individuals.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal’s published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
