Newsgroups: soc.culture.croatia,soc.culture.yugoslavia,soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna
Subject: Dr. Mishitch, the Bishop of Mostar
From: stojanov@husc11.harvard.edu (Milan Stojanovic)
Date: 16 Dec 92 19:13:39 EST
Organization: Harvard University Science Center


After posting about Archbishop Sharitch of Bosnia, now little bit
more about the forceful conversions of Orthodox population in WWII 
Croatia.  These postings should show how deep does hatred toward
Orthodoxy among Croatian clerics go.  

Sharitch was an extreme.  We are now going toward another extreme,
the Bishop that condemned killings, but was still more than
ready to realize that " there was never such a good occasion."

Quote is from "The Sub-Perfect Should Have Held His Tongue" by 
Hubert Butler.  Much bigger documentation on this issue could
be found in "Magnum Crimen" by Victor Novak.

"....

There was, for example, Dr. Mishitch, the Bishop of Mostar and
the kindliest of mortals, whom even the Communists have praised for
his clemency.  He too made quite plain the hopes which he had 
entertained at the beginning of Pavelitch'regimes:

By the mercy of God {he wrote} there was never such a good occasion as now
for us to help Croatia to save the countless souls, people of good will well-
disposed peasants, who live side by side with Catholics... Conversion would be
appropriate and easy. Unfortunately the authorities in their narrow views are
involuntarily hindering the Croatian and Catholic cause.  In many parishes of
my diocese...very honest peasants of the Orthodox faith have registered in 
the Catholic Church...But then outsiders take things in hand.  While the newly
converted are at Mass they size them, old and young, men and women, and
hunt them like slaves.  From Mostar and Capljina the railway carried six
waggons full of mothers, girls, and children under eight to the station of
Surmanci, where they were taken out of waggons, brought into the hills
and thrown alive, mother and children, into deep ravines. In parish of Klepca
seven hundred schizmatics from the neighbouring villages were slaughtered. the 
Sub-Perfect of Mostar, Mr. Bajitch, a Moslem, publicly declared ( as a state
employe he should have held his tongue ) that in Ljubina alone 700 schizmatics
have been thrown into one pit.

Elsewhere in his letter Bishop writes:

At one time there was likelihood that a great number of schizmatics would be
united to the Catholic Church.  If God had given to those in authority the 
understanding and the good sense to deal effectively with conversion, so that
it could have been carried through more able, more smoothly and by degrees,
the number of Catholics might have been increased by at least five to six
hundred  thousand.  Such a number is required in Bosnia and Herzegovina, if
there is to be an increase from 700,000 to 1,300,000.

..."

Please, note " the Sub-Perfect should have held his tongue!"
If there are any doubt about true intentions behind this letter,
this part and numbers at the end, clarify them!

Also note that Croats claim certain parts where these events happened.
Serbs used to outnumber Croats seven to one in Mostar in 1870! 
In 1991 there are no Serbs left in Mostar.

Regards, 

Milan N. Stojanovic