Croatia’s Catholic Church has marked the fiftieth year of its weekly, Glas Koncila, which was allowed by the former Communist regime to publicise the Second Vatican Council, writes Jonathan Luxmoore.
“Glas Koncila [Voice of the Council] first appeared in response to the needs of priests and faithful for information about the council,” Cardinal Josip Bozanic said in a Zagreb Cathedral sermon. “But it emerged as the voice of the Church, which had been excluded from public life. Throughout the era of Communist totalitarianism, it managed to remain the only free newspaper not under direct influence from the ruling authorities – but at the cost of confiscations, summons for interrogation, lawsuits and systematic provocations against editors and staff.”