The Crumbling Touchstone of the Vatican’s Ostpolitik: Relations between the Holy See and Yugoslavia, 1970–1989

Abstract

Based on Yugoslav archival sources, the paper analyses the relationship between the Holy See and Yugoslavia as the only Eastern European socialist state with which the former had official diplomatic relations. The relationship between the Holy See and socialist Yugoslavia provides insight into the precarious position of the Catholic Church in Yugoslavia, but also into the issues and dilemmas that the Holy See faced in terms of its Ostpolitik towards Eastern European socialist regimes. The article initially centres on the parallels between the Holy See and the foreign policy agenda of non-aligned Yugoslavia, especially during the papacy of Paul VI, when both actors shared an understanding of the acute problems of the Global South. It then analyses the stance of the Holy See towards the Yugoslav domestic policy of selfmanagement that claimed that this system could present a viable environment for the life of believers in modern socialist society. The analysis closes with an in-depth examination of the role of the Holy See in the process of convergence between religion and nationalism during the 1980s, in which the Vatican did not play as clear-cut a role as it has generally been ascribed and proved unable to tackle this formidable phenomenon.