The Restoration of the Catholic Press in Croatia in the 1960s

Abstract

Relying on the published literature and unpublished archival material, the authors of this paper analyse the phenomenon of the restoration of the Catholic press in Croatia in the 1960s, primarily in the context of the Church-state relations of that time. The process of renewing the Catholic Church, prompted by the Second Vatican Council and the desire of the Yugoslav authorities to normalise relations with the Church in the then Yugoslavia on the one hand, and the restoration of the severed diplomatic relations with the Holy See in 1952 on the other, opened the way for the possibility that the Church in Croatia could restore some of its public/social activities, which had been systematically denied since 1945. A prominent place in this process was the restoration of the Catholic press, which had been shut down by the state authorities in 1945. The Church successfully took advantage of this opportunity in the 1960s, and the restored Catholic press was received with great interest in the public. In only a few years, the number of established/restored publications grew, as did their circulations.