Original subtitles

Archbishop Stepinac, welcome.

Is that how you prefer to be addressed?

It's just Archbishop.

Aloysius.

That's much better.

Josip.

Aloysius.

We finally meet.

Please have a seat.

How rude of me?

This is comrade Vladimir Bakaric,

the President of our Executive Council of Croatia.

I've been traveling all across this great land of ours,

as we've liberate it.

How great to be on her.

You smoke?

No.

Catholics are allowed to smoke, yes?

Yes.

Oh, that's right.

It's Muslim who can't.

They're not allowed to drink alcohol either.

They don't know what they're missing, do they?

You drink?

- No? - On occasion,

A son of a winemaker surely has a glass of wine

now and then.

Tell me during mass,

do you really take a sip of wine

or is it just water to fool the masses?

It is real wine.

He won, the bastard.

I was certain that you'd be one to stick with water.

And what did he win?

Another week among the living.

And a bottle of whiskey given to me by the Yugs.

You see no one believed in us.

And now that we've prevailed in the war,

the west and the east just adore us.

So we have vodka from Moscow, whiskey from America,

cigars from Cuba, chocolates for Belgium.

Please have as many as you like, I won't tell.

Thank you, but no.

A man of principal.

Did the church teach you discipline

or was it being a soldier?

Life did.

Aloysius, you can relax.

Only the worst things they say about me are true.

I wanted to meet you in person.

I'm glad you came.

It's always better to discuss important matters

face-to-face don't you think?

Yes.

So my suggestion is that the two of us talk first

one-on-one and then my colleagues can join us, everyone.

Please have a seat.

I like to hear information firsthand.

That's the kind of person I am.

Everybody talks, and the truth is filtered.

Eye to eye, we can wash away any doubts

we may have about one another.

Can't I offer you anything?

Now that we're alone, can I tempt you with a whiskey?

Thank you for your tempting offer.

But the answer is still no.

How about a snack?

We have a wonderful kitchen,

the best chef in town at our disposal.

He can make us whatever we want.

Thank you.

Another no.

Very well, I hope that's the last no

that you gave me tonight.

And that depends.

On?

What it is you're offering.

Believe it or not, I wanted to be a waiter

when I was a boy.

Life show me become a locksmith.

Ordinary people work very hard to get by.

Then decadence comes easy and now that you have it,

as you say, at your disposal?

We can't pretend not to enjoy the good side of life

when it's offered, can we?

And what is good to you may not be to me

or to someone else.

And you Aloysius, you're lying to yourself.

There's not a working man out there

who refuse what I've just offered you.

A man can easily be tented, if his belief is weak.

That's the one thing they said about you.

Stepinac is many things,

the courage of his convictions is unshaken.

I wanted to serve you.

Tito waiting on the Archbishop,

imagine when people would say.

That there is hope even for those who may seem hopeless.

Yes, that may very well be the case.

God never turns his back on us.

Even when we turn our back on him.

Where do you think God goes

when war rages and innocent lives are lost?

Is that a time when God goes on vacation.

To love it, to hate those are the options.

God grants us those options, and we choose is up to us.

So war is a choice.

Sometimes it's unavoidable.

People easily swayed.

They shouldn't be, but the temptation to have

more of everything prevailed and we lose ourselves.

Swayed.

The church is fairly successful in swaying the masses.

Where do you think politics got their ideas

from people in your line of work?

What I do is a calling not work.

I'd still call it work.

And I'd still subscribed to the idea

that God must be on vacation,

allowing man to become more of what he is, a rat

with a boundless desire to horde and destroy.

Does smoke bother you.

No, it doesn't.

I can't go very long without cigarettes and a drink.

It's a weakness, I know a bad one.

They taught me how to roll them in Russia,

every single cigarette I smoke, I roll them myself.

If I ever stopped smoking,

I'd miss rolling these things more than smoking them.

Do you have a weakness?

I'm sure you know that better than me.

A life of abstinence.

That's a breeding ground for any number of weaknesses.

We do have to give up our most basic needs in the Partisans.

Four years of hunger, thirst, exhaustion,

tramping through the forest, the plains,

sleeping just a few hours if any days on end.

It got so cold that I closed my eyes, think this is it,

I never see the light of day again.

But I endured.

That's why nowadays I can perhaps forgive myself

my weaknesses, because I think I earned them.

There's a beauty in enduring, don't you think.

There's beauty in the survival.

Yeah, but it seems to me that to endure

has become synonymous with people born in this region.

Something to be proud of.

You too are recruit like myself.

But I don't let it define me.

Besides we creating a new Yugoslavia

one that'll be more just a place

where we can forget petty differences,

where together we can work for the common goal,

equality of opportunity for all.

Yugoslavia failed.

Failed because it was ruled by a monarchy.

It failed because the differences prevailed,

you want to replace one decadence with a new one.

What comrade Stalin is doing,

what I'm doing is revolutionary.

It's a new world, a rebirth.

If you had to put a dog, a rabbit, a donkey

and a snake into a cage,

could you imagine they could co-exist

without someone getting bitten?

That depends.

On what?

On how deadly the snake's venom is.

That's not what I asked.

I understood you very well.

Yes, there is a risk of failure, but we must try it.

Try, yes, but we must learn from our mistakes.

Certainly.

Why don't you go first, Aloysius.

The wish of Christ to have their land

came at a high expense.

Very highest, I'd say.

There isn't a tree wide enough in the forest

to hide you from your sins.

And doesn't the Bible say we must pay for our sins.

This war was just one of many calvaries

in the thousand year history of the creation of people,

we will pay for our sins.

We will repent.

The rest is up to God.

One night, not too long ago

when my battalion hit inside of Bosnian cave,

an elite unit of German parachuters surrounded us.

They had us.

I may seem Godless to you,

but that night something not of this earth saved me.

Yet you refuse to give God credit.

God or fate.

Maybe God and faith make fate easily acceptable.

And maybe it was just chance, destiny.

You and I could have been very different.

It well very well may be.

You were trusted to getting married than I was.

I find that hard to believe.

Marija Horovat.

Proposing without ever speaking a word to her.

That takes courage.

I'd consider my chances better

by going back to that cave and the German

than asking a woman to marry me just like that.

You have no idea of what it is to speak to women

when you blindly ask one to marry just like that.

Foolish.

To say the least.

I had faith, but I was very young, and she was-

Beautiful.

And kind.

I'm sure.

But beauty is what catches the eye.

You are allowed to say it, Aloysius.

She was, very much so.

We're human,

to deprive ourselves of what makes us human is inhuman.

That's why I can't agree with what the church does

to people like you.

Freewill.

An imposed idea of freewill

does have a concept of God they portray

when in fact the thought that God ever existed

is irrational.

The Vatican asks a great deal of you,

yet all they can offer in return as a nicely crafted

fairy tale.

You sacrifice your life.

What did they sacrifice?

The Catholic church has been a beacon

in the darkest of times for us Croats.

That's why you brought me here, isn't it?

To have me now turn my back on the faith

that has given me these people Everything we have,

I will not do that.

No, no, no, not to your faith.

I'd never asked you that.

We're very similar, you and I.

We've both come a long way to find ourselves here.

Yes, but I'm not your equal, let's not fool ourselves.

You could do away with me.

That's a tempting thought, but no,

there are too many weaknesses.

You've had me in a strict confinement for 17 days now.

I barely seen or spoken to anyone

without your prior consent.

What I eat is monitored.

Witnesses are not, I am your prisoner.

The decision to confine you was undertaken

for certain political reasons.

You understand that, and yet you have persistently refused,

any meeting or conversation offered to you.

To confine someone,

then offer them a friendly conversation,

it's the same as beating someone with a shovel

and offering them help.

We need to come to an agreement on some issues

regarding the future of the church in this country.

It would be beneficial, in my opinion,

if we could be on the same page, that's my hope.

And you can speak freely here.

It's just you and me, I assure you.

I have experienced everything imaginable

the past several years on the various ideologies

that have little regard for me or the Catholic church,

but you also need one regime sent armed soldiers

and police into our court, arrested me

and confiscated church property.

What did the army take?

A month ago, as I entered court,

your soldiers took my car and our telephone.

The war didn't end with the liberation of Zagreb.

In Asia Japan continues to resist.

It's over in Europe.

Yes, but we still have unresolved issues

to settle with the British and the Americans.

This region remains a powder keg.

Have the officer come in.

At your command, Comrade Marshall.

I want the car or the telephone returned

to the Archbishop immediately with an apology

from the soldiers responsible.

Yes, sir, Comrade Marshall.

Until our national governance has settled in Zagreb,

it's better for you to stay in your residence at Capitol.

You don't want to move around too much.

I'm telling you this for your own safety.

The safety of my priests in federal country

is most important to me.

I don't care for my own safety.

This bloody war has endangered everybody's safety,

and we didn't start it.

The people who are subject to new insecurities

fear and even vengeance after this victory

Yugos presented.

Then the army hasn't brought security.

What does that suppose to mean?

When the victors seek vengeance against unarmed people,

the seeds of a new covert resistance are planted.

And then the war never ends.

The circle isn't closed, it just widens.

And what are these unarmed people, as you say?

Are keeping hiding weapons to use

for some future resistance?

We will crush such a rogue elements without mercy.

War has brought too much death and cruelty

for anyone to wish it for another,

but organizing units to fight after the war

turns the country into a military police state,

not a democratic one.

Many soldiers have failed in the past because of this.

And similar ones will disappear in the future.

It's not very nice or fair to compare us to the fascist.

I'm only referring to the principles of peace

as written in the Bible.

Whoever lives by the sword dies by the sword.

If the allies had followed those principles,

Hitler would still be in power.

The church has been preaching these principles

for 2000 years, regardless of individuals or nations.

Mankind, wouldn't get anywhere with prayers

and listening to sermons of so-called forgiveness and peace.

The worst past traveled are those that are progressed

using violence, weapons and hatred.

Archbishop, you have to be realistic.

The rule is whether you like it or not,

the stronger set the term.

Those beliefs have brought the world,

the greatest and bloodiest massacres of the 20th century.

The Russians had no other choice in 1917.

I witnessed it personally, I know you did too.

The war chaos, the feudal Lords,

they were destroying the people.

That's why the October revolution broke out.

It broke out due to despair.

Revolutions happen when the desperate grasping

out for all possible straws to save themselves,

than a time to change, self-proclaimed politicians

and so-called ideology show making empty promises,

imposing themselves on the people like gods.

Well, even the gods can't help, then what can be done?

There are no earthly divinities.

Christianity is the seed of faith,

it's sprouted the blood of Jesus Christ.

Christianity is a thing of the distant past, Archbishop.

New social communities call for practical ways of living.

There are no greater practical formulas

without spiritual balance, virality and faith in God.

The Russians will realize this.

Everybody does.

The means of production will be turned over

to the workers, peacefully or by force.

The October revolution continues to move on.

It'll give birth to a happier more just world order.

That's just an assumption.

It's hard to say what's worse.

War or revolution.

What a peaceful transition is, not the horiz,

you've got to get rough.

Who has the right to impose an ideology of rule

by force on the land, in the name of what?

If the feudal lords and the bourgeoisie

hadn't opposed everybody in their path,

the revolution wouldn't have happened.

It was a historical necessity realized

by Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

Any system that begins with death ends with death.

A certain dictatorship of the proletariat

is unavoidable in the first phase.

Church doesn't neglect social issues either,

it has its teachings.

All religions are an opiate for the masses,

Marx understood that.

Goodness said that in the name of our nation,

Croatians have survived because of their unwavering

belief in Christianity.

God and Croats.

It's a lullaby.

Not a lullaby.

A gent reminder, he is always by our side.

Was God by your side, when you sided with a feudal.

When people are desperate to have a land

they could call their own-

They make a deal with the devil.

So you failed the courage of your conviction?

Our people were blinded by the desire

to have a piece of land they could call their own.

So how are you better than those

you're so reckless in criticizing?

- The intent. - Intent?

Intent is always there.

It's what lies behind, it makes a difference.

It's delusional to think that communism

is this new form of defined purity.

In spite of technical and economic progress

the world is still confronted with a spiritual crisis.

Christianity is being discounted by those

who don't recognize as human and moral power.

Capitalism is a sickness, yes,

but communism is the wrong antidote to it.

And why in your opinion,

did the bloodiest revolution take place

in a Christian country like Russia?

The October revolution is the bloodiest massacre

within a single nation in history.

And yet the ideas of the October evolution

continue to inspire people far and wide.

But at what cost?

The October revolution has been eating its own kind of

from the very beginning.

And how has the church governed?

Throughout history, it took up arms, staging inquisitions,

burnings at the stake, witch hunts?

If it wasn't for the crusades,

you as a Christian wouldn't even exist.

How many people have died

so you could call yourself a Christian?

I cannot undo the mistakes of the past.

Ah, the self-righteous way in which you

give an excuse for any number of sins committed by those

you yourself are governed by.

It's amazing to me.

The church has always succeeded in renewing itself

by cleansing his soul, confessing his sins

and calling unconscious and faith in the almighty.

It's fairly easy to confess your sins

when you know, there are no repercussions.

There are always repercussions.

Besides the churches enjoyed for 2000 years, Roman emperor,

various political leaders, SARS, ideologies

have all come and gone.

The church remains.

Our great revolutionary from the 16th century,

the leader of the peasant rebellion, Matea Gilberts,

he was captured by the feudal powers and here in Zagreb,

not far from where we are,

they placed a fiery crown of red hot iron on his head.

And that happened with the blessing of Bishop Blagsovich.

Yes.

The church was weak at that time,

and under the influence of powerful foreigners.

Had I been the Bishop, I would have asked for a crown

made of gold to be placed on his head.

And then you would have gotten the same treatment.

Their kindness would have escaped you.

And, what do we gain from living a few more years

if those years are given to us?

Because we had just to come to a system written with lies.

Equality, and care for others,

that is what I'm striving for.

Communism is not opiate for the masses.

Communism is the ideal of how one should live.

The first Christian communities 2000 years ago

were equal in classes for all, men and women.

Simple said, do not mistreat thy slave

for he's thy brought up.

Why do you speak of this theory?

Communists are the first ones to begin resolving things

in a practical manner where nobody's brother is his slave.

By tricking people into thinking they're perfect,

flawless.

The first for money, power and luxury

has clouded the minds of many.

You speak of the bourgeoisie that was.

Where we're sitting right now?

Is this the residence of a humble servant to the people?

Is yours?

You must stop make a house in my name.

Doesn't that remind you of someone?

Come on now, Aloysius you're not a stupid man.

Somewhere deep down inside you must've thought

is the sacrifice of mine worth it?

You know that I know everything there is to know about you.

But at night when all this dark,

and our thoughts belong to ourselves, does your mind wonder?

You never saw Marija again.

No.

Do you think of her?

I allow myself the privilege to wonder, yes.

Do you allow yourself, and would the church

want you to wonder?

Our thoughts belong only to us as to our secrets.

Why did you ask her to marry you

when you'd never spoken a word to her?

Why do you care to know.

Asking a woman for her hand in marriage

without knowing her.

Her accepting and you abruptly deciding to enter priesthood,

it's perplexing.

It was not the life that I wanted in the end.

As simple as that?

Yes.

But you wondered how life might have fared

if you'd chosen to marry.

And I would not be here sitting with you.

Maybe he'd be on the side I'm on,

fighting the good fight and not sitting across from me,

giving me a headache.

Then you might be in my position.

A priest, never.

I love life too much to take so much away from it.

Is that what you think we do to ourselves.

To not live life fully, to have a family,

a life without my children,

to feel the warmth of a woman's touch?

No.

I'd rather die than deprive myself for such a feeling.

Our fulfillment comes from serving others.

You've never kissed a woman.

No.

Never.

No.

Then by God, you must have a drink with me.

Thank you, but the answer is still no.

Then I shall drink in your name.

"My dearest, Aloysius,

your statement surprised me greatly.

And now that I've thought it over, my response is..."

And she goes on in further details, I'm sure you remember

Would like to keep it?

You made quite an impression on the young woman.

Despite the lack of conversation.

John Kwan would be jealous, I'm jealous.

Perhaps you can teach me, give me some pointers.

That is a lifelong gone now.

Remind me, what came of Marija?

Who do you think took her?

God or you don't know?

As I said, we we're given options, we pick one,

consequences are there to be endured.

Of all the people on that bus, he took just her.

Doesn't that make you-

Yes.

Furious?

I prayed for her soul every day since.

Why?

Hoping she'd forgive me.

Did you forgive yourself?

She knows why I chose my path.

Everything that happened after it is God's will.

All right.

So it must be God's will that good conquered evil

in this world?

Good must prevail whatever the cost.

And who's responsible for that?

Must I beg you for some credit?

You've only just begun,

and I would not feel optimistic based on what I've seen.

The world without Hitler, Mussolini,

and that despicable Ustase fascist, Pavelic, is safer?

Yes, but that depends what follows.

You deny the past, you fear the future.

How can the present ever be good enough?

I don't deny a thing.

I openly opposed the war and the occupation

in the cathedral in front of everyone.

I protested against the injustice, and inhumanity.

Condemn the killing and degregation of everyone,

regardless of race, religion, and nationality,

I protect and saved as many as I could.

Serbs, Jews, Gypsy, Slovenians all those persecuted,

and not just once.

Do you have proof of that?

Proof you and your party will deny me?

For example,

The Orthodox mission, asked me

to get his brother out of a camp in

Pavelic unwilling you released him,

much dear to his displeasure.

In 1941, I succeeded in saving 157 women

who've been arrested in Klina.

That same year I intervened to free the Calabasas Bishop.

The following year in 1942 Catholic women

asked me to intervene to save their husbands

who were Jewish.

I help them get their freedom.

I also saved Dr.

served from persecution.

In 1943, I think I had 24 interventions

on behalf of Serbs and 11 on behalf of Jews,

you are comrade, you know who I am.

If I am anything that I'm being accused of,

now, I wouldn't be here talking with you.

My corpse would be long gone, buried somewhere.

I don't have to be alive because I'm the Archbishop.

My title isn't saving me.

I'm here because however much you wish

to deny me my good deeds,

there are, as you would say, too many witnesses to them,

we can't all be buried at once.

Yes, bring me some coffee, will you.

Priests took up arms during the war.

You can't deny that you were aware of that.

They fought for the fascist enemy.

I never approved the actions of such individuals.

On the contrary, we ex-communicated

some of them immediately.

But let's not forget,

a lot of them are subject to horrible torture

at the hands of the Partisans,

nailed across throughout the country, skinned, burned aliv.

Their only sin was because they served the church

and the creation nation.

It war, those are isolated cases.

So do we.

Precise data on the number of murdered priests, nuns,

and theologians and how they were tortured.

And what is that compared to the number of our victims?

Is the number or a reason why a single life

is lost more important.

They were involved in fascism.

We, the anti-fascists we restored Croatia honor.

All of the Yugoslav nations,

not only Croatia were involved in fascism

because they had to.

Croatians fortune is the territory it inhabits.

For centuries it has been a place where that hatred

between the left and the right fight is battlefiel.

For those of us who fight in the word of God in the prayer,

human life is paramount.

Whichever side it's from, not death.

What did you have in your slogan?

Our slogan?

The death to evil needed to be emphasized at the time.

But along with death to fascism,

we added freedom to the people.

Evil is evil.

Regardless of the ideology.

As far as the so-called Croatian guilt,

it is not the first time we faced this accusation,

and something tells me it won't be the last.

The historical fact remains that after the dissolution

of the kingdom of Yugoslavia,

Croatia was the under Republic to declare its independence

under Pavelic and take the side of Hitler

and Mussolini during the war.

To whatever does occur,

history will never be kind to you.

Hitler and Mussolini just took advantage

of the people who were desperate.

Nobody cares about the content of your explanation.

The headline is bad enough.

To have a state at any cost, that was the wish.

The price we have paid on one we are destined

to pay over time will be severe, but we must face it.

Small nations are not allowed to write their own history,

and larger ones don't care as much other than to use us

mercilessly.

Croatians are fierce fighters, I'll give them that.

Because foreign have forced them to defend their homes

for centuries.

Foreigners.

The Austro-Hungarian military commander, Ban Jellacic

he wasn't a foreigner, he was Croat.

Who was used by Ferdinand a hundred years ago

to defend him from Budapest.

And after he was done, they left him to die

his lonely pitiful death at a residence in Zagreb,

a reward for his military service.

Croats still insist on singing rise up Ban,

Croatia is calling you.

We are always looking for someone to liberate us

from a perpetual bloodbath we find ourselves in.

One mistake could be an accident, a long list of mistakes,

at some point you have to stop blaming others

for your misfortunes.

Has the coffee gone missing.

Nevermind, I'll come get it myself.

You want some?

No.

Very well, at some point today,

I'll get you to say yes to me.

Wheres my coffee.

There, it is.

About time.

You can read the land of fascists,

but they still make you get your own coffee.

Some things never change.

You were admiring them.

Pardon?

Flowers, lilies.

Yes.

That scent.

It's intoxicating.

If a woman wears a perfume with even a hint of lilies,

I get weak at the knees.

How did you get them?

They're not common.

No, you're right, they're not.

Every week, I get a shipment.

Yes, I know.

You'll have to forgive me, the bourgeoisie had taste.

You're in the company of a weak man.

Somehow I doubt that.

Is that a compliment you're giving me.

Just an observation.

For a moment there, I thought you and I

had finally agreed on something.

Together we can be stronger.

That is the purpose of Yugoslavia.

The politics of it, foreign and domestic

will always have to come down to compromise.

We must be aware of that.

The church It's not a political organization

or a business.

The church owns more land across the world

than the richest nations do.

You may not be a political organization or a business,

but you are hypocrites.

Where are we sitting right now?

Is this the home that wants to belong to a Jew.

At one time, yes.

One time, 1941, 4 years ago.

Yes.

But who took the homes from the Jews?

The system, your people support.

Yes, but then those same homes are taken by your peop.

You could have given them back.

It will be discussed at some point.

The Ustase took this house from a Jew,

the communist took it from the Ustase,

yet no one is willing to fix the wrongs done by the system

they just overthrew.

A wrong done by one does not justify the wrong done by

whomever comes next.

You know that the only reason people that you

can't marry or have children is so that the

church's property can never come into question.

It's not because your servitude to God would suffer, no.

It's only because the church might lose

its precious valuables.

If the people in the Vatican chose not to care so much

for material things, you might not have been faced

with that fatal choice.

To either enter priesthood or Mary Marija and have a family,

perhaps she'd be alive and well.

And you wouldn't be tormented by the thoughts

of what might have been.

You wouldn't have the need to visit her every Friday

when no one's looking.

I can give you peace of mind.

We're building a new way of life.

You and I, we can co-exist you don't need the chain,

that is the Vatican to drag you down.

Now, stop.

That is the reality whether you care to admit it or not.

A child can never divorce his parents.

Not unless the parents neglect the child,

time and time again.

Equality for all nations and nationalities,

mistakes made by the kingdom won't be repeated.

Yugoslavia will be a republic,

one that's federal socialist, democratic,

and just for all equally.

Declaring is one thing.

Reality is another.

What do you mean by that?

The capitol you've chosen, Belgrade,

all the decisions for once it can be centered there.

We won't have much to say because we won't be asked

what our opinion even is.

And our faith will be subordinated as it was before.

After all that's happened,

I should've picked Ustase Zagreb as the Capitol.

Brotherhood and unity.

Zagreb was not an example of that.

We will not tolerate nationalism as it was practicd

in the so-called independent state of Croatia

for four years.

Belgrade is the only logical choice.

Not a thing in life or nature occurs

without a cause and effect.

You hit a dog, he will react.

Serbs impose their wilderness throughout the 20 years

we spent with him in a first marriage called Yugoslavia.

So how do you expect it to be different?

That's extraordinary.

I have this same conversation in Belgrade

and the story is reversed.

They are the ones who were imposed against, killed

tortured by Croats.

They have proof so on and so forth.

It never ends, we must end it.

Serbs are just as obsessed with ufology and past.

Croatia and Serbs are two opposing worlds,

separated by an oceans of differences.

Yet we have to find a way of coexisting.

For the first time in history,

we have the opportunity to eliminate these differences.

I don't know who you're referring to under we,

but it's clear your revolution is introducing foreign ideas

and the interest of the more powerful

into the mess that is the Balkans.

Everybody forgets the true purpose of small nations

in this European shooting gallery.

The purpose being?

That they had designated by God and fate

to connect people, permanent bridges of sort

between opposing worlds.

Like bridges are also the site of the fiercest battles

intend to be destroyed.

The Croatian bridge defended European Christianit.

You can't say that Pavelic,

and his regime served as a bridge.

I'm not talking about him now as a priest,

but as a witness, a witness Pavelic wasn't fond of.

I did not like him, and he did not like me.

Yes, but Archbishop,

the art of life is choosing the right side.

And what his history right side?

Phoenicians?

Tatas?

Francs?

Bisson deans, Hungarians, Turks, Habsburgs, Germans,

and following world war one Serbs?

Creations has survived and was saved only through God

and the faith in him, not politics.

Yes, but the revolution must go on.

New times are coming.

The church is being separated from the state of the west

as well.

Neither Yugoslavia, all the independent state of Croatia

were inclined towards the church

because we publicly condemned every instance

of unjust persecution.

You will have to firmly distance yourself

from nationalism now.

I can only repeat what I said during my sermon in Zagreb

two years ago.

We do not support nationalism because Catholicm

is universal.

It was God's greatness, that created many nations,

different traditions, languages, cultures.

Every race, every religion, every nation

has the right of life worthy of man.

I'm authorized to tell you that Belgrade

would welcome an agreement with you.

I personally wish for this to happen.

So do we.

But not an agreement where we agree to destroy ourselves.

If you refuse, you will have to accept

full responsibility.

For what?

Consequences.

We're not interested in dealing with the Vatican,

we specifically want an agreement

with the Catholic church of Croatia.

One that you could personally administer.

And as I said, I can guarantee your safety.

We cannot agree to have a national Catholic church.

It does not exist, all roads-

Lead to Rome.

But why?

You have a chance, the power to change that.

And you start a new world.

I've already begun the change and you can start one as well.

Can't you see what we're doing?

Yes.

The veil that is communism may not be very appetizing

to someone such as yourself,

but you must agree with the basic fact

that some form of social equality, safety is necessary.

Haven't our people suffered enough.

Don't we owed them some sense of security.

The politicians in Belgrade and the Orthodox church,

have always gone hand in hand, even publicly.

The Serbian Orthodox church is more political

than every religious organization.

That is why the agreement was annulled.

I do not want to competition between Zagreb and Belgrade,

all acts of vengeance.

I insisted the misunderstandings end

when the agreement was annulled.

We won't give precedence in the new Yugoslavia,

to anyone religion.

Actions are important not words.

With your methods, you get the opposite effect.

What methods?

Locking me up.

The highest Catholic servant in the land.

We were forced to put you in detention.

We wanted to negotiate.

We sent people to you, you turned them down

time and time again.

What options did you give us?

Yes, you are correct, people were sent.

They offered me cigarettes like you do when I came here,

probably thinking that if I smoked home with them,

it gets something for me that I confined them.

You must've sent about four different men,

all with the same approach.

By the third I flat out refused.

Then the threats came.

Our official representative for religious issues

were sent to you.

He was once your associate, you turned him down.

Yes, he was once before he joined your movement

and went over to the Partisans.

I told him I would always receive him at my residence,

but me not as a prisoner and him not as a politician,

but as a priest.

And we even sent Olga to you.

The niece of the leader of the Croatian Peasant party,

Dr. Macek.

She was a devout Catholic in her youth,

as well as her uncle.

I respected and helped both of them when necessary.

But during his student days,

Olga fell under the influence of your ideology

and defected to you.

She told me herself.

And what did she say?

That she believed in you and that your party

was sacred to her.

Didn't that make an impression?

People like her don't come to negotiate.

They come to persuade.

I told Olga to go and talk politics with her uncle

as a tremendous difference between negotiation

and a persistent attempt to persuasion.

It's not very easy talking to you and Mr. Archbishop.

Here, the logs.

Proof that you behaved in an uncooperative manner

even before the Partisans marched into Zagreb.

We sent a delegate to you, this year before Easter

as you were preparing to give a lecture to students

at the university.

That was a clear attempt to frighten me.

It is crucial that we know what the young people

are going to hear.

Yes, he was sent intentionally with our instruction.

Instructions to silence me.

You must understand the position we're in.

You're fooling yourself into thinking

I would take instructions from communists about what I say,

especially to the young people.

You criticized the great powers in your lecture.

I have it all here.

You mentioned the evil Stalin is doing,

the Yalta agreement.

I could go on.

Isn't that getting involved in politics?

The church is not permitted to be timid

or indifferent about anything in this environment.

But you insist that the powers that be have no right

to interfere with you?

That's a one-sided affair as logic would see it.

I simply emphasize in my talk,

the principle of peace St Augustine came up with-

By criticizing the great powers.

Your attempt to discreet diplomacy isn't very discreet.

Who said I was trying to be discreet?

That you aren't.

But Archbishop, we must pick our battles.

St Augustine said,

which means the piece of all things.

- So why hasn't St. - Augustine's ideas been realized?

It is theory Archbishop, just theory.

However you wish to look at it,

I find certain comfort in those who promote peace,

rather than the idea of peace

gained through the means of a bloody dictatorship.

You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs.

I too would like absolute peace to be reached.

Of course, the question remains how.

Peace comes from knowing oneself,

respecting thy neighbor and that belief in God.

And I just saw a pig take flight.

Let's be real for once.

Seven days after your lecture when we were practically

at the gates of Zagreb,

not only did you describe communism as a looming danger,

but you publicly accused us of destroying churches

and killing priests.

You didn't think we'd get into the city, did you?

The bishops, and I simply spoke the truth,

and I can repeat it now, anytime, if you'd like.

You are programmed to have a response to everything I sa.

Because I have nothing to hide.

My soul is pure.

Is yours?

243 priests and fathers were killed by the Partisans.

169 in prison, 89 disappeared along with 119 theologians,

the numbers keep rising.

We can't talk like this.

These numbers cannot be-

Enough!

If any of what you say is true,

then your people didn't die innocent men.

And as you said, everything in life has a cause and effec.

These were men of God got and honor-

Spare me the sympathy Catholic, they were collaborators.

In February, the 7th 29 priests were killed

inside a monastery in Siroki Brijeg at Herzegovina.

The information I was given was that Siroki Brijeg

was a stronghold of the enemy, as simple as that.

So you knew about this?

Of course I did.

The problem was dealt with.

These men possessed nothing but a kitchen knives.

You were there?

You know this to be true what you just said.

I know enough that guns are never part of the clergy.

So quickly are to defend based on old assumptions.

As quick as you to assume otherwise.

You should know better Archbishop

than to stick your neck out to save someone

from Herzegovina.

The only thing they enjoy more than money

is distorting the truth.

There was credible proof to have them-

- Killed? - ...dealt with.

And I was the one who gave the older.

People die in war Archbishop.

A message needed to be sent.

No trial, just an assumption and immediate verdict.

We are turning to both our times.

In France, just this last year during the liberation

from the Germans, thousands of suspects have died

without legal process, why?

Because they collaborated with the enemy.

France is not like the Balkans.

He, it is enough just to label someone a fascist

and that's it.

And the tiny nation being persecuted.

It's the hand of our peoples revenge.

The power is now in the hands of your commanders

and commissaries, most of whom were Serbs.

They too collaborated with the Germans,

but this gets conveniently forgotten.

The chief commander Jelic, he bragged the Soviet

was the first country in Europe,

to rid itself of the Jews.

And you think that you Yugoslavia can suddenly become

a community of equal nations?

That is the vision, and that is how it will be.

You too are a Croat, and this is after all your count.

I hope a part of you remembers that.

I am a Croat.

And I'm the general secretary of Yugoslavia.

What I am and where I'm from is what gave us our divisions.

We need to set it aside.

We are all Yugoslavs.

Many of the soldiers that fought in your army

fought alongside the Chetniks.

Aside the constant the sight of anyone who is Croatian,

and you expect them to suddenly change.

They volunteered because they realized

that our revolution is necessary.

They didn't change side based on principle,

they changed side because they saw that history

was about to change.

Their intent was to save their own necks,

and they will turn that back on you

if they see something better coming around the corner.

Would you blame them?

An army without a backbone is like a parishioner

without a church.

I have been speaking the entire time about

what's important to my believers in nation,

but if I'm not allowed to function,

there is no point to this meeting.

And according to you, what are these issues?

One for example, on the edges of the city,

in the poorest neighborhoods, where according to you,

you once for the human rights of the ordinary man,

camps are being built with barbwire fences.

Every day, these so-called prisoners in these camps

are taken to military courts or simply disappear.

These are ordinary men whose only guilt

is that they were forced to live under fascism.

They could have joined us.

They're not like the Chetniks.

I don't see a problem in our vetting process.

We must be certain that those who remain

are steadfast in their belief in anti-fascism.

Besides if our camps are so terrifying,

what would you call Jasenovac?

How many were killed there.

A house taken by the Ustase, gets taken by the communists.

Account build by the Nazis,

it justifies one build by the communists,

and round and round we go.

I sent a letter, I'm sure you know about directly to Pavelic

everybody in Zagreb knows I openly stated

that Jasenovac was disgraced for all Croatians.

That is why I ended up on the unfavorable list

in the previous system.

It's well-known that you met with Pavelic.

Yes, according to protocol.

After the Croatian state was founded I was obliged to.

The same way I'm respecting your invitation

as the leader of the new Yugoslavia.

And the same way I'd respect

if one day someone else was sitting across from me

where you are right now.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

If I told you, I said the same thing to Pavelic

and he said those same words you just said to me,

you would label me a liar.

Nothing lasts forever, at least of all politics.

I'm willing to bet that I last a little longer than him.

I warned Pavelic, and the members of parliament,

once they institute a race laws in 1941

in front of St. Mark's church, that God's laws were supreme,

and that we should all be ruled by them.

From that moment on his relationship with me

was nothing more than courteous at best.

And towards the end of the war,

you reached out to Pavelic.

Yes, in 1944.

When Hitler and his allies were beginning to lose the w,

I wanted to save what could be saved.

For the sake of our people who are tricked into something

they were never part of.

He arrogantly and flatly refused me.

It also says in the reports that the occupiers

held talks with you just a month ago before they retread

asking you as Archbishop to take over power.

This means that you are an authority to them.

I was not made aware of that.

But I know I was a persona non grata for some time.

I think, you know me better than my own flesh and blood.

It also says that before their final retreat,

you paid a visit to the occupiers.

Were you saying your goodbyes to them voluntary?

I requested from Ustases that they in the Germans,

de-mine Zagreb before fleeing it?

I for one would have had them de-mine the city

by making them walk across all the fields

they placed the mines in.

Revenge.

Justification.

Reap as you sow.

If those mines had remained,

many civilians would have been killed

along with your soldiers.

When the Partisan army entered Zagreb,

the man who sat in that chair when you walked in,

the president of our Croatian government,

Dr. Vladimir Bakaric- I recognize him.

...appeared before your residence

yet no one had the courtesy to greet him.

Is that how liberate is welcomed?

I recall that my people told me three dusty cars

with soldiers were circling out cathedral

armed to the teeth.

Armed or not, it was your duty to greet them with respect.

Our doors are open to anyone who wishes to enter

just not those carrying weapons.

They deserve to be greeted as heroes.

Zagreb was engulfed in chaos in those days,

the government was changing.

We didn't know who was in those cars.

And that's a lie.

The message was sent informing you

that the president of our Croatian government

would be visiting you upon our arrival in Zagreb.

Your people never responded.

I was never given such information.

This is a report from one of our officers

stating that the message was received

and signed for by one Svetozar Ritting,

isn't he your closest associate.

One man's account does not make it a true account.

You don't say.

You know this?

"This is to certify that I Svetozar Ritting

I've received the request that Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac"

with a signature at the bottom.

I see it, yes.

So either you or your associate is lying.

I am not and he is.

Yes.

He told me that an officer came one evening,

informing him that one of our parishioners

had been involved in an accident

and that he needed confirmation,

that indeed it was the same that we all knew.

Can you trust those closest to you?

From what I gather your associate is not someone

who likes you very much.

I thought loyalty was the foundation of the church.

I had no knowledge that anyone was coming.

Whether you did or you didn't, would it make a difference?

The fact is you didn't think we'd reach Zagreb, did you?

Certainly not as fast as we did.

You have been preaching against communism from day one.

These are facts, indisputable facts.

I didn't think you'd reach Zagreb fast.

Finally, you admit it.

So could it surprise you that I had no other option,

but to isolate you?

It's funny how so many words can be used

to mask the actual meaning.

I am the only word that can truly paint

what was done to me.

And what is that word?

Detention?

Imprisonment.

What surprised me more is that you free me from prison

two days ago and asked me to come here today.

You would like to paint me as someone void of mercy.

But when I tell you that many proposed

you'll be relieved permanently of your duties,

and I was the one who said, no, let me meet this, man.

Let me look into his eyes

when he tells me his version of the truth.

And the army you defeated wanted me gone as well.

That's a convenient statement.

Can you prove its validity?

And where's the proof of your army

you want to become besides you saying it?

The difference, being that I'm the head commander

of the Yugoslav army, and they have to listen to me.

I have many subordinates, but above me is nothing

and no one, least of all your God.

Extremists on the right one to be gone.

There was not curation enough based on my sentence

to defend the innocent, that is the duty of the church.

There was credible information relayed to me

by the former military Tatia,

the German command in Zagreb,

that I was in the liquidationist.

So you're saying the Germans saved you from assassination.

Oh, they had the last word on everything,

so yes, it's likely.

Assassination of the murder of the highest

serving Catholic church official

would do that government more harm than good.

And me being gone, won't do you any good either.

Yes, tell them to wait a little long.

All right, I'll come get some coffee.

They're waiting for me to call them in.

The two of us need to come to an agreement on the basic idea

of how the church of Croatia should go on.

The church will remain as it has.

Archbishop time is passing and Belgrade's waiting.

I have to tell you that a lot of people

were not very enthusiastic about our meeting.

Belgrade has always been against me.

And why do you think that is?

I am a Croat.

That's all.

That's plenty.

So am I.

I've never presented itself as a problem

when I was there.

You share the same ideals.

To you that is a stronger bond than one through faith

because you have none.

Belgrade wasn't always against you.

King Alexander himself gave permission for you

to be the head of the Catholic church of Yugoslavia.

He understood that the biggest obstacles the kingdom faced

was how it behave towards occurrence in the Catholic church.

Is it true that you once told the King that the church

is the only institution capable of opposing

the approach and communism.

Something in that sense was said,

and I still hold that to be true.

That the church would defeat communism.

Time will tell.

Two months after speaking with you,

the King dies at the hands of an assassin in France.

Some people believe you were involved in this.

They may blame me for potential floods, tidal waves,

earthquakes, I wouldn't be surprised.

No, they wouldn't blame me for these things,

they would blame God.

King Alexander did confirm me as the Archbishop,

but only off the two previous options

were deemed more nationalistic than me.

I guess the King was misinformed.

The fact that I served in the army gave the impression-

You would be obedient.

Perhaps.

But I had no desire in becoming Archbishop.

I felt I wasn't worthy.

Then why did you accept?

I obeyed the calling in the name of the cross

that I wear around my neck.

My late mother was just as devout.

She bore a lot of children.

Did she pray often?

Oh yes.

Although I think God probably wasn't paying attention.

You find it a weakness to pray.

I find it a warm blanket

when nature surrounding us becomes cold.

I had heard you suffered a terrible bout of pneumonia

that you almost died.

That's true.

I endured.

Did you pray in that moment?

I've endure when things become tough,

even seeming insurmountable.

It stirs something inside of me.

You didn't answer my question.

I always sleep, uncovered.

My mother would yell at me for that, old habits.

It's never too late to change.

If it is for the good.

You need to acknowledge the reality

of your current situation, Aloysius,

it's useless to go to mass in the afternoon.

Time is running out.

I fear we Will never come to a resolution.

We can, if we want to, both of us,

we hold the keys to how this land will go on.

What kind of a world we wish to live in.

We can agree, that help is what people need, yes?

Our approach is a different, but our goal is the same.

I don't believe in life after death.

And I certainly don't avoid the pleasures

of this earthly existence, as you can see,

but not a single soul can say that I haven't made

great sacrifices for the beliefs that I fight for.

Going into the forest with barely

a hundred like-minded idealists,

in 1941 when everybody believed that Hitler would prevail.

If it weren't for the long Russian winters

that also took down Napoleon,

nothing would have been able to rescue you

and your like like-minded idealists, not even communism.

Then the west united saving Stalin,

giving them a free pass.

Poetic justice.

Everybody has to pay the price sooner or later.

And if the British and the Americans

had landed on the Adriatic,

then the story would perhaps be written

in a completely different line.

Would you forgotten that the British and the Americans

were not fond of Marx and his ideas.

Just last year, I assured Prime Minister Churchill

that I wasn't going to introduce communism to Yugoslavia.

Then you're not an idealist, you were a politician.

Another chameleon.

I'm a survivor.

My goal is to preserve Yugoslavia at any cost,

the imperialist, as well as the Soviets,

let us down at Yalta, and still I managed to get aid

from both the west and the east.

Marxism or communism of any kind is not going to save us

nor the nations you are uniting is new Yugoslavia,

but now it is being misused to mask

or perverse horror on the horizon.

I insisted in the politic bureau

that the Croatia-Serbia issue is the most important one

that needs to be solved with the help of the Orthodox

and the Catholic churches.

But in Belgrade, they say that you can't be talked to.

And after speaking to you now,

I'd say that's a bit of an understatement.

Stepinac is stubborn, they'd say, a fundamentalist.

And I'd use the argument that the Germans

killed your brother in your hometown Kracic,

because they knew how close the two of you were.

And Belgrade's response is that in your hometown,

we had one of the bloodiest battles of our whole campaign.

In a single day in 1943, 500 of our fighters died.

Now my hometown is the enemy.

Do you see now, how far this reaches?

You say your neighbor killed your cat,

he proclaimed you killed his dog,

you say he poisoned your cow,

and in return, you burned down his stable.

This way another conflict in the future is certain,

and why must more blood to be spilled?

You have to first agree what version of history

is the accurate one.

You speak of a new beginning,

but what has happening now since you've liberated Zagreb.

I told you, this war didn't end

with the liberation of Zagreb.

But the war in Zagreb it's over,

and yet a large number of civilians, women,

children, the elderly, all throughout Croatia

are moving west fearing retaliation.

If the enemy surrendered their arms,

nothing would happen to the civilians.

Surrendering to your units

would've been death to the soldiers.

They are the enemy.

We have to radically cleanse our home.

What is happening is an Exodus of an entire nation,

unprecedented in Croatian history,

thousands upon thousands of being killed.

I'm not blind to any man's desire to seek revenge.

However, primitive it is in my eyes, but civilian-

How many of the allies killed at the end of the war?

Entire cities level to the ground.

Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden massacred and not accidentally.

And how are they better?

They are not!

But the winners get to define how their sins are remembered.

I wouldn't even call them sins.

What would you call them?

Prevention of selective amnesia.

Killing of 200,000 civilians is necessary

to prevent people from not forgetting.

You have fallen under the influence of the enemies rumors.

Entire families are being erased.

The number you just stated is propaganda

spread by the enemy.

You are treading through muddy waters, Archbishop.

You can silence me and others for now,

but witnesses have escaped.

The truth will come out despite being locked in graves,

and pits all throughout this land.

We can agree that both sides have their graves and pits.

I am supposed to keep silent?

Forget, in front of you even.

A fellow Croat, a communist of all things

from a Catholic family,

a fighter for a new and more just world, as you say,

I would betray the cross that I wear around my neck,

and a vow that I chose to live by

if I did not speak the truth.

Yes, the truth.

Not the truth as I see it, but the truth that is.

Belgrade has you blinded, yet you forget

they would give away with you if you express

anything other than what they say is true and right.

Have you considered that what you think of as the truth

might not be a such?

People can be wrong.

The truth is likely to be somewhere in the middle,

a place nobody wants to visit.

The march of death of our people, yours too

is happening now as we speak.

In times of peace, people are still being killed.

Croatians in your new Yugoslavia will not forgive or forget.

No it must, that's in the Bible remember?

They will.

If the evil needs to keep happening, stop being denied.

Then they shouldn't forget that just a few days ago

I issued an executive order to our troops

to stop the killing of prisoners of war

or others arrested by our forces.

If you issued such an order, why is it not being followed?

Unlike God, I can't oversee everything yet.

Anyone sabotaging orders will be punished.

I've done as much as I could within reason.

This land is the cradle of European Christianity,

a place that prevented the Turks

from the conquest of Europe.

Right now, the choice is between you and Pavelic.

And to whose swords you wish to die.

If he picks his side, his neighbor does not,

it means he has to take up arms and kill

in the name of what?

Some ideology, both of which are destined to fail.

I warned you, we can't talk like this.

We weren't reaching agreement if this continues,

you are constantly equating our struggle with the fascist.

Death on either side is death.

The pain, those coasters feel is still the same

left or right up.

A price gets paid for making the wrong choice in a war.

The curse of King Zvonimir lives on,

it's a plague that refuses to die.

I've heard of it.

That's a folk tale.

A fable.

That's what you don't seem to understand.

Our people who have never been allowed

to write their own history, have no other option,

but to pass it on through talk and language as teachings.

So when Kings Zvonimir was about to be stoned to death

by his own faithful countrymen,

he laid a curse upon them

that they would forever be subserving to foreigners

and unworthy of their own land.

I know the story.

And ever since Croatians have fallen

under the rule of Hungry,

and then the Turks, Austrian, Italian, Serbs,

and foreigners as always find a small number of sycophants

who wanted their protection, serving their own interests.

Raise the hand against their own flesh and blood.

Every single subject raised with you ends with God

and Croat.

Because I am a Croat and a Catholic, it's tragically,

one isn't allowed to mention it

without being labeled a nationalist.

Intolerance grows once people start pounding their chest

proclaiming their so-called national allegiance.

Intolerance arises when one of the groups

is not respected and attempts to meet to eradicate it.

When Croats remembered their paths,

we were accused of wanting a great Croatia.

Why?

So that others can conceal their own great

state potentially.

The system we defeated wanted a great Croatia.

Did you see how far it got?

This is why communism is a progressive idea

because internationalism,

it raises national divisions and prevents national conflic.

You'll have trouble seeing it through in Yugoslavia,

the Serbs will never abandon their obsession

with either transforming everybody into Serbs

or subjugating them.

They will focus on us, Croats the most,

don't forget that.

And since you've brought it up,

Christianity transcended these divisions

long before communism with this message of love thy self,

as thy neighbor.

But nowhere in the Bible does it say

you should forget once mother, once father,

once grandfather, great-grandfather

or avoid thinking about one's roots.

Don't you care about your family?

That you ask yourself who they were, where they came from.

I've spent more time with you than was planned.

I've given you an opportunity to talk,

to vent your grievances something I didn't have to.

This was really at my discretion.

Well, then, is a thank you enough?

We have to get to the matter at hand,

the obstacle of Croatia and Yugoslavia will be solved

only if we reach an agreement on the most important issue,

the relationship between your church and our government.

And how do you see that coming to pass?

You and the Catholic church must become our ally.

You must remove yourself from the governance of the Vatican,

be a church that is ruled by you and your fellow worshipers

are not by religious bureaucrats sitting in Rome.

That's the reason you call for me?

Yugoslavia and Croatia is part of it,

must be an independent Republic deciding its own fate.

At the moment, you are dependent on the Vatican

for your decisions, a state that was and will always be

a foreign Italian entity to us.

Just two years ago, it was part of a fascist movement

that fought against us on the free world.

This is something I know you'll deny,

but these are facts you must accept.

Italy freed itself from fascism during the war.

The Vatican was made a sovereign state in 1929 specifically

so no one could claim it as protector of Italy,

but the Vatican is unique to the world.

It has no military or police, politicians,

or diplomacy of any kind like others.

The Vatican is a place where Jesus legacy is preserved.

A legacy began by Romans in Rome after they crucified him.

The very man they worship now.

Pavelic went there to pray for God to give him the strength

to kill in his name.

And what did the Vatican do?

Not a thing.

If he did go, it was never an official visit

as head of state, and he was never received by the Pope.

If asking weren't interested in meeting with Pavelic.

Come on now, Aloysius nothing in politics is accidental.

He may not have been officially received by the Pope,

but the Vatican shrewdly avoids getting thrust

into the sewer when those near them fall into it.

I informed the Vatican of the crimes

perpetrated on creation soil during the war

by both sides equally.

And anyone who wishes can visit the Vatican.

You too as a Catholic had occurred can do so as well.

Nothing is preventing you.

I'm sure the art is worth the trip.

Should you answer that?

Perhaps they wish to bring you more coffee.

It'll stop.

It is crucial for us that you distance yourself

from the Vatican in some way, the rest will be easy.

The Cathedral in Zagreb was built stone by stone

over a thousand years.

It was built as a spiritual and religious union

of the Croatians with the Vatican and God.

It's just as old as Paris as Rotterdam.

1300 years have passed since our nation

adopted the Catholic faith

again, through the intermediation of Rome.

You are returning to ancient history.

There is no present without a clear understanding

of the past.

That's the mistake politicians make when they attempt

to resolve current issues by making a quick

and superficial break from the past,

you can cut a tree down above its roots,

but 10 new branches sprout when its surface.

Forget preaching for a moment and be realistic.

The reality is communists choose to ignore the roots.

As if everything originated with them and by their-

You're repeating yourself.

1941 of all years, marked 1300 years

since we adopted Christianity our faith.

The same year you stood by the wrong side when war began.

1300 years of loyalty, Mr. Broz.

I am the General Secretary of the Communist party

of Yugoslavia, and as such, I am known Tito!

I believe I have earned that.

I am addressing you now as a Croat

and son of a Catholic family,

something I hope you haven't forgotten, Tito.

It's a little late in the day for that now,

let's just stick to that.

Unless you're thinking of re-baptizing me.

Miracles do occur.

I have admiration for your tenacity.

And I do understand you.

Do you understand me?

God wanted us both you and I to be here

in this moment in time in history,

the future will judge us on how we act in this moment.

But our history, Croatian history,

and the history of our faith began 1300 years ago.

For centuries the Vatican has stood by us, prayed for,

and we have been there for them.

It was here that the bedrock of Christianity was defended.

And now you wished for me to just forget it, set it aside,

erase it?

So that I can help you reunite and idea founded in atheism?

In the name of every Croat living and gone

I will not do that.

Not now, not ever.

The Vatican's tentacles overreach their boundaries.

I see the connection you seem to have with them,

but I can't accept a foreign entity to have so much power.

I can't allow it.

To Vatican is not run like a government.

Well, perhaps we could learn a thing or two from them

because they've managed to govern without

officially governing for 2000 years.

Spoken like a true atheist.

I don't hide my disbelief.

Just like you don't hide your belief.

So what created us?

You've just given me a lesson in the history

of the church, and now you want me to give you my version

of what the universe is.

I've always wondered how an atheist

can believe in love and not believe in God.

God and love are not the same.

One cannot believe in love without God

or God without love.

That as a rabbit hole.

In what way?

If I tell you that I believe in love.

You believe in love?

- I do. - Well that's enough.

You asked.

Go on.

I believe that we are a fortunate accident

one that has the capacity for beauty to create it,

to enjoy it, live with it and by it.

But do I believe that God created us?

No.

And you've made inquiries to be sure.

Spiritual or physical.

I mean, you said there is no presence

of any physical evidence.

Well, no, there isn't.

And that may be true,

but I'd argue that there are millions around the world

who without the actual physical presence of God

have felt it.

When people want to believe

their belief tends to cloud their judgment, much like yours.

I have felt God in every step I've taken in my life.

You speak of love, but you've never kissed a woman.

People like you, you stand at the altar,

handing out lessons speaking of things

you yourself have never experienced.

How could you, what am I saying?

The church won't allow it.

If God created us, as you say he did, then why,

why must his emissaries people like you

mute your human desires?

Is that Christian?

Is it love?

I'd say it isn't.

Our love belongs to the worshipers.

Oh, forgive me, but shit doesn't suddenly turn into gd

just because it comes out of your mouth.

What would you call your talk on what love is?

Theory or practice, which is it?

I did sacrifice a different kind of life

for what I have now, yes.

But I have no regrets.

That's not what I'm talking about.

I have never kissed a woman.

I don't know what that feeling is like, yes,

you have me beat.

I will never have children.

Perhaps the one aspect of all you mentioned

that rings inside my heart is that,

but I have love inside me.

The love for my people and the love of my country.

To you that may seem foolish, but to me,

it gives me purpose.

I want an agreement between you and me,

between the church and the government

to distance yourself from the Vatican.

I am giving you an opportunity to live in peace,

to co-exist.

If you don't take advantage of this,

I'm afraid things will go downhill rather fast.

I will not back down from my stance.

And what if you were to take refuge in the Vatican

for awhile, a spiritual sabbatical.

I don't need the Vatican to be spiritual.

You don't need the Vatican, yes.

You are trying to trick me.

You the Vatican.

I don't need it to be spiritual, I need to for guidance.

Well, that's the thing, isn't it?

Your guidance isn't your, you're a mere puppet

of the pope.

And aren't you one of Stalin?

For your own good you should rethink your present decision

for the sake of the future.

We'll work to further consolidate our power

and whoever opposes us will encounter a monumental obstacle.

The revolution continues by all available means

legal and justified.

The Stalin trials with bulk and twists.

There are people who want to see you prosecution.

Many would.

Prosecuted for war crimes.

There is evidence here to plant a seed of doubt

and the world will never see you as an innocent man again,

it's all it takes a single seed.

I am ready for whatever storms may lay ahead.

You don't want to be running into the mist

like a goose, few have survived it.

I hope I'm being clear.

Crystal clear.

But let me be clear, our church has not refused

to work with your government,

it is in fact, the other way around.

We've been told what to do, dictated,

believers being ban not to attend mass

and yet you proclaim freedom and protection of religion.

The youth of being politicized and encouraged to oppose

all those who aren't in the party.

The printing and publishing of our books

and papers is being suspended.

Charitable work, and the work of nuns forbidden.

Not to mention the priest is still being imprisoned

or simply disappeared without a trace.

So tell me what would happen if we surrendered

and leave the Vatican, what would become of us?

I'd say that would be the wisest decision

you could make for your believers and for yourself,

but I'm not in the business of persuasion.

This entire conversation has been just that.

Well, if it has,

then I'm obviously not very good at it.

I will not abandon the vow I've made at the church,

to God and to the faithful.

You've made that abundantly clear.

But time isn't on your side,

nor of the symbol you're wearing around your neck.

I'd hate to see it look down upon one day

just like the Swastika case.

I choose to have faith in the one who sacrificed

himself for us.

And I'm convinced that your red star will never replace

the symbol I wear.

You've said no to me the entire evening.

I'm not accustomed to this.

So permit me for request.

I'd like to hear one yes from you.

That depends what you're asking of me.

You have to say yes and I'll ask,

but you have to say yes beforehand,

you can trust me this ones.

Only if you accept a gift I have for you.

A gift?

Yes.

I can't say no to a gift.

Then I will say yes.

To new ideas.

To truth.

Aloysius, perhaps I've been all wrong about you.

Well, I am a son of a winemaker after all.

Now, your gift, I'm excited.

So that you remember your roots,

and always know that he is there for you,

even if you choose not to believe.

Very thoughtful of you, thank you.

The meeting's over, get the car ready to escort

the Archbishop back to his residence.

Goodnight to you, Aloysius.

And good luck.

Can I leave you with one final thought.

Of course?

When the great artist Voltaire,

who had been a harsh critic of the church his entire life

was on his death bed, a friend asked him,

"Voltaire, is there a God?"

To which he replied, "Perhaps now is not the right time

to make new enemies."

May God be with you, Marshall Tito.