The Diocese Of Porec And Pula Is Anticipated To Hand Back The Property, Worth About 30,000,000 EU Buck, To The Abbey Of Praglia, In The Province Of Padua.

A new diplomatic crisis has exploded between the Holy See and a Western european Country with a robust Catholic identity : After Ireland’s attack on the Vatican, sparked by the publication of the Cloyne report on abuse of children by clergymen in the diocese, Croatia, a Country which Benedict XVI visited just recently, has followed in kind

The emergency was caused by the Pope’s decision to resolve once and for all, a legal dispute that has been going on for more than a decade, between the Croatian diocese of Porec and Pula and the Benedictine Abbey of Praglia, in the Italian city of Padua. The argument is over the possession of a monastery, surrounded by intensive land, in Dajla in Istria, a spur overlooking the Adriatic Sea, which was passed hands from Italy to Croatia after the second World War.

The land on which the monastery is built was donated to the Benedictine order of Praglia, in the mid Nineteenth century, by Count Francesco Grisoni. The Benedictine property then came under the state possession of the Yugoslav government, as did many properties which belonged to the church.

After the breakdown of Yugoslavia and Croatia’s return to autonomy, with the urgent support of Vatican diplomacy, in 1999 Zagreb, in accordance with the law on denationalisation and in agreement of the Croatian Church, allotted the Dajla property to the Croatian diocese of Porec and Pula. This decision nonetheless hadn’t been given the OK by the Benedictine order of Praglia, which attempted to regain ownership of the abbey and its surrounding land.

In order to resolve the issue, in November 2008, Pope Ratzinger made a Commission headed by three cardinals : the Archbishop of Zagreb, Cardinal Josip Bosanic, the president of the Vatican heritage, Cardinal Attilio Nicora and the legal practitioner, Cardinal Urbano Navarrete.

The case became rather more complicated when the Bishop of Porec and Pula, monsignor Ivan Milovan decided to sell part of the land round the abbey, to a company that wanted to build a golf resort in the area.

The solution the Cardinals created was a clear cut one : property in the possession of the diocese was to be handed back to the Benedictine order, taxes and legal costs were to be refunded, and compensation was to be given for any Croatia real estate sold. The total came to approximately 25 million Euro dollar.

As the Vatican explained today in a long note, “the property in question, which is still under the possession of the diocese” is to be “handed to the Croatian company “Abbazia” (which has a current account in Germany, editor’s note) which belongs to the Abbey of Praglia, in order to revive as much as is at present possible , the conditions in the will of the first donor, which weren’t respected for many years, due to historic changes.”

“Furthermore, the note went on to say, the Diocese has requested that compensation be given to the Abbey of Praglia, for the property the Diocese had previously sold or which are not returnable. This compensation sum is to be regarded as a fixed rate, given that the value of the property already sold by the Diocese is far greater.”

Monsignor Milovan however didn’t accept the solution, as according to him, it might have driven his diocese to the very edge of insolvency. As a consequence, Benedict XVI resorted to a more strong solution : last 6 July, he suspended the prelate for the period of time necessary for a pact to be signed by a specially appointed commissioner, the Spanish prelate Monsignor Santos Abril y Castell, Vice-Camerlengo and former Nuncio to the Balkans.

The Bishop of Porec and Pula , however , did not give in, and ushered the support of Croatia’s highest authorities, including the Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, who welcomed him yesterday and wrote a letter of protest to the Pope.

The Vatican sees the affair as “a exactly ecclesiastical question” and so “is sorry to see it manipulated to cause it to appear like a political and demagogical issue, as though it presented a threat to Croatia.” The note explained that “The Holy See’s decision is structured only as a means of re-establishing justice in the Church, and has even asked for only partial compensation.”

But in Croatia, the affair is seen in a solely political light and has hit a raw nerve : Croatia’s own global legitimacy.
The key to the question is in the fact that the Benedictine order had already received one, seven billion Italian Lira as a type of compensation for the loss of Dajla based primarily on the Osimo Agreements of 1975 between Yugoslavia and Italy : a contract which put a cap on many disputes and quarrelsome issues that had been left open since the end of the second World War as reported tagza.com.

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