August 12, 2011: The Vatican says it is astonished that Croatia’s government has
blocked Pope Benedict’s decision to hand back ownership of a Croatian monastery to
the Italian Benedictines. This “raises astonishment, both for the extraordinary decision
and also because the Croatian Prime Minister had expressed her intention to address
the problem in a spirit of collaboration,” Vatican spokesman, Jesuit father Federico
Lombardi told CAN on August 11. The disagreement centers on the monastery of
Dajla, in northwest Croatia. It is situated in an area that was confiscated from Italy
by communist Yugoslavia following the Second World War. The monastery is currently
in the control of the local Croatian diocese of Porec and Pula. Earlier this month
the Vatican ruled that the monastery should be given back to the Italian Benedictines,
along with a reported 6 million Euros (approximately $8.5 million dollars) in compensation.
But the proposed transfer was blocked by the Croatian Ministry for Justice, which
also annulled the entire agreement. Fr. Lombardi said that it is now “imperative to
give the interested parties the opportunity for a review of this decision in the appropriate
forums.” The row comes only two months after Pope Benedict’s visit to Croatia which
was acclaimed by most observers as a diplomatic success.