In Croatia, Ante Pavelić ran a self-consciously Catholic regime, devoted to ridding a multi-ethnic state of Jews, Roma and Orthodox Serbs (though, curiously, not of Protestants or Muslims). His sadistic methods shocked even the Nazis. Nor did the Catholic Church condemn the forced conversions of the Orthodox which were part of Pavelić’s programme. A Franciscan friar, Sidonje Scholz, visited concentration camps, offering Serbs conversion or death. When he was killed by Serb resisters, the newspaper sponsored by Archbishop Stepinac of Zagreb described Friar Scholz as a ‘new martyr who died in
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