Keywords

• This article focuses mainly on bishop Antonio Santin's attitude towards fascism during his five-year episcopate in Rijeka (from 1933 to 1938). In the 1950's
• some historians began accusing Santin of being too close to Mussolini's government during his episcopate in Rijeka
• and later Trieste
• suggesting he was partly responsible for depriving Croatians and Slovenians of their national rights
• and for their Italianization. Some elements of that criticism are still repeated by Croatian and Slovenian secular and church historians today. In Santin's case
• as with other bishops of multiethnic dioceses in this area
• one must draw a careful distinction between the free decisions of the Church authority and the decisions of the public (or military) administration. One will
• in some cases
• find that fascism influenced the Church
• however
• it should be emphasized that the Catholic hierarchy did not demand
• let alone ask
• that the government authorities behave unjustly toward the Slavic population as communist historiography claimed. However
• Santin did accept some of the Mussolini regime's propaganda
• and responded by sending Italian priests to parishes with Slavic populations
• and by imposing Latin as a liturgical language. On the other side
• he did communicate in Croatian and Slovenian to believers in the hinterland
• unlike other Italian bishops of Rijeka
• and he increased the number of non-Italians in the cathedral chapter