OLD ENMITIES ENDURE : Church & state in Slovenia.

Americans of all faiths, or none, tend to embrace the doctrine of separation of church and state. Claims by various churches on the resources of the state are usually indirect and fairly modest, and though anticlericalism exists, it is more often a matter of class or ideology than direct political conflict. Only older Catholics remember the popular anti-Catholicism of Paul Blanshard's American Freedom and Catholic Power.

But in Central and Eastern Europe, which are recovering from a half-century of Communist domination, both church and state are still learning how to function in a democratic society. A modus operandi or vivendi, let alone a tradition, cannot be established in a decade.

Slovenia may not be typical, but it is indicative. The smallest of the former Yugoslav republics, and before that part of the Hapsburg Empire, Slovenia borders Austria, Italy, Croatia, and Hungary. It gained independence in 1991 from Yugoslavia, following a brief war (with few Serbs residing in the province, Slobodan Milosevic had little interest in preventing secession). A prosperous and beautiful country, often called "the Switzerland of the former Yugoslavia," Slovenia is expected soon to join both NATO and the European Union. Of a population of 2 million, at least 70 percent are Catholic.

But if the Communists and the Hapsburgs are gone, their political cultures and institutions have an enduring life that explains the conflict between Catholics--determined to regain the position of the church before World War II--and liberals who speak darkly of the church as a danger to individual freedom and to the political future of the nation.

Like many issues in the Balkans and Central Europe, the conflict can only be understood in the context of several decades, if not centuries. For example, many liberals are former Communists, like President Milan Kucan, and Liberal Democrats, who, until recently, were the dominant force in Parliament. They may not remember the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1918-41), but they were taught that the church not only was the enemy of the people but had actively collaborated with German and Italian invaders.

On the other hand, until its property was confiscated by Marshall Tito's regime in 1945, the church maintained a broad network of educational, medical, and charitable institutions. These were supported by extensive holdings, especially in Slovenia's famed forest lands. Perhaps even more significant was the fact that under the Hapsburgs, the church provided the major career opportunities for poor but bright and ambitious Slovene boys. In many parishes, the priest was the only person who could have been called an intellectual, and thus the church had enormous influence in social and cultural as well as religious matters, a distinction that few people recognized then or, as some liberals insist, even now.

Today, many Slovene Catholics would like to recover some of the influence lost in 1945. Those losses were significant. About two hundred fifty priests were imprisoned; another two hundred fled to the West. Many Catholics, including most lay intellectuals, were executed or went into exile. This history affects the church and the political parties allied to it even now. Both clerics and anticlericals agree that Slovenia's conservatives suffer from the loss of a generation of potential leaders.

During Tito's reign, the church contended with severe restrictions. Not only was its property confiscated, but church publications were suppressed. The archdiocese had no formal leadership, and the vicar of Ljubljana had to report nightly to the police. (The bishop, in exile, was not replaced, for political reasons obvious to anyone who lived through the cold war.) Nuns were forbidden to work in hospitals--many went to Macedonia and Montenegro--and teachers were forbidden on pain of dismissal to be affiliated with the church. Priests had no access to hospitals, prisons, or homes for the aged. All religious education was banned from schools. Christmas was a working day.

After Tito broke with Stalin in 1948, conditions improved to some extent and, even more so in 1967, when Tito visited Pope Paul VI and diplomatic relations with the Vatican were restored. Following Tito's death in 1980, the archbishop of Ljubljana, Alojzij Sustar, gradually began to reclaim the church's prerogatives. For example, in 1986 he was allowed to convey Christmas greetings in the print media, underscoring the fact that it was not a holiday. A year later he repeated the message on radio, and a year after that on television. In 1989, Christmas became an official holiday.

Restoration of church rights and privileges has followed the same incremental pattern. After Slovenia gained independence, Archbishop Sustar continued to move with circumspection. He told the journalist Christopher Merrill that "we distinguish between the country's politics and spiritual mission" and that "we are not connected to any political parties. We support the freedom of Catholics to choose their parties." (Of course, the hierarchy appears to hope that Catholics will choose the People's Party and the Christian Democrats.) This moderation offended some conservative Catholics. Despite the fact that Archbishop Sustar joined well-known writers and intellectuals in signing what writer Sabrina Petra Ramet considered a right-wing attack on former Communists in government, some regarded him as the "red archbishop."

This charge cannot be made of his successor, Archbishop Franc Rode, a 1945 emigre who served in the Vatican before his 1997 appointment. Archbishop Rode seems to be far more outspoken than his predecessor. In any case, Rode's comments on social issues provoked a severe reaction from liberals and appear to have necessitated some damage control by his subordinates. Some critics even speculated that Rode had lived outside of Slovenia for so long that he may not have had full command of the language.

But Rode knows enough Slovenian to demand that religious instruction be reintroduced into public schools and to speak against abortion. Thus far, the church has made little headway on these issues.

The matter of restoring church property is less ideologically divisive than what to do about education or abortion, but even here progress has been slow. The first government of independent Slovenia promised to return confiscated church property. The government dominated by the Liberal Democrats refused to do so. (That coalition fell early in May 2000. It has been succeeded by a conservative coalition friendly to the church, but elections are scheduled for this fall, so no immediate action is expected.)

Some restoration of property has taken place. For example, Saint Joseph's Church in Ljubljana and its monastery and retreat house had been taken from the Jesuits. The church had become a film studio; the monastery, the film offices; the retreat house, a family-planning office. (My source started to say "abortion clinic.") The government offered to return the church building--the largest in Slovenia--but the Jesuits refused on the ground that they could not carry out their mission without the other buildings. Finally, at the end of April, the government gave in. But the forest lands have not been returned, and church spokesmen maintain that the revenue derived from those lands is needed to support institutions, to pay priests, and to renovate and construct church buildings.

The church is also eager for restoration of less material advantages, and this is stated clearly in an official pamphlet: "The church is faced with the task of the restoration of the Spirit and moral values among the Slovene nation." Liberals see this as an attempt to limit personal freedom and return to the conditions of 1939, if not 1539. This is partly a legacy of forty-five years of Communist propaganda, but liberals also point to the statements of Archbishop Rode. In any case, Monsignor Francis Petric, author of the potentially alarming sentence quoted above, admits that the church needs to do a better job of explaining that it does not want to go back to the nineteenth, let alone the sixteenth, century. A synod on pastoral work in the new millennium is developing ways to heal divisions among Slovenes.

This is not going to be easy. Americans also continue to debate state support of religious education and attempts to limit or end abortion, but at least we have vehicles for that debate and are familiar with its terms. These are still being discovered in Slovenia.

Robert Murray Davis, a frequent contributor, teaches at the University of Oklahoma at Norman.