Aloysius Stepinac - Early Life

Early Life

Stepinac was born in the village of Brezarić in the parish of Krašić, on 8 May 1898, to Josip Stepinac and his wife Barbara. He was the fifth of eight children in his peasant family. In 1909 he moved to Zagreb to study in the Classical Gymnasium and graduated in 1916. Just before his eighteenth birthday he was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian Army. He was attached to the 96th Karlovac Infantry Regiment before going to Rijeka for six months training. He was then sent to serve on the Italian Front during World War I. In July 1918 he was captured by the Italians who held him as a prisoner of war for five months. After the formation of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, he was no longer treated as an enemy soldier, and he instead volunteered for the Yugoslav legion that was engaged on the Salonika Front. A few months later, he was demobilized with the rank of Second Lieutenant and returned home in the spring of 1919.

For service in the Yugoslav forces during World War I, he was awarded the Order of the Star of Karađorđe, an award for heroism in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. After the war he enrolled at the faculty of agronomy of the University of Zagreb, but left it after only one semester and returned home to help his father. In 1922 Stepinac was part of the Croatian Eagles Association and traveled to the Catholic Eagle slet in Brno, Czechoslovakia. He was at the front of the group's ceremonial procession, carrying a Croatian flag. In 1924, he traveled to Rome to study for the priesthood at the Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum. During his studies there he befriended the future cardinal Franz König when the two played together on the same volleyball team. He was ordained on October 26, 1930 by archbishop Giuseppe Palica in a ceremony which also included Franjo Šeper. On November 1, he said his first mass at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. In 1931 he became a parish curate in Zagreb. He established the archdiocesan branch of Caritas in 1931.