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The Jasenovac camp was set up in mid-1941 by Croatia's pro-Nazi Ustasha regime and countless Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fascist Croatians perished there.
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JASENOVAC (AFP)---Croatia's top prelate on Thursday visited a notorious death camp run by the country's pro-Nazi World War ll regime, the first visit there by a local head of the Catholic Church whose wartime role remains controversial.
Cardinal Josip Bozanic defended the church during the visit to the town of Jasenovac, site of the camp known as Croatia's Auschwitz, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of Zagreb.
The camp was set up in mid-1941 by Croatia's pro-Nazi Ustasha regime and countless Serbs, Jews, Roma and anti-fascist Croatians perished there.
"Here in Jasenovac we feel a deep pain due to all the victims, especially those who suffered and were killed here by Croatian people and notably by members of the Catholic Church," he said in a sermon at a local church.
"We are not coming (to Jasenovac) to apologize, to try to justify ... although some are still seeking it from us," Bozanic stressed.
"Although we recognize the sin of those who unworthily bore the Catholic name, the Catholic Church never took part or supported those crimes," he added.
The cardinal said that "representatives of the Church and its believers ... opposed inhuman ideology targeting notably members of the Jewish and Serbian people, Roma and Croat political opponents."
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that 100,000 people died in Jasenovac while the Serbs put the figure at 700,000.
Every year Jasenovac hosts a memorial ceremony and a multi-denominational religious service for its victims. Although Catholic priests take part in the ceremonies, a Catholic Church head has never visited the site.
Critics accuse the church and the country's World War II Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac of collaborating with the Ustasha regime, despite being aware of the genocide.
They also warn against its current tolerance of displays in the country of pro-Nazi symbols and insignia.
Stepinac died under house arrest in 1960, after being jailed by the communist authorities for collaboration with the Ustasha regime. The late pope John Paul II beatified him during his visit to Croatia in 1998.
In Jasenovac, Bozanic defended Stepinac and criticized the communist authorities saying their "inhumanity compares with that of the Nazis."
"From this place we also cry out for the truth on the victims of the communist regime since unfortunately, the crimes of communism ... are still being kept in secret, hidden and denied," he said.
Croatian Serb leader Milorad Pupovac said he was "disappointed" with Bozanic's message.
The Serbs expected an "unambiguous and undoubted message of respect towards
the victims," Pupovac stressed.
Almost 90 percent of Croatia's population of 4.4 million are Roman Catholics.