As archbishop of Zagreb and military vicar to the armed forces and the Ustasha, Stepinac was the de facto head of the Catholic Church in Croatia during the Second World War. In a regime that counted its Catholicism as the core of its national identity, the Archbishop’s importance and influence in the events that transpired there during and after the war were substantial. Stepinac was convicted by the Yugoslav authorities in 1946 for allegedly collaborating with the Ustasha, and held responsible for his role in the Holocaust of approving forced conversions of Orthodox Serbs. He spent the rest of his life in prison and house arrest. The Catholic Church beatified him in 1998, which was regarded a controversial decision by a part of public opinion (especially in Serbia).