The Latin Church in Croatia is administered by the Croatian Bishops' Conference centered in Zagreb, and it comprises five archdioceses, 13 dioceses and one military ordinariate.

Somewhere in the early 7th century the Archdiocese of Salona vanished with the plundering raids of Sclaveni and Pannonian Avars, and Roman population found refuge in the Diocletian's Palace and other coastal cities and islands.

[12] Francis Dvornik considered that to the Croatian victorius advance is related account from Miracles of Saint Demetrius (7-8th century) about the revolt and liberation of Christian hostages of the Avars between rivers Sava, Drava and Danube.

[12][13] The Croats had their first official contact with the Holy See in year 641 when the Pope John IV papal envoy led by Abbot Martin came to them in order to redeem Christian captives and the bones of the martyrs Anastasius, Maurus and Venancio.

Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus in his De Administrando Imperio (10th century) wrote that the Heraclius (610–641), "obtained and brought priests from Rome and made of them an archbishop, bishop, presbyters and deacons, which then baptised the Croats".

[15] After the baptism, the Croats "made a convent, confirmed with their own signature, and by oaths sure and binding in the name of St. Peter the apostle, that never would they go upon a foreign country and make war upon it, but would rather live at peace with all who were willing to do so.

[8][18] New population certainly did not completely convert at the time as initially probably encompassed only the Croatian elite members (pagan burial customs ceased in the mid-9th century),[19][20] neither such conversions are instantaneous events because missionary work seeks building a Christian mentality.

[21][8] The additional conversion stages were in the late 8th and early 9th century by Patriarchate of Aquileia and Prince-Archbishopric of Salzburg under Frankish supervision, and of pagan Narentines during the reign of Basil I (867–886).

[29] Its formation was probably an act of Croatian dukes and local clergy to separate from Byzantine influence,[27] because in the second half of the 9th century Byzantine emperor Basil I and Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Photios I tried to expand on the already present Christian organization of the Roman Church in the region of former Praetorian prefecture of Illyricum, causing so-called Photian schism (867), managing to get control only of First Bulgarian Empire (871) and Principality of Serbia (873).

Pope John VIII replied with a letter on 7 June 879, in which he wrote that he celebrated a Mass at the tomb of St Peter on which he invoked God's blessing on Branimir and his people, recognizing Duchy of Croatia as an independent and sovereign state.

[36][37] Since the 9th century there is in Croatia a unique phenomenon in the entire world of Catholicism, liturgy that was held in Church Slavonic language with Glagolitic script by Cyril and Methodius.

[40] King Demetrius Zvonimir was crowned on 8 October 1075/76[41] at Salona in the Basilica of Saint Peter and Moses (known today as the Hollow Church) by Gebizon, a representative of Pope Gregory VII.

[46] Among them St. Mary in Zadar (consecrated in 1091[46]), during nuns Čika and Vekenega, was particularly influental for the implemention of the Gregorian reform, cultural-religious life, literary traditions and international relations.

[47] When Croatia lost its own dynasty and entered into a personal union with Hungary in 1102, the Benedictines were slowly dying out, while the mendicant orders, especially Franciscans and Dominicans were becoming more important.

[54] The Archbishop of Zagreb, Aloysius Stepinac, wanted Croatia's independence from the Serb dominated Yugoslav state which he considered to be "the jail of the Croatian nation", so he arranged the audience with Pius XII for Pavelić.

"[54] The Vatican refused formal recognition of NDH but Pius XII sent a Benedictine abbot Giuseppe Ramiro Marcone as his apostolic visitor.

[53] Many Croatian nationalist clergy supported the Pavelić's regime push to drive out Serbs, Gypsies and Jews, or force their conversion to Catholicism.

[56] Despite that, Pavelić told Nazi Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop that while the lower clergy supported the Ustaše, the bishops, and particularly Archbishop Stepinac, were opposed to the movement because of "Vatican international policy".

[54] Phayer wrote that Stepinac came to be known as "judenfreundlich" ("Jew friendly") to the Nazi-linked Ustaše regime, and suspended a number of priest collaborators in his diocese.

On Sunday, 24 May 1942, to the irritation of Ustaša officials, he used the pulpit and a diocesan letter to condemn genocide in specific terms, although not mentioning Serbs:All men and all races are children of God; all without distinction.

"[59] Thirty-one priests were arrested following Stepinac's July and October 1943 explicit condemnations of race murders being read from pulpits across Croatia.

[62] The National Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Croatia (ZAVNOH) originally foresaw a greater degree of religious freedom in the country.

[63] This idea was scuttled after Yugoslav leader Josip Broz removed secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Croatia Andrija Hebrang and replaced him with hardliner Vladimir Bakarić.

In 1987 the Bishops' Conference of Yugoslavia issued a statement calling on the government to respect the right of parents to obtain a religious education for their children.

During the Croatian War of Independence, Catholicism and Orthodoxy were often cited as a basic division between Croats and Serbs, which led to a massive destruction of churches (some 1,426 were destroyed or damaged).

[77] There are three Franciscan provinces in the country: Although the vast majority of Croatians declare themselves as Catholics, a certain share of them do not follow the Church's teaching on moral and social issues.