Papal visit: Clergymen stand outside a church during an unveiling ceremony of a statue of St John Paul II in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on April 30 last year. The statue was erected to honour the new saint, who had called for peace during the Bosnian war of the 1990s. Photos: CNS
IN an effort to help bolster a minority Catholic population and encourage dialogue and friendship among once-warring ethnic and religious communities, Pope Francis announced he would be visiting Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Pope said he hoped the one-day trip on June 6 to Sarajevo, the capital, would help “be an encouragement for the Catholic faithful, give rise to the development of the good, and contribute to strengthening fraternity, peace, inter-religious dialogue and friendship”.
The Pope made the surprise announcement on February 1 after praying the Angelus with those present in St Peter’s Square.
It will be Pope Francis’ eighth trip abroad and the eleventh country he visits outside of Italy since his election two years ago.
The Balkan nation, which is struggling to rebuild itself after a devastating war marked by ethnic cleansing, is still largely divided along ethnic lines. Bosnians make up 48 per cent of the country’s nearly 4 million people, while Serbs make up 37 per cent and Croats 14 per cent.
About 40 per cent of all citizens are Muslim, 31 per cent Orthodox and 15 per cent Catholic.
The 1992-95 conflict saw a Serb campaign of ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims after the mostly Muslim Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1992.
More than 200,000 Muslims and tens of thousands more were killed in the conflict, more than 600 Catholic churches were destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of Catholics were forced to flee certain regions.
Although the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords ended the fighting, the complex political structures the peace deal established – with one area administered by ethnic Serbs and another by a Muslim-Croat federation – meant the mostly Catholic Croat community became powerless and discrimination against them grew, according to Bosnia’s bishops.
During their “ad limina” visit to Vatican City in 2006, the bishops told journalists that Catholics were slowly “becoming second-class citizens in our own country”.
Cardinal Vinko Puljic of Sarajevo said at the time that Bosnia and Herzegovina was “a confused country” whose complex political structure was unsustainable, unjust and must be changed.
Corruption and political stalemate were said to be rampant.
It has the highest youth unemployment rate in the world, with nearly 63 per cent of 15- to 24-year-olds without work.
The overall unemployment rate of about 44 per cent and a perceived sense of political inaction to address the country’s economic woes have led to a series of protests and demonstrations in some cities.
St John Paul II visited Bosnia and Herzegovina twice in his 26-year pontificate: in 2003, and in 1997 when he celebrated Mass in a snowstorm in the war-ravaged capital Sarajevo.
The nation, he said later, was “a symbol of the contradictions and hopes” of the 20th century.
Pope Francis is expected to repeat the late-pope’s calls for a change of heart and living one’s faith as the key to solving social and political problems, and building a culture of forgiveness, reconciliation and respect.
Pope Francis had been invited to Sarajevo last year to mark the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War, which was triggered by the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian heir to the throne in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914.
The Pope’s visit will fall on the anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1944, when the Allied invasion of Normandy marked the start of the Allies’ massive push into occupied Western Europe during the Second World War.
CNS
