BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (CNS): Pope John Paul II has visited Banja Luka, a Balkan city scarred by two ethnic cleansing campaigns in recent decades, and asked God’s forgiveness for wrongs committed by Catholics and others in the tormented region.
During his 10-hour visit on June 22, the Pope urged rival Serbian Orthodox, Croatian Catholics and Bosnian Muslims to put “suffering and bloodshed” behind them and to embrace the difficult task of “starting afresh” together.
Beatifying a native-born 20th century lay man, he also sought to bolster a minority Catholic community threatened with virtual extinction by the 1991-1995 war’s redistribution of ethnic boundaries.
Ethnic tensions remain high in the region, and many of the city’s Serb majority seemed ambivalent at best about the Pope’s visit. Days before his arrival, authorities pulled down militant Serb posters around the city that read, “Pope, go home”.
Banja Luka Bishop Franjo Komarica also took up the theme of reconciliation in remarks to the Pope before the Mass. He said the local Church forgave “the crimes committed by others, while seeking forgiveness for the crimes committed by members of the Catholic Church of present and past generations”.
