In an About-Face for Croatian Church, Archbishop Talks Up Tolerance

A few weeks after he was chosen to head the Roman Catholic Church in Croatia, Msgr. Josip Bozanic invited a fledgling association of dissident television journalists to a personal audience.

Bozanic’s gesture was seen as an important show of support for activists fighting to break the airtight government control of most Croatian electronic media.

“It was a huge boost [at] a crucial moment,” said Damir Matkovic, the president of the group, Forum 21.

It was also the kind of unprecedented action by Croatia’s senior Catholic clergyman that has surprised the faithful public and shocked the right-wing ruling party, which until recently relied confidently on the steadfast allegiance of the Catholic Church.

In the six months since the Vatican appointed him archbishop of Zagreb, Bozanic has rattled the status quo by denouncing official corruption and the state’s “sinful structures,” which have caused the “quick enrichment of a few and the impoverishment of the many.”

He urges tolerance for ethnic enemies, pledges to fight for democracy and human rights, and tells priests to work on behalf of the poor and not the privileged.

The appointment of Bozanic signals a remarkable shift in a country where Catholic leaders, since Croatia declared its independence in 1991, too often joined in lock step with politicians to promote xenophobic nationalism over brotherhood and reconciliation.

Bozanic, 48, took over from Cardinal Franjo Kuharic, 79, who retired after 27 years administering the archdiocese. The succession marked a generational as well as philosophical turn and augurs significant change within the church and, perhaps, society as a whole in this fervently Catholic country.

But Bozanic, who is also president of the Croatian Bishops’ Conference, is still largely alone in a sea of conservative clerics and must call frequently on the authority bestowed upon him by Pope John Paul II.

His sermons are clearly irking authoritarian President Franjo Tudjman, who--along with national television, which is controlled by Tudjman’s political party--snubs the archbishop.

“In a state of toy soldiers . . . political Methuselahs, an anachronistic president and his clones . . . Bozanic has shown the real importance of people with character,” political analyst Jelena Lovric said in the independent daily Novi List. “His message reveals the misery of Croatia’s political leadership. Long before the state, the church has chosen new people for new times.”

Tudjman has sought to portray Croatia, a tiny Balkan nation that waged war to secede from the old Communist Yugoslav federation, as an economic success story and flourishing Western-aspiring democracy, despite its mistreatment of minorities, poor human rights record, high unemployment rate and banking scandals that threaten to undermine the financial sector.

The 75-year-old president usually dismisses criticism as the work of anti-Croat enemies, and clearly he has felt blindsided by the archbishop’s reproofs.

“The church is neither the political ally nor the political opponent of any group of people,” Bozanic has said. “Some think the church should help those in power. Others think the church should help those that want power. This is not the church’s duty. The church should be close to mankind and help those who serve people.”

Bozanic comes from Croatia’s Adriatic coast. Known for its independence-minded spirit, it is the one region in Croatia where Tudjman’s Croatian Democratic Union has little influence.

Most of Bozanic’s career was spent on the island of Krk, where he rose through the ranks in the 1970s and was named bishop of Krk in 1989. He studied canonical law and postgraduate theology at the Vatican from 1979 to 1986.

The Catholic Church has played a controversial role throughout Croatian history, frequently becoming entangled in politics and nationalism. During World War II, it only rarely criticized the fascist rulers of Croatia’s Nazi puppet state, who sent huge numbers of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and dissident Croats to their deaths in concentration camps.

Under the decades of Yugoslav Communist rule that followed, the church supported efforts to preserve Croatian national identity and, seven years ago, backed Zagreb’s drive to make the country independent from the Serb-dominated Yugoslav federation. In fact, the Vatican was the first entity to give independent Croatia official recognition. A revolt by Croatian Serbs and a 10-month war followed. While most Croats are Catholics, Serbs are Orthodox Christians.

Croatian analysts believe that Bozanic is undertaking a postwar mission to coax Croatian Catholicism toward the European mainstream and to distance the church from nationalist politics--something the church can afford to do now that Croatia is firmly established as a sovereign state.

Vatican officials would say only that Bozanic was chosen because he was the best pastor for the job.

“The church is aware of its role in preserving the national identity of the Croatian people through history,” Bozanic told theologians earlier this year. “But time puts the church in a new position. . . . It is time to open our church to Europe and the world.

“Reconciliation is a cure for our social and national ills,” he said in other remarks. “Dialogue, tolerance, respect for democratic procedures, moderating overly radicalized social relations, placing the general good above narrow party, group and local interest are all new names for reconciliation in today’s Croatia.”

Such messages, delivered in highly accessible terms and coupled with Bozanic’s appeal for ecumenical fraternity, come at a time when the Zagreb government is under pressure to end the harassment of the Croatian Serb minority in regions that were captured by rebellious Serbs in 1991 but were recently restored to Croatian rule.

It is his criticism of official corruption, however, that most rankles the Tudjman regime.

“The appearance of corruption is growing and sneaking into many social areas, ignoring law and not caring for regulations of morality and truth,” Bozanic said.

“Those in the public have a duty to fight for the rule of law. The state should serve the citizens and work for the good of the people. Those who should be working for the public good should not be allowed private profit.”

Apparently nervous over the possible content, the state television network refused to broadcast the archbishop’s Christmas message live in December. When it later reported the message, it edited Bozanic’s comments to soften his criticism of government policy.

Tudjman made a public show of his displeasure with Bozanic by breaking with tradition and ignoring the archbishop in his annual state-of-the-union address earlier this year. People present at several events where Bozanic spoke and Tudjman was in the audience said the president seemed genuinely stunned at being criticized by the church representative.

“[Bozanic] has shown a lot of courage,” said a senior Western diplomat. “He has put the government on notice that he will speak out for positive democratic change. He’s taking heat for it from the cardinal, and the government is very unhappy.”

The satirical weekly Feral Tribune published a cartoon of Tudjman burning Bozanic at the stake “because of his heretical statements that the world is round and the people are poor.”

Bozanic’s aides say the criticism does not discourage the archbishop. His Easter message this year was titled “The Church Cannot Remain Quiet.” It decried a “spiritual void” in Croatia caused in part by “empty promises” and false expectations.

Although he has held a couple of news conferences, Bozanic is not granting one-on-one interviews, in an apparent effort to avoid overexposure and to focus attention on his prepared statements. His office eagerly supplies copies of all his speeches, translated into English, which are also posted on the Internet.

Public reaction, thus far, appears favorable. The archdiocese says it is receiving a steady flow of positive mail, and parishioners during Easter Week services praised their priest.

“I am absolutely sure something good will come of him,” worshiper Tonka Mrsic, 53, said after Mass at Zagreb’s Gothic-style cathedral. Incense smoke billowed as Bozanic, standing before a gilded altar in flowing robes and a white miter and speaking in a slightly hoarse voice, prayed for spiritual awakening.

“He has already shown he is for the people,” Mrsic added. “He will fight for the people.”

Bozanic has also caught the eye of senior U.S. officials. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, in a speech at Catholic University in Washington, commended his overtures toward the leaders of rival faiths. The Clinton administration’s chief envoy in the Balkans, Robert Gelbard, sought out the priest during a visit to Zagreb last month.

“He is the type of leader, religious or secular, that is really needed in the Balkans,” Gelbard said.

Wilkinson, The Times’ Vienna Bureau chief, was recently on assignment in Zagreb.