Pontiff Extols the Role of Wives, Mothers in Croatia

Pope John Paul II on Friday praised this shattered region’s long-suffering women, often victimized by war, and urged them to adhere to what he termed their most important healing role -- as mothers and wives.

On the second leg of his five-day, five-city tour of Croatia, the pope traveled amid the breathtaking beauty of the southern Adriatic coast and this ancient stone city of red-tile roofs, Renaissance castles and medieval churches.

Dubrovnik, hard hit by Serbian shelling during Croatia’s 1991 war for independence, sparkled under a brilliant sky as thousands of pilgrims from all parts of the former Yugoslav federation crowded into a seaside square for Mass. Others -- some of them in swimsuits -- watched from sailboats moored in the harbor, tooting foghorns to the accompaniment of church bells when the ceremony ended.

The pontiff used the occasion to beatify a Croatian nun, Marija of Jesus Crucified, who founded a religious order, the Daughters of Mercy, which cares for impoverished children in Croatia and Latin America. A miracle has been attributed to the woman born Marija Petkovic in 1892. She died in 1966. The pope said she symbolized “all of the women of Croatia,” especially “those who are wives and mothers, those whose lives were forever changed by the grief of losing a family member” in the Balkan wars and other hardships.

“Women of Croatia, conscious of your lofty vocation as wives and mothers, continue to see every person with the eyes of the heart,” he said. “Continue to reach out to them and to stand beside them with the sensitivity born of your maternal instinct. Your presence is indispensable in the family, in society, and in the ecclesial community.”

One of the central themes of this pilgrimage -- John Paul’s 100th to foreign soil in a nearly 25-year papacy -- is the family.

Croatia, like most of Europe, has seen its birthrate decline steadily in recent years, despite being a heavily Catholic country. A Council of Europe study in 2000 found Croatia’s fertility rate to be “well below replacement level” for at least the third year in a row.

The main phenomenon stemming a drastic population decrease in Croatia is immigration into the country, often of non-Catholics -- a trend that worries the church. The Vatican has been campaigning for a European Union draft constitution that specifically mentions the Christian roots of the continent. The pope’s spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, said Friday he remained confident that the phrasing will ultimately be included, despite opposition from some member states.

Marriage in Croatia also has been decreasing in the last 30 years, according to the Council of Europe. The pope urged Croatian women to follow their traditional roles of support “especially within the context of the family.”

“The frenetic pace of modern life can lead to an obscuring or even a loss of what is truly human,” he said.

Tens of thousands of people were killed in the Balkan conflicts of the last decade, and many women were systematically raped. The women who survived often then faced a life without their bread-winning husbands and sons, thousands of whom remain missing.

Attending Friday’s Mass were Catholics from not only Croatia but also Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, and even Kosovo, a Serbian province. A tiny delegation from the predominantly ethnic Albanian province waved banners proclaiming Kosovo’s name. “We hope to hear him say, next time, Kosovo,” said an ecstatic Pali Vincenz, his priest’s collar askew.

From a religious perspective, the beatification was the most important act of this visit.

To be beatified -- the last step before possible sainthood -- one must have performed a Vatican-certified miracle. In Sister Marija’s case, a Peruvian submarine was sinking in the Pacific Ocean in 1988 until one of its officers prayed to the Croatian nun, whose biography he had been reading. The officer managed to close a ventilation hatch after his prayers, and the vessel and the sailors aboard were saved.

Dressed in gold vestments but showing the strain of Parkinson’s disease and knee and hip ailments, John Paul celebrated Friday’s Mass on a special hydraulic chair that lifts him to the high altar. A similar piece of machinery hoists him onto his airplane.

Later, he toured Dubrovnik’s fabled old city, once the capital of the medieval independent state of Dubrovnik, which flourished for centuries until its conquest at the hands of Napoleon in the 1800s. The city has been restored since a Serbian shelling campaign damaged numerous buildings in 1991.