Among the dignitaries on hand to greet the Pope: Croatian and Vatican flag waving
children and their parents in traditional embroidered dress – many with red kerchiefs
and aprons. A small boy reached up to offer a smiling Benedict a bouquet of white,
red and yellow flowers – another evoked a chuckle from the Holy Father: he wants to
become the Pope’s personal airplane pilot one day.
This is, after all, a trip
where the Christian family is the focus as the Pope later highlighted in his address,
saying he had come to celebrate the First National Day of Croatian Catholic Families.
“May this important event” he said, “serve as an opportunity” to re-propose
the values of family life, the common good, and to strengthen unity and renew hope.
With
Croatia’s traditionally warm reception of an honoured guest, it was President Ivo
Josipovic who formally greeted Pope Benedict on this humid Saturday morning - a hesitant
sun poking through the pale blue haze.
“Your arrival comes at a happy time,”
the President said in Croatian, referring to this year’s celebration of Croatia’s
twentieth anniversary of statehood and as it nears completion of lengthy negotiations
for EU membership
With nearly 90% of people here Catholic, many call Croatia
Europe’s most Catholic nation – and one of the continent’s most traditionally loyal
to the Holy See.
Speaking at first in Croatian and then in Italian, Pope
Benedict said, “for over 13 centuries, those strong and special bonds have been put
to the test and strengthened in circumstances that were sometimes difficult and painful.”
For
many of those centuries, Croatia was the Christian West’s last line of defence against
invading forces from the East. 16th c. Pope Leo X proclaimed it the “Bulwark
of Christianity.” A bulwark that survived to endure the dramatic upheavals of 20th
century Europe thanks to such Croatian Catholic martyrs as Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac
whose ultimate loyalty to the Church in Rome cost him his freedom and his life standing
firm against the evils of Communism and Nazism.
In their speeches, both Pope
and President spoke at length about the value and importance of Croatia’s Christian
heritage to the building of the Europe we know today – a Europe losing touch with
its Christian roots.
“From its earliest days,” the Pope said, “your Nation
has formed part of Europe” and has contributed to “the spiritual and moral values
that for centuries have shaped…the personal and national identity of Europe.” He
then challenged Croatia’s nearly 4 million Catholics to preserve their common heritage
of human and Christian values and asked them to “help steer the European Union towards
a fuller appreciation of those spiritual and cultural treasures.”
Candidly
admitting he was no believer himself, the President said he shared the same values
of Catholic faithful. Referring to the vicious war that led to its independence in
1991 and the break up of the former Yugoslav Republic, the President said that firm
in its Christian roots, “modern Croatia” wants to be “generous in forgiving its neighbours.”
“Through forgiveness,” he added, we can reconcile and find “reciprocal well-being.”
And,
in invoking the figure of Blessed Aloysius Stepinac for the protection of Croatia’s
youth at the end of his address, Pope Benedict was holding up one of the Church’s
best examples of Christian witness and forgiveness – an example not just for Europe’s
soon to be youngest member – but for all the others too. In Zagreb with Pope Benedict,
I’m Tracey McClure