ZAGREB, April 1, 2018 – Celebrating Easter mass on Sunday, the Archbishop of Zagreb, Cardinal Josip Bozanić, warned about injustices and attempts to create new orders in contemporary society, telling believers that the only certain path was faith in the Church as it has answers to numerous questions.
“One should always listen with caution to those who promise heaven on Earth, who say they are bringing a new order, peace, prosperity and full equality. That was used by the failed ideologies of the last century and the new ones are trying to do something similar,” the cardinal said.
He said someone often paid with tears for the vision of the world of those hoping to bring a so-called heaven on Earth with their proposals, programmes and projects. He said it was not surprising that they took issue with those who believed in God and Jesus’s resurrection, who nurtured the biblical picture of man created as man and woman, who defended human life from conception to birth, and who advocated the true dignity of every human being.
Cardinal Bozanić said history showed that often “the affirmation of systems of their ideologies, made by a few at the expense of the majority, was paid not only with money, but sacrifices and lives too.”
He said the cause of many tears in the contemporary world lay in the huge social injustice trying to create new relations, which he said was especially felt by those suffering under the burden of poverty. He criticised systems “that can deprive people of the sanctity of their home and the possibility to honestly earn their living,” saying that “as believers, we wonder why, as the select are getting stronger, so many must become weaker.” “This is all so far from the values promoted by Christ’s resurrection,” Cardinal Bozanić said, calling for working for the common good and not selfish interests.
He wondered how one should responsibly and honestly take part in processes at work in Croatian society, processes he said surpassed Croatia’s borders, in which attempts prevailed to show only what served someone, which he said was often a deception, and to hide all that was ugly and problematic, so much that the truth was often hidden.
“Jesus was not a populist who wanted everyone to like him. Therefore neither can his Church be like that. Catholic believers are called upon to wish everyone well. The Church wants to participate in God’s plan to save all people, but cannot deny the truth in doing so,” said Cardinal Bozanić. “With Jesus resurrected, no one is disenfranchised. Everyone, women and men, young and old, more educated or less educated, everyone has the same dignity of God’s children,” he added.
As the Church, we invite everyone to an open and courageous dialogue, to mutual respect and respect for all groups and components of our society, notably to togetherness in Croatian society, to avoiding the creation of confusion and unnecessary tensions which turn into discouragement and then fear, he added.
Celebrating Easter mass in Zadar, the Archbishop of Zadar and president of the Croatian Bishops Conference, Želimir Puljić, said representatives of the civil government were called upon, by the power of their office, to build the values of peace, tolerance, justice, respect and solidarity into the foundations of the state and to remove everything resulting in despondency and pessimism.
