A Church for the young

“Europe is a huge reality: it comprises not only the North and East, but also the Mediterranean area. Indeed, it is precisely this area that turns Europe into a bridge towards other continents and other cultures: the Mediterranean sea has always been a place for people to meet”, declared Cardinal JOSIP BOZANIC , Archbishop of Zagreb and President of the Croatian Bishops’ Conference in recent days. The cardinal was speaking during a reception for a delegation of the Italian Bishops’ Conference that is visiting the Balkans to promote the “Agora of Mediterranean Youth”. The Mediterranean area’s vocation as a bridge, Bozani? went on, is closely linked to the profession of faith: “The Church, if she becomes self-enclosed, is no longer catholic”. Referring to Croatian youth, the cardinal stressed their “participation in the life of the Church”: they are “open to and searching for spiritual values”. A SIGNIFICANT COMMITMENT. Croatia comprises 4,500,000 inhabitants, 87% of them Catholics. There are 14 dioceses and a military ordinariate. The annual ecumenical meeting of Taizé took place in the country’s capital, Zagreb, at the end of last year: an occasion on which “the young were the protagonists, and thanks to their commitment all 40,000 pilgrims who flocked to the city found hospitality in our families”, recalled Cardinal Bozani?. Particular attention is paid to youth pastoral work and “a national youth meeting is held every two years”, so between World Youth Day and national days “each year there’s a great opportunity for the young to meet together”. A significant commitment is registered by young people’s experience of prayer: “At Zagreb – explained the archbishop – this has given rise to a ‘Via Crucis of youth’, a processional route through the various parishes of the city”. Nor should we forget the diocesan synod, to whose preparation “the youth of our parishes are contributing in an amazing way; they are trying to help us in the presentation of synodal themes”. SPORT, MUSIC AND FORMATION FOR THE YOUNG. Sport, music and the formation of animators are some of the activities in which the Croatian Youth Pastoral Office, established in 2002, are most involved. “A sports movement supported by eight dioceses organizes football championships and also other sporting events in Zagreb”, explains IVANA PETRAK , national head of the youth pastoral office. “The initiative is spreading to all the country’s dioceses and, linked to this activity, there’s a monthly meeting in venues regularly frequented by the young, such as disco-pubs”. As regards the formation of animators, explains Petrak, “we have a one-year course, organized together with the Salesians, which is structured in five residential weekends and a summer camp”. Last year, in addition, we held “the first meeting of all the animators who have so far completed the course”: a week at the seaside, at which the participants discussed issues linked to animation: it was conceived as a kind of “second level course”. Another project in which the Croatian youth pastoral office is involved is the “Uskrs Fest”, a festival of sacred music whose final evening is annually held after Easter and is transmitted by national television. “Young musicians can enter their own compositions, based on a common theme, after which a jury selects the 20 songs that will participate in the final”. This year 83 musical pieces were submitted to selection, based on the theme “Mass”. FROM THE BALKANS TO AFRICA. Faith abroad is being propagated by 117 Croatian missionaries, especially in Africa: Congo, Tanzania, Rwanda, Benin and Cameroon are the countries in which the Slav presence is particularly marked. The missionaries consist of priests, men and women religious, whereas “it is not yet possible to quantity the number of laypeople who leave for the missions”, explains Father MILAN ŠPEHAR , director of the National Missionary Office. “Our task is to form the laity for the missions, but we are still at the beginnings; we lack a school for formation. Yet there are various laypeople, especially among the young, who are interested and would like to share a year’s missionary experience”. “To promote the missionary spirit”, explains the director, the office goes “from parish to parish, to speak of our project and our needs”. Up till the 1990s there was a single missionary office, at Sarajevo, for Croatians living both in Croatia and in Bosnia. Then came the years of war, during which “we could not do very much because the emergencies were all within our own countries”. This led to the transfer of the office from Sarajevo to Zagreb. There are now two distinct offices, in Bosnia and in Croatia, but with ongoing cooperation because “basically – says Father Špehar – we’re one people in two countries”.