The example of Casimir” “

An independent democratic Republic since 11 March 1990, and member of NATO since 2 April, Lithuania is the only Baltic State with a Catholic majority. In 1387 king Jogaila promulgated the decree for the foundation of the diocese of Vilnius and so set in motion a systematic campaign of baptism among the population. When the larger part of Lithuania was incorporated in Tsarist Russia in the nineteenth century, the Catholic Church successfully resisted the attempts to Russianize the country and forcibly convert the population to Orthodoxy. After the country had regained its independence in 1918, the ecclesiastical province of Lithuania was created in 1926. Subjected to harsh persecutions during the Soviet regime, the Catholic Church has enjoyed a new resurgence since 1990. Today, out of a population of 3,490,000 inhabitants, Catholics total 2,880,000, divided into 8 ecclesiastical circumscriptions and 677 parishes. Diplomatic relations between the Republic of Lithuania and the Holy See were restored in 1991. The apostolic nuncio of the three Baltic States (Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia) has been resident in Vilnius since 1992. The jubilee year of St. Casimir, patron saint of the country and “special patron of youth”, has opened in recent weeks. Son of the king of Poland and Lithuania, Casimir died at the age of twenty-five in 1484. The archbishop of Vilnius, Cardinal Audrys J. Backis, has invited Catholics to follow St. Casimir as a firm model of faith, especially now that the country faces “the new prospects opening up in the European Union”: prospects “that could suggest new ways of alienating us from Christ”. Many hopes and fears are being felt by the Lithuanian population as the country’s entry into the European Union approaches: we discussed them, and the situation of the country in general, with Father VIRGINIUS VEILENTAS , head of the Lithuanian programme at Vatican Radio. (See also our previous report on Lithuania in SIR no.27 of 7 April 2004) “AN UNDOUBTEDLY DELICATE process, that of EU membership, especially because the procedure of impeachment instituted against President Rolandas Paksas, accused of corruption and links with the Russian mafia, obliges us to enter the EU with this burden. Yet in spite of the fact that the population is really worried by the political crisis – continues Father Virginius -, many emphasise the fact that the launch of the president’s impeachment is also a strong signal of the country’s democratic evolution. In this regard, the bishop of Panevežys, Monsignor Jonas Kauneckas, made an appeal to the faithful in recent weeks, inviting them to prayer to invoke God’s help in this moment of crisis and re-establish peace inside the country. The Lithuanian Catholic Church, besides, has never stood back and watched”. “On the country’s entry into the EU – Veilentas points out – the bishops wrote a pastoral letter last year, describing all the risks that Lithuania would run if she voted against the referendum on membership. The appeal was also directed at politicians, and met with a positive response from the population (80% of the three and a half million inhabitants are Catholic)”. (The referendum endorsing EU membership was held in 11 May 2003). “Lithuania – Father Virginius recalls – regained its own independence 14 years ago, and its entry into the Union would set a further seal on this process. Like other countries in Eastern Europe due to enter the EU on 1st May, we too have always felt ourselves part of Europe”. WHAT BENEFITS WILL LITHUANIA’S MEMBERSHIP OF THE EU BRING? In Father Virginius’ view, “one of the main benefits will be security. The problem of the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad seemed insoluble; but when Brussels expressed its own opinion on the matter, the problems of transit were solved in a week. It’s an episode that enables us to perceive in practice how important becoming EU members is for the country’s international relations and security”. “People – he concludes – also see in EU entry prospects for economic growth, the raising of living standards, and progress in general. Last year Lithuania’s GDP was one of the highest in the world; there’s the hope of being able to equal the countries of Western Europe in prosperity. With clear-sighted realism, the population realises that the geopolitical situation of Lithuania does not permit alternatives: remaining outside the EU would condemn the country to being lumped together with Belarus, considered a state of great backwardness and underdevelopment”.