At the press conference after 72. regular session of the Bishop’s conference of Bosnia and Hezegovina (BKBiH) in Mostar, the bishops talked about their thoughts, among other things about the topic of emigration.
Regular spring – 72. in order, session of the Bishops of Bosnia and Herzegovina ended with today’s afternoon press conference in Mostar. And although, this session was always followed with beautiful sunny weather on a first day of spring, this year, the journalists and bishops were surprised by snow.
The press conference was attended by the Archbishop of Vrhbosna cardinal Vinko Puljić, the president of BKBiH, the host bishop – bishop of Mostar-Duvno and apostolic manager of Trebinje-Mrkan Msgr. Ratko Perić, and the secretary of BKBiH Msgr. Ivo Tomašević.
Tomašević read the press release for the Bishop’s session, where he specially talked about the regular parts of the session. Among the most important details of the press release was the part about the Istanbul convention, and the upcoming deanery meeting in Travnik.
The bishops expressed their regret that the Istanbul convention in BiH was ratified without a wide discussion involving the Church and other religious communities. Regarding this, the bishops expressed their support to their brothers in Croatia and all the people that advocate true value of life, family and marital communion between man and woman based on the natural law and divine revelation. The bishops arranged the Fifth deanery meeting of BiH that will be held in Travnik on April 26th, and where the main topic will be emigration from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Deanery meeting on a topic of emigration
The host, bishop Ratko said that the emigration is a problem and a fact and a phenomenon that we are facing. When asked if people from Bosnia and Herzegovina are leaving because their identity and freedom are jeopardized, which is addressed to in the press release as well, Msgr. Ratko said that the emigration is a complex problem that occurs in a much more politically arranged countries like Croatia, that is also a member of EU, but also in Romania, Bulgaria…
„There is a wish for a better standard, there is a fact that people leave because they have no jobs, but also people who have jobs and salary and insurance leave as well, and they take their wives and three children and go to Germany where they can live better. So, there is no way of telling the exact cause of this problem. We asked bishop Vukšić to lay down the problems of this issue on the upcoming Deanary meeting, where he will present it before us, and where everybody will be able to say their opinions, believes and solutions. We are trying, from the Church’s side, do what we can, and what is insignificant comparing to what the country could and should“, said bishop Perić.
About the same topic spoke cardinal Puljić as well. According to him, the cause of emigration is overall atmosphere we live in, playing with human rights, but family upbringing as well, because often the upbringing didn’t bring up for life but for enjoying. „One of the elements is that we didn’t learn to love our homeland, because for what you love you sacrifice for it. We lost what our ancestor made, they died for that homeland, died on it, and we don’t appreciate that. In a special way, those who died for it, are leaving it today. I can freely say that Europe doesn’t have children, it needs working force, so they are sucking us in – in this perverse way“, the Cardinal pointed out.
People are leaving and they need the priests too
Let us remind, according to the data brought up by Katolički tjednik, BiH last year alone lost 13 650 Catholics, and in Herzegovina there is 15 000 believers less in the last five years. All of this is becoming direct problem of Church. „We feel this especially painfully on our church plan. One of our dioceses last year had it’s 6 religious teachers, that had permanent jobs, leave. They left their service and just left, and this year there is 7 of them announcing their leaving, which means that we can easily loose all the catechists that we are raising. What we experience deeper and more painful is that, Herzegovina alone lost 15 000 people in the past five years, and not only that the people left, but they are looking for priests as well, so we need to send them priests also“, said bishop Perić. The bishops were asked to speak about the current political situation, which they refused, saying that they do not want to be misused for political causes in this pre-election time.
www.nedjelja.ba
Written by: Kristina Perić
Translated by: Ksenija Ninić
