The Justice and Peace Commission of the Croatian Conference of Bishops did not participate in the General Assembly of the Conference of European Justice and Peace Commissions held in Belgrade from September 26 to 30 of this year. The reasons for not participating were insufficiently explained by the media and the organizer of the assembly, the Justice and Peace Commission of the German Conference of Bishops, and therefore other participants did not understand our absence correctly. The main reason that we did not attend was that we cannot accept the concept of the approach to the topic of the relations among Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and Albanians, without participating in it ourselves, despite the fact that on the topics of international coming together, reconciliation and the purification of memories we in Croatia have had a series of significant efforts and achievements – perhaps more than anyone in the EU – of which some have been published in the English language. This is the immediate reason for us to clarify our understanding of dialogue to the public, especially the process of reconciliation.

1. Uninterrupted Dialogue. First of all, we must point out that dialogue on the level of the faithful and the hierarchy of the Church structures occurred constantly prior to and even during the war, has never been interrupted and was most frequently initiated from our side. Similarly, we point out that various institutions and initiatives in the Church in Croatia have prepared a series of studies on the basis of the numerous investigations conducted during and after the war, from which an indisputable orientation for dialogue and reconciliation is evident, as well as all the specificities of these processes in our region. The number of the encounters and projects speak of the intensity, and the titles indicate the relevance of their contents, e.g., Forgiveness, Peace in Croatia – The Results of Research, Forgiveness and Reconciliation – Utopia or Challenge?, Conversations about Forgiveness, Forgiveness and Reconciliation – A Challenge for the Church and Society, Christianity and Memory, On the Path of Peace, Dialogue to Peace, In the Service of Peace, Testimony on Peacemaking etc.
2. The Roads and Byroads of Reconciliation. In the Church in Croatia, the critical consideration of the process of reconciliation does not begin with this statement. What we can recognize from this distance in time as a type of constant in the attitude of the Church is summarized in the Review by the Franciscan Institute for the Culture of Peace, Split, and the Center for Peace, Nonviolence and Human Rights, Osijek, of Some Initiatives by the International Community in Connection with the Reconciliation of Croats and Serbs, and the Program of the Government of the Republic of Croatia for the Establishment of Trust, dated December 4, 1997. In this review, it is emphasized that these institutions, but not only these, perseveringly worked and are working “even during the war, on the preparations for the process of forgiveness and reconciliation. From the experience and knowledge of these processes, the staffs of these two institutions, religious and lay, are convinced that in supporting reconciliation, despite the best intentions, it is possible to take the wrong steps, which can hinder the process itself and even direct it in the opposite direction.” Precisely for this reason, “thematizing some of the roads and byroads of reconciliation,” they have encouraged “more intensive dialogue that will lead to better understanding of the very concept and process of reconciliation.” Through the review, they also presented their dilemmas regarding individual initiatives for reconciliation, referring primarily to the international initiatives such as that, which fortunately never became a reality, regarding the Day of Reconciliation.

Similar criticisms were also directed at Tim Guldimann (March 23, 1999), at the time the ambassador of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to Croatia: “We all agree that reconciliation is a process. However, it appears that we disagree regarding questions such as who are the basic bearers of this process, how long this process lasts, what is the role of “peacemakers,” what type of peace process should be initiated etc.” Such a critical assessment of the process of reconciliation was elaborated in this and other studies and pertinent texts.

3. Unconditional Reconciliation Does Not Exist. Unfortunately, until today we have not received the impression that there is sufficient goodwill, even from the side of the genuinely well-intentioned international institutions and initiatives, to “listen” to our considerations and invest effort in understanding our specific situation. On the contrary, much of that which is undertaken – we believe with the best of intentions – nonetheless reminds us of the experience of “peace” from the time of the “brotherhood and unity of nations and nationalities” in the territory of the former communist state of Yugoslavia. This was only an ostensible peace, which as such to a considerable extent was the generator of the recent war. Therefore, it is possible to understand our resistance to initiatives that promote a type of “unconditional reconciliation,” i.e. reconciliation without the truth, reconciliation through the power of forgetfulness, reconciliation without justice, reconciliation with a limited time for mourning, reconciliation without allowing room for emotions etc.

Impatient and politically programmed peacemaking is subject to the temptation of reaching for measures that are characteristic of totalitarian regimes. Thus, even the law is placed in the service of the suppression of emotions, for example, the Anti-Hate Speech Law in which there is no clear differentiation between speech that is in the service of the expression of legitimate feelings, even including hatred, from the expression of hatred that is oriented to evil, and which generates and inflames evil. Due to such vagueness, this law is associated in our country with the still unforgotten verbal offence, an invention of the communist regime that always generates undesired effects. Such vagueness and lack of effectiveness contribute to a paradoxical inconsistency in the application of democratically acquired freedom of speech. While, for example, media abuse of freedom of speech is rarely punished, individuals and groups who express their feelings of dissatisfaction and injustice through rebellious utterances of ill-advised and unsuitable words, symbols, are not infrequently exposed to media criticism in which there is not even an attempt to understand the emotional world of such people, or to recognize their lack of information and the genuine reasons for their rebellious behavior. Such criticisms not infrequently become ballast that transforms such speech from a legitimate expression of feelings into destructive effects that multiply for various reasons. It should also be remembered that the Bible is acquainted with the therapeutic nature of the expression of “negative” feelings, all the way up to the feeling of hatred, among others, in the example of the so-called psalms of vengeance. Even contemporary psychology is acquainted with the useful effects of the expression of “negative” feelings. Actually, as a rule this is a necessary therapy in interpersonal relationships.

4. Genuine reconciliation must be preceded by the process of forgiveness. That which seems to us to be missing in a certain manner in the deliberation and work on the processes of reconciliation in numerous peacemaking initiatives, including those of Christian provenance, is reconciliation without the prior process of forgiveness, although reconciliation without forgiveness is foreign to Christianity. We may compare such reconciliation to Christianity without Christ. Forgiveness is a prerequisite for reconciliation. It is not possible to call for reconciliation and remain silent about forgiveness and the necessity for the perpetrator to become aware of the evil committed and ask for forgiveness. This silence suggests the avoidance of talking about guilt and responsibility. Every crime has a perpetrator. In the process of forgiveness, the victim and perpetrator are included. This process is different for the victim and the perpetrator. In order to understand these differences, it is first of all necessary to underscore the difference between the victim and the perpetrator, i.e. primarily to recognize the victim’s status as a victim. Unfortunately, numerous peacemaking initiatives, including Christian, succumb to avoiding this differentiation, frequently due to the climate of equating the victim and the perpetrator, and even reversing the roles, which was created and continues to be created by certain political circles in their pragmatic philosophies of “real politics.” By equating the victims and the perpetrators, not only legal but also moral uncertainties are created, which additionally burden the victim and lead the perpetrator to the false conclusion of the guilelessness of the crime committed.

5. The Status of the Victim and the Victim’s Place in the Process of Reconciliation. We are grateful for the efforts of various institutions of the international community to create the prerequisites for a lasting peace in our territories by promoting the strengthening of democratic processes, as well as to individual sister churches and religious communities from foreign countries for their help in building the infrastructure and supporting projects of reconciliation. The processes of “reconciliation, as well as the building of a self-sustaining peace, nonetheless must come to life within the communities that emerged from the war. The process of reconciliation must flow outside ideological frameworks, political coercion and strategies of political pragmatism. Imposed reconciliation within the framework of state or international political initiatives, without the actual occurrence of reconciliation, requires us to have permanent guardians of such a peace” (from the aforementioned review). It is unjust and counterproductive to expect the victim to be the bearer of reconciliation, unless the victim has been afforded the status of victim, been permitted to mourn and attempts have been made to compensate for damages. On our territories, numerous victims have still not been afforded this.
6. Authorities and the Services of Reconciliation. Peacemaking is frequently unjustifiably and unjustly reduced to the specific domain of individual institutions and organizations, while forgetting or insufficiently appreciating the work of more general institutions, for example, parishes. However valuable the peacemaking work of an association or movement is, in Croatia parishes cover far greater areas of peacemaking due to their large number, vitality and the power of the sacraments that are intrinsically interwoven with the message of peace, forgiveness and reconciliation, for example the sacrament of confession and the Eucharist, and in a special manner the Christian ceremony of the burial of victims. It is not even necessary to mention how little regarded is the peacemaking work of these individuals or anonymous groups in religious communities or in the society in general. Frequently they are actually the yeast of peacemaking. In contrast, associations frequently appear whose project is peacemaking and not the person. Some have admitted that they do not agree with the approaches dictated to them by the “donor.” Together with due respect for the existential needs of the employees of individual associations, their hefty fees make them paid peacemakers. This is one of the reasons for the resistance that they have encountered and perhaps a barrier to the acknowledgement of their genuine authority in peacemaking.

7. Dynamic Reconciliation. Among the important aspects in the process of reconciliation must certainly be included its dynamics, i.e. the time necessary for the process of mourning, disclosure of the truth, recognition and admission of guilt and responsibility, repentance and forgiveness. This is the time necessary for mourning and the transformation of the injured relationship between the victim and perpetrator. Such processes can take a long time. Thus, for example, discussion about forgiveness and reconciliation between the Catholic Church in Germany and the Catholic Church in Poland began twenty years after the war. Naturally, the degree of openness of dialogue today is certainly greater but a person’s resistance, vulnerability and the dynamic of healing have not necessarily followed this trend. Perhaps this is the reason that we were capable of ceaselessly cultivating dialogue but we resisted an imposed reconciliation that did not respect the degree of our injuries and the dynamics of healing. It is necessary to create the prerequisites for reconciliation patiently and persistently but we cannot exact the fruits of this work, we may not even be able to receive them but we must believe in them.

8. Self-Critical Note. With this statement, we did not want to attack anyone or defend ourselves. With this statement, we did not want to portray ourselves or the Catholic Church in a better light. This statement is in the service of clarifying our position regarding the process of reconciliation and the expression of our constant openness to dialogue and orientation to the Christian values of peace, forgiveness and reconciliation. We conclude with an expression of sorrow due to all the acts through which we or members of our Church have distanced ourselves from evangelical values or the omissions through which we have sinned against them. We are aware that we can become even better acquainted with our omissions by recognizing the suffering of the “other sides” and cultivating the culture of dialogue in truth, to which we consider ourselves to be dedicated and to which we want to remain faithful.

In Zagreb, December 9, 2008

Msgr. Vlado Košić, Ph.D.
President of the Justice and Peace Commission
The Croatian Conference of Bishops