Zagreb, (IKA) – The challenges for the Church in the European Union, the pastoral tourist from German-speaking regions in Croatia and pastoral ministry to Croatian Catholics in Austria were the central topics of the encounter between the bishops of the Croatian Conference of Bishops and the Austrian Conference of Bishops, held in Zagreb on Thursday, May 31. The president of the Austrian Conference of Bishops, Archbishop Christoph Cardinal Schoenborn of Vienna, stated at the press conference that this is not the first time that the Austrian and Croatian bishops have met but it is the first time that they have met as two bishops’ conferences. “We have much in common and there are also many differences. We both guard the faith but in the past fifty or sixty years we have had a different history. In Austria the Church could live in freedom and in Croatia the Church had to suffer under the communist regime. However, the exchange of experiences between our two Churches, even during the period of communism, was always intense,” reminisced Cardinal Schoenborn.
The president of the Austrian Conference of Bishops made reference to facts that strongly link the Churches in Austria and Croatia. Until the 1960s, there were approximately 80,000 Croatian emigrants in Austria. The Croatian emigrants in Austria are an important factor. Many of them have been Austrians for a long time but many have also preserved their Croatian identity. Therefore, pastoral ministry for Croatians is very important in Austria, noted Cardinal Schoenborn. Moreover, there is a strong Croatian minority in Gradišće (Bergenland). According to the president of the Austrian Conference of Bishops, today there are approximately 50,000 Croatians in Gradišće and the surroundings who maintain their traditions. The Church in Gradišće is one of the decisive bearers of the Croatian identity. Cardinal Schoenborn also mentioned that his predecessor, the archbishop of Vienna, Franz Cardinal Koenig, was in a serious traffic accident near Varaždin in 1960 on route to the funeral of Cardinal Stepinac. This was an important turning point in his life, the beginning of more intensive contacts with the Churches behind the Iron Curtain. These connections were never broken and continue today under normal circumstances.

When asked what the role of the Catholic Church should be regarding accession to the European Union and whether this meeting was a contribution to it, Cardinal Schoenborn said that the Catholic Church from its very beginnings has been one of the prime movers of European integration and that perhaps the greatest contribution was made by Pope John Paul II. The choice of Cardinal Woytyla as pope was the beginning of the end of the communist empire, he commented. He said that the Austrian bishops adopted what Pope John Paul II said in Vienna, that it would not be necessary to speak further about the procedure for the expansion of the European Union but about the Europeanization of the Union, because those countries that are still not part of the Union are also Europe. The European Union will only be European when Croatia is in it because Croatia is Europe. Therefore, we support the Europeanization of the European Union, said Cardinal Schoenborn.