Zagreb, (IKA) — Croatian Caritas has initiated a project establishing and developing a network of Church-operated family counseling centers in Croatia. The opening ceremonies of the project for the training of counselors for the family counseling centers was held on Wednesday, September 11, in the Vijenac Auditorium of the Archdiocesan Theological Seminary in Zagreb. The project includes all the Croatian dioceses. Candidates were also sent by three dioceses from Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In an interview in the September 22 issue of the Catholic weekly newspaper Glas Koncila, the president of Croatian Caritas, Archbishop Ivan Prendja of Zadar, pointed out that the Church-operated family counseling centers were institutions for providing counseling services to families, a form of response by the Church in Croatia to the current problems of the community of the faithful but also our society, and an expression of the Church’s particular concern for marriage and the family. Church-operated family counseling centers, as he said, make it possible on the one hand to provide quality pastoral care but also make it possible for married couples and families to obtain assistance in a discreet manner, as an alternative to the government health system where it is necessary to navigate the inevitable bureaucratic structure in order to reach the necessary professionals. The counseling centers, according to the archbishop of Zadar, also have the goal of raising the quality of marriage and family relationships. At the initiative of Croatian Caritas, the dioceses have reacted in an exemplary manner, said the archbishop, adding that within the coming year a network of fifteen such institutions could be established in Croatia.
Assessing the cooperation by Caritas with the government institutions in this area of activity, the president of Croatian Caritas concluded that the counseling centers provide a useful service, in which government institutions are perceived as partners. He added that even now the Church-operated centers have been very well received by the government bodies involved in promoting the welfare of the family and marriages, which are aware that they cannot cover this exceedingly large problem alone. Even now, at the beginning, they recognize the high professional level of the goals set. Financial support for the future counseling centers is anticipated from the government following the three-year formative process, pursuant to the proposed Family Act, said the archbishop
Asked whether many questions in connection with family problems are marginalized, the archbishop of Zadar responded that it cannot be said that serious questions concerning the modern family in our society are marginalized but there is still much that is incomplete and undecided regarding many urgent questions. Acknowledging that the Government of the Republic of Croatia is justified in making attempts to economize, the archbishop nevertheless stressed that the family, pregnant women and the socially endangered groups of society should be the last to be affected by such measures, if they have to be affected at all. He added that excessive public attention has been focused upon the question of the legalization of unnatural unions, which from the Christian point of view, endanger the family and thereby the fundamental values of society