Zagreb, May 30, 2000 (IKA) — “We all face the task of renewal, we are all called to change our behavior, our attitude toward work, the society, the general good and law. It is necessary to have correlation between laws and duties, responsibilities and honesty. It is urgently necessary to promote general and effective solidarity toward the needy and poor in our society, especially toward the unemployed, refugees and displaced persons who are still living under uncertainty. We must say that in our attitude toward the general good and politics in the broad sense, it is necessary to be answerable to oneself and even more so to God, even more than to the nation. Our judge is the Lord. This assertion makes us confront the following truth: God’s judgment also encompasses political conduct,” asserted the archbishop of Zagreb, Josip Bozanić, during the Mass he concelebrated today in thanksgiving for the Homeland of Croatia, together with the apostolic nuncio in the Republic of Croatia, Archbishop Giulio Einaudi; Military Ordinary Bishop Juraj Jezerinac, and a number of priests in the Church of St. Mark in the Old Town of Zagreb. Greeting government representatives and all the citizens of Croatia, he congratulated them on “today’s holiday, our Statehood Day.” Archbishop Bozanić noted its jubilee and historical significance, and called for prayer “for the first president of the renewed Croatian state, the late Dr. Franjo Tuđman, who is inscribed in the history of the Croatian state as a great builder,” and for those who gave their lives for our freedom, peace and future.
“We are a nation that often looks to the past and invokes the past. Perhaps the Biblical wisdom that instructs us in the correct attitude toward our past and how to honor our tradition is needed now. This is the Biblical wisdom that recognizes the merits of King David by honoring him with pride but not by remaining silent or exonerating the sin he committed. That is wisdom which knows how to differentiate between good and evil, which is a sign of maturity in an individual and society, because it has a responsible and courageous attitude toward the truth of its own past and history. This is wisdom that is able to preserve and teach a tradition that has a future because it is based upon the truth,” explained Archbishop Bozanić. Referring to the message from the Holy Father during his first pastoral visit to Croatia in 1994, archbishop Bozanić said: “Looking ahead, focusing our efforts toward the future, to permit legitimate agencies of the legal state to conduct an investigation into the past, to forgive and accept our neighbor and to build a civil peace in dialogue, mutual tolerance and respect toward each individual are urgent tasks currently facing the Croatian society.”
Referring to Psalm 14, Archbishop Bozanić stated that it portrayed God as subjecting mankind to a kind of test. “Divine revelation is dramatic, the result of God’s testing is an assertion of a general rottenness. ‘Their deeds are loathsome and corrupt; not one does what is right … All have gone astray; all alike are perverse. Not one does what is right, not even one.’ This psalm speaks in Biblical language about social and political corruption. It alludes to Israel’s political leadership that destroyed the nation with bad rule and neglect. It speaks about evil in the sense of the degeneration of authority: from service to the people to exploitation of the people. In other words, it is not concerned with the general good but with furthering the private interests of individuals and groups. How can this evil be explained? The psalm underscores certain fundamental, mutually connected causes. Most of all, there is a lack of ethics, we could also say human wisdom or even more precisely, judiciousness,” said Archbishop Bozanić, adding that that a political leader obviously must exercise understanding, because politics acts in a variety of ways in the economic, social, legal, administrative and cultural areas to promote the systematic and institutionalized general good. He asserted that politics is in the service of God, for the good of mankind. This means placing oneself in the service of God’s plan for mankind and the world. “It has been said that politics is serving God, i.e. the moral law that ultimately comes from God and which is essentially reduced to honoring and advancing mankind. In this sense, there is the fundamental ethical principle … of not the person for politics but politics for the person. Thus the goal of politics is emphasized: the person, the good of the person, more precisely, the general good,” concluded the archbishop.
The highest government officials were present at this celebration of the Mass: the president of the Republic of Croatia, Stipe Mesić; the president of the Croatian National Parliament, Zlatko Tomčić; the prime minister, Ivica Račan; the president of the House of Counties [Senate] of the Croatian National Parliament, Katica Ivanišević; the president of the Constitutional Court, Smiljko Sokol; the president of the Supreme Court, Marijan Ramušćak; the vice presidents and members of the Government, the vice presidents of the Parliament, parliamentary representatives and other government officials.