Zagreb, November 26, 1999 (IKA) — “The Church is not a political party, it is the Mystery of the mission of Christ. If it were to become involved in concrete daily politics, it would be renouncing its mission,” stated the retired archbishop of Zagreb, Cardinal Franjo Kuharić, in an interview published in the November 26 issue of the newspaper Nedjeljna Dalmacija under the headline “I am neither in conflict with Bozanić nor has the Church line changed. The interview touched upon the general spiritual, religious and moral situation in Croatia and among Croatian Catholics, the crisis of Christianity and the witnessing of faith.
In the introductory text, the interviewer presented Cardinal Kuharić as a person of “great charisma but also modesty, always on the path of the Christ, always in the service of the Church and his nation … During the difficult and tempestuous war years and the creation of the Croatian state, his wisdom, simplicity, words and gentleness were a source of courage and strength. The cardinal is a person who is believed because his words are imbued with profound faith,” continued the journalist about Cardinal Kuharić.
Responding to the interviewer’s question about why Christian testimony is not sufficiently present in Croatia, the cardinal said that in Croatia individuals often only believes due to custom and that perhaps there are too few “witnesses to the faith.” According to the cardinal, this is because people lived in Croatia for fifty years under constant pressure so that a ‘mentality of withdrawn solitude’ was created. Responding to the journalist’s query about how the cardinal perceives his own role in the historical events of the creation of the Croatian state, he responded that he strove “in his human weaknesses but with the help of God to proclaim the gospel … This was my mission as a parish priest and as a bishop. I am always reminded of Jesus’ words: when you have done everything you could do, say that we are useless servants,” said Cardinal Kuharić. Commenting in the interview on the frequent accusation that the Church in Croatia is too closely aligned with the state and the authorities, particularly extreme leftist political circles who characterize the role of Archbishop Bozanić as the departure of the Church from a national-conservative to liberal orientation, Cardinal Kuharić categorically asserted that he was “not interested in the labels of conservative or progressive, nor people who make such assessments. I am interested in the truth, I am interested in God … Those who make such primitive accusations want the Church to applaud them do not want to listen to the Church … They are not believers and they cannot understand the Church,” said Cardinal Kuharić, adding that there is no conflict nor “a change in the Church line” between him and Archbishop Bozanić. One of the journalist’s final questions referred to the forthcoming elections and the cardinal’s vision of the future of Croatia. “Since Croatia is in the hands of the Croatian nation, the nation will choose its own future, as it did in the 1990 elections and during the war. Today the nation has a state which affords it the status of an international subject. Before, the nation had neither a name nor a vote. Now they are giving us lessons about how we are going to enter the West. Is not the exhibition in the Vatican sufficient evidence that we have always been part of the West?” said Cardinal Franjo Kuharić.