Zagreb, July 22, 1999 (IKA) — On July 21, Croatian Catholic Radio broadcast a program on contributions made by Dr. Tomislav Janko Šagi-Bunić, Croatian theologian, scholar and publicist, on the occasion of his sudden death. The speakers were Prof. Tomislav Ivančić, dean of the Catholic School of Theology; Prof. Zdenko Tenšek and Dr. Adelbert Rebić, head of the Kršćanska sadašnjost publishing house (KS). Dr. Tenšek spoke on the work of Dr. Šagi-Bunić in the Croatian Capuchin Province of St. Leopold Bogdan Mandić and his contribution in the implementation of conciliar directives: “Šagi-Bunić was, besides all his intellectual and scholarly work, a worthy member of our province. He was active in the renewal of the province as well as the preparation of pastoral and other guidelines for Capuchin activity. He served a mandate as the provincial of our province when there was a single combined province of Croatian and Slovenian Capuchins. He was only 32 years old when he became the provincial. This was already testimony that he had earned the confidence of the brothers, not only the young but also the older ones. During his mandate as provincial, he attempted to renew religious life in order for Capuchin monks to participate effectively in building the Church and the world. His contribution was not only to our province but also to the general pastoral activity of our province following the Second Vatican Council. Even prior to the Council, he had invested considerable efforts in the liturgical renewal of the province, particularly here in Zagreb. He prepared a liturgy for the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday after Pope Pius XII introduced the liturgy for the Easter Vigil into the Church. Šagi-Bunić attempted to make it the property of all of God’s people. I think he was a promoter of everything liturgical and pastoral in the conciliar spirit. There is practically no monk in the province who did not learn much from him. If we Croatian Capuchins have some significance in the area of liturgical and pastoral activity, to a great extent this is owing to the contribution made by Tomislav Šagi-Bunić. At the Second Vatican Council, as the private theologian to the late Cardinal Franjo Šeper, he had the opportunity to follow conciliar renewal from up close. The renewal began with the liturgy, which was the focus of all of Šagi-Bunić’s conciliar activity. In addition to his already known scholarly publications on conciliar theology, he worked toward the practical application of the conciliar directives in the liturgy.”
Dr. Ivančić spoke on the late Dr. Šagi-Bunić’s activity under the auspices of the Catholic School of Theology in Zagreb, particularly during the period when this institution was excluded from the University of Zagreb. “There is no doubt that the death of Dr. Tomislav Šagi-Bunić is a great loss for scholarship in general, particularly for our Catholic School of Theology. Šagi-Bunić was known as a scholar, not merely as a theologian but also in other areas of Church activity. As a scholar at the Catholic School of Theology, he deserves much of the credit for maintaining the enviable scholarly level of this institution during the long period when it was unjustly excluded from the University of Zagreb. He tried to make the Catholic School of Theology a center linking various dioceses and regions. While he served as dean, he attempted to make the school an eminent theological institution. Later, together with others, he worked to create bylaws and other legal acts so that the school, despite its exclusion from the university, would remain great and dignified, with rights equal to those enjoyed by other Catholic scholarly institutions throughout the world. His scholarly activity at the school was indicative of the significant position occupied by this cultural scholarly institution in the history of the Croatian nation. Dr. Golub, a professor at the Catholic School of Theology, said of Tomislav Šagi-Bunić that he left a great mark upon his time and sat on commissions in Rome together with the greatest European and world philosophers. Therefore, it is understandable that the Croatian [formerly Yugoslav] Academy of Arts and Sciences made him a corresponding member in 1979 and the ministry of science included him on its list of scholars. Thus, he remained on the faculty of our school as a recognized scholar and world figure whose work was considered essential in the areas of christology, old Christian literature and theology in general,” emphasized the dean of the Catholic School of Theology, Dr. Ivančić.
Dr. Adalbert Rebić, the head of the publishing house of Kršćanska sadašnjost (KS), expressed his sorrow on the occasion of the death of Dr. Šagi-Bunić, reminiscing about the many years of their association at the Catholic School of Theology, during preparations for theological-pastoral weeks and at KS. “He was my professor, fellow professor, dean and associate at Kršćanska sadašnjost. We met at many various levels, and at all levels we enjoyed excellent collaboration. He was a person who loved young people, understood them and inspired them to work, to learn to work. I must mention him as one of the founders of KS, where I worked with him as a colleague, the editor of various editions of the Bible and later as a colleague in the Theological Society. His desire to instill the Croatian nation with theology, to transplant world theology to the small Croatian nation, was close to his heart. He tried to achieve this in every way possible, including establishing KS and helping it to survive and print theological works, in order for the concepts of these theological works to be instilled in our lands,” said Dr. Rebić.