The address of the Archbishop and Metropolitan of Rijeka Ivan Devcic to the Holy Father

Holy Father,

The Archdiocese of Rijeka with its suffragan dioceses greet you most warmly and welcome you to our city in the lovely Kvarner Bay at the foot of the shrine of the Mother of God on Trsat and near the shrine and Cathedral of St. Vitus, martyr and patron saint of Rijeka and the Archdiocese of Rijeka.
The faithful of this ecclesiastical province greet you through my lips, especially the bishops, priests and persons of consecrated life, candidates to the priesthood and religious communities, catechists and associations of the lay faithful, the youth and representatives of various church movements.
I also convey you the greetings of the authorities of the city of Rijeka and the Primorsko-goranska County, of the Committee that organised your visit, of members of other confessions and of all people of goodwill.
Receive a special greeting from numerous families to whom, in a special way, we wished to dedicate this meeting with you, prompted by the constant concern that you express for the family as the fundamental unit of the Church and society. Holy Father, please encourage our families who are undergoing many trials of an economic, moral and cultural nature so that they could, in the third millennium, supported by the systematic care of the whole of society, be successful conveyers of life and faith in Jesus Christ as the sole Saviour of man.
Holy Father, we are very grateful to you for visiting our Church and country for a third time. This local Church and this region are especially honoured and blessed that you have selected the Seminary in our city as your residence during this visit. We pray the Good Shepherd to bless our Seminary through you, that it may be a place of germination of holy priests capable of leading the people of the third millennium on the paths of evangelical holiness. On this occasion we recall with gratitude the aid that you granted us eighteen years ago when, at the initiative of the here present now retired Archbishop mons. Josip Pavlisic, we began the construction of the new building of the Seminary under whose generous roof you are residing these days. We discern the finger of Providence in this.
Attempting to direct more decisively the pastoral course of our Church on the ways of holiness and, wishing to respond to the call that you made to the Church again at the turn of the third millennium i.e., that we make holiness the standard ruling the regular Christian life, we, Croatian bishops have, in this vein, formulated pastoral directives for our Church for these and oncoming times, in which we have tried to concentrate even further the entire life and work of the Church on the promotion of holiness on this soil. To this end we have titled our directives: “Called to Holiness”.

We are specially thankful to you for pronouncing, on this third pastoral visit, the beatification of the nun, Marija Propetoga Isusa Petkovic. We also thank you that you intend to raise to the honour of the altar the Venerable Servant of God, Ivan Merz, an apostle of the Croatian youth.
I inform you with joy that in the ecclesiastical province of Rijeka we also have several candidates for the altar. These are the Servants of God: Miroslav Bulesic, a priest of the Diocese of Porec-Pula, martyr of the communist regime; father Placido Cortese, member of the Order of Friars Minor Conventuals, by birth from the island of Cres, journalist and martyr during World War II and Vendelin Vošnjak, a priest of the Order of Friars Minor and a former guardian of the Shrine of Our Lady on Trsat. It is, moreover, being considered to initiate the process of canonization of the bishop of Krk, Antun Mahnic, promoter of the Catholic Movement in Croatia; that of the Capuchin lay brother, friar Ante Tomicic who spent many years in our city giving silent witness to the faith and that of the nun, Marija Krucifiksa Kozulic, foundress of the autochthonous Rijeka Congregation of the Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart.
We also wish to ask you to bless, lying here among others, the cornerstone of the church which will be built in Udbina on the territory of the Diocese of Gospic-Senj and will be dedicated to the Croatian Martyrs: St. Nikola Tavelic, St. Marko Krizevcanin and blessed Alojzije Stepinac. This church will remind us constantly of all those other persons who have given witness to their love for Jesus Christ and their neighbour with their lives and blood and will stand as a lasting memory of your third pastoral visit to our country.
Holy Father, you are in a city which Croats and members of other nations, Italian and Hungarian in particular, have been building and beautifying over the ages. Our heritage is a wealthy past with periods of sincere co-existence incomparably more intense and of longer duration than periods marked by misunderstanding and hostilities. In this context, we gladly salute the formation of the new community of European nations which will evince their distinctions and also that which unites and links them. We find ourselves here in the immediate vicinity of the extended European Union in which the Croatian nation also sees its future. While we thank you for your efforts in reminding the new Europe of its deep Christian roots, we ask you to continue assisting us on our road to this new European community.
Holy Father, this local Church feels that its main task lies in re-evangelisation and wishes to “put” its boat “out into deep water” and set forth bravely into the future, placing its hope in Christ and in the strength of his Spirit.
Thank you for being here amongst us and with us on the feast of Pentecost encouraging and supporting us on our way with your proximity, prayer and blessing. We stand before you with thankful and open hearts.

Mons. Ivan Devcic,
Archbishop and metropolitan of Rijeka