Cardinal Bozanić: Jesus Was Not a Populist

Zagreb Archbishop Cardinal Josip Bozanić on Sunday, while serving the Easter Mass at the Zagreb Cathedral, warned of enormous injustices and attempts to create new orders in contemporary society, and conveyed to the faithful that the only sure path in the faith of the Church, which has answers to numerous questions.

“One should always listen with caution to those who promise ‘heaven on earth’, who present themselves as bringers of a new order, peace, prosperity, and complete equality. This was used by the failed ideologies of the last century, and similar attempts are being made by new ones,” Bozanić emphasized in a sermon where he particularly addressed those who hope that with their proposals, programs, and projects they bring the so-called ‘heaven’ to earth.

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Their vision of organizing the world and relationships is often paid for with tears, Bozanić said, urging the faithful not to tire in their efforts to strengthen their belonging to the Church, which has answers to numerous questions.

He also questioned why there is no place for God in that world. Moreover, he stated, from that ‘heaven’ they often systematically persecute God, so it is no wonder that they are particularly disturbed by those who believe in God and the resurrection of Jesus, who preserve the biblical image of man created as male and female, who defend human life from conception to death, and who advocate for the true dignity of every human being.

“Unfortunately, the new age has brought new ways of modern persecution of Christ’s disciples who remain a ‘sign of contradiction’ in the world,” the cardinal said.

He warned that history testifies that often the “affirmation of their ideological systems, tailored to a few at the expense of the majority, was paid not only with money but with victims and lives.”

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“The Church sees the tears of its faithful people today and cannot reconcile with the tears and pains that threaten and take lives and calls for the harmony that God intended for man from the beginning,” Bozanić emphasized, who sees the cause of many tears in the contemporary world in enormous social injustice that attempts to create new relationships.

This, he says, is felt in a special way by those who suffer under the burden of poverty, who not only lose or have lost their roof over their heads but also lose their lives. Their tears are the result of a system that has closed itself off from the values established by Jesus through his resurrection, in whose presence there are never any discarded or abandoned.

Who is being given space?

“No system that is capable of taking away the sanctity of home and the possibility for people to earn their bread honestly is not only closed to the light of the Risen One but also suffocates that light. If the light of the Risen One is darkened, to whom is space then opened? To power? To money? To ideology? To groupings? As believers, we ask why, while the chosen ones grow stronger, so many must weaken? This is all so far from the values promoted by the resurrection of Jesus. Therefore, we need a new gathering around the values established by Christ’s resurrection,” Bozanić conveyed, reminding that with the Risen Jesus there was no place for selfish interests, but exclusively for the common good.

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In light of such actions of Jesus, he posed the question of how to responsibly and honestly engage in the processes that are underway in our Croatian society, which is not isolated in this sense, as these are processes that transcend the borders of our state, in a contemporary society where there is a prevailing effort to show only what benefits someone – which is often a deception, while all that is ugly and problematic is hidden, so much so that often the truth itself is concealed.

“Jesus was not a populist who wanted to please everyone, and therefore neither can his Church be such. Catholic believers are called to wish well to all. The Church wants to participate in God’s plan for all people to be saved, but it cannot deny the truth in doing so,” he said, emphasizing that it is a beneficial realization that faith in the Risen One is capable of reconciling divisions among people and that it can lead to communion.

“With the Risen Jesus, there are no disenfranchised. All, both women and men, both younger and older, more or less educated… all have equal dignity as children of God. The light of the Risen One illuminates even those exposed to enormous social injustice, which attempts to create new relationships….,” he emphasized.

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Referring to the words of Pope Francis, who used the metaphor of “social anesthesia or ‘putting believers to sleep’,” he called on them to open up so as not to remain confused, taken aback, and increasingly unable to understand what is happening.

As a Church, we invite everyone to open and brave dialogue based on mutual respect and recognition of all groups and components of our society, especially for communion in Croatian society, and to avoid creating confusion and unnecessary tensions that grow into discouragement and then into fear, Bozanić said, conveying that for believers the only sure path is the one that leads through faith to the Risen One and which is preserved in the heritage of the faith of the Church.