Bosnian Bishop calls his flock home: Displaced by war - Population dropped by half after conflict

The National Post ^ | March 23, 2009 | Charles Lewis

[Ravnagora]

Bishop Franjo Komarica believes "tens of thousands" of Catholics would return to Bosnia-Herzegovina if they could. Photo by Peter J. Thompson, National Post

When Bishop Franjo Komarica looks out at his congregation in the northwestern region of Bosnia-Herzegovina, he feels a sense of dread.

In Banja Luka, the largest city in the region, only about 200 of the Roman Catholic faithful show up for Sunday morning Mass at the cathedral, instead of the 800 that used to be the norm before a three-year war that ended in 1996.

It was a war of brutal ethnic cleansing that saw hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the land.

Now, when he looks on his flock he sees they are mainly the elderly.

"It's a seniors' home," said Bishop Komarica, who was in Toronto last week to speak about the troubles in his country and to seek out expats who might want to return to their place of birth.

But how do you lure people back to a land scarred by war and in the midst of an economic crisis?

"Some joke that I am a bishop with the largest diocese in the world," he said through an interpreter.

"I have quite a number of my faithful worshippers here [in Toronto], more than I now have in Banja Luka."

His mission to repopulate his diocese is absolutely serious, if not a tremendous long shot. It is the only way, he said, to prevent the Catholic population in his region, which dates back to before the fifth century, from vanishing forever.

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[Ravnagora]

[OpusatFR]

Reading “Island of the World,” Michael O’Brien.

What a horrifying account of the Balkans from 1930s to present day.

The faithful still left must be made of steel.

[eleni121]

The faithful still left must be made of steel.

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You can imagine the strength of that steel that went into the forging of Chrstians during the enslavement under the Turkish Muslim yoke - give and take 400 + years worth.

[BKrajisnik]

Why would they return to the same people that kicked them out of their own houses, city and land and killed their relatives? They named it clearly Serb republic. Not Serb - Croat republic.