Original scientific paper
The Catholic Church and the Challenge of War: The Croatian Trial
Neven DUVNJAK
Abstract
In this work the author gives a survey of the development of
certain segments of Catholic social teaching concerning
problems of war and peace. After a lengthy historical review,
special attention is given to the contribution of the Second
Vatican Council to the topic in question, and especially to the
"substitution" of the theory of a just war with the theory of
avoiding war. Accordingly, the key messages of Pope John
XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II regarding issues of war and
peace in the contemporary world are presented. They have considerably contributed to the actualization of the Catholic
social teaching because they "coordinated" the teaching of
the Church with the current events in the contemporary
world. Namely, the concepts of war and peace are no longer
unambiguous, but are linked to the pressing issues of justice,
solidarity and development on a global level. In the second
part of the article the author discusses specific messages of
representatives of the Catholic Church in Croatia dedicated
to wartime events. The messages addressed from that level
were found to be in accordance with the evangelical spirit of
the Church: they opposed hatred, revenge and violence, and
called for reconciliation, forgiveness, peace and coexistence.
Also presented is part of the data from a research conducted
in 1997 among Catholic believers in the area of the seven
Franciscan provinces in Croatia and Bosnia and
Herzegovina. These data are connected with the topic of war
and peace as well, and with them the authors wanted to
demonstrate to what extent believers accepted the messages
initiated by members of the Church administration, and how
they "evaluated" the Church's activities (and the Franciscan
friars') during the war.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
20160
URI
Publication date:
30.4.2001.
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