Bogoslovska smotra, Vol. 91 No. 1, 2021.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.53745/bs.91.1.5
Tomislav J. Šagi – Bunić and Bonaventura Duda. A Friendship in the Service of the Conciliar Renewal
Daniel Patafta
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
On the basis of material from the legacy of friar Bonaventura Duda and published texts in various publications, the article tries to show the life journey of two Croatian Franciscans, Capuchin Tomislav Janko Šagi‑Bunić and Franciscan Bonaventura Duda. The acquaintance of these two monks and priests dates from the time when they were both in seminaries in Varaždin and educated in the Franciscan Classical Comprehensive School in the same city. Although they had different characters, different approaches to work, and different life journeys, in the background of all this there remained a continuous friendship that was woven into the lives and work of these two friends until the end of their lives. Duda and Šagi‑Bunić are inscribed in the history of the Church in Croatia and in the Croatian national history as important names of the conciliar renewal in Croatia and as persons who, each in his own way, directed intellectual and pastoral life of the Church in Croatia in decisive periods of the conciliar renewal, in a socialist society dominated by the Communist totalitarianism and open atheisation. Their lives and work are a permanent testimony that in discovering one’s own baptismal mission, the human being becomes a locus theologicus, a place of God’s presence and activity in the Church and the world, that is being realised through activity of individuals in their dedication to a certain mission in the Church. Their friendship is also a testimony that a sincere friendship is also a locus theologicus, insofar as it is a ground from which a great good springs forth, thereby contributing to the renewal of the Church and social reality, that is, of the human being as an unavoidable part of those realities, while the footprint of good remains recorded among the generations that follow. In that sense, this article studies the relation between two Croatian theologians, Tomislav J. Šagi‑Bunić and Bonaventura Duda, marked not only by the Franciscan charisma of mission in the Croatian nation, high education, and quality scientific and pastoral work, but also by life‑long friendship that was completely involved in their mission in the Church and nation. The article tracks their lives from the time of their education in Varaždin until the death of Šagi‑Bunić, covering difficult and decisive periods in the life of the Church in Croatia.
Keywords
Bonaventura Duda; Tomislav Janko Šagi‑Bunić; friendship; Second Vatican Council; Church among Croatians; post‑conciliar renewal; civilisation of love.
Hrčak ID:
260612
URI
Publication date:
7.2.2021.
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