Friday, September 28, 2012

Sarajevo ‘not a model for peace’

The president of Bosnia-Herzegovina's Catholic Bishops' Conference has questioned claims made at an inter-religious meeting in Sarajevo last week that the country offers an example of how religious and ethnic communities can achieve reconciliation after war.

"In no other European country has the plight of Catholics been as dramatic as in Bosnia - at least half have left, and those who remain have problems finding a roof over their heads, food, jobs and conditions for life," Bishop Franjo Komarica of Banja Luka told the Zagreb-based Vecernij List on Sunday.

The bishop was speaking after the International Meeting for Peace, which was organised in the Bosnian capital by the Rome-based St Egidio Community and attended by 200 Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu representatives.