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Papal mass stirs painful memory for Bosnian Serbs
By Dragana Dardic
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BANJA LUKA, Bosnia, June 22 - Dark memories of a bloodthirsty friar nicknamed Brother Satan were revived on Sunday as Pope John Paul held mass at the site of a monastery linked to a World War Two massacre of Orthodox Serbs.
Over 2,000 from a village near what is now the main Bosnian Serb republic city of Banja Luka were slaughtered in the 1942 atrocity by Croat forces of the Nazi-allied Ustashe regime.
The 83-year-old pontiff, on his first visit to the Orthodox Serb part of Bosnia, appealed for reconciliation between Serbs, Croats and Muslims after their bitter 1992-95 war. He also asked Serbs to forgive the wrongs of the Catholic Church.
''From this city, marked in the course of history by so much suffering and bloodshed, I ask almighty God to have mercy on the sins committed against humanity, human dignity and freedom, also by the children of the Catholic Church, and to foster in all the desire for mutual forgiveness,'' the pope said in a homily.
In World War Two the Petricevac monastery was home to a Franciscan friar, Tomislav Filipovic Majstorovic, who became known as Fra Sotona or Brother Satan.
According the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, he combined religion with political ideology and is said to have taken part in the massacre, slashing the throat of a child with the words: ''This is the way I baptise these fatherless kids in the name of God.''
The friar became commandant of the Ustashe concentration camp at Jasenovac, where he is said to have killed freely.
On Sunday, relatives of Ustashe victims lit candles at a monument in the village of Drakulici, as the sound of singing drifted from the papal mass for some 50,000 pilgrims.
''It is a creepy fact that the pope holds a mass at Petricevac,'' said Jovan Babic, who has investigated the massacre in which dozens of children were also killed.
''If he knew what are the links between Petricevac and the massacre, he would have never held the mass there,'' Babic added.
Nedjeljko Glamocanin, whose entire family was killed in the Ustashe onslaught, said the pope was not welcome in Banja Luka unless he apologized but there would be no violence.
Bosnian authorities were taking no chances. Some 4,000 police backed by troops of the NATO-led peacekeeping force were providing security for the pope's one-day visit.
Two days before he arrived several known Serb hardliners were taken into detention. Shortly before the pope's plane touched down, traffic was held up while police checked a suspect car, later found to be harmless. Posters saying ''Pope Go Home'' appeared briefly in the city but were quickly removed.
Two years ago, one man died when an angry mob of Bosnian Serb nationalists attacked a crowd celebrating the reconstruction of a mosque in Banja Luka.
Pope John Paul begs forgiveness for church's role in Bosnia's bloody past | CP
Sunday, Jun 22, 2003
Pope John Paul begs forgiveness for church's role in Bosnia's bloody past
BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) - Pope John Paul asked God's forgiveness Sunday for "so much suffering and bloodshed" inflicted by his own Roman Catholics and others in this embittered Balkan land during two 20th-century wars.
As NATO peacekeeping troops provided security, the frail 83-year-old Pope urged Bosnia's rival Muslims, Roman Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs to put their differences behind them and forge a lasting multiethnic society.
He stressed the need for a "genuine purification of memory through mutual forgiveness," a dominant theme of his nearly 25-year papacy.
John Paul, weakened by Parkinson's disease and crippling knee and hip ailments, looked drawn and uncomfortable as he sat under a yellow canopy during an open-air mass for 50,000 pilgrims. The temperature reached into the 30s, but he held up during the nearly three-hour service, slurring his words at times.
The Pope struggled to his knees for five minutes of prayer at Banja Luka's cathedral before leaving for Rome. His hand trembled considerably, but he seemed in good spirits.
A Vatican official, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested a hoped-for trip in August to predominantly Buddhist Mongolia - home to just 170 Catholics - would be postponed.
"The time is not yet ripe. A bishop has to be named and the church must still be built up," the official said. John Paul still intends to press ahead with a visit to Slovakia in mid-September.
Sunday's mass site - the monastery of Petricevac - was highly symbolic. It was destroyed by Serbs in 1995 near the end of a 3½-year war that killed 250,000 people and created 1.8 million refugees.
During the Second World War, a priest from Petricevac led Croat fascists, armed with hatchets and knives, to a nearby village. In the 1942 attack, they butchered 2,300 Serbs, including 500 women and children.
"From this city, marked in the course of history by so much suffering and bloodshed, I ask Almighty God to have mercy on the sins committed against humanity, human dignity and freedom also by children of the Catholic Church," John Paul said in Bosnian.
The Pope beatified Ivan Merz, a Catholic theologian who took a vow of celibacy and devoted his life to the church in the early 1900s. Beatification is the last step before possible sainthood, and Merz would be Bosnia's first saint.
The Vatican hoped the pontiff's visit and the beatification would strengthen Bosnia's minority Catholic community and halt an exodus the local church says is threatening it with extinction.
John Paul was greeted at Banja Luka's airport by the Serb, Croat and Muslim members of Bosnia's joint presidency. Later, in a private meeting, the leaders promised the Pope they would return to Catholic, Orthodox Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities any property seized by the communists after the Second World War, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said.
Eight years after the last war, Bosnia remains under international administration as it struggles to overcome ethnic divisions and catch up with the rest of Europe.
"I know the long ordeal which you have endured, the burden of suffering that is a daily part of your lives," John Paul said. "Do not give up. Certainly, starting afresh is not easy. It requires sacrifice and steadfastness if society is to take on a truly human face and everyone is to look to the future with confidence.
"It is necessary to rebuild man from within, healing wounds and achieving genuine purification of memory through mutual forgiveness," the Pope said. "The root of every good - and, sadly, every evil - is in the depths of the heart. It is there that change must occur."
He also expressed hope that Bosnia will realize its aspirations to join a united Europe.
It was John Paul's second visit to Bosnia and his 101st foreign pilgrimage. It came two weeks after a five-day tour of neighbouring Croatia.
Although nearly one million refugees have yet to return to their pre-war homes, more Bosnians say they feel safe as an ethnic minority.
"This is the only happiness in my life - my only joy," said Stefka Topic, 80, a Croat returnee. "I will be in front of God real soon. I'm going home happy because I know Banja Luka is going to be a holy place after this."
Security was tight for the Pope's stop in Banja Luka, the administrative centre of the Bosnian Serb mini-state. More than 4,000 police officers backed by NATO-led peacekeepers and a European police force stood guard. Snipers patrolled rooftops and helicopters flew overhead.
Before the war, about 30,000 Croats lived in Banja Luka; only about 2,000 have returned. Many of Sunday's pilgrims travelled from other parts of Bosnia and Croatia.
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Orthodoc
Thanks for sharing these hidden papist evils! How can papists defend this 
