Catholics leaving Bosnia-Herzegovina

  • Thread starter Thread starter markomalley
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
M

markomalley

Guest
From Vatican Radio:Christians are massively leaving post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina amid mounting discrimination and Islamization, according to a new report.

“Many believers leave the country since war raged 20 years ago,” said Netherlands-based advocacy and aid group Kerk in Nood, or ‘Church in Need’, in the report obtained by Vatican Radio.

There are just 440,000 Catholics left in the Balkan nation, half the prewar figure, the group said.

The report came on the heels of talks between the cardinal of Sarajevo, Vinko Puljic, and European Council President Herman van Rompuy about difficulties faced by Bosnia’s Christians.
Lord protect the Christians from the Saracens. Our Lady, Queen of the Rosary, pray for us.

(by the way, you may wish to consider the particular title of the Blessed Virgin I invoked above…there is a specific reason for invoking that title)
 
Read the book Unholy Terror: Bosnia, Al-Qa’ida, and the Rise of Global Jihad by John R Schindler, who should have impeccable credentials for anyone on the forum. He is a professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College in Newport. Rhode Island, and a former US Navy officer.
One of the conclusions the author comes to is that we weren't quite being told the truth regarding what was really happening in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and as a result (thanks to NATO) radical Islam has gained a big foothold.
 
Seamus_L said:
Read the book Unholy Terror: Bosnia, Al-Qa’ida, and the Rise of Global Jihad by John R Schindler, who should have impeccable credentials for anyone on the forum. He is a professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College in Newport. Rhode Island, and a former US Navy officer.
Code: 
                                  One of the conclusions the author comes to is that we weren't quite being told the truth regarding what was really happening in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and as a result (thanks to NATO) radical Islam has gained a big foothold.
Click to expand...
I note the report above but I have to say that I saw no evidence of radical Isalm when I was there earlier this year. There has always been tension in the region but most Catholics I spoke to were more bitter towards the Serbs than the Muslims.
 
I’m Croatian and can speak from experience when I say that most Bosnians are nominally Muslim… However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t tensions between the Muslims, Orthodox and Cathollic populations. Most of the Catholics are of Croatian descent, the Orthodox of Serbian descent and the “true” Bosnians are Muslim. The whole war was a cultural/religious powder keg and not much has changed… Catholics are the minority and probably don’t feel safe living there anymore. The fact that radical Islamists are popping up doesn’t surprise me at all. I live in Canada and even here, we don’t really “get along”.
 
Interesting about Bosnia.

Overall, it does seem that radical islam is on the march. I was reading earlier about Tunisia. It’s an arab country more likely to lean toward western ways of openness toward other religions, due to it being a western tourist destination. It appear though that Tunisia might be heading toward a more radical islamic route, sadly.

“Tunisian Tipping Point?”

blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/10/13/tunisian-tipping-point/

Indonesia is another country to watch. Christianity is coming under pressure there it appears.

“Radical Islam On The Rise In Indonesia?”

blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/10/13/radical-islam-on-the-rise-in-indonesia/

snippet from the article:
Despite President Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech “A New Beginning”, the killing of Bin Laden, and the extensive drone program, Islamic radicalism appears to be on the rise in a number of places around the world. This is obviously a threat to the America, but it’s especially threatening to Islamic minority sects, like the tolerant and pacifistic Ahmadi muslims, or Shi’ites, who are seen as apostates by Sunni radical. And naturally the Christian communities that have lived in Muslim countries for centuries aren’t safe either.
Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country in the world, and has traditionally been far more tolerant of religious diversity than its counterparts in the Middle East. But as the Wall Street Journal reports, even Indonesia does not seem to be escaping the recent spread of radical islam. Millions of Ahmadis, Shi’ites and Christians living in the country are increasingly feeling unsafe.
Click to expand...
Syria looks further troubled also. Saw 60 Minutes is to run a special this Sunday on Al Qaeda’s appearance in the country.

“Rebels ally with al Qaeda group to take Syrian base”

cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57531618/rebels-ally-with-al-qaeda-group-to-take-syrian-base/?tag=mncol;lst;3
 
US always helping muslims and destroying the minorities of christians in kosovo, bosnia, syria, egypt and other countries, US since 1945 help a lot islam.
 
CroCatholic said:
I’m Croatian and can speak from experience when I say that most Bosnians are nominally Muslim… However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t tensions between the Muslims, Orthodox and Cathollic populations. Most of the Catholics are of Croatian descent, the Orthodox of Serbian descent and the “true” Bosnians are Muslim. The whole war was a cultural/religious powder keg and not much has changed… Catholics are the minority and probably don’t feel safe living there anymore. The fact that radical Islamists are popping up doesn’t surprise me at all. I live in Canada and even here, we don’t really “get along”.
Click to expand...
My experience with Bosnian Muslims confirms this…most were culturally or nominally Muslim. They drank alcohol, ate pork, I never saw any of them praying…the mosques were as empty on Friday as the churches were on Sunday.
 
BroomWagon said:
And Bosnia suffered the horror of Srebenica…
Click to expand...
very true! The whole war was a huge tragedy and completely unnecessary. It’s still fresh in the minds of a lot of people from the former Yugoslavia. My prayers and hopes are that one day peace will be restored and the tension and suspicion will be relieved…
 
CroCatholic said:
I’m Croatian and can speak from experience when I say that most Bosnians are nominally Muslim… However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t tensions between the Muslims, Orthodox and Cathollic populations. Most of the Catholics are of Croatian descent, the Orthodox of Serbian descent and the “true” Bosnians are Muslim. The whole war was a cultural/religious powder keg and not much has changed… Catholics are the minority and probably don’t feel safe living there anymore. The fact that radical Islamists are popping up doesn’t surprise me at all. I live in Canada and even here, we don’t really “get along”.
Click to expand...
+1.

There is a large amount of Bosnian expats in my parents neighborhood. Most are Muslim, but there are a few (ethnic Croat) Bosnian Catholic-Bosnian Muslim couples. The Muslims will usually refrain from pork or drinking when around other Bosnian Muslims, while most of the neighborhood tensions are between the Orthodox Serb Bosnians and Catholic Bosnians.

The differences go further back than even WWII, with the Ustase - Tito split
 
Seamus_L said:
Here’s a website that does a pretty good of dispelling the myth that Bosnian Muslims were typically the victims of Serbs and Croat aggression hercegbosna.org/STARO/engleski/war.html
Click to expand...
All sides in the war were guilty of atrocities but using a Croat website is hardly going to deliver an even-handed assessment of who did what to whom. Reading the book “The Death of Yugoslavia” gives a fascinating and even-handed account of the madness that gripped the Balkans in the 1990s.

The history section in the link above also neatly skips the horrors of Ante Pavelic during WW2 and his murderous reign where he aimed to expelling a third, killing a third and converting a third of serbs. Even the SS divisions in Yugoslavia were horrofoed by what they witnessed.
 
liturgyluver said:
All sides in the war were guilty of atrocities but using a Croat website is hardly going to deliver an even-handed assessment of who did what to whom. Reading the book “The Death of Yugoslavia” gives a fascinating and even-handed account of the madness that gripped the Balkans in the 1990s.

The history section in the link above also neatly skips the horrors of Ante Pavelic during WW2 and his murderous reign where he aimed to expelling a third, killing a third and converting a third of serbs. Even the SS divisions in Yugoslavia were horrofoed by what they witnessed.
Click to expand...
The Serb-Croat conflict is a fever swamp of charges and counter-charges that can go back decades, that I don’t know will serve a useful purpose in this particular thread. To the extent there was relative peace between Muslims and others previously (and, after the Turks were gone, there was) an exodus of Catholics from Bosnia-Herzegovina due to persecution and the exodus of Orthodox from Kosovo for the same reason, really are new developments. The real question is whether one or two Islamic states are going to be eventually created in the Balkans. Right now, it seems more likely than not.
 
We have good libraries here, in the late '90s, I read every single book I could on the former Yugoslavia which must have numbered between 12-20 books. The Oliver Stone movie with Dennis Quaid “Saviour” (right, English spelling) is pretty good too. And after everything, I just can’t decide.

Even officially by the Hague International Tribunal, they have prosecuted all 3 sides for war crimes and each side I know is very sensitive and there is a lot of history.

But I sure hope a radical Islamic state doesn’t rise in Bosnia.
 
I’d say the fact that half the Catholic population has left the country, and the Cardinal can’t get a building permit for a church after 13 years while dozens of mosques are built, is a pretty good indication that these aren’t easy going non-radical Muslims we’re talking about in Bosnia.
 
Seamus_L said:
I’d say the fact that half the Catholic population has left the country, and the Cardinal can’t get a building permit for a church after 13 years while dozens of mosques are built, is a pretty good indication that these aren’t easy going non-radical Muslims we’re talking about in Bosnia.
Click to expand...
I dunno.

One of the key principles of Kemalist Turkey involved the suppression of the public display of Christianity, even as they were constantly concerned about Islamists gaining any kind of power.

Eventually they failed with the AKP coming to power with Erdogan. And we see Kemalist Turkey going by the wayside.

(BTW, for my Euroskeptic friends who think I don’t know what I’m talking about…3 years living in Ankara…just sayin’)
 
We are not suppose to speak of unapproved apparitions but can we not say, I thought, maybe I’m wrong that Medjugorje is in Bosnia. So what’s the deal?? Isn’t it a thriving place economically speaking? Or do we say it is in Herzogovina?? Bosnian symbol is the Fleur de Lis interestingly enough.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top