How Croatian PM Was Expelled From The Confessional

Wanting to show that Croatia was a secular country, and have the Church`s support at the same time, the PM failed to balance.

ZAGREB, CROATIA - What was once called the support of the Church to the governing Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), it is no longer today. Today, the Church openly calls out the Croatian cabinet and Prime Minister Ivo Sanader for a servile relationship towards the European Union, for selling national wealth and destroying what is the holiest - family. The idyllic “romance” of the governing ones and the Church has clearly ended the moment when the Law on the prevention of discrimination was passed in the Parliament, with the support of the entire HDZ club, mentioning those who have sinned the most, according to the Church – homosexuals. Then, supposedly to get on the good side of Cardinal Bozanic, Croatian PM Sanader passed the final bill of the Law on trade at the government, which bans work on Sundays (apart in the summer), but the law will take effect on January 1, 2009. The Church wanted it this year.

The Church`s demands – unfulfilled

Now, the Church top, according to the media, is threatening with cutting off support to Ivo Sanader at the local elections. Nut, how did the relationship between the Croatian government and the Croatian Church worsen?

From the start of Sanader`s support, from 2000, the church quietly requested the right to abortion to be annulled. This was not the Church`s one-time demand, but Sanader always dodged it with success. Slowly, the Church stopped demanding, which does not mean it has given up. It just laid low. The same thing happened with working Sundays because that is the day which is reserved for family, according to the Church. Although the HSLS (Croatian Social-Liberal Party), the coalition partner of the HDZ, opposed the ban of work on Sundays, Djurdja Adlesic supported the law nevertheless, according to which retail shops will no longer work on Sundays.

Furthermore, the church requested more Sunday school classes in schools, from one class per week to two. However, Croatian Education Minister Dragan Primorac refused it, saying one class per week was enough.

The Church did not fancy this refusal either, but they could not do a thing, especially because the Law on the prevention of discrimination was being drafted at the time. The Church wanted all equalities based on gender, sexual orientation and gender identity to be expelled from the law, while the HDZ club submitted the amendment which wanted to prevent this provision. But, pressured by the cabinet, the club withdrew it and Andrija Hebrang told reporters that he “sleeps on the right side after all”.

Water and the Church

That was the greatest disappointment the church had with the HDZ, especially because they really believed Sanader would not dare to support such a law. However, Sanader`s cabinet has a new shock yesterday when the Commission of the Croatian Bishops` Conference forwarded an appeal in which it invites the draft of a new water management strategy, which will not allow privatisation of water and the water supply system.

- Water is God`s gift to all and must remain pure and available to all citizens at affordable costs – the Commission president, mons. Vlado Kosic said.

It is undisputable that Sanader, trying to prove to the EU that Croatia is a secular, as well as a democratic country, has “destroyed” relations with the Church. The question is when will he repair it, seeing how the Church is threatening with cancelling its support, which the governing ones will feel most at the upcoming local elections, if it happens. And the voice from the pulpit can be heard a long way…