On Saturday, June 6, Pope Francis visited Sarajevo, the capital of partitioned Bosnia-Hercegovina. Although treated by international media as a typical papal tour, the event strengthened the potential of the Croat Catholic hierarchy in Bosnia to serve as agents of peace and reconciliation. This is notable in a nation torn asunder, during the 1992–95 Bosnian war, between Bosnian Muslims (also called “Bosniaks”), Bosnian Croat Catholics, and Bosnian Serbian Orthodox Christians. To an outsider, this heated and complex religious landscape is often difficult to understand.
The pope’s short stay, following visits by Pope John Paul II in 1997 and 2003, was popular with the 300,000-plus residents of the city. Sarajevo has been overwhelmingly Muslim since the 1992–95 war shattered the country and caused an influx of refugees to the Bosnian metropolis. Muslim as well as Catholic clergy and theologians welcomed Pope Francis as a beloved fellow man of God. Bosnia-Hercegovina is a country where Muslims and Catholics have more in common than might divide them, and for that reason alone the papal trip was significant, particularly given the contrast with current Muslim–Christian strife in the Middle East. Most important, Bosnian Catholic Croats, like the Bosniak Muslims, were targeted by Serbian aggression during the 1992–95 war.
