While the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords brought an end to ethnic violence and bloodshed between Serbs, Muslims and Croats, the bishops said the accords were flawed and unfairly enforced, resulting in a lack of true peace, justice and adequate human rights protections in the country.
On the eve of the start of their weeklong "ad limina" visit to the Vatican, Bosnian Cardinal Vinko Puljic of Sarajevo, Bishop Franjo Komarica of Banja Luka, and Auxiliary Bishop Pero Sudar of Sarajevo spoke to journalists at a Feb. 22 press conference hosted by Italy's Catholic Action movement.
The bishops appealed to the international community to help transform Bosnia-Herzegovina from its current two-government existence to a unified, decentralized democracy that would no longer be split along ethnic lines. The bishops said they would be informing Pope Benedict XVI about their appeal and the situation of the country's Catholics.
The 1995 accords, signed by the presidents of Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, divided Bosnia-Herzegovina into two areas -- one administered by ethnic Serbs and another by a Muslim-Croat federation. This, however, has left the mostly Catholic Croat minority with little to no political power in both areas, the bishops said. Cardinal Puljic, who is also head of the Bosnian bishops' conference, said Catholics "are in the minority; slowly we are becoming second-class citizens in our own country."
The democratic principles and protections outlined by the Dayton accords do not carry the same weight for the different ethnic groups, he said. The bigger groups, that is the Serbs and Muslims, have the most power and have more rights than the smaller groups, he said.
The cardinal said that more than 10 years after the Dayton accords, Bosnia-Herzegovina is "a confused country" whose complex political structure is unsustainable, unjust and must be changed. Bishop Komarica told journalists that dividing the country and granting powers based on ethnicity were some of the many "fatal mistakes" created by the accords. The present situation of "rule of the strongest" not only prevents the country from developing into a healthy, multiethnic country, it also has legitimized ethnic cleansing by dividing the country along ethnic lines and granting majority rule to the predominant ethnic group, he said.
He also said displaced Croats and Catholics have been "hindered from returning and staying on."
Before the start of the 1992-95 war, there were 820,000 Catholics throughout the country's four archdioceses, he said, adding, "Today, 10 years after the war's end, there are only 460,000." He said his diocese of Banja Luka was the most affected: 120,000 Catholics have dwindled to barely 40,000. The dramatic situation of the Catholic Church in Bosnia-Herzegovina "is constantly forgotten, ignored and treated as something normal and acceptable by national and international political leaders, not as a serious crime of extermination of a people and the Catholic Church" in this Balkan nation, said Bishop Komarica.
As long as the rights and freedoms of Croats are denied and their political clout is stifled, there will be no true peace in the country, and Catholics there will disappear, he said.
Bishop Sudar, meanwhile, emphasized the importance of stimulating the economy of a country where unemployment has risen to 48 percent. Those who do have a job sometimes must wait months or years for their wages, he added.
While government leaders are looking at some proposals to revise the political structures the Dayton accords established, "nothing is proposed to re-establish structures which help to improve the economy, to favor the return of refugees and to safeguard human rights and equality among the peoples," he said.
He said a fairer balance of political power among Croats, Muslims and Serbs is needed as well as a revamped legislature and executive branch of government in which members of one region would not be able to "outvote members of the other two" regions.
Cardinal Puljic spoke on the general theme of how bishops should be involved in "overcoming the divisions existing in the Church and in today's world." He argued: "Europe can no longer be divided into Eastern and Western Europe. The world cannot remain divided between North and South."
Then, turning his attention to his own land of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the cardinal said that the unity of the Church is threatened by the disobedience of the Franciscan monks serving at Medjurgorje, who "impose their own points of view" with the aid of "pseudo-charisms." Although the local bishop has never officially rendered a verdict on the authenticity of the reported Marian apparitions at Medjugorje, the hierarchy has generally shown signs of skepticism, and cautioned against excessive enthusiasm. This stance has frequently produced conflicts with the Franciscan pastors who have energetically promoted visits and devotion to the Medjugorje site.
In another important intervention at the Synod, Archbishop George Pell of Sydney, Australia, said that bishops should bring comfort and spiritual focus to a depressed and secularized world by emphasizing "Christian hope, especially as it touches the last things: death and judgment, heaven and hell."
The Synod of Bishops has now heard 200 individual presentations by participating bishops, auditors, and experts. The Synod is moving into its second stage, in which the bishops gather in small discussion groups, according to their native language, for a fuller exploration of the main themes.
