during World War Two. The pontiff made his appeal Sunday, June 22, in the Serb part of Bosnia Herzegovina, which was devastated by the more recent Balkan conflict of the 1990s.
The ailing 83-year old pontiff made his appeal for forgiveness at a mass attended by some 50-thousand pilgrims at a mass held at the site of a Franciscan monastery near Banja Luka, the main city of the Bosnian Serb Republic which is part of Bosnia Herzegovina.
The monastery was destroyed by Serb forces during the 1992-95 Bosnian war because of its role as a World War Two base for Nazi-allied Croat Ustashe forces.
It was also the home of Franciscan leader Vjekoslav Filipovic, who earned the title "Brother Satan" because of his involvement in the nearby Jasenovac concentration camp where at least 40,000 people, including many Jews, were massacred.
CONTROVERSIAL
The controversial location was chosen by the Vatican for the beatification of Croat theologist Ivan Merz, who dedicated his life to celibacy and the Catholic church in the early 1900s.
Relatives of those who died had protested against the ceremony, while Bosnian Serb hard-liners in the region put up "Pope Go Home" posters, but they were removed before the Pope arrived. Earlier Bosnian police detained several people thought to be involved in the poster campaign.
Speaking in Bosnian Pope John Paul suggested he understood the wounds of history which were painfully re-opened during the Bosnian war of the last decade. About 200-thousand people died during that conflict and 2-million were made homeless.
FORGIVENESS
However the pontiff urged all ethnic groups to overcome their differences and to start with the difficult process of multual forgiveness.
He said that he wanted to ask "from this city, marked in the course of history by so much suffering and bloodshed" the "almighty God to have mercy on the sins committed against humanity, human dignity and freedom." He added these sins were "also (committed) by the children of the Catholic Church" and stressed "the desire for mutual forgiveness."
Pope John Paul added that "only in a climate of true reconciliation will the memory of so many innocent victims be honored and that their sacrifice not be in vain."
RECONCILIATION
The Pope was greeted by the three members of Bosnia Herzegovina’s presidency, a Serb, a Croat and a Muslim. In what was seen as a first step towards reconciliation, the Pope received word from the ethnically divided presidency of Bosnia Herzegovina, that is will return properties confiscated under communism to the Catholic, Muslim, Orthodox and Jewish faiths.
This was the Pope’s second visit to Bosnia Herzegovina following a trip to the capital, Sarajevo, in 1997, and his second in two weeks to the Balkans after a five-day trip to Catholic-dominated Croatia.
About 4-thousand Bosnian Serb police, backed by NATO-led peacekeepers protected the Pope John Paul, who was scheduled to return to the Vatican later Sunday.
