Friday, 13 July 2012, was a "Black Friday" for Croatia as politicians encroached on the dignity of human life, when adopting the new law on medically assisted insemination, Djakovo-Osijek Archbishop Marin Srakic, said in his sermon during Mass in the Marian shrine of Aljmas, east Croatia, on Wednesday, on the occasion of the Assumption of Mary, a Catholic holiday celebrated on 15 August, which is also a national holiday in Croatia.
Srakic, the president of the Croatian Catholic Bishops' Conference, again criticised the adoption of the said legislation on 13 July by the national parliament.
"Freedom as a new religion cannot help but can only make things more difficult for the man who ignores the fact that the human being cannot play the role of God, regardless of the development of science and progress," said the dignitary reiterating the position of the Church that abortion is a crime.
Top dignitaries are saying masses in major Marian shrines, including, Marija Bistrica, Sinj, Aljmas, Ilaca, Trsat in Rijeka, Split and Makarska where thousands of pilgrims are flocking to for celebrations of the Assumption of Mary.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches as dogma that the Virgin Mary "having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory." This doctrine was dogmatically and infallibly defined by Pope Pius XII on November 1, 1950, in his Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus.
Tens of thousands of Croatians swarm Marian shrines and churches throughout the country on the Assumption of the Virgin Mary every year.
