The Iustitia et Pax commission of the Croatian Bishops' Conference on Thursday issued a statement entitled "The Crisis and Progress of the Contemporary Croatian Society" on the occasion of Labour Day, 1 May, in which it described the current crisis as being substantially a moral crisis which has become evident to the public primarily as a financial and then as an economic, social and political crisis.
"The situation in the Croatian society is quite depressing with an increasingly strong feeling of insecurity," according to the statement presented at a news conference in Zagreb by Sisak Bishop Vlado Kosic and the commission's secretary, Gordan Crpic.
Croatia is in a state of institutional change, and this process is being rendered more difficult by pressures from some neighbours, the urgency to amend the Constitution and by prospective decisions on admission to the European Union, the statement reads.
The documents warns about increasingly low levels of tolerance and confidence in society as well as about "vulgar speech" full of intolerance, recriminations and blackmailing in the public and the media.
Protests and strikes as well as desperate hunger strikes are the expected response of those who are stricken by the economic and social crisis, and all this undermines confidence in state and social institutions, the statement reads.
"As citizens of the Croatian state, we hold that there are enough reasons to nourish hope while relying on the secular institutions of our society," the statement reads, adding that the family is the first institution on which society must rely with confidence.
Catholic dignitaries say that the crisis is also a unique opportunity for making strong changes, and they call for cherishing the strength of friendship in the Croatian people as well as for increasing solidarity.
