President Ivo Josipovic said on Monday, when asked by reporters whether he was concerned about the Pope's statement that secularisation was a threat that needed to be opposed, that the Church had its own views and that the State was independent of the Church and made its own decisions.
"The Church, of course, has certain views that some people accept and some do not accept at a practical political level. That is also a matter of democracy. The State is independent of the Church and the State makes its own decisions, taking into account the general mood of our citizens," Josipovic said after attending a conference on socially responsible business.
Addressing a crowd at an open-air mass in Zagreb on Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI drew attention to "the spread of a secularisation which leads to the exclusion of God from life and the increasing disintegration of the family, especially in Europe" and called upon the faithful not to give in to "that secularised mentality which proposes living together as a preparation, or even a substitute for marriage."
Josipovic would not comment on the call by the chairman of the Croatian Bishops' Conference (HBK) Council for the Family, Bishop Valter Zupan, for a review of legislation that allows abortion.
When asked about his impressions of the Pope's two-day visit, Josipovic said that it was a very important visit from the point of view of the State because the Pontiff politically supported Croatia's entry into the European Union, while at the same time "raising awareness among the Croatians to vote in favour of EU membership at the forthcoming referendum."
"On the other hand, you could see for yourselves how much the visit meant to our citizens who are Catholic faithful. In any case, I think it was a very important and very successful visit," Josipovic said.
