JELENA BRAJSA The Caritas director was acquitted of charges that she hid Penic's diary, but was later convicted of financial misconductJosip Bozanic, Cardinal and Archbishop of Zagreb, last Monday called on all of the members of the Catholic Church to report priests and nuns for whom there is proof that they are paedophiles to the civilian authorities, but in Church circles the conviction remains that there is practically no paedophilia in the Catholic Church in Croatia. Declaratively, Bozanic's condemnation of paedophilia has the full support of the priesthood, but when trying to find out if there are perverts with an inclination towards sexual contact with juveniles among priests, one hits a wall of silence even among the close aids to the Archbishop of Zagreb.

"Bozanic did not do anything out of the ordinary because he sent an identical appeal that paedophiles should be turned over to the police and the judiciary back in 2006 during an appearance on the Croatian Television (HTV) TV show Lica Nacije (Face of the Nation). Paedophilia is, it is understood, something horrible, which we Catholics want nothing to do with, but, realistically, it is not a great problem in the Catholic Church in Croatia. Of our 2,500 priests only two have been convicted in the past of sexual abuse of children and, however much it deserves every condemnation, it is after all only two priests who committed serious sins," one of the closest aids to Cardinal Josip Bozanic told Nacional late last week. This high-ranking Church official emphasised that, in his opinion, the insistence of the media on the topic of paedophilia in the Church is inappropriate. A press conference that included as many as four bishops - Bozanic was joined by Ivan Devcic, Marin Srakic and Zelimir Puljic - was not to have dealt at all with the subject of paedophilia, but rather the relations between Croatia and the European Union.

But reporters insisted that Bozanic give his position on the Pope's apology to victims of paedophilia, which the Cardinal supported, adding, "Everyone who learns of any such matter must report it to the civilian authorities and anyone who covers them up - errs. If something happens to a person, and someone knows of this, they must then report it. Just as if something happened in school... And in this regard we must be in the same position, because we all have the same obligations and rights in society. These are serious matters, and it must be approached responsibly, not ideologically, with the goal of this not appearing in society and not being repeated. There is a selective treatment of this in the public, and all should be afforded the same treatment." In other words, at the Kaptol cathedral precinct the feeling is that Bozanic's statements is not directly connected with the recent apology given by Pope Benedict XVI to the victims of the paedophilia scandals in Ireland. Also denied is that the demand for the criminalisation of Church paedophiles contradicts a 2001 document, Delicta graviora, in which Joseph Ratzinger, as the then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, urged victims to strict silence in investigation procedures into paedophilia, and threatened those who violated the command to silence with excommunication.

"The Cardinal did nothing out of the ordinary because he has in the past also sought the punishing of paedophiles. But I say again that there is no paedophilia among our priests, or at least we in the Church do not know of such cases," Nacional's source assured us. Besides, in the last sentence of his statement on the need to punish paedophiles, Bozanic criticised the press, because they are convinced at the Croatian Conference of Bishops that paedophilia in the Church is the favoured and forced topic of the so-called leftist-liberal media. The facts are otherwise and the only real argument they have in the local Catholic Church is the fact that only two priests have been convicted of paedophilia. The best-known case is that of Zagreb parish priest Ivan Cucek, who was convicted in 2005 for 16 counts of indecent acts on ten-year-old girls. The second punished Church-paedophile scandal involved 65-year-old priest Drago Ljubicic, who was the parish priest in Banjole on the island of Rab. He was convicted in December of 2007 to a three year prison sentence for indecent acts with juvenile boys from 8 to 11 years of age. The crime was perpetrated at the premises of the parish church of St Lucy in Banjole, and in the premises of the local elementary school. When these scandals broke the Church leadership tried to play them down, and there were intermittent claims that the evidence against the priests was questionable.

Cucek had the support of the Church even as a convicted paedophile when he was allowed to serve holy mass at St Mary's Church in Zagreb's Kaptol cathedral precinct, even though he was convicted to a six month suspended prison sentence with a probation period of three years, and that he served mass before the probation period had expired. The third paedophilia scandal, even though no member of the clergy actively participated in it, occurred five years ago, when it was discovered that Jelena Brajsa, the long-time director of the Caritas humanitarian organisation, hid the diary of Mijo Penic, a paedophile and bully who worked as a cook at the Caritas home in Brezovica. In his diary Penic described in detail how he sexually abused the wards of the home. Jelena Brajsa on several occasions said that she had never seen nor read the diary, even though it was found in the office desk in the day room after a police raid of her family home. Based on the diary that was found the State Attorney's Office filed charges, but Brajsa was acquitted in 2007 by a verdict handed down by County Court.

In the verdict's rationale it was stated that the indictment was clumsily written and that Brajsa was acquitted because what she was charged with was not in fact a crime, since she had not attempted to conceal or destroy the paedophile's diary. When, in spite of incriminating evidence, a verdict of not guilty was handed down, Bozanic too joined the attack on all who had written of paedophilia in Caritas. In his sermon at Zagreb cathedral he defended the fact that Brajsa had not turned Penic in saying that she had done enough when she fired him. Cardinal Bozanic called the attacks against Jelena Brajsa a media lynch. "Seen now, these media write ups are teeming with hatred toward Caritas and the Church, and also abound in incorrect information, and it is hard to escape the impression that they are intentional and that the goal was a much broader one than just the case in hand." Jelena Brajsa was convicted in the end, but of commercial crime. In November of 2009 Zagreb Municipal Court passed down a suspended sentence of 11 months in jail, with a probation period of four years, because she had not paid contributions for pension and healthcare for employees of Caritas from 2001 to 2004, or taxes and surtaxes. By doing so she short-changed the state budget for 5.7 million kuna, and the court decided to take that amount from Caritas as it had been accrued illegally. And while the crime Brajsa was charged with is punishable by a one to eight year prison sentence, the court in handing down its verdict to the former Caritas director took into consideration the mitigating circumstance that she cared for the infirm, her advanced age and her health and she will not, as a result, go to jail.

In spite of the court's verdict Ivan Miklenic defended Jelena Brajsa in the January 31 issue of the Glas Koncila weekly. "Were there not powerful interest groups are work here, who decided to persecute the former director of the Zagreb archdiocese Caritas because for a period of time contribution payments were not made from the wages of Caritas employees to the relevant funds, while at the same time there was no responsibility demanded of many employers or responsible parties in companies who have not paid anything at all into these same funds or who - as was seen in the case of the Dakovstina company - did not do so in the past and continue not to do so to this day?" Croatia's leading Catholic weekly also defended Ivan Cucek, a priest convicted of paedophilia, claiming that he did not scandalise the public by serving mass. Glas Koncila ran the article in its Our Discussions column, via a letter from a certain Josip from Zagreb, who asked what a public scandal was. The answer was that it was "someone's free act capable of being for a fellow being - as they are in their concrete situation - a trap on the route to salvation, i.e. an encouragement to stray, to a sinful way of life." But, "the service of mass by, for example, a compromised priest, could not be considered scandalous because such a priest does not do anything by serving mass that would lead anyone down the wrong path," adding that "the media took advantage of the opportunity to fill their professional (and spiritual) emptiness with sensationalist writing." And while the Glas Koncila did not decisively state that Cucek's defence was at issue, it was in fact a justification of this paedophile priest.

In comparison to Miklenic's writing the latest appeal from Bozanic that the secular authorities bring paedophiles from the Catholic Church to trial is a significant step forward. Bozanic is one of the few Cardinals that have so openly sought the judicial processing of priests responsible for paedophilia, but in concrete case the Catholic Church in Croatia rejects the possibility of paedophilia in its own ranks. The proposition coming out of the Kaptol cathedral precinct is that bishops are simply not in a position to know how moral any given priest is, and that the faithful must help them in uncovering cases of paedophilia or homosexuality in the ranks of the Church. And since the faithful are not writing to their local bishops concerning suspicions that there are priests who are paedophiles (so they say in Bozanic's circle), there is no paedophilia in Croatia or it is for the moment unsubstantiated. An argument frequently used by the Catholic Church, and which aims to prove that there is less paedophilia among the priesthood than elsewhere, is a study according to which there are two percent of people in the priesthood inclined to paedophilia, while the figure is about six percent in the rest of the population. If that is true, given that there are 2,500 priests in Croatia, it turns out that there are about 50 paedophile priests, in spite of the denials of the Church's leadership. For the time being, the Catholic Church in Croatia persists in its position that only two of their priests were paedophiles.