President of the Bishops’ Conference of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Metropolitan Archbishop of Vrhbosna and Apostolic Administrator of the Military Ordinariate in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Msgr. Tomo Vuksic, in an interview for the German Catholic News Agency, called emigration the biggest challenge for the Catholic Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“In Germany and Austria, people leave the Church, here they immediately leave the country,” said Archbishop Vukšić.
He added that in the last 30 years, the Catholic community in Bosnia and Herzegovina has shrunk by approximately half.
“The number of children who receive the cross, confirmation or first communion is decreasing year by year,” the archbishop pointed out.
The reason for this is, along with refugees during and after the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995, the emigration of many inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Western Europe for economic reasons.
“The consequences are similar to those in the German-speaking region. In BiH, too, the Church has become the “Church of the Ancients” in recent years,” warned Msgr. Vukšić, reports IKA.
