ZAGREB, March 13, 2018 - The Archbishop of Sarajevo, Cardinal Vinko Puljić, issued a special statement on Tuesday condemning in the strongest terms frequent verbal attacks by Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik on Banja Luka Bishop Franjo Komarica, warning that none of the Bosnian Croat officials or international community representatives had reacted to that and to a generally difficult status of Croat Catholics in the Bosnian Serb entity.
In the statement, carried by the Catholic News Agency (CNA), Puljić said he was unpleasantly surprised by Dodik's "repeated, unfounded public criticism of Bishop Komarica."
"I feel it is my obligation to defend the truth that Bishop Komarica is talking about, but also to stand by him, who is a shepherd of Catholic faithful souls," Puljić said in reaction to Dodik's claims that Komarica was making "untrue, tendentious and sometimes ill-intentioned statements," when speaking about the persecution of Catholics and the Catholic Church in the Serb entity of Republika Srpska in the 1992-95 war and obstruction of their return to the entity.
