HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF PONTIFICAL CROATIAN COLLEGE

VATICAN CITY, NOV 16, 2001 (VIS) - This morning in the Clementine Hall, John Paul II received 250 students of the Pontifical Croatian College of St. Jerome in Rome, on the occasion of the first centenary of its foundation by Leo XIII.

John Paul II affirmed that this institution "has carried out an irreplaceable role in evangelization in the beloved regions of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. It has represented, also, a constant sign of the closeness of the Popes to the Croatian people, as well as the affection of your people for the successor of Peter, the Roman Pontiff."

The College was founded, he recalled, "to offer to priests, who 'by their origin and language belong to the Croat people', the possibility to complete their studies at the pontifical athenaeums of Rome."

The Holy Father noted that the celebration of the centenary is "a propitious occasion to consider the contribution that this praiseworthy institution has given to the apostolate of the Church in the Republic of Croatia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and to reflect, at the same time, on the impulse to give to the formative and pastoral initiatives of the College itself, in harmony with the apostolic needs of the Church at the beginning of the third millennium."

"Called to be a privileged place of human, spiritual, cultural, and scientific formation of the young priests," the Pope concluded, "the College, still today, has the task of ensuring the conditions for a proper preparation for the pastoral ministry of the priests."

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