c. 1997 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ Three years ago, at around the time he was seeking to go to Sarajevo, Pope John Paul II voiced support for the use of military force to curb the aggression of Bosnian Serbs.

That pretty much doomed the pope’s chance of making a pilgrimage to the Bosnian capital in September 1994. The Serbs said, in effect, they could not guarantee the safety of the pontiff, nor of the thousands of pilgrims who would come to see him. They said he was also not welcome in Belgrade, Serbia’s capital.

Disheartened, the pontiff instead made just a two-day trip to Zagreb, the Catholic dominated Croatian capital.

When the pope, who turns 77 next month, realizes his dream of visiting Sarajevo April 12-13, he will undoubtedly refrain from ascribing blame. However, he is sure to continue his quest for sustained international involvement in that fractured part of the world to stabilize the peace and protect Roman Catholics, who are outnumbered by Muslims and Orthodox Christians.”The pope has always been interventionist. He doesn’t have a bias against arms and knows that you may have to fight for your faith,”said Sergio Romano, a political commentator and former Italian ambassador to Moscow.

The pope’s 25-hour visit, in which he will greet politicians, leaders of four religions and celebrate Mass on Sunday before an expected crowd of some 50,000 in Sarajevo’s Kosevo soccer stadium, comes amid renewed strains among the warring factions and international concern that the terms of the Dayton peace accords may never be realized.

Many indicted war criminals remain free. Some, like the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, are reportedly profiting in illegal business schemes. Tens of thousands of Bosnian refugees have been thwarted from returning to their homes. Bosnia-Herzegovina is divided and democratic reforms called for in the peace plan remain elusive.”With this visit, the pope may be able to give courage to the people in Bosnia to go on,”said Monsignor Giovanni Cheli, president of the Vatican Council on Migrants and Travelers.”The holy father _ not politicians _ is one of the few persons in the world who has the authority to improve the prospects of peace,”said Bishop Pero Sudar of Sarajevo, in a telephone interview.”I think that many people, even Muslims, want the pope to come here.” But not everyone does. Sudar said that barely a day goes by lately when a church, monastery or mosque in Bosnia isn’t bombed. The incidents, whether or not coordinated, seem to be succeeding in making the whole papal affair tense and intimidating people from coming to Sarajevo.

Sudar said a late winter snow is just the most recent problem people face in making their way to Sarajevo. Most Catholics are from Croatia and will have to brave Serb areas to travel through Bosnia. Some will be subject to a border”tax,”Sudar said. Others will be forced to turn back.

And those are only immediate perils. In fact, while television footage will show the rather dramatic scenes of the frail pope wading through war-scarred Sarajevo, guarded by Nato troops, lasting effects of the trip will undoubtedly be far more modest.

Animosity between the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, after all, dates to the Great Schism of 1054 when the Orthodox churches broke with Rome.

The Serbs have vilified the church for its support of Croatia’s fascist regime that was allied with the Nazis during World War II, and began in 1941 a policy of genocide and forced religious conversion among Orthodox Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia.

Although he will be the first pope to ever visit Sarajevo, few people, including Vatican officials, suggest that one man, no matter how holy, can put permanent peace back into the peace plan.”We must underscore the fact that (peace) is a common responsibility,”said Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, a papal emissary who has visited Sarajevo three times and will travel with the pontiff.”It’s a very serious common responsibility of all religions.” Etchegaray said he believes leaders in the Muslim, Catholic, Orthodox Christian and Jewish communities”recognize their responsibilities to society.” Since Serbia resumed diplomatic ties with the Vatican one year ago, after severing them in 1992, the pope has made reconciliation in the region a chief goal of the church.

He has urged Catholic bishops to redouble efforts at peacemaking with Orthodox Christians and has used some of the proceeds from his successful book,”Crossing the Threshold of Hope,”for rebuilding efforts in non-Catholic communities.

Romano said the pope’s new efforts are intended to showcase the church’s quest for peace in the region. But equally important, they are to insure the protection of minority Catholics.”The trip is a kind of spiritual investment in which the church wants to be a presence because Bosnia is a border line between Islam, Orthodoxy and Catholicism,”Romano said.

MJP END HEILBRONNER