The Pope in Belgrade

Pope John Paul will visit Belgrade late in September or early October this year, the Archbishop's office in Belgrade confirmed. It will be a stopover visit and very discrete compared to his visits to Croatia or Slovenia.

The Pope's visit to Belgrade became topical two years ago when he said he wanted to visit Belgrade before Zagreb and Sarajevo. The Vatican officially insisted that he should either visit all three cities or none. The Holy See wanted to prove it cared about relations with all three former Yugoslav federal units.

Currently, the most topical issue is Sarajevo and a date has been set for that visit just prior to the Bosnia elections with the visit to Belgrade fitted in to meet Catholics and FRY leaders. The Archbishop's office said it would be "very good" if the Pope and Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Pavle meet as the heads of two churches but didn't insist on talks if the Patriarch doesn't want them.

That meeting is the most uncertain. The Serbian Orthodox Church fiercely opposed the Pope's visit two years ago and hasn't softened its stand yet. Patriarch Pavle told Belgrade Archbishop France Perko several times that he personally has nothing against a meeting but that the Holy Archiepiscopalian assembly has to decide. That highest of church bodies rejects the meeting but some sources said there are Episcopates who believe the meeting would be "beneficial to the Serbian Orthodox church".

Three years ago Epsicopes Irinej Bulovic and Amfilohije Radovic, two important and influential figures, paid an official visit to the Vatican, the first in Serbian church history. A written report on their talks with the Pope hasn't been submitted to the assembly and that is causing some confusion. At the moment, the most topical issue is whether the Pope will come to Belgrade without the approval of the Orthodox church.

He hardly needs the Orthodox church approval since the Pope has never visited any of the Orthodox churches. He visits Catholics in pastoral visits, Episcope Irinej told TV Politika. Seen from that angle, the Serbian Orthodox church's approval isn't necessary but if he does come to Belgrade it would be a normal thing for him to meet the Patriarch. That's where the problems are both inside the Serbian church and outside it. "We have no intention of asking the Serbian Orthodox church for approval because that is impossible to get for many reasons," Perko said. He added that the Pope told him during an informal meeting in Slovenia that FRY Ambassador to the Vatican, Dojcilo Maslovaric, handed him an invitation to visit Belgrade which shows there will be no problem with the state authorities.

The Belgrade authorities had nothing against the Pope's visit two years ago. On the contrary they wanted it to happen very much because they saw it as one of the steps out of international isolation and indirect recognition by the Vatican. But the authorities didn't want tension with the church.

In any case, the Pope is coming to Belgrade and all the needed formal conditions are in place. He will primarily be the guest of the approximately 500,000 Catholics in Yugoslavia and the authorities. He was officially invited by bishops in Serbia and Montenegro and that meets the requirements of Vatican protocol.

There are also reports that Mira Markovic, head of the Yugoslav United Left (JUL) and wife of the Serbian president, voiced the wish to meet the Pope in the Vatican. Perko says: "I heard of that but I have no more details. The Pope receives people in an open audience. Getting a private audience is hard and that is reserved only for very important affairs. She can visit the Vatican, shake hands with him in the public audience but the Pope certainly won't have time for talks."

Bishop Killed in Kotor

by Velizar Brajovic & Uros Komlenovic

Reports that Sister Agnes found the body of retired Kotor Bishop Ivo Gugic in his apartment on Monday, June 2 went round Kotor quickly causing a shock. The last evening news on Montenegro TV that night said Monsignor Gugic died of natural causes although the word on the street was that he was killed.

There was immediate fear that the death had a political background and could upset the sensitive inter-nationality balance.

Some people realized that the initial report was to prepare people for the truth that Gugic had been brutally murdered.

The police reacted quickly, turning the town upside down and issued a statement the next day saying Gugic had been strangled with a rope. The apartment had been searched and robbed and the door had not been broken down which shows that killer knew his victim and let him in. Veton Rizvani (1973), a Moslem Romany from Kosovo, was accused of the murder. He was a street cleaner in Kotor. Rizvani was arrested the same day with some foreign currency and two rings on him. Gugic had reported one of the rings missing just a few days earlier.

The killer and the victim knew each other: Gugic was a frequent guest of the Rizvani family. Rizvani's mother-in-law said no one in the family would ever think of harming him. Veton confessed to killing Gugic for profit and will stand trial in Podgorica.

Gugic was born in Vela Luka on the island of Korcula in 1920, he graduated from the high Dominican school of theology in 1947 and became bishop in Dubrovnik in 1961.

He was appointed the 73d bishop of Kotor in 1983 and stayed in that post until this April when he retired at his own request.

What the biography doesn't say and what every resident of Kotor knows is that Gugic was one of the bishops whose door was always open to people who needed help. He didn't stop his charity work when he retired and Kotor residents welcomed his decision to stay in town when he retired. They were saddened by the knowledge that he will be buried in Dubrovnik.

Telegrams of condolence to the Kotor bishop's office came from many people including Montenegro President Momir Bulatovic and religion minister Slobodan Tomovic. The republican government decided to issue a special permit for clergy and the funeral procession to cross the border on the day of the funeral, Friday, June 7. There's symbolism in the fact that one of Gugic's thoughts was often quoted in these troubled times: "No community will succeed if it bars itself from other communities thinking it can do things on its own."