Zagreb earthquake

I was asked by some friends and acquaintances about the situation in Zagreb so I decided to write a report highlighting those things which an average Catholic traditionalist might find interesting.

With respect to the Church, the Wuhan virus scenario had the same development in Croatia as in other previously Catholic countries. First, the prohibition of blessed water in the stoups and communion on the tongue. Almost universally endorsed by the clergy and a large part of the neoconservative Croatian faithful (obedience to our bishops and priests is what really counts!), but also opposed by a vocal minority. Our group of traditional Catholic faithful went on a pilgrimage to the Croatian national shrine of Our Lady in Marija Bistrica. It was a strong encouragement for the bleak days we knew were coming. On Sunday March 15 no communion was distributed at the Traditional Latin Mass in the church of St. Catherine in Zagreb where we had Mass during the colder months of the year.

Late Tuesday evening last week a draft of a document prepared by the Croatian Bishops' Conference was published by mistake on the web page of one Croatian archdiocese and was soon removed. Not before it spread like a fire all over the social media. There was to be a complete suppression of all public masses as well as confessions starting from the next day. The genuine faithful were outraged, not even the Solemnity of St. Joseph, patron saint of Croatia since 1687, was to be celebrated by a public Mass. The bishops' spokesman soon gave the usual nondenial that "no official announcement regarding this has been made to the public". On Wednesday the Civil Protection Headquarters of the Republic of Croatia instituted a ban which included all religious gatherings. The bishops, however, waited until the next day to publish their decree, so that we were able to celebrate our patron with Masses.

At the end of the last week Croatian government announced that stricter measures will be introduced to combat the spread of coronavirus. Schools and universities were already closed and all public transportation, both intercity and urban, was to be suspended with further restrictions on movement envisioned. Croatia is still in a relatively good position with as of today only 315 confirmed cases and no deaths. Nevertheless, the Minister of Health is regularly threatening with increasingly draconian regulations, probably hoping we wouldn't see something like what's happening in Italy.

With this in mind and knowing that the weather will get worse the next day, on Saturday afternoon I went to a popular hiking destination, Medvednica mountain which bounds Zagreb from the north.

Returning from the walk.

Since I no longer needed to help with the preparation for the traditional mass in St. Catherine's, I intended to sleep a little longer. Some time after 6 am I was awaken by a violent shaking of the bed and furniture. As you can imagine, after exclaiming to God to have mercy on us, I quickly got up. There was plaster on the floor and some new cracks in the walls. I opened the windows and got dressed, preparing the backpack and praying to Our Lord and Our Lady. I decided not to go out of the apartment building I live in unless another strong earthquake happens. However, I can't say the aftershocks were not worrying. It was a limited yet real comprehension of that Gospel verse on "men fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken". After checking on my family and friends, I prayed the first third of the Rosary which helped a lot with calming me down. Outwardly, I am not a very emotional guy, but there were tears in my eyes when I finally saw Father Robert Perišić OFM appearing on the youtube channel with only a few minutes of delay after 9 am. He is a Franciscan priest who celebrates Traditional Mass privately, but seeing that there would be no such Masses streamed from Croatia, he decided to do it from his parish in the newer part of Zagreb, south of the river Sava. He prepared everything very quickly so that the Mass could be celebrated outdoors.

After the Mass, Fr Robert prayed the usual Procession in time of Pestilence from the old Roman Ritual. As my twin brother remarked, it's easy to notice that the situation is not good when more than one invocation has to be doubled in the Litany of the Saints (against earthquake and against pestilence).

From now on I will be using photos and videos from the internet and social media. Hopefully their authors will not be too angry with me for breach of copyright.

What woke us up on Sunday morning at 6:24 was a 5.4 magnitude earthquake with epicenter not far from where I went for a walk on Saturday.

Fault line near Markuševec?

Unfortunately, one teenage girl died and a dozen or so people were injured. The greatest damage to property was in the older parts of the city which includes the center of Zagreb. After the first major shock and smaller tremors later on, a lot of people went out into the streets and parks while some escaped the city completely. The officials immediately started warning the population to keep the social distancing and to return to their homes in the city because of fears of spreading coronavirus.

Here are some photos:

Zagreb doesn't have a lot of old churches and quite a lot of them were affected by the earthquake. Here are some of them.

The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the city center. This Jesuit parish is well known for its pastoral activity, especially offering confessions. I'm glad to see that the main and side altars appear unharmed. I have fond memories of serving at Father Ante Sumić's private mass at the side altar of Our Lady. It's nice to see that Father Sumich is also streaming his masses from New Zealand. He was one of the first to celebrate a publicly announced Traditional Mass in Zagreb in 2009 (although that almost got us locked out of the small chapel within the Franciscan monastery in the center of city, which by the way, has also been evacuated after the earthquake).

The church of Visitation of Our Lady better known as St. Mary on Dolac (central market). The church was recently renovated. The first Traditional Latin Mass in a long time was celebrated there only two months ago for a wedding. The Mass was sung by the priest in charge of our traditionalist community in Zagreb, Reverend Borna Puškarić.

The beautiful shrine of Our Lady in Remete was established by the Pauline Fathers and is now under the direction of the Carmelites.

Close to the epicenter of the earthquake are the churches in Granešina and Čučerje, villages absorbed by Zagreb in the 20th century.

The church was built after the last major earthquake which struck Zagreb in 1880.

The church of Saint Catherine on the hill Grič from which Zagreb sprawled is covered with fallen plaster and some frescoes seem to be in a bad shape. I don't think we will be having mass there again any time soon.

I left the cathedral for last since it has the strongest symbolic impact. The cathedral doesn't look too bad from the inside, certainly nothing like it was after the 6.3 earthquake hit in 1880.  But the top of the southern spire fell off.

Father Borna's main job is being the director of the press office for the archdiocese.

At first it was reported that the tip of the spire broke off and crashed onto the roof of the adjacent Archbishop's Palace. Although the palace was damaged and Cardinal Bozanić had to move with his staff to the nearby seminary, the rumors that the big gilded cross from the top of the spire fell directly through the roof and landed in front of his room were probably false. Cardinal Bozanić said that they cannot locate the cross which could be lying under some debris.

This all fell off. I was lucky some years ago to be able to climb up the southern tower while it was under renovation. 

Lastly, I have to say a few words about the official ecclesiastical narrative which started almost immediately after the earthquake and has now received the endorsement by the Archbishop. The churchmen are now congratulating themselves for forbidding all public Masses, looking at this as a divine inspiration since, they say, otherwise there could have been numerous casualties. Leaving aside the fact that none of the churches most afflicted by the earthquake would have been open at 6:24 in the morning, there still remains an obvious question: If God could use the coronavirus to inspire you to stop the Masses, could he have not just as easily halted the earthquake if the Masses had continued. Or is this beyond the scope of God's omnipotence? In any case, these kinds of hypothetical considerations don't really add much value and can easily lead one astray.

What then, should be the message we need to take from these calamities which struck our city and, more generally, the world that we live in? This is what our Archbishop Cardinal Bozanić had to say:

I want to point out that God loves us all very much. And in this we should see the sign of God’s closeness. The coronavirus situation is a challenge. We need to be serious and respect the rules and so help each other. Let's be more solidary, closer to each other. A man shows his greatness when faced with a challenge.
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I celebrated the Mass of thanksgiving because after yesterday's earthquake God saved lives. Man matters the most, human life is what matters the most. We do not know what God's plan is and by what paths and signs he leads us.

Not that I expected something like the following, but this is what the previous Archbishop of Zagreb Bl. Alojzije Stepinac wrote in his circular letter in February 1941:

God punishes entire nations and overthrows entire cities for wickedness. By a general flood he punishes perverted humanity. He burns Sodom and Gomorrah for grave and shameful wickedness. He sinks Pharaoh and the Egyptian army in the Red Sea. When the Israelites fell into idolatry, He sends them into Assyrian and Babylonian slavery. When they rejected the true Messiah Jesus Christ, God disperses them throughout the world for punishment. Looking at the magnificent interventions of God into the lives of the people, it is not difficult to understand the words of Jeremiah the prophet: 'Who would not fear thee, o King of the nations? For thy glory is among all the wise men of the people, and in all kingdoms, there is none like unto thee.' (Jer 10:7)
Yes! The hand of God is too evident in the history of the world, and only limited and corrupt people do not or will not see what is clear to a reasonable man.

Bl. Alojzije Stepinac, of course is not some outlier, this was how Catholic shepherds and faithful understood disasters, as a sign to repent, to do penance. To imitate Ninevites. We do not need to agree on the interpretation of the details (e.g. does Croatia's presidency of the Council of the EU from January until June have any meaning in all of this), but come on. If pestilence, cancellation of all public masses, earthquake which breaks off the cross from the cathedral do not mean that we have sinned and we need to turn towards God and away from our usual ways, then what will it take?

From the the Cloisters Apocalypse (f. 32 v.)
And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom became dark, and they gnawed their tongues for pain: And they blasphemed the God of heaven, because of their pains and wounds, and did not penance for their works. (Apoc 16:10-11)

Some priests claim that we should not think of these events as God's punishments and quote the Novus Ordo gospel of last Sunday in which Jesus cures the blind man. When the disciples asked who sinned so that the man was born blind Our Lord told them "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." I do not know how they go from Our Lord's admonition not to assign blame to saying that God does not punish sins even if innocent also have to suffer. But in our Mass we heard the prayer that shows the right attitude:

Grant, we beseech Thee, almighty God, that we who are justly afflicted for our deeds, may be relieved by the consolation of Thy grace. Through our Lord...