Promote Their Mission, And Awaken

Here:

The Croatian Parliament proclaimed 2011 a national "Boscovich Year," marking the 300th anniversary of the birth of a learned Croatian Jesuit, Father Rogelio Joseph Boscovich Bettera. Father Boscovich Bettera (1711-1787) was a physicist, astronomer, mathematician, architect, philosopher and diplomat. He was born in Dubrovnik and died in Milan in 1787.

The inventor of the achromatic telescope and a precursor of modern atomism, Father Boscovich Bettera received several scientific and diplomatic missions from popes. For example, he consolidated the cupola of St. Peter's Basilica and the central tower of Milan's cathedral. UNESCO also chose to mark the 300th anniversary of his birth.

The decision of the Croatian Parliament to proclaim 2011 "Boscovich Year" will be an opportunity for Jesuits to "promote their mission and awaken new vocations in university and educational institutions," stated a communiqué from the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits also reported that the Faculty of Philosophy of Zagreb will organize an international conference in November focusing on the figure of the learned priest.

Such is the age-old and true mission of the Croats, to witness under Peter within successive multiethnic states such as befit the situation on the ground in that part of the world: to this day, certain German, Magyar and Slavic surnames are found throughout the former Austria-Hungary. Such (such as Lusotropicalism, such as Unionism and Commonwealth patriotism) is the Kingdom of God, which those who do not accept it as little children will never enter.

Hence the importance of the Infant of Prague, an image, not only of Christ in all His Meekness and Majesty, but also of that specifically in terms of a thoroughly multiethnic empire predating the rise of ethnic nationalism in Europe, an integral and central part of the collapsed Modern project. No wonder that the Holy See vigorously opposed the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. No one now better appreciates that than the increasingly precarious Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina.