Noting that the Church was looking forward to the opening of Croatia's EU entry talks, Bozanic said the latest developments posed new challenges for the Church, state authorities and citizens.
"Aware of its role in the past and today, the Catholic Church in Croatia has always striven to be sensitive to the needs of man and the common good of the people. It did so in the times of communist totalitarianism, in the crucial moments of liberation from communism, in the difficult years of war and in the years of democratic change and transition," Bozanic said in his address.
He added that the HBK considered it necessary to discuss those issues since it was occasionally faced with arbitrary interpretations of the Church's role in those times and distortion of historical facts.
Welcoming participants in the conference, Split-Makarska Archbishop Marin Barisic especially addressed reporters, expressing surprise with "one of your colleagues being imprisoned for disclosing a truth that had previously been disclosed".
The HBK session, to last until October 13, is being attended, among others, by the Apostolic Nuncio to Croatia, Francisco Javier Lozano, the vice-president of the Bishops' Conference of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bishop Ratko Peric, and the vice-president of the Bishops' Conference of Saints Cyril and Methodius, Subotica Bishop Janos Penzes.