The event was addressed by Caritas Director Jelena Lončar, Minister Obuljen Koržinek, as the prime minister's envoy, and Auxiliary Bishop Mijo Gorski, envoy for the Zagreb Archbishop.
Lončar recalled that Caritas was founded by Zagreb Archbishop Antun Bauer on 20 October 1933.
Its purpose was to organise humanitarian drives in the Zagreb Archdiocese, and Bauer entrusted Msgr. Alojzije Stepinac with heading the charity, and he soon started work on organising soup kitchens in Zagreb and boards in charge of providing food to poor communities.
She added that the Yugoslav communist authorities banned Caritas' work in 1946, confiscated its property and sentenced its head to six years in prison.
The charity was restored in 1967 under the leadership of Cardinal Franjo Šeper, and in 1969 it started helping abandoned children, pregnant women, families in need and persons with disabilities. Šeper entrusted the charity to Jelena Brajša, who in the coming years tirelessly spread charitable work and helped people in need, Lončar said.
During the 1990s war, Caritas provided humanitarian assistance, founding homes for children without adequate parental care, pregnant women, and persons with disabilities and elderly persons and launched many charitable initiatives, Lončar recalled.
Minister: Catholic Church moral buttress in time of war, hunger or sickness
Minister Obuljen Koržinek said that care for people in need and the material and spiritual support to those who are alone and feeble, as well as love and understanding for all, regardless of religion, ethnic background and worldview, are the basic postulates of the Croatian society.
She stressed that the Catholic Church had for centuries, in addition to its pastoral work, provided physical and spiritual support to those who were persecuted and homeless, providing bodily and spiritual nourishment to those in need, and had provided staunch moral support in times of war, hunger and sickness.
Describing Caritas as a very vital and important network of organisations dedicated to work for the common good, Lončar mentioned in that context Caritas employees, volunteers and donors, who work, with support from the church hierarchy and civil organisations and individuals, on the active promotion of humanness, empathy and tolerance in society.