On Christmas Eve, the Archbishop of Zagreb, Cardinal Josip Bozanic, led Midnight Mass in the Zagreb Cathedral, saying that the joy of Christmas was not reserved only for the privileged, powerful and famous, but for all, especially for the sick, lonely and poor.
"May Christmas touch every human heart so that we can be born into a new life in which the lonely and abandoned, elderly and strangers will feel Christmas among us. That's the kind of Christmas that we need," Bozanic said in his sermon to a congregation of the faithful.
"God became a baby to show people the way of life and joy and not the way of conceit, presumption, arrogance, vanity and vacuity," the archbishop said, adding that "everyone needs God who became man so that they can feel accepted and blessed on their life's journeys."
Christmas was also celebrated in Croatian Catholic communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Montenegro.