Cardinal Nemet: Catholic Church Going Through Tectonic Shift

Cardinal Ladislav Nemet (BETAPHOTO/MILAN OBRADOVIC)

Archbishop of Belgrade Ladislav Nemet said on Dec. 25 that the Catholic Church was going through great changes and that the center of Catholic life was shifting from Europe to the so-called Global South.

"There are different reasons for this tectonic shift. The radical decline in the number of Christians in some Western states, the moving of the center of Catholic life from Europe to the states of the so-called Global South, the 'demographic winter' in Europe, going hand in hand with the demographic explosions in some other continents," Nemet told the Danas daily in a Christmas interview.

Nemet was recently made a cardinal and is the first ecclesiastic official of such rank to head the Catholic Church in Serbia. Speaking about his relationship with the Serbian state, he said his primary aims had remained the same ever since he was appointed bishop of Zrenjanin, before being made archbishop of Belgrade.

"They are the religious freedoms of the Catholic community in Serbia, because there are such problems as the impossibility of obtaining a regional frequency for Radio Marija, the only Catholic radio in Serbia. Then there is the material security of clerics, restitution, religious education in schools, financing from Serbian public funds for pastoral work in the community that the Catholic Church is doing in Serbia for the benefit of all its people," Nemet said.