Croatian President Meets Pope, Requests Visit

On a two-day visit to the Vatican, Croatian President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic met Pope Francis on Thursday and asked him to visit her mainly Catholic country.

Dressed in black and wearing a mantilla, the traditional attire for women at papal audiences, Grabar Kitarovic gave the Pontiff a shirt of the national football team, with the number 9 on it, traditionally reserved for stars of the team.

In return, the Pope gave her a medal of St Martin and an apostolic exhortation.

The audience took place shortly before Francis is due to visit Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

A member of the centre-right Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, Grabar Kitarovic is keen to promote relations with the Church, which supported her candidacy, if only indirectly.

Originally from Grobnik, a Catholic bastion in the hinterland of the city of Rijeka on the northern Croatian coast, Grabar Kitarovic claims she takes her faith seriously.

Later on Thursday, she met the Vatican's secretary of state, Pietro Parolin. She will end her visit by honouring a former foreign minister of the Vatican, Dominique Mamberti, for his contribution to the international promotion of Croatia.

At the Pontifical University, Grabar Kitarovic on Wednesday gave a lecture on "Women in politics, challenges in the globalized world".

With a population that is 86.2 per cent Catholic according to the 2011 Census, Croatia has naturally strong ties to the Vatican, which was among the first countries to recognize Croatia as an independent state in January 1992.

Since then, Croatia has signed three concordats with the Holy See, which have given the Church an important role in culture and education, along with significant state founding that amounted to 38 million euro in...