By Robert Hiini
Parish Reporter
Celebrating 18 years of statehood, the Croatian Catholic community in Western Australia marked the occasion with a thanksgiving Mass at St Mary’s Cathedral; their first in the recently completed building.
Archbishop Barry Hickey joined Croatian chaplain Fr Nikola Cabraja in celebrating the Mass with over 800 people turning out to worship.
The Croatian and Australian flags adorned the sanctuary while young people celebrated their heritage by wearing traditional costume.
Speaking to The Record, Fr Cabraja said that the large attendance was indicative of the fondness that Croatian migrants to Australia feel for their homeland.
He said that the Croatian Catholic community in Perth was made up of different waves of migrants.
While there are many second and third generation children, migrant numbers to Australia “exploded”, Fr Cabraja said, after the bloodshed that devastated the region in the early 1990s.
Fr Cabraja has been Croatian Catholic Chaplian since arriving in Perth in 1971, having St Anne’s Church in North Fremantle as the base for the Croatian Catholic Community.
A native of Sarajevo, his then Archbishop put out the call for a priest to volunteer to become a chaplain in Australia with Brisbane and Perth being the two options.
He said he is very happy to serve the community here in Perth.
The Croatian community usually celebrate a thanksgiving Mass on the second Sunday of January but changed the date this year due to the availability of the Cathedral.
As they do every year, a social picnic was held the week after (last Sunday) at the Croatian Club in Gwellup.