Cardinal Josip Bozanić is a former long-serving Archbishop of Zagreb who held several leadership positions in the Church and had a prominent role in a successful Croatian referendum that sought to create a constitutional prohibition against same-sex “marriage.”

Born on March 20, 1949, in Rijeka, Croatia, he was ordained as a priest on June 29, 1975, and holds licentiates in both dogmatic theology and canon law.

Bozanić began his ecclesiastical journey as a parish priest for three years before pursuing further studies in Rome from 1979 to 1985. Upon returning to Yugoslavia, he served in various roles, including chancellor and vicar general of the Curia of Krk, and as a lecturer of dogmatic theology and canon law at the Theological Institute of Rijeka.

On May 10, 1989, at the age of 40, Bozanić was appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Krk, making him one of the youngest bishops in Europe at the time. He became the Bishop of Krk on November 14, 1989. His career continued to advance, and on July 5, 1997, he was nominated Archbishop of Zagreb, a position he held until April 15, 2023, when Pope Francis accepted his resignation.

Bozanić was created a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in the consistory of October 21, 2003. As a cardinal, he has been a member of several important Vatican bodies, including the Dicasteries for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and for Evangelization.

Throughout his career, Bozanić has held several leadership positions within the Church. He served as President of the Bishops’ Conference of Croatia from 1997 to 2007. He was also the Vice-President of the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences from 2001 to 2011. Currently, he serves as an observer for Croatia at the ComECE (Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community).

In 2014, Cardinal Bozanic was appointed to the cardinal commission for the Vatican bank, officially known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR). The cardinal commission has played a crucial role in overseeing the operations and governance of the Vatican bank and Bozanic’s appointment was seen as part of a broader framework of economic and communications reforms announced by the Holy See.

The cardinal took part in the 2005 conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI and the 2013 conclave that elected Pope Francis.

In 2013, Bozanić was involved in a Croatian referendum on the definition of marriage. The question was: “Are you in favor of the constitution of the Republic of Croatia being amended with a provision stating that marriage is matrimony between a woman and a man?”. Its aim was to create a constitutional prohibition against same-sex “marriage.”

The cardinal issued a pastoral letter to be read in all Catholic churches across the country, reminding parishioners that “marriage is the only union enabling procreation.” The referendum, which was opposed by the country’s president and prime minister, passed with 66% approval and was seen as a significant victory for the Church.

In 2017, Cardinal Josip Bozanić used the pulpit to criticize those who had obstructed the canonization process of Blessed Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, who was persecuted by the Communists. He stressed that his canonization process wasn’t solely a matter of the Catholic Church but had been a political question from its beginning.

Speaking on behalf of the Croatian bishops’ conference in 2020, the cardinal praised synodality as a “prophetic act of the Church attentive to the signs of the times” and as a means towards peace in the contemporary world. “What we are witnessing at present seems to be a return to processes that we believed to be past,” he said. “The world balance, through this conflict, seems to be moving in the direction of the reconstitution of opposing blocks.” But he said the Church is an instrument of peace because she has “always acted and urged that relationships of interdependence be transformed into relationships of mutual dialogue and solidarity, as dimensions that are the soul of human development.”

Pope Francis accepted Bozanić’s resignation as archbishop of Zagreb on April 15, 2023 when the cardinal was only 74, a year earlier than required. The cardinal had been suffering from ill health and had almost completely withdrawn from appearing in public although he had begun to recover. He was immediately succeeded by his coadjutor, Archbishop Dražen Kutleša.

During his long tenure as archbishop of Zagreb, priestly vocations fell slightly from 646 in 1999 to 556 in 2023. Numbers of male and female religious also respectively dropped over the same period, from 421 to 367 (with a rise to 518 in 2010) and from 1,503 to 854.

Cardinal Bozanić speaks Croatian and Italian.