Don't turn around, daughter!

On Christmas, people celebrate the meeting of man with God, that is, God with man. And that in the present moment - not in the meeting with mom and dad, but in the meeting of both of them with God. Of course, Christmas has a further meaning, and it is a meaning that Christians have obviously forgotten: we actually not only meet God at Christmas, but also await Christ's return at Easter. And now the question arises, how many people are waiting for the second coming of Christ? That would be the content of this Christmas. And throughout Advent, everything is buzzing and talking about that."

The above paragraph is not, as you would hastily conclude, the inspired sermon of Cardinal Josip Bozanić at the midnight service in the Zagreb cathedral. It's not even a motivational speech by a military ordinary in front of a young army, nor a retort by someone from HDZ or Most's young thinker at the festive holiday session of the Parliament. The good news of Christ's return was announced before Christmas last year at the University of Split.

However, it was not - as you would hastily think again - that the "meeting with God" was announced at one of the particularly popular student dawn masses in the chapel of Blessed Ivan Merz on the university campus, nor was the student chaplain "bustling and talking" about Advent at some kind of Advent soiree in the hall of the faculty, right behind the chair, in the student classroom. The "meeting with God" was not, as you still rashly think, announced at one of the lectures at the Theology, or even at one of the optional "religious courses" chosen by students of secular studies, such as, for example, students of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in Zagreb they have been taking exams in Biblical religion for twenty years.

A brave thesis about Christmas as a harbinger of Christ's return was presented at the Faculty of Philosophy in Split, at the Department of Sociology, in a lecture from the course - Contemporary Sociological Theory. There it is, who doesn't believe my ears, recorded with a cell phone for the skeptics like myself, when my daughter complained to me that she sometimes feels like three years ago, hungover, she entered the Catholic seminary by mistake. Namely, this is how the study of sociology looks in Split, located - of course - in the huge building of the Franciscan clergy on the Trstenice field, as well as almost the entire Faculty of Philosophy. This is what studying at the University of Split looks like, where Ivan Đikić is chased away with pitchforks and torches, and young men, seminarians and village pastors are employed, where the hall of the Faculty of Medicine looks like the archbishop's Youth Pastoral Office, and the once punk, rebellious Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Shipbuilding as a response at Ultra invites students to the wild Nightfever on the University campus - open-air confession, mass and adoration with a concert by the Darovi Duha band.

This is what studying at a university looks like, which, for some reason, is not on the list at all in the relevant Times' annual selection of the thousand best universities in the world. This is what studying in the Republic of Croatia looks like, where seven out of eight members of the National Council of Education come directly from episcopal seminaries, prayer communities and militant Catholic associations, and the educational reform is being undermined because Christian vigilantes have heard that it includes sex education and the theory of evolution. This is what education looks like in a country where, these days, another school year in hundreds of schools and colleges began with an academic intercession of God's blessing and the congregational muttering of the Lord's Prayer.

God himself knows - of course he knows, when he is also in sociology! - what and how is taught at the other departments of the famous University of Split, when in sociology they learn the mystery of Christ's ascension from contemporary theories.

"On Christmas, people celebrate the meeting of man with God, that is, God with man," says a professor of the famous Split University - who, by the way, also teaches sociology of science there - in the husky voice of a village pastor, and the exalted third-year students can be heard beautifully in the video, he enthusiastically applauds his favorite teacher.

"At Christmas, we not only meet God, but we also await Christ's return on Easter," continues the reverend professor, dead serious, ready for resurrection - in a lecture on, I repeat, contemporary sociological theories! - so with bold scientific audacity he asks "how many people are waiting for the second coming of Christ?", after which my daughter frantically passed all the remaining exams, defended the final paper, picked up the index and packed her books, laptop and toothbrush in the first next term, so ran headlong from Croatia.

The little girl ran across the whole of Europe in a panic, fleeing from this unbearably tight, cloying sacristy, she didn't turn around and stop until Normandy, then she swam across the English Channel and looked back only in Manchester, and then, just in case, she swam another sixty kilometers to the north, to the University of Lancaster, and there - far enough away from student worship, university pastors and contemporary Croatian sociological theories - she enrolled in graduate studies in peace.

All while begging the Anglican God not to ask her anything about contemporary sociological theories.

Here, in England, where Christianity is the official, state religion and where, unlike Croatia, Good Friday is also a national holiday - where the head of state is also the head of the church, the prime minister proposes the members of the Synod to the queen, and the bishops sit in the parliament - my the child finally rests from the clergy, vigils, chaplains, fathers, prayer communities, spiritual renewals, crucifixes in classrooms and masses in campus courtyards. In England, where Christianity is the official religion, they will discover that a member of the Church Synod can also be an atheist, that the state Church does not receive a penny from the state budget, and that contemporary sociological theories do not even say anything about Christ's return.

She thus joined the epic Croatian Odšašće, the biblical escape that these days fills international bus lines, planes, ships, trains and columns of a completely authentic new media genre, under the auspices of "get away from here, the sun of this sky will not warm you who warms others".

For days, weeks and months we have been reading such shocking reports from the station, open farewell letters and the wonder of our emigrants' amazement that - fleeing from a country that only introduced IT in primary schools in 2017 - they discovered that schoolchildren in the mythical West are studying for free tablets. Whole families are running away from here, both students and graduates, both employed and unemployed, housewives and veterans, even a former minister, camp prisoner and war hero is running away from here: if it is not the first country in the world from which ministers are fleeing, Croatia is the only one from which ministers flee even without a coup d'état.

My daughter, however - just like she didn't go to college to get a job as a clerk in the county, but to change the world, as was always the case - she didn't just leave desperately looking for an opportunity, a job and a dignified life, nor did she just run away from puppet Vatican parastatals. In the end, namely - when the system no longer does it - she bravely submitted herself to the experiment and took the final state exam in sociology, and discovered to her own horror that as a university bachelor's degree in sociology, straight from the defense of her final thesis, she answered correctly only fourteen out of twenty questions. For high school students!

So my child joined thousands of his peers who left here in search of - knowledge. The most basic fucking knowledge. She ran away from the second largest Croatian university in order to learn something. Certainly, something more than the meaning of Christmas for Catholics.

The last thing she heard before she left was the news that Prime Minister Andrej Plenković personally took over the leadership of the Special Expert Committee for the Implementation of the Science and Education Strategy. I only managed to add: "Don't turn around, daughter!"

And Croatian sociology and its contemporary theories? There is only one more challenge left before them: not - as you would hastily conclude - how many people are waiting for the second coming of Christ, but how many people in Croatia will welcome him at all.

(hr.n1info.com)