Fr. Josip Baričević , a member of the Province of St. Jerome in Croatia and the Convent of St. Francis in Odra, died in a hospital in Zagreb on December 8, 2023, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the age of 86, with 69 years of religious life and 60 years of priestly service.
He was born on June 11, 1938 in Lun, on the island of Pag, into a large Catholic family of father Kazimir and mother Marija, born Denona. He completed four years of elementary school in his hometown. He attended the interdiocesan classical high school in Zagreb for six years, and for one year each at the archdiocesan high school in Split and the archdiocesan high school in Zadar. He was received into the minor seminary at the Convent of St. Francis Xavier in Zagreb in 1948. He took his first religious vows in 1955 at the end of his novitiate in Krk and his solemn vows in 1961 in Glavotok. He served in the Yugoslav national army in Tetovo and Ohrid from 1958 to 1960. He graduated from the Catholic Faculty of Theology in Zagreb in 1965. He was ordained a priest in 1964, also in Zagreb.
He graduated in French and German at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zadar in 1970. During his studies in Zadar he was a catechist for high school students and students and a catechist in the seminary in Zadar. For a year he was a religious educator in the monastery of St. Francis Xavier in Zagreb (1972 – 1973, and then, until the end of his life, he lived and worked in his profession (catechesis) in the monastery in Odra, where he served as the vicar of the monastery from 2005 to 2009. He was a member of the Provincial Government 1980 – 1984.
He obtained a licentiate from the Catechetical Institute “Lumen vitae” in Brussels in 1972 and a doctorate from the Catholic Faculty of Theology in Zagreb in 1986. After returning from his studies in Belgium, he was a committed promoter of catechetical renewal after the Council, a long-term lecturer at the Catechetical Institute of the Catholic Faculty of Theology in Zagreb (1981 – 2005) and dean of the same Institute (1999 – 2005). He also taught at the Institute of Theological Culture of the Laity at the same Faculty of Theology. He was a long-time member and secretary of the Catechetical Council of the Episcopal Conference of Yugoslavia and president of the Commission for the Catechetical Plan and Programme of that Council. He is the author, together with his collaborators, of several methodologically new catechisms for children of primary school age. He was the chief editor of the document of the Bishops’ Conference of Yugoslavia Joyful Preaching of the Gospel and Education in Faith, published in 1983. He collaborated professionally and industrious in the preparation and introduction of religious education in schools after the communist regime, and in 1998 he created the plan and program of such religious education. He is also a co-author of textbooks on Croatian language and culture for Croatian children abroad (1991).
After his retirement he continued to live in the convent of Odra, collaborating in the pastoral work at the House of St. Francis in Odra. In his last years, and especially in his last months, he was increasingly weak. He died after a short stay in hospital.
The funeral in the Central Cemetery in Zagreb on December 14, 2023 was presided over by the Auxiliary Bishop of Zagreb Mgr. Ivan Šaško with the assistance of the then Provincial Minister, Fr. Ivo Martinović, Fr. Petar Bašić, Vicar of the Odra Convent, and Fr. Zvonimir Brusač, Provincial Secretary. The funeral, along with many friars of the Province and relatives of Fr. Josip, was attended by professors of the Catholic Faculty of Theology in Zagreb, former students of the Catechetical Institute, many nuns, friends and acquaintances of Fr. Josip. He is buried in the friars’ tomb in the Central Cemetery in Zagreb.
At the beginning of the service, a letter of condolence from Archbishop of Zagreb Mgr. Dražen Kutleša was read, in which he said, among other things, that Fr. Josip had made an immeasurable contribution to the development of catechetical education in general and to the introduction of religious education in schools. The Provincial Minister said in his speech, among other things, that Fr. Josip was very open to communication and that all his work was guided by his total love for God, for the Church and for man and by his personal faith, which he received in his family.
The farewell speech on behalf of the Catholic Faculty of Theology in Zagreb was given by Dean Dr. sc. Josip Šimunović. A letter of condolence from Msgr. Đuro Hranić, President of the Council of the Croatian Bishops’ Conference for Catechesis and New Evangelization, was also read.
The funeral mass in the church of St. Francis Xavier in Zagreb was presided over by the then Provincial Minister Fr. Ivo Martinović. At the end of the Mass, he thanked Fr. Branko Lovrić, local minister and the friars from Odra for the care they had shown towards Fr. Josip in his illness. He also thanked the staff of the House of St. Francis for all the help Fr. Josip needed in the last months.
Letters of condolence were also sent by Cardinal Josip Bozanić, Archbishop Emeritus of Zagreb, several Croatian bishops, Sister Lidija B. Matijević, president of the Croatian Conference of Religious Communities, and Dr. sc. Stjepan Brebrić, director of Kršćanska sadašnjost, a publishing house where Fr. Josip worked for several years, and others.