The Catholic Church, feeling that it's loosing it's influence in croatian society, starts a massive campaign to remind people of the importance of the Bible, family life, traditional values and church going. To do so, they mustered all of their influence and concentrated it on one goal - a formidable and obviously efficient tactic. The problem is, the goal had little connection with the actual situation in society, but too much connection with the Bible.
Their goal was to make government to ban work on Sundays. Because, as is clearly written, the Creator himself had rested on the Seventh Day.
The right wing government, which came to power advocating pretty much the same values and approving of anything archbishop said, had very little choice - ignoring the demands of the Church would be extremely damaging to their influence (most of the ministers, including the prime minister, declare themselves as devoted catholics). So, after stalling for more than a year, the law was proclaimed - shops and boutiques will not work on Sundays and holidays at all.
At first, it wasn't that bad - until the tourist season began 2 months ago.
Every Sunday, one or more cruisers dock in Dubrovnik's harbors, and every Sunday they stare at closed shops, unable to believe that a tourism-orientated country could forbid shopkeepers to work on a day when they usually make the most profit. Today, the shopkeepers of Dubrovnik have protested against this law, pointing out that the state is about to lose a huge amount of money if this doesn't end right now.
As a catholic, I find this law pointless and completely off target. Rather than trying to influence our social life, the Church decided to mess with the economy, through a government that had to budge, and both lost much of their credibility. Furthermore, the law applies to nobody but shopkeepers - the restaurant owners, for example, who work even harder at the peak of the tourist season, are not allowed their well-earned sunday rest. The religious authorities are smart enough not to complain about that, as this law is something that wouldn't fly anywhere else, so why push it. The government won't be able to ignore this much longer, as local authorities fully support shopkeepers' demands to ban this law.
Does anyone have another example of religious authorities abusing their influence in such manner?
by the way, I tried to find some info on this topic on english, but obviously there is none.
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