In Kosovo, whole families return to Catholic faith

Feb-9-2009
By Victor Gaetan
Catholic News Service

PRISTINA, Kosovo (CNS) -- Although armed conflict in Kosovo ended nearly a decade ago, the capital city still feels like a place hit recently by war or natural disaster. Electricity goes out often, water is strictly rationed, U.N. jeeps are ubiquitous and people look harried.

Along the main road leading to Pristina, every other lot is full of old cars, stolen from other European countries and picked clean or abandoned by families who fled the war.

But during Sunday Masses at the Church of St. Anthony of Padua, an active Catholic community packs the pews. There are families and old people, a full-voiced choir, eight young altar servers and long lines to receive the Eucharist. the rest