Bishop Kovač in Požega: The True Gold Is the People We Love
The feast of Saint Lawrence, patron of the Diocese of Požega and its Caritas, was celebrated on Monday with a Mass led by Zagreb's auxiliary bishop Marko Kovač.
The feast of Saint Lawrence, patron of the Diocese of Požega and its Caritas, was celebrated on Monday with a Mass led by Zagreb's auxiliary bishop Marko Kovač.
On Monday, August 10, 2026, the feast of Saint Lawrence, deacon and martyr, patron of the Diocese of Požega and its Caritas, was solemnly observed in Požega. The Mass was celebrated in front of the Bishop's Palace, next to the Church of Saint Lawrence, by Zagreb's auxiliary bishop Marko Kovač, together with the Bishop of Požega, Ivo Martinović, and other priests.
In his homily, Bishop Kovač linked the life of Saint Lawrence to the question of what the Church and society truly consider valuable. He recalled the Church tradition according to which the Roman authorities, after Lawrence had been given a few days to live following the martyrdom of his bishop, demanded that he hand over the church treasure, expecting gold, silver, and precious items.
Instead, Lawrence brought before the Roman prefect the poor, widows, orphans, the sick, and the outcast. "Here is the treasure of the Church," Saint Lawrence proclaimed, according to tradition. In that image, Bishop Kovač saw a timeless message. He said that for the Roman prefect, treasure was something that could be measured, counted, and protected, while for Lawrence, treasure lay in the human face.
He directly connected this message to the Požega Valley, which for centuries has borne the name Vallis aurea, or the Golden Valley. "The true gold of the Požega Valley is not the things we possess, but the people we love," Bishop Kovač emphasized.
Thus, the well-known name of the region acquired a different, deeper meaning. The value of the Požega area lies not only in its fertile land, vineyards, homes, and material goods, but in the way the community treats the weak, the sick, the lonely, and the outcast.
It is precisely for this reason that Saint Lawrence, as the patron of Caritas, is a particularly powerful symbol. His words are not merely part of the history of martyrdom; they pose a concrete question to the modern world: do we see the value of a person when we derive no benefit from them?
The celebration in Požega was therefore not just a remembrance of a saint from early Christianity. It was a reminder of the criterion by which the strength of a community is measured not by what it has, but by whom it does not forget.
