The Catholic Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina is a part of the worldwide Catholic Church under the spiritual leadership of the pope in Rome.
According to the latest census from 2013, there are 544,114 Catholics in Bosnia and Herzegovina, making up 15.41% of the population.
Estimates in 2020 suggested that there were 400,000 Catholics in the region (11.5% of the population).
History
Antiquity
Christianity arrived in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the first century AD. Saint Paul wrote in his Epistle to the Romans that he brought the Gospel of Christ to Illyria. Saint Jerome, a Doctor of the Church born in Stridon (modern-day Šuica, Bosnia and Herzegovina), also wrote that St. Paul preached in Illyria. It is believed that Christianity arrived with Paul's disciples or Paul himself.
After the Edict of Milan, Christianity spread rapidly. Christians and bishops from the area of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina settled around two metropolitan seats, Salona and Sirmium. Several early Christian dioceses developed in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries. Andrija, Bishop of Bistue (), was mentioned at synods in Salona in 530 and 533. Bishop Andrija probably had a seat in the Roman municipium Bistue Nova, near Zenica. The synod in Salona decided to create the new diocese of Bistue Vetus), separating it from the Diocese of Bistue Nova. Several dioceses also were established in the south at Martari (present-day Konjic), Sarsenterum, Delminium, Baloie and Lausinium.
With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and with the ravaging and settling of Avar and Slavic tribes, this church organization was completely destroyed.
Medieval era
After the arrival of the Croats on the Adriatic coast in the early seventh century, Frankish and Byzantine rulers began baptizing them as far inland as the river Drina. Christianization was also influenced by the proximity of old Roman cities in Dalmatia and spread from the Dalmatian coast towards the interior of the Duchy of Croatia. This area was governed by the archbishops of Split, successors of Salona's archbishops, who attempted to restore the ancient Duvno Diocese. Northern Bosnia was part of the Pannonian-Moravian archbishopric, established in 869 by Saint Methodius of Thessaloniki.
Diocese of Trebinje was the first diocese in this area established in the Middle Ages. It is mentioned for the first time in the second half of the 10th century during the pontificate of Pope Gregory V.
The Diocese of Bosnia was established in the 11th century. Based on Provinciale Vetus, a collection of historical documents published in 1188, it is first mentioned as subordinate to the Archdiocese of Split and a second time as part of the Archdiocese of Ragusa. The Diocese presumably originated between 1060 and 1075.
At the time, the Bosnian Church, accused of heresy, existed in medieval Bosnia. The first missionaries that got the exclusive right to missionary work and inquisition in medieval Bosnia were the Dominicans. Any priest that used the native language in the liturgy could become suspicious of heresy. For this reason, in 1233, Pope Gregory IX deposed Bishop Vladimir and appointed his successor John the German, who was also a Dominican friar. After the seat of the Bishop of Bosnia was moved to Đakovo in 1247, the influence of the Dominicans in Bosnia started to diminish.
The Franciscans were also present in medieval Bosnia since the early 13th century. Pope Nicholas IV, who was also a Franciscan, granted them in 1291 the jurisdiction over the inquisition in Bosnia together with the Dominicans. These rights were confirmed to them by Pope Boniface VIII. Ever since that time, the Dominicans and the Franciscans competed over the exclusive right over the missionary work and inquisition in Bosnia. Finally, it was Pope John XXII who, in 1327, granted the Franciscan these exclusive rights. Since that time, the influence of Dominicans significantly diminished, and with the Ottoman conquest in the 15th century, it completely vanished. Neither of these religious orders made an effort to educate the local secular clergy but instead fought over the influence in the country.
Even afterward, the Franciscans spent little time educating the local secular clergy. Instead, the Bosnian vicar Fra Bartul of Auvergne tried to attract foreign Franciscans to do missionary work. The Franciscans gained a number of privileges, including the election of provincials, apostolic visitators, vicars and bishops.