Tatiana sings about love of God, Mary and the Catholic faith

Photo caption: Former Croatian pop star Tatiana is now a Catholic musician, wife and mother of three sons who lives with her family in Cincinnati, Ohio. She said her faith is in every part of her being 24 hours a day. Trained as a classical musician, Tatiana began singing at age 4 and now sings in nine languages. (Photo by Jack Gorton/courtesy Cameron Productions)

(Editor’s Note: This is the fifth article in a series of occasional feature stories about Catholic musicians with connections to the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.)

By Mary Ann Wyand

Croatian pop star Tatiana left her home country and thousands of teenage fans in Eastern Europe to pursue a career as a Catholic musician in America in 1992.

She also met her husband, Matthew Cameron, who is her producer and the manager of Cameron Productions.

Now Tatiana sings about her love of God, Mary and the Catholic faith in her strong, clear voice that some fans have described as angelic.

She will present her original composition of “Emmanuel–The Story of Christmas” at 7 p.m. on Dec. 16 at St. Mary Parish, 720 N. A St., in Richmond. The concert is free.

After the concert, Tatiana and her husband will sell copies of her CDs, which include her Christmas album as well as “I Thirst–The Crucifixion Story,” “Let It Be–Mary’s Story,” “A Chance to Dream–The Lullaby Album,” “Tatiana–Now and Forever” and “Tatiana–Struggles and Graces.”

Currently based in Cincinnati, Ohio, Tatiana and her husband and their three young sons—Dante, Evan and Blais—travel throughout the country in a customized tour bus to present Christian concerts at parishes and other locations.

They also enjoy returning to her homeland in Croatia, where Tatiana said Blais took his first steps.

“I wanted to show my boys how beautiful all the little places in Croatia are,” Tatiana explained in a publicity brochure promoting her concert schedule.

“I enjoyed performing for the 30,000 mostly young people from all over the world at the Youth Festival in Medjugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina,” she said. “This place is so much more than people think it is. The focus on the sacraments, the orphanages and the drug-rehab communities led me to feel that it is truly a center of faith.”

Tatiana’s music ministry is titled “Tajci–I Do Believe” after her name, Tatjana Matejas, in the Croatian language, and her Web site is located at www.Idobelieve.com.

“This Advent, we are joining efforts with the Knights of Columbus and their ‘Keep Christ in Christmas’ campaign,” Cameron explained in the press release.

In recent years, Tatiana has brought her music ministry to Christ the King Parish in Indianapolis, St. Bartholomew Parish in Columbus, St. Mary Parish in Greensburg and parishes in Richmond.

She also helped Servants of the Gospel of Life Sister Diane Carollo, director of the archdiocesan Office for Pro-Life Ministry, and Catholics United for the Faith raise funds for pro-life ministries in the archdiocese during two Catholic Life Network dinners in March 2005.

“She is the woman who is inspiring many people to believe again,” Sister Diane said. “She is a Christian singer … who walked away from fame and fortune as a European pop star.”

Tatiana’s ministry encourages people to say “I do believe,” Cameron said, and seek a closer relationship with God.

Her ministry is especially important, Tatiana said, because she was not allowed to practice her Catholic faith as a child.

“I was born in Zagreb, Croatia, which at the time was communist,” Tatiana explained during an interview in December 2004 at Christ the King Parish.

“Even though I was baptized, it was always secret and we couldn’t really openly talk about it,” she said. “My parents were very afraid and intimidated from all the persecutions. I grew up not really knowing who God is.”

Teachers at the government schools taught the students that there is no God, Tatiana said. “When I was attending school, I wanted to be the best student and I respected the professors so I had no choice. They taught us that there was no God, there was no reason why we should believe in God, that science had proven that all we have is this life.”

Her father taught her to sing and music was always a big part of her life.

“That was a connection with something that was divine or spiritual,” Tatiana said. “I attended music conservatory in Croatia, and it was always to me very interesting how music from centuries ago transcended all faiths, all boundaries, all languages. That, to me, couldn’t have been just skill. … It had to have something that was beyond it, a divine Creator.”

Trained as a classical musician, Tatiana loved listening to compositions by Bach and Mozart, which she described as “transcendent beauty” and came to believe were divinely inspired.

“That was where my questions started,” she said. “Could it be that this music was inspired by some divinity, some deity?”

From an early age, she said, “I understood that with music I could make people happy and evoke emotions that could make them cry. It’s very magical.”

As a teenager, Tatiana said, “I became the biggest pop star ever in my country. To this day, they say that nobody has ever repeated my success. I was only 19, and it was tremendous how much influence I had as a pop star, as a role model. … Yet it was soon after the first wave of amazement, after my ego was satisfied, that I realized that I was still empty, I was lonely, and the fame and money wasn’t enough. I wasn’t fulfilled inside.”

The ethnic war in Bosnia-Herzegovina affected her deeply and changed her life.

“Right before the war, I would sing at concerts and I realized that I couldn’t offer any answers to questions, I couldn’t tell anybody how to deal with fear,” she said. “For people that don’t know that there is Christ, who promises eternal life, that your soul will live forever, it’s a horrible thought that there’s nothing when you close your eyes and you die.

“As a role model that so many people wanted to be like, I realized that my responsibilities were bigger, not just for my own life but for all those lives that were following me,” she said. “It was then that I decided I was going to look for answers. I literally had to leave everything behind. I had to remove myself from fame, from money, … I had to put myself in a place where I would struggle.”

A Croatian song, which translates as “Lord, You Have Come to the Seashore,” changed her life at age 21 and led her to serve God as a music minister. She sang it at a church in Croatia in 1991 and knew that she had found a new purpose in life.

“The lyrics are ‘Lord, is it me that you’re calling?’ ” she said. “ ‘Your lips have whispered my name. I will leave everything that I have behind, and I will follow wherever you lead me.’ As I was singing it, I was ready to do exactly that.”

She said her songs become prayers because she surrenders herself to God during concerts.

“The Eucharist would bring me to my knees,” Tatiana said. “Whatever you do, God deserves the best of you—nothing less. But then you have to step aside and let him fill you up. Then it becomes a prayer.” †