The bishops participating in the meeting also included Msgr. Amédée Grab , president of the Swiss Episcopal Conference and of CCEE (Council of the European Episcopal Conferences), invited to attend as an observer to maintain the links between the two institutions, and Msgr. Adrianus van Luyn , bishop of Rotterdam and vice-president of COMECE. “The problem of terrorism also concerns the countries that do not belong to the European Union said Msgr. Grab . The responsibility to combat it is incumbent on States, but collaboration between the Churches helps awareness on the matter to be raised”. And even if in Europe, due to the effect of secularization, “religions are no longer a decisive factor in political decisions he observed – they still exert enormous influence in the world”. According to Bishop van Luyn, the commitment of the Churches also consists “in trying to understand the deep roots from which terrorism springs, in other words the great injustice existing between the affluent West and the poor countries. Church and civil society ought to become more conscious of having a great responsibility for these peoples”. The other important commitment is the dialogue between religions, “not only to understand and respect each other, but to unite our forces for the good of the whole world”. Msgr. van Luyn, who is also president of Pax Christi in Holland, then commented on the military intervention in Afghanistan: “Afghanistan is destroyed and the victims as always are the poor, the population. We must now try to capture those responsible for the terrorist outrages by other means and get humanitarian aid in”. Patrizia Caiffa our correspondent in Brussels
