An occasion to “collectively involve ourselves, as community of Catholic believers, in a national public event” that “enjoys great success each year”: that’s how Bishop Hippolyte Simon of Clermont calls “European Heritage Day” which is promoted as usual by the Ministry of Culture and Communication and will be celebrated on 20/21 September. Its theme this year is “The spiritual heritage”. The theme, as the bishop says in a letter recently sent to parish priests and parish teams in the diocese, is one “that makes a particular appeal to the Catholic Church” and encourages “a fundamental reflection on the relation between heritage, spirituality and Christian life”. “There is a trend to consider our monuments points out Bishop Simon as the testimony of a past that is over and done with, almost as if Christian communities are a relic of the past and hardly exist any more. We need to repudiate this interpretation by the quality of the welcome we are able to give during these days”. To this end the bishop of Clermont hopes that each parish “may take the necessary measures to keep open as many churches as possible”. “It is up to us concludes Msgr. Simon to offer our services and propose the faith in a discreet but positive way, since religious and artistic culture are today, more than ever, a gateway to the Christian experience”.
