” “People have a need…” “” “

John Paul II alone has beatified 46 and canonized 22 of them (68 in total), without counting the causes of beatification and canonization still in progress. Bishops and “sainthood” was one of the themes of the “Pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Peter”, a meeting of reflection for new bishops, held in Rome (until 19 September) on the initiative of the Congregation for Bishops (cf. SIR no. 60). The meeting was attended by 106 newly appointed bishops (i.e. nominated over the last year), from 26 different countries. Some testimonies: France: laypeople “on mission”. Pontoise, two million inhabitants on the northwest outskirts of Paris. “A missionary urban diocese”: that’s how it’s defined by Msgr. Jean-Yves Riocreux, a bishop for less than three months in an area” full of immigrants from all continents, especially from Africa and Asia”. Opportunities: “the young”. Obstacles: “Secularization, indifference”. “The multireligious context, which might superficially seem an impediment – says Riocreux – is in actual fact a great opportunity. It’s enough to think of the day of my episcopal ordination: a day of festivity; the representatives of all the religious faiths were present, beginning with the Moslems and Jews”. Another characteristic of this Parisian “banlieu” (suburb), “common especially to the urban areas of France”, is the shortage of priests: “For us, collaboration between priests and laity – says the bishop – has become a habit, a well-consolidated practice. We are a ‘missionary’ diocese, first of all, towards our own parish communities, and then towards the many ‘outsiders’ who inhabit the territory”. That’s why “a great deal of attention is devoted to the formation of the laity, at different levels and with reference to the multiple roles that the laity are called to assume in the various environments, from the parish to the workplace, to the university”. Poland: “being with people”. 700,000 inhabitants and c.600 priests, to whom should be added a further “fifteen who will shortly be ordained and another fifteen engaged in mission lands: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, but also Africa and Latin America”. That’s a brief ‘snapshot’ of Wloclawek, an “average diocese” in Poland, as it is called by its new bishop, Msgr. Wieslaw Alojzy, for whom the task of a pastor of the Church is to “give hope”, especially in a land like his own “rich in people who pray”, but one in which “the post-communist mentality still prevails” – a mentality that makes people think that “religion can wait” – and where “the faith should be taught not just to children, but especially to their parents”. Poland is a country in which “social problems are growing”, laments the bishop, who points out that “30% of the inhabitants of my diocese have no job”. “Being with people, listening to their questions and praying for priests”: these are the main pledges assumed by the bishop, who also reports that the diocese is preparing a special “Year of the Family” for 2005. Italy: “missionary drive” and “new languages”. Collaborating with priests “in the field”, promoting the “missionary drive” and finding “new languages” to “explain the faith to the new generations”: that’s how the role of the bishop is summed up by Msgr. Claudio Maniago, new auxiliary bishop of Florence, the youngest and the most recently ordained (only a few days previously) of the bishops present at the Roman meeting. “People need to see their bishop and be listened to by him”, he says. He also identifies the preaching of the Gospel (theme of the pastoral guidelines of the Italian bishops for the present decade) as the “first duty of a pastor”. It’s the”method”, however, that would need to be “updated”, because “the specialised language used in the Church is often remote from ‘simple’ people, understood as the people of God, and more especially from the young, who are always the ‘litmus test’ of the efficacy and authenticity of evangelization”.