Joining together to make visible the richness of Christian life in Europe and communicating the importance and actuality of the faith: these are the objectives of the rally to be held in Stuttgart on 8 May, when over 150 movements of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox tradition will meet for the international rally “Together for Europe”. Simultaneously with this main meeting, a series of other meetings linked to the main one via satellite will be held in many European cities, including Den Bosch in Holland (where some 1,000 participants are expected). The organizers of the event predict that the 10,000 places available in Stuttgart will all be “sold out”. The idea of this jamboree of the movements and communities of the various European churches in 2004 was conceived in 2001 at the end of the meeting that brought together over 5,000 representatives of the movements in the Freuenkirche in Munich. The Stuttgart meeting also intends to follow ideally in the footsteps of the “congress of city evangelization” in Vienna, organized by the Catholic movements. Saturday, 8 May was chosen as a date for the meeting because “Europe Day” will be celebrated on the previous day, coinciding with the enlargement of the European Union with ten new states. Interventions from Romano Prodi, Cardinal Kasper, Chiara Lubich and Ulrich Parzany are expected.
