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“The responsibility of the churches and religions for the creation” is the theme of the Sixth Consultation promoted by the CCEE, Council of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe, in collaboration with the diocese of Namur and the Episcopal Conference of Belgium, on Responsibility for the Creation, to be held at Namur, in Belgium, from 3 to 6 June 2004. Some sixty delegates for the environment of the Episcopal Conferences of 22 countries and representatives of various European church organizations will be participating in the meeting. Ecological and ecumenical concerns, and the connections between them, will be the central focus of discussion. The consultation will begin on 3 June with a reflection by Father Aldo Giordano, CCEE general secretary on the relation between ecology, oecumene and economics. This will be followed by a round table on the contribution of the three main Christian traditions to sustainable development. The main speakers will include Metropolitan Emmanuel of France, of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Lukas Vischer, of the Swiss Reformed Church, and the Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool Patrick Kelly. The delegates will then split up into work groups to examine experiences of ecumenical collaboration in the “environmental” field. On the afternoon of Friday 4 June, with a public round table, the focus of attention will shift to the inter-religious sphere: chances and difficulties of inter-religious cooperation in the safeguard of the creation. Participants in the debate will be the chief rabbi of Brussels, Albert Guigui, an Islamic professor of religion, M. Mahi Yacoub, a Tibetan Lama, the venerable Lama Karta, and a French Catholic priest, Guy Gilbert. On Saturday morning, the debate will turn to the “political” contribution of the churches in Europe to the safeguard of the creation. The question will be discussed by the Slovak EU Commissioner, Jan Figel, the Nuncio Apostolic to the EU Msgr. Faustino Sainz Munoz and a representative of the European Christian Environmental Network (ECEN), Pastor Lukas Vischer. Also on the programme is a visit to the monastery of Chevtogne and to the “Bergerie de la Fôret” where the experience of the diocese of Namur will be presented. At the end of the consultation the final document and prospects for future work will be discussed, also in relation to preparations for the Third European Ecumenical Assembly (Romania, 2007). The final event on the programme will be a celebration in the cathedral of Namur, presided over by the bishop of the city André Mutien Léonard. Representatives of the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, the Commission of the Episcopates of the EU (COMECE) and the associations of religious orders (UCESM) and of the laity (ELF) will also be present at the consultation.
