Ccee: A symposium between African and European bishops” “

A meeting between African and European bishops to “examine common responsibility for the Church and for their own peoples” and “seek new ways of collaboration, mutual aid and exchange”: these are some of the objectives of the symposium to be held in Rome from 10 to 13 November, on the initiative of the Council of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe (CCEE) and the Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), under the auspices of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. The participants at the symposium will include 50 bishops from African countries, 50 from Europe (nominated by their respective Episcopal Conferences), delegates of aid organizations, representatives of offices of the Roman Curia, and delegates of continental church organizations in Asia, Latin America and North America. The meeting aims to initiate a process that should have future repercussions. In the CCEE plenary assembly at Vilnius (2-5 October 2003) the president of one Bishops’ Conference of Europe had in fact denounced “the international political and economic cynicism that seems to have abandoned Africa to a destiny of ever-increasing poverty and marginalization”. “On the other hand – says the CCEE – Europe is a continent that is writing a new page of political and economic unification, but is also a continent ‘without children’ and displaying many signs of exhaustion: it has a need for Africa today”. Among the objectives of the symposium: “analysing the common responsibility for evangelization, mission and social apostolate; exchanging views on the idea of man and social relations in Africa and Europe; monitoring the situation of evangelization; reflecting on the experiences of collaboration that already exist between Africa and Europe and seeking new ways of cooperation, mutual aid and the exchange of gifts between Churches of the northern and southern hemispheres, in response to the major challenges facing the two continents: poverty, migration, family, relations with Islam, economic solidarity, Aids…; examining the issue of the Church’s relation to politics and in particular co-responsibility in peacemaking and in building a more just society”. The Bishops’ Conferences in Europe and in Africa have already been sent a preparatory questionnaire to gain an overall picture of already existing organizations and experiences of collaboration between the two continents. On the basis of the replies, a basic document will be drawn up as a working paper for the symposium. The Bishops’ Conferences have also been invited to insert the question of Europe-Africa collaboration in their agenda for 2004.