Making a fresh start with children” “

Inaugurated on 8th april, “Pro-Life Week 2005”, an ecumenical project of the German Catholic and Evangelical Churches, was an occasion to remember John Paul II’s commitment to life. During the opening ceremony, Evangelical Bishop Wolfgang Huber recalled him as follows: “I took part in the funeral of Pope John Paul II in Rome”, and he praised, in particular, the Pope’s gift for “addressing the people he met” because “he wanted to make them feel they were important”. For John Paul II they were not just faceless numbers in the crowd, but made to feel “conscious of being supported by a community”. The inaugural ecumenical service of Pro-Life Week took place in Kassel. It was attended by the Catholic bishop of the city, Msgr. HEINZ Josef Algermissen , representing Cardinal Karl Lehmann , president of the German Bishops’ Conference, who has remained in Rome for the Conclave. The celebration in Kassel marked the beginning of a series of events and celebrations throughout Germany, aimed at promoting the virtues of life, children and the family. This year’s Week has the theme: “A fresh start with children”. GIVING HOPE. With Pro-Life Week, the German Churches “wish to encourage families to make a fresh start with children and heighten awareness of the need to protect the dignity of human life in all its phases”: this is the objective of the event. The need to restore hope to German society was underlined by Huber as follows: “What is our contribution, what can we do to make life possible, to make sure that children are a blessing?” Apart from “personal positions”, and the “courage to have children” closely linked to the individual, Huber stressed the need for general conditions in ourselves, as well as “general political conditions” that favour a positive attitude to children. “We need a courageous policy for the family. But especially we need to love children”, said Huber. “We are responsible for creating the necessary general conditions for children and for families. We wish to encourage young couples to undertake the greatest and finest adventure that the world can offer: a life with children”. YES TO LIFE. “We are profoundly convinced of the fact that any human community can remain open to its fellowmen only if the dignity of children, the protection of children and the willingness to have children are at the top of the ethical priorities that shape the community’s life”, say the German Churches in a press release presenting the event. And at the joint press conference held at Kassel on 9 April, Huber declared as follows: “Our objective for this Pro-Life Week is to give a clear signal to society to say yes to life and to children. […] For us it is crucially important that children be important in society first and foremost as persons”, he declared. “It is worth daring a ‘fresh start’ with children, because they enrich life in a way that cannot be expressed in numbers”. “If we live in a society open to children, this obviously has positive repercussions also on demographic trends and hence also on the economic future of society: on social security systems, the labour market and much else. These are important aspects, but it isn’t this that counts. Children signify above all a ‘yes’ to life”. “The opening to children is an indicator of the opening to persons and life in any society. The fact that the average percentage of children per family is continuously declining in Germany is a clear sign of this crisis”, said Bishop Algermissen, who declared during the ecumenical service: “Children are first and foremost representatives of God. They are a gift, they are God’s children”. LIFE AND FAMILY. Recalling that John Paul II was “tirelessly committed to the aspirations of children and the young and hence also to marriage and the family”, Algermissen declared that “the favourable attitude to children we ask for is closely linked with the promotion of marriage and the family”. The bishop called for measures in support of the family to be introduced: “The social situations in which starting a family means a considerable loss of status and for many even a risk of poverty, need as a matter of urgency to be changed. Under the growing burden of welfare contributions, housing costs and taxes on consumer goods, families lose the courage to make a fresh start with children”.