Germany: the dioceses in Holy LandThe German dioceses will go on a pilgrimage in the Holy Land from March 2008 to November 2009. On the occasion of the plenary meeting held in early Lent 2007, the German bishops had made an appeal to the devotees, encouraging them to go to the Holy Land. In response to such appeal, the German Pilgrimage Office drew up a schedule of travels. The destinations of such pilgrimages include Galilee, Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Nazareth, where the largest Catholic community in the Holy Land lives. The first ones to go from 1 to 8 March 2008 will be 400 devotees from the Bavarian dioceses, led by card. Friedrich Wetter. In 2007, in Nazareth it was precisely card. Wetter, with the bishops mgr. Wilhelm Schraml (Passau) and mgr. Gerhard Ludwig Müller (Regensburg), who laid the first stone of a Franciscan parish centre funded by one million euros raised by the three dioceses. According to the director of the Pilgrimage Office of Munich, Bernhard Meyer, there’s been an upsurge in the number of bookings. After the Bavarian devotees, between 31 October and 7 November it will be the turn of the pilgrims of the dioceses of the ecclesiastic province of the Upper Rhine, in March 2009 those from the ecclesiastic province of the Lower Rhine, while between October and November 2009 they will come from the ecclesiastic province of Hamburg, Central Germany and Berlin.Spain: the “quality” of the engagement”The health of marriage is heavily affected by the quality of the engagement”: this is confirmed by the bishop of Palencia (Spain), mgr. José Ignacio Munilla Aguirre, in a release. Marriage courses, according to the bishop, are inadequate, so “pastoral guidance is needed during the engagement”, partly because “many marital crises derive from disappointment, in seeing that the reality is very different from that first dream”. At the same time, highlights mgr. Munilla Aguirre, “pre-marriage relations are increasing this ‘blindness’, which is typical of falling in love”. Actually, “an untimely sexual relationship hides problems instead of bringing them to the fore”. After all, statistics show that those who live together before marriage “have much higher rates of broken marriages than those who didn’t”. “If we do not want to have any unpleasant surprise in married life – added the bishop -, an education to love is essential, to teach the engaged couples not to ‘shoot ahead’ and skip the steps in between, otherwise breaking an engagement will become a trauma, as if it were a sort of “mini-divorce”.Austria: a “critical reflection” is necessary Five years after the publication of “Sozialwort”, the document of the 14 Christian Churches in Austria on the social situation, it is necessary to check its effectiveness in a systematic way. “The Churches invite us to a broad critical reflection”, actually declared the evangelic bishop Herwig Sturm, president of the Ecumenical Council of Churches in Austria (ÖRKÖ), during a press conference in Vienna. “Through Sozialwort – he went on, – the Churches committed themselves, but society is also included in that commitment. Lent is the ideal period to verify one’s commitment and its effectiveness outside”. First of all, the invitation was meant for the social initiatives and the ecclesial institution already involved in the Sozialwort and its carrying out. The reflections will be collected by the Catholic Social Academy and will be presented next 27 November in Vienna, during the official celebrations for the “Five Years of Ecumenical Sozialwort”. The Sozialwort initiative dates back to 1999, the year in which the 14 Austrian Christian Churches decided to elaborate a common position on the challenges of social policy in Austria. The Sozialwort was elaborated by ÖRKÖ, and was published in 2003. Cyprus: new president, “let’s resume dialogue””Now there’s an air of expectations. Everyone is awaiting the next moves of the new Head of State. Let us hope that dialogue may be resumed”. Father Umberto Barato, Patriarchal vicar for Cyprus, commented for Sir recent Presidential election of Greek-Cypriot Communist leader Dimitris Christofias. Without making political comments, the Franciscan religious said there is nothing new: “both the defeated candidates Cassoulides and Christofias spoke of dialogue and negotiations with the Turk-Cypriots. The facts and the choices he will make will speak for themselves. Cyprus has been living this way for the past 35 years and nobody ever made a true effort to find a solution. The resumption of negotiations responds to everyone’s wish but we don’t know how this is going to happen. There are great expectations since we don’t know which actions he will pursue”. “Christofias won by 53,36%: not an overwhelming victory”, added father Barato. “His opponent Cassoulides, moderate right-wing politician and ex-Foreign Minister, gained almost 47% of the votes. The Country is divided”. With this vote Christofias becomes the only Communist State leader of the entire EU. “During the electoral campaign – the Vicar revealed – the flags of the Communist Party were forbidden. Last night they appeared again. We are also awaiting to know the reaction of Europe and the United States”.
