Austria: better family policiesA package of requests to the political authorities to support young families was presented by the Association of Austrian Catholic families (KFO) in Vienna on 2 November. The proposed programme of interventions is mainly based on a constant annual increase of financial services for families, tax breaks and improvements in terms of funding for child benefits, right to social security and care structures for young children. “We need once again to encourage the young to start a family”, emphasized Clemens Steindl, President of the KFO, during a press conference to present the Association’s proposals. “However, that is only possible if the material conditions exist. That’s why an annual assessment of services for the family is needed, something which ought to be obvious per se”, he remarked. The Association is also asking for a “control of family compatibility” for laws and administrative provisions. The Association’s various proposals also include a year of free kindergarten and the right to paid leave in the event a child being hospitalized. The maintenance of Sunday as a day of rest and the protection of human life from conception to natural death are other principles defended by the KFO. During the press conference, Steindl referred to many surveys and studies that have shown that the family represents a very high value for the young. “But entry into professional life could change this perspective”, he objected. “So measures are needed to prevent the family and work from being mutually incompatible”. “We must pass from a family world subservient to work to a world of work subservient to the family”, concluded Steindl. Italy: CEI, a cultural project for youth”It is not a question of transmitting technically to the world the good news that Jesus has died and risen, but of taking the world by the hand and accompanying it in this discovery”, said Father Nicolò Anselmi, director of the office of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI) for youth pastoral care (SNPG). He was anticipating some of the contents of the youth cultural project that will be presented during the seminar for youth pastoral workers and exponents of the cultural project , “The youth cultural project – Thinking and communicating the faith in the world today”, which opens in Rome today (until 9 November), on the initiative of the SNPG. “It’s a question of helping those in charge of youth pastoral care to gain an awareness of the cultural dimension of faith, to grow in their ability to communicate the life of the Church and to work critically in the media culture of our time”. “Some of the leading ideas of the project – he adds – are a follow up to the Ecclesial Congress in Verona in 2006: a renewed integrated apostolate, and an ability to listen to the world today and to propose the richness of life lived in the light of the Gospel. The objective is to tackle the question of Christian witness, both at the personal and community level. To do so, we also need to insist on prayer, from which we derive the strength to be at the side of the poor and the disadvantaged, and to bear witness to the Gospel in all social and cultural environments”. Reports by experts, workshops and debates will characterise the meeting which will be concluded with an address by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, who chairs the committee for the cultural project.Ireland: a church for four denominationsA church will be at the centre of the first new town in Ireland to be built from scratch. It’s called Adamstown. And for the first time in the history of the Irish Republic the Church will be shared by four of the most important Christian faiths in the country: the Catholic Church, the Anglican “Church of Ireland”, and the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches. News of the inter-confessional church is reported by the English Catholic weekly “The Universe”, according to which the new experiment is possible thanks to the excellent ecumenical relations that exist in this quarter in the western part of Dublin where many immigrants live. According to Fr. John Hassett, who is parish priest of the parish of Esker/Dodsboro of which Adamstown forms part, and who will be responsible for pastoral care in the new town, “it’s a new model of urban development that guarantees space to the four denominations to see how we can integrate ourselves, work together and give a common witness”. A Catholic church with 800 places already exists in the parish of Esker. The new town has been under construction since 2005; it comprises 10,000 new homes for a population of some 30,000. The new church will have seating for 220, premises for a youth club, rooms for pastoral meetings and an office. While the religious services of the four denominations will remain separate, the Churches will work together on shared issues such as social justice or liturgies of ecumenical character, such as those inspired by the prayer of Taizé.
