Portugal: the Conference of Catholic PressThe 7th Congress of the Association of Christian Press (AIC) on “Overcoming obstacles”, concluded in Bragança. In his address, the bishop of Bragança-Miranda, Msgr. Antonio Montes, highlighted the need to overcome current criticism against Christian press and transform difficulties into opportunities for communication. At the end of the meeting, panellists approved a number of resolutions: in the ongoing economic and social crisis the challenges faced by regional press, by Catholic press in particular, ought to be addressed with concrete strategies implemented at different levels, in order to step up professionalism, technical, business and administrative structures’ improvement, along with the enhancement of the news item, as relates both to presentation and content. According to this approach, the focus should be placed on the youth that represent the press’ future readership. Hence the importance of developing new modes of communication in state of the art technology, digitization and vocational training. The purpose being the implementation of public-spirited journalism that is close to its readers and is conceived in the form of dialogic communication, enabling the latter to contribute to the news items’ content. One of the major challenges of the regional press is cooperation between the various newspapers, so as to promote complementariness, while preserving the peculiar identity of all the stakeholders. This would hopefully lead to increasing the influence exerted by Christian press. It is widely acknowledged that the press and the digital media ought to view one another as complementary, not as competitors. Thus, it is necessary to adjust to this new reality by developing projects on the web, and by resorting to funding through a large-scale plan enabling their implementation. Germany: “school for everyone””School for everyone, with special emphasis on the weaker brackets”, the claim was put through during the fifth Federal Congress of Catholic schools held in Essen on November 28, attended by 250 headmasters of Catholic schools. In his address, the archbishop of Paderborn, Msgr. Hans-Josef Becker, President of the Commission for Education of the German Bishops’ Conference, underlined that the “educational task is the core essence of Catholic schools”. “Those who run schools on the basis of Christian principles, want to devote special attention to disadvantaged youth and children”, he claimed. “Since the schools are for everyone, with special attention for the weaker brackets, Catholic schools ought to address this widespread challenge and favour disadvantaged youth and children”. Msgr. Becker claimed that disabilities and poverties are among the causes of disparities in the school environment: “Our schools ought to be valued according to their openness and reception of the youth from poor family background”, he remarked. Also Marianne Heimbach-Steins, professor of Christian social doctrine, pointed out that Catholic schools “ought to be open to everyone, without discriminations. They must be accessible by different social and cultural groups and must work to promote social inclusion. The Church is called to focus its commitment for the poor also in the realm of school education. This entails choosing specific modes of education and school buildings, while stepping up public awareness on school education”, he added. At present there are 1,140 Catholic schools for primary and secondary education in Germany, with some 380,000 pupils.The Netherlands: Utrecht, foreign priests on the wayThe archdiocese of Utrecht will soon call foreign priests to officiate service. The project is included in the new pastoral plan that diocesan workers received a few days ago. There is a need for priests in the archbishopric of Utrecht; the diocese needs the priests “to ensure the prosecution of pastoral work within the parishes”. The document addressed the possibility of involving new religious communities that are described as diocesan priests or priests and nuns of contemplative orders. For the time being, 25 Trappist Nuns of Enschot Brabant will move to Oesterbeek, in the Gelderland district. Their new monastery will be consecrated October 6 2009.
