Spain: “no” to marriages of convenienceIn response to the growth of marriages of convenience with which some foreigners attempt to regularize their own position, the Church in Spain has increased efforts to prevent such marriages and to declare null and void those that have already taken place. Many bishoprics have asked their clergy to see to it that the rules for the marriage between a Spanish citizen and a foreigner are observed. The Concordat between Spain and the Holy See accords civil recognition to canonical marriage, and with civil marriage the requisites and the time frame for obtaining nationality are considerably reduced (the latter from ten years to one year). If parish priests identify some irregularity, they will refuse to authorise the celebration of marriage and ask the couple concerned first to get married in a civil ceremony, explains the delegate for communication of the diocese of Gerona, Josep Casellas. In some cases, priests have been accused of racism and have even received threats. In spite of the efforts to prevent these fraudulent unions, some people succeed in celebrating marriages of convenience, some of which are later discovered by the police or by the Church. In the field of canon law, an ecclesiastical tribunal conducts an internal inquiry and if, there is proof that the marriage in question is fake, will then declare them null and void and notify this to the civil registry. “It’s a question not of punishing the overwhelming majority of immigrants”, explains the archbishopric of Santiago de Compostela, but of “defending the dignity of the immigrant and preventing extortion by pressure groups”.France: 300 youth at the Good News festival Some 300 Catholics aged between 18 and 35 participated in the French festival of “announcing” the Gospel that ended on 30 August. They organized a series of concerts, debates, exhibitions and prayer vigils in the best-known tourist resorts, from Saint-Tropez and Saint-Raphaël to Cannes, from Toulouse to Lyon, from Marseilles to Paris. The aim of the festival was to proclaim the Good News to tourists. Its official debut took place at Sainte-Baume (where, according to the Provencal tradition, Mary Magdalen lived); it was inaugurated by the Bishop of Fréjus-Toulon, Mgr. Dominique Rey, of the Communauté de l’Emmanuel, one of the religious communities that organized the event. Last year the venues were four and the participants 250. The Archbishop of Lyon, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, and the Auxiliary Bishop of Paris Jean-Yves Nahmias, also gave their support. The festival ended on the hill of Montmartre in Paris, round the basilica of the Sacre Coeur, where a village of tents had arisen for the occasion. A great collective prayer event was held yesterday afternoon. “These young people are a magnificent sign – said Mgr. Rey – and must be encouraged. To express one’s own faith, one must live it”. The festival, explained the bishop, is “an emanation and a grace of World Youth Days”. Italy: pilgrimage of the three peoplesThe Pilgrimage of the Three Peoples was held at Udine (in Italy) this year: 1,500 Friulani, Carinthians and Slovenes were accompanied by seven bishops to the Marian sanctuary of the “Madonna delle Grazie” for the annual pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady. It’s in this church in January this year that large numbers of faithful gathered to pray for Eluana Englaro, the Italian lady, whose death by hunger and dehydration authorized by her father after 17 years of coma had led to a huge public debate in Italy on the explosive issue of euthanasia. With the Archbishop of Udine Pietro Brollo, the Mass was concelebrated by the Archbishop of Ljubljana Alojzij Uran, Bishop Alois Schwarz of Gurk-Klagenfurt, Bishop Glavan of Novo Mesto, Bishop Pirih of Capodistria with his auxiliary Bizjak, and scores of priests and religious of the three dioceses which have met to pray together for some thirty years now. “It’s a real source of illumination and deep joy to discover that you aren’t here by accident – said Archbishop Brollo in his homily – and that for you too there was a vocation, a call to life and, therefore, that there was someone who loved you even before you were born and who formed you in your mother’s womb and accompanies you in your journey through life”. “Discovering one’s own roots – continued the archbishop -, means gaining awareness that it was not accident that called you into life, but a Father who has always loved you”. During the pilgrimage – now in its 27th year – the participants prayed and sang in Friulan, Italian, Slovene, German and Latin. Opening the ceremony, Archbishop Uran described the three peoples as three large families, who have not forgotten the trials and tribulations they have suffered (including wars). He urged them to develop “new mutual relations” of solidarity and friendship, especially to give “Europe stronger legs”. This concept was also underlined by Bishop Schwarz, who urged in particular a popular campaign of Christians and Catholics to call for a Europe “whose humanity needs to be strengthened also in terms of welcoming immigrants”. The next Pilgrimage of the Three Peoples will be held on the Woerthersee in Carinthia on 21 August 2010.
