Scandinavia: the Pope’s support for the familyThe centrality of the family founded on marriage for the life of a healthy society, the doctrine of the Church in the ethical and social field, refugees from the Middle East and the Year for Priests: these were the main themes touched on by Benedict XVI on 25 March, on receiving in audience the Scandinavian bishops on their "ad limina apostolorum" visit led by their President and Bishop of Stockholm, the Most Rev. Anders Arborelius. Expressing satisfaction for the Congress on the Family which is due to be held at Jönköping, in Sweden, from 14 to 16 May, the Pope emphasized: "One of the most important messages that the populations of the lands of the North must hear from you is the recall of the centrality of the family for the life of a healthy society", in particular in response to the weakening "of commitment to the institution of matrimony and to the Christian conception of sexuality which were for long the foundation of personal and social relations in European society". "Children warned the Pope have the right to be conceived, carried in the womb and brought up within marriage: it is through the secure and recognized relation with their parents that they can discover their identity and achieve an appropriate human development". Benedict XVI therefore urged that "priority be given to this fundamental right of children over any other presumed right of adults to impose their alternative models of family, and especially over a presumed right of abortion". Given the constant growth of the Catholic minority in the Scandinavian countries, the Pope also exhorted the bishops to "continue to transmit the teaching of the Church on ethical and social questions" and to have "particular care" for the victims of the economic crisis. He also encouraged them to welcome the numerous refugees from the Middle East, "many of them Christians of the Oriental Churches", and to foster their integration, also with "special programmes of catechesis". During the current Year for Priests, further observed the Pope, proper vigilance needs to be taken to ensure that "all priests", following the example of the Holy Curé of Ars, "be prepared for this sacred ministry". The Holy Father also expressed his appreciation for "the enormous contribution" made by the laity to the life of the Church. The Scandinavian Church comprises 12 dioceses for a total of some 300,000 faithful, 167 priests and 28 permanent deacons, 11 male and 560 female religious. In Denmark Catholics represent 0.7% of the population, in Finland 0.2%, in Iceland 2.6%, in Norway 1.3% and in Sweden 2%. France: fresh start for the blog on bioethicsThe Catholic Church of France is relaunching its blog on bioethics (www.bioethique.catholique.fr) because it considers it "a means of reflection, open to everyone, believers or non-believers" alike. News of the revived blog is given in a statement of the Bishops’ Conference, issued during the plenary assembly of French bishops which is being held in Lourdes from 24 to 27 March. The blog on bioethics had been opened in February 2009 on the initiative of Archbishop Pierre d’Ornellas, who chairs the Bishops’ Work Group on bioethics. It had then been put on hold last summer after the "general estate" on bioethics had ended. The blog however continues to receive roughly 20,000 visits per month. That’s why it has been decided to relaunch it, also at the request of users themselves. To mark the occasion, Archbishop d’Ornellas will publish a document in which he will return to the various points of the parliamentary report published in January 2010 with the title "Promoting medical progress Respecting human dignity". The archbishop of Rennes said that bioethics impinges on "the life of everyone in its most intimate sense: suffering and death, desire and the child, man and woman, and their love". He hopes that "this blog may be a space of dialogue and of the search for what is just and true" and that it may help "to find the way to happiness, individual and collective, to which everyone aspires". Czestochowa: Congress of Marian sodalitiesFor the first time since the fall of the Communist regime, the Congress of Marian sodalities will take place in Poland from 25 to 27 March. The Congress in Czestochowa will be attended by the members of the 25 sodalities currently operating on Polish territories, and representatives of similar confraternities from Spain, Germany and Ukraine. The members of the Marian sodalities, gathered in the most famous of Poland’s Marian sanctuaries, that of Jasna Gora, will commemorate the life and work of Karol Wojtyla, who was President of one of the Polish Marian sodalities from 1936 and 1938, and of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, who in 1980 had the necessary courage and tenacity to restore an official status to the Marian sodalities, de-legitimized by the Communist regime. "In this way we also wish to begin international meetings, at the European level, which will be an occasion to get to know the traditions, customs, activities and results achieved by the members of the Marian sodalities in the various European countries. We would also like to share our experiences and discuss the future and the development of Marian sodalities in the twenty-first century", says one of the organizers of the Regina Pruszynska Congress.
