SOCIAL WEEKS
The season of the “Social Weeks” begins once again in the autumn. These are events promoted at the national level by the Catholic laity in various European countries. We present, in chronological order, those of Poland, Italy and France.Poland: 30th anniversary of Solidarnosc This year the Social Week (the third annual event of its kind to be held in Poland) will take place in Gdansk from 7 to 9 October and will be dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Solidarnosc movement which, point out the organizers, “led to the democratization of the country and helped to overcome the divisions of Europe”. The debate will be dedicated in the first place to the “principle of subsidiarity in social and economic practice twenty years after the political transformations in Poland”, but, as announced by the organizers (including OCIPE and Espaces), discussion will also focus on such challenges as education and teaching, solidarity and poverty, local and regional development, workers’ rights and policies for the family. “We hope that a common reflection will permit us to formulate creative solutions to important social questions”, say the promoters, emphasizing the importance of Christian values for social and economic life in Poland. During the Social Week in Gdansk, the President of the Polish Parliament, Maciej Plazynski, who died in the tragic air crash at Smolensk, will be commemorated. It was in the city on the Baltic coast that Plazynski, one of the founders of Solidarnosc, began his own struggle against the Communist regime for a free and democratic Poland. Recalling the objectives of the Social Week, the organizers invite the participation of all those who wish to promote the social commitment of Christians, are active in civil society, work in associations of workers and trades unions, form part of the local authorities, or belong to the business or university worlds. Italy: a “renewed period of commitment””It is Christian hope that forms the background to, and even more fundamentally the impulse for this renewed period of commitment of Italian Catholics in contemporary society”. So said Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, in a recent interview with the Holy See’s daily, “L’Osservatore Romano”, commenting on the theme of the next Social Week of Italian Catholics, “Catholics in Italy today. An Agenda of Hope for the Future of the Country” (Reggio Calabria, 14 – 17 October 2010). The agenda “prepared for the Social Week in Reggio Calabria – explained Bagnasco – lists a series of questions that can be deferred no longer, such as creating enterprise, educating, including new presences in our country, introducing youth to the world of work and of research, and achieving the institutional transition. These are the forces that now define the face of the common good and which alone can guarantee the unity and economic recovery of Italy”. In recent days the organizing Committee of the Social Weeks has been busily formulating the programme for October, which apart from “plenary” debates, also envisages so-called “thematic assemblies” in which the individual points on the agenda can be separately discussed. The keynote address of Cardinal Bagnasco himself will open the week, on Thursday 14 October. Founded in Pistoia in 1907 on the initiative of Giuseppe Toniolo, the Social Weeks of Italian Catholics have experienced phases of development and impact on specific questions (the themes tackled in the early years of the annual Social Weeks included work, schools, the condition of women, the family and so on) and long periods of intermission or abeyance (1935 – 1945 and 1970 – 1991). They were revived in the 1990s with the publication of a pastoral document of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, “Revival and renewal of the Catholic Weeks of Italian Catholics” (1988).France: on immigration and integration Three days to “exchange, discover, analyse, debate, learn, share, transmit and propose”: that’s how the organizers of the Semaines Sociales de France present the session for 2010, the 86th in the illustrious life of this annual event in the life of the French Catholic laity, which will be held in Paris (Parc Floral) from 26 to 28 November on “Migrants, a future to be built together”. The choice of the theme, they explain, was born from the current debate “on national identity, the law on the burqa, and the Besson bill aimed at reforming the procedures for the entry and residence of foreigners in France”. These are issues involving immigration that “arouse passions and are of concern to us all”, and about which we “need to have clear views”. What is the reality of immigration and how can it be quantified? What kind of integration is possible? What values should underpin co-existence? Is our culture a heritage to be preserved or a terrain on which differences can produce fruits? These are just some of the questions that this year’s Semaine Sociale will try to answer. Reflection will also concentrate on the position assumed by the Churches; on the challenges, feasibilities and effects of immigration policies and on the possibility of defining a new North-South partnership. Coinciding with the 70th anniversary of Cimade, a humanitarian association that assists migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers, an ecumenical celebration will be held on Sunday 28 November. The participants at Semaine 2010 will include the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal André Vingt-Trois; Jacques Barrot, former European Commissioner and member of the Constitutional Council; Dounia Bouzar, anthropologist and expert on Islam; Pastor Jean-Arnold de Clermont, President of the European Churches (CEC); Patrick Peugeot, President of Cimade; and the historian and essayist Tzvetan Todorov. Info: www.ssf-fr.org
