From the council till nowadays

“With the Second Vatican Council European bishops learned to know and appreciate the meaning of universal and continental cooperation. For this, at the end of the Council, on November 18 1965, the president of the thirteen bishops’ conferences called a meeting to elect a representative committee of six bishops, tasked with studying and clarifying post-Council cooperation”. For the 40th anniversary of the establishment of CCEE, the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (Rome, March 24-25 1971) Msgr. Ivo Fürer, Bishop Emeritus of Sankt Gallen and CCEE General Secretary in the years 1977-1995, retraced the story of the creation and development of the Episcopal organism in an editorial published in the latest issue of “Litterae Communionis”.The birth. In 1967 the Coordinating Committee invited the bishops of Europe to Nordwijkerhout, Holland, for a First Symposium dedicated to “Post-Council Diocesan Structures”, attended by 75 bishops from 18 countries. In the years ensuing the Council, continues Msgr. Fürer, “the bishops were faced with tensions inside the Church, whose repercussions are felt still today”. Thus the second symposium was held on the theme: “Priests in the world and in the Church today” (Coira – 1969) attended by 108 bishops from 19 Countries. “The difficulties that emerged” in Coira “required the creation of a structure devoted to European cooperation”. For this purpose, on March 24-25 1971 “the Council of European Bishops Conferences” was held in Rome “that adopted its Statute. Within the Council, due to meet on a yearly basis, each Bishops’ Conference was going to be represented by an elected bishop”. The first CCEE President was the then archbishop of Marseille Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, while the Secretariat was entrusted to the then Vicar bishop of Coira Msgr. Alois Sustar, who was later nominated archbishop of Ljubljana.Evangelizing Europe. The theme of the third Symposium, held in 1975, was “The Bishop’s Mission, Servant of Faith”. The theological introduction, explains Msgr. Fürer, “was entrusted to card. Karol Wojtyla, the then archbishop of Krakow. This explains why “Pope John Paul II took a special interest in and supported CCEE”. In fact, in his speech at the 1979 CCEE Symposium titled “The youth and Faith”, Pope John Paul II proposed guidelines for the bishops’ commitment with the following phrase: “Addressing the problem of the evangelization of the European continent is a question of major relevance and importance”. Since then, the theme of Europe’s evangelization was at the centre of the following CCEE meetings: “The collegial responsibility of bishops and of European Bishops’ Conferences in the evangelization of the continent” (1982), “Secularization and evangelization” (1985), “The relationship of modern man with birth and death: a challenge for evangelization” (1989). In the meantime cooperation with KEK (the Conference of European Churches) centered, in particular, “on ecclesial unity and peace” in the continent. Several ecumenical meetings were held, until the first European Ecumenical Assembly took place in Basilea in the Pentecost week of 1989 on “Peace in Justice”, which remains, observes Msgr. Fürer, “an important experience in the period that initiated the changes that were due to transform Communist territories in all of Europe”.Various areas of commitment. CCEE areas of commitment include Communication and the Media, Tourism and Migrations, Islam in Europe, Catechesis, European pilgrimages, the situation in Northern Ireland. Msgr. Fürer recalled the declaration “Christians’ responsibility for Europe today and tomorrow”, published for the first time in 1980 in Subiaco to the presence of John Paul II, and underlined the Episcopal body’s commitment for “the Conference’s progress on security and cooperation in Europe, as it equally involved Western Europe and European Communist countries”. “The question of whether CCEE had to advance Church requests within the then European Economic Community (due to become the European Community) was rather complex”. Considering that at the time the EEC “encompassed only Europe’s western basin, the bishops from Communist Countries considered such developments pertaining to Western Europe unimportant”. This led “to the creation (in 1980 ed.’s note) of the COMECE Commission, consisting of representatives of the Episcopates that were members of the European Community”. The first part of the journey, concludes Msgr. Fürer, “was made possible especially owing to the efforts of CCEE Presidents”, namely, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray (1971 – 1979), the late Basil Hume (1979 – 1986), and Carlo Maria Martini (1986 – 1993), along with the work of the General Secretaries, and of “the president of the Conference of the Churches of Europe André Appel (Strasbourg) and the patriarch of Moscow Alexey”. Since 1993 the Presidents, and no longer the delegate bishops, represent the respective Bishops’ Conferences.