CHURCHES IN BRIEF
Ccee: plenary session on new evangelisationThe next Plenary Assembly of the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE) will take place, from Thursday 29 September to Sunday 2 October in Tirana (Albania), at the invitation of the Metropolitan Archbishop of Tirana and President of the Albanian Bishops’ Conference, Mgr Rrok Mirdita. According to CCEE, confirmation of the importance the meeting holds for the country is shown by the desire of the President of the Republic of Albania, Mr Bamir Myrteza Topi, to meet the European prelates on Friday 30 September and the announced presence of the Prime Minister, Mr Sali Ram Berisha, at the opening of the meeting. In the year of CCEE’s 40th anniversary (1971-2011), which will be marked by a gathering in Rome on 22 November, the Presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe members of CCEE will elect the new CCEE Presidency for the quinquennial period 2011-2016. With a view to defining the contribution of Europe’s Bishops’ Conferences to the next Synod of Bishops on the theme of the New Evangelisation summoned by Pope Benedict XVI and scheduled for October 2012 in the Vatican, CCEE has sent a questionnaire to the Bishops’ Conferences in order to collect ideas and proposals. In Tirana, reflection on the theme will be entrusted to Jean Luc Moens, former co-ordinator of the experience of city missions in European capitals, who will have the task of summarising the responses received by CCEE in these weeks, and to Mgr Salvatore Fisichella, President of the Vatican dicastery for Promoting New Evangelisation. The second part of the meeting – on CCEE’s service to the Church in Europe – will present the activities of the various CCEE Commissions: CEEM; Caritas in veritate; Catechesis, school and university; and of the European Vocations Service. In the course of the meeting, CCEE’s agenda and activities for 2012 will be discussed and members of the Organising Committee for the 2nd European Social Days organised along with COMECE and scheduled for 2013 will be appointed. There will also be a presentation on Eurocathinfo.eu, the Institutional Information Portal of the Bishops’ Conferences in Europe (on-line by the end of the year), and CCEE’s Intranet. Part of the work will then be devoted to dialogue with the European institutions (the European Union and the Council of Europe) with contributions from Mgr André Dupuy, Apostolic Nuncio to the EU; Mgr Aldo Giordano, Permanent Observer at the Council of Europe; and Mgr Piotr Mazurkiewicz, COMECE General Secretary. The Plenary will be an opportunity also to listen to a presentation about the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, and presidents will receive some brief reports on recent visits undertaken by Pope Benedict XVI.Ccee: meeting of university pastoral directorsThe University Pastoral Care at the Service of the New Evangelisation will be the focus of the meeting of the national delegates for university pastoral care of Europe’s Bishops’ Conferences, who will meet in Madrid from 16 to 18 September. The annual meeting organised by CCEE will take place at the invitation of Mgr Agustín Cortés Soriano, Bishop of Sant Feliu de Llobregat and delegate for university pastoral care of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference. With contributions from Mgr Sergio Lanza, theologian and general assistant at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, and Mgr Nikola Eterovic, General Secretary of the Synod of Bishops, participants intend to make their contribution to the XIII Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops (Vatican City, 7-28 October 2012) whose focus will be on the theme of the New Evangelisation. Reflection will focus on the situation of university pastoral care in the respective countries and on practical proposals at European level also in the light of the recent WYD and of the Congress held in Munich last January. The meeting will kick off on 16 September with the greetings of Mgr Soriano and of Mgr Marek Jêdraszewski, President of the University Section of the CCEE “Catechesis, School and University” Commission. Mgr. Lorenzo Leuzzi, Secretary of the above-mentioned section, will provide an introduction to the work.Hungary: the bishops’ appeal for a new census During the autumn congress of the Magiar Bishops’ Conference (MKPK) the bishops called upon Hungarian faithful to express their identity as Catholics and their adhesion to the Catholic religion in the questions on religious themes that are contained in the statistical census that will be carried out in Hungary the coming month of October. The Conference, that held its meeting past September 6-7, attended by the new Apostolic nuncio to Budapest Msgr. Alberto Bottari de Castello, addressed the problems linked to Youth Pastoral Care of the Roma, notably in the areas of education and formation, for which new initiatives are planned (foster homes, kindergartens, study areas) in dioceses with the largest Roma communities. The program of the celebrations for the 80th anniversary of Caritas Hungary and the preparations for the Synod of the Bishops, whose 13th General Assembly will take place in Rome in October 2012, on the theme of the new evangelization, will be preceded by various events across 12 European countries including Budapest.
