CHURCHES IN BRIEF
Austria: law on reproductive medicine, “a slippery slope” With 113 votes in favor and 48 against, out of a total of 183 MPs, the Austrian Parliament approved on 21 January, with roll call, a bill on reproductive medicine. The Austrian Bishops’ Conference-OBK immediately and forcefully reiterated its opposition: “The new law on reproductive medicine is an ethical slippery slope that creates more problems than it purports to solve,” said the secretary general of OBK, Peter Shipka: “it is very disturbing and disappointing from the political democratic angle, that such fundamental issues that profoundly affect the lives and rights of children, women and future generations, have been addressed with such a rapid procedure”, said Shipka with reference to expedited procedure of amendment of a law. “From many conversations with political leaders I get the impression that there are large gaps in knowledge on reproductive technology, the limited possibilities of success and the negative impact on women and children”, Shipka said to Kathpress. Switzerland: “The family, the Church on the journey towards the Synod” “Pope Francis encourages us to continue the process of reflection on marriage and the family, themes involving many of us for the good and the less good. No one is exempt!” These were the opening remarks of the letter-appeal that the Swiss Bishops Conference published January 21 to invite the faithful, priests and pastoral workers to participate in the 2015 synodal process. On the occasion of the survey in 2013, Switzerland resulted as one of Europe’s most active countries by contributing more than 25 thousand feedbacks. However – warn the bishops – “the process is far from finished” and the Pope “is encouraging us” to reflect on the “working document” emerged from the first synodal assembly. “We Swiss bishops – reads the letter – encourage the faithful, priests, pastoral workers and all the people involved to continue the synodal process introduced in Switzerland and seek dialogue on open issues”. The deadline for submitting filled out questionnaires to the Secretariat of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conference is 27 March. Materials on the Synodal dialogue are available at www.pastoralkommission.ch. Slovakia: Caritas, an App to help the homeless In Slovakia a wide range of facilities provide material, psychological and spiritual support to the homeless. To facilitate access to the list and to the services which they offer, the National Caritas is launching an application for Android devices. “The service is designed to help not only those who wish to help marginalized people, but also those who are facing a critical situation in their lives, both those who are already homeless and those who are at risk of extreme poverty,” said Radovan Gumulak, secretary general of Caritas Slovakia. According to Juraj Barat, in charge of direct aid to the homeless, in addition to providing all the necessary information about the services available, the App is intended to help people choose and control the final destination of their donations in order to improve transparency and reduce the risk of speculation and misuse of money. Czech Republic: ongoing collection for the sick and indigent people Support to the sick people and to the disabled to mothers with children in situation of crises and other marginalized brackets in need: in a nutshell, these are the goals of the Epiphany collection held, by tradition, in the Czech Republic. During the week some 20thousand groups of cantors, who had collected charity funds in the parishes, from congregations and families across the Country, have concluded their volunteering work. Their commitment is set to continue in the coming weeks, on the web and with text messages. According to estimates, the funds collected during the Epiphany Collection of the present year amount to over 82 million of Czech crowns (over 300 thousand euro) collected last year. The increase compared to the previous year amounts to 1 million Czech crowns. Organizers praise people’s growing interest to help those in need. “Although a portion of the proceeds will be donated to support assistance programs at national and international level, most of the sum will serve at local level to finance projects in the regions where the funds were collected”, said Marek Navratil, main coordinator of the project. Info: www.trikralovasbirka.cz.
