CHURCHES IN BRIEF
Belarus: new website for ecclesial tourism The Bishops’ Conference of Belarus launched a new website dedicated to pilgrimages. The purpose of the website www.catholicpilgrim.by is to provide full information on pilgrimage sites, with their history and their present context, a photo album, the list of liturgical services and dates of pilgrimages nationwide and at diocesan level, practical recommendations for insurance and planning of pilgrimages and various materials for reflection and spiritual preparation. The coordinators of the website hope that this information service will help to increase interest in the so-called “ecclesial tourism”, whereby “the knowledge of the Church and its history meets the spiritual aspects of people’s daily lives and their development.” A special section is dedicated to pilgrimages abroad, especially in Rome, the Vatican and the Holy Land. Czech Republic: exhibition “Dictatorship versus Hope” “Dictatorship versus Hope” is the title of an exhibition which will remain open until June 30 in the gallery of the Diocese of Hradec Kralove. The project, coordinated in collaboration with the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes and the Archive Office of the Presidency of the Czech Republic, is organized as a tour that is presented in various parts of the country. “The exhibition presents one of the most tragic – but also inspiring -stages on the presence of the Catholic Church in the Czech and Slovakian lands during the communist regime,” said the curators of the project. Communist repressive measures against the Church were among the hardest and most persistent, since the totalitarian regime adopted a variety of tools to “implement the isolation and continuous annihilation of the Church and its representatives.” For more information: www.ustrcr.cz Portugal: “Strengthening religious support to the sick” The National Coordination of Hospital Chaplaincies (CNCH), together with the respective heads of Portuguese dioceses, aims to strengthen the quality of the spiritual and religious assistance to the sick. In a statement, the Catholic agency stressed the need for this service to become “an essential part of a wider and general project of assistance to people in a state of suffering”. During the debate on this theme, held in Fatima, Msgr. Manuel Linda, integrating bishops of the Bishops’ Commission for Social Pastoral Care, highlighted “the importance of the Church’s presence in hospital environments, and a specific assistance organization, in order to be as close as possible close to those directly living the experience of their sickness and pain”. “The Church must enhance health professionals linked to health and, in this context, those who dedicate themselves to the mission of spiritual and religious assistance, showing its specificity in an exciting and purposeful way”, he added. According to the leaders of CNCH it is essential “to invest in the joint implementation of this service with other areas of support and assistance, ensuring appropriate technical, theological and human formation of chaplains and spiritual assistants, as well as in the preparation of volunteers and other workers operating in this field”. From this perspective, the Catholic organization has presented the creation of an “I.T. platform that will facilitate and disseminate to the public the activity of hospital assistants”. Recently the Coordination published a book titled “The Church at the service of health – Pastoral guidelines for Catholic spiritual and religious assistance,” written by Father Fernando Sampaio, coordinator of the hospital centre of north Lisbon.
