CHURCHES IN BRIEF
France: Baptism for 5 thousand at Easter 5 thousand youths will be baptized in France during the celebrations of the Easter Vigil (Saturday March 30) and the Easter Mass. In releasing the news, the French Bishops’ Conference underlined that 3220 adults will receive the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist. Most of them are 25-30 year-olds. However, compared to 2011, 18-20 year old catechumens increased by 45%, which shows that young people are attracted by Christian faith. The figures released by French Bishops show that 45.4% come from a "traditionally Christian-Catholic background". But there is also an increase in the percentage of those (42%) who come from families without a specific religious tradition, amounting to 1349 people. Adults will be joined by 1463 adolescents (589 boys and 874 girls aged 13-18) who will be baptized on Easter, some of whom will receive the Eucharist and Confirmation. 10 330 people (most of whom lay people, 78% -) will accompany the catechumens along this particular faith journey. The Bishops’ Conference made known that each year thousands of teenagers (mostly 13 year-olds) receive the sacrament of Confirmation. This occurs during the course of the entire liturgical year and through the local bishop. In 2011 (the last figures recorded by the Bishops’ Conference), 36.824 teenagers received the sacrament of Confirmation.Italy: CEI, "close to the youths" beyond the crisis "In the ongoing crisis, whose roots are anthropological as well as economic, the next generations risk paying the highest price, since they are the object of the uncertainties of our times". The phrase is contained in a message released March 25 by the president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI) for the 89th Day of Catholic Universities, scheduled to take place April 14 on the theme: "With the new generations beyond the crisis". "The weakening of family-related themes, the erosion of the social fabric, the growing difficulties in accessing the job market and having a family". For Italian bishops these are the causes "of widespread feelings of loss and disorientation, especially among youths", while "extending our glance to the future, nurturing hope along with generous dedication, are feelings that pertain to young people. In the darkest times in history, the young generations always gave a decisive contribution to overcome stumbling blocks, conflicts and failures". The bishops thus highlighted the importance "of accompanying them" through "understanding", "sharing their expectations and the difficulties they face today". This has always been the mission of the Catholic University, but today this mission is even greater – states the message – since loving the young generations means helping them to develop on solid grounds, to cultivate self-confidence and self-assurance, to find the way to bring individual talents to fruition". "Young people can find in qualified academic education and in the proposal of the integral growth of the human person, offered by the Catholic University, the pillars that prevent discouragement when faced with the depressing consequences of the crisis, to recover a positive dynamism that will transform the present situation in an opportunity for personal and social growth".Portugal: beware of political messianism In the homily that inaugurated celebrations for the Holy Week the cardinal-patriarch, Monsignor José Policarpo, declared: "the Easter of Jesus should not be considered the concretization of political hopes, nor should it be lived as an enthusiastic reaction of human sentiments. First of all it’s an answer that regards eternity". The mystery of the Cross fulfils prophecies, but it also denounces Messianic enthusiasms marked by political expectations: "the enthusiasm of the pilgrims that received Jesus as a messianic king was in itself ambiguous", explained the bishop-primate of Lisbon. "For some he brought hopes grounded in faith, for others he transmitted a political utopia directed at freedom from oppressors. Still, nobody accepted that his mission was that of a suffering Servant". For the president of the Portuguese Bishops’ Conference (CEP) the evocation of Christ’s death and resurrection must invite Catholics to purify themselves from sin and imperfection, for "a fundamental need of life conversion, marked by the acceptance of forms of human suffering, which are part of human existence". "Every time we reject pain we are unable to celebrate Easter as it should. Only Jesus teaches us by offering our suffering we overcome it and give it a meaning". Concluded Msgr. Policarpo: "We must open ourselves to the redeeming force that comes from this understanding, in the certainty that only at the end of our pilgrimage on earth, after having experienced the purification of death, after having offered our life to earn a new life, will we be able to say that we have truly entered the Easter of Jesus".
