CHURCHES IN BRIEF
Germany: the family, a "faith community" The German Catholic Church celebrated Family Sunday yesterday. The event was launched in Germany back in 1976 to raise the awareness of the Church and society about the roles and purposes of marriage and the family. This year, the event focussed on the family as a place of faith. "Families are little communities of people who are all engaged in a joint search for the right direction in their lives", said mgr. Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, president of the Commission for Marriage and the Family of the German Bishops Conference (Dbk). "The families’ role is to create a place in which personal faith is experienced, preserved and tested. So the family also becomes an important community of faith, a ‘little Church’", the bishop went on. A role, he admitted, "that is often hard" but, instead of blaming the difficult times and the loss of the Christian culture of the family, "we should ask ourselves how to support the families" and how to "make them feel accepted and understood". "Not least because of such questions", mgr. Tebartz-van Elst concluded, Family Sundays intend to be "an opportunity and an idea for a renewed commitment". For Msgr. Robert Zollitsch, President of the Bishops’ Conference (DBK), "the quality of marital relationships is very important for one’s will to start a family with children. This is practically disregarded by talks about the decreased birth rate", he accused. The archbishop of Freiburg highlighted "the huge social importance of marriage" and criticised the fact that "the high human, psychic as well as financial price of a failed marriage is practically disregarded by public opinion". So "the mentality should change"; in other words, people should learn to "communicate with mutual respect, forgive each other, move in the same direction". In addition, mgr. Zollitsch mentioned that there are lots of church-run marriage and family counselling centres.Spain: the "Court of the Gentiles" in Orihuela-Alicante "Can we speak of God’" The Spanish diocese of Orihuela-Alicante too proposes its own version of the "Court of the Gentiles", organised by the Diocesan Commission for Dialogue between Faith and Culture in partnership with Cardenal Herrera Ceu University and other partners. Meetings will take place in Alicante (from 29th January to 3rd February), Elche (on 4th and 5th February), Orihuela (on 6th February), Villena (from 7th to 9th February) and Elda (from 11th to 16th February), for an "enriching, culturally challenging dialogue between Christians and the so-called distant". The diocese will host many guests from the cultural, social and ecclesial communities. On the occasion, an exhibition called "Contemporary art of Alicante speaking of God" will also be set up to show the importance of works of art when expressing and showing faith. The Municipal Cultural Society of Alicante will host the works of art that are currently in different ecclesial places, as much places of worship as other places. The unveiling ceremony due to take place on 29th January will open a 19-day festival, with debates, culture, art and dialogue. The calendar includes several concerts with intercultural religious songs or modern pieces of church music, film festivals followed by debates, in Villena and Elda.Bulgaria: ecumenical prayer for Christian unity On January 19 in the framework of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, an ecumenical prayer was held in the Armenian Orthodox Holy Mother of God Church in the city of Russe, seat of the diocese of Nicopole (Bulgaria), with the participation of Saint Paul of the Cross Catholic Cathedral, of the Methodist Church and the Baptist Church. The reflection on the day of the Week was the theme of the joint celebration, followed by conferences delivered by the respective pastors. "We have been promoting ecumenical initiatives for the past ten years – said Father Valter Gorra, parish priest of the Catholic Church St. Paul of the Cross in Russe – and I have noticed increasing steps along the path of dialogue. Although obstacles do remain, we must start anew from what unites us and we must learn to respect our reciprocal positions". On the occasion of the Year of Faith Father Gorra invited Baptist pastor Ivajlo Siarov to hold Sunday reflections after Mass on the First Letter of John the Apostle. "Protestants’ in-depth study of Scripture is renown". In this way, the parish priest concluded, "our parishioners will discover a new way of reading the Bible".
