CHURCHES IN BRIEF
Spain: Study Centre on women inside the Church As of the beginning of the academic year 2013-2014 Spain’s first Study Centre on Women Inside the Church will become operative within the archdiocese of Granada. The diocese initiative dedicated to women consists in a research and support centre. The archbishop of Granada, Monsignor Javier Martínez, has signed the statute of the Study Centre “Maryam”, whose mission is that of promoting and disseminating a Christian understanding of women. The initiative will be up and running in mid October. It draws inspiration from the guidelines proposed by Pope Francis in his return flight from Brazil’s WYD, when he said that “an in-depth theology on women is needed inside the Church”. The purpose of the Centre is to provide areas for reflection and research on women, on their identity and vocation, along with concrete support and accompaniment to women. “In harmony with Church Magisterium – was made known by the diocese of Granada -, all the areas of life will be covered, along with the context of the present dominating culture of the ideologies that characterise it. The new Centre is intended as a new area of freedom in contemporary society, in the fullest sense of the term”. At the same time it will be ensured that the studies and activities may be recognized by Spanish or foreign universities or by bodies and institutions that share the same goals of the Centre. The new Centre – marked by interdisciplinary feature – will avail itself of a coordinating team, an academic committee and a college of professors.Denmark: 16thousand crosses for unborn children16thousand one meter-tall white crosses stand aligned on a kilometre-long field at a short distance from the Danish city of Hedensted. They can be seen from the E45 highway that runs across Denmark for its whole length. The crosses were planted Saturday September 21 by hundreds of volunteers from the association “Retten til liv” (Right to Living). They are meant to symbolize the victims of abortion in Denmark in 2013. “With this event the organization wants to visualize the tragic consequences of abortion, rendering to dead children the tribute they never received, and to call upon the Danish people to put an end to this madness”, said Ellen Højlund Wibe, spokesperson of the anti-abortionist association. “Sixteen thousand are the children to whom every year we deny the right to life”. Abortion is “considered a human right. It’s described as individual freedom. But this freedom has not been extended to these unborn children” is stated in the manifesto published on the website of the initiative (16000.dk). According to estimates released by the association, 770,000 Danish children have lost their lives in an abortion since it became legal 40 years ago. Czech Republic: beatification process of Fr. Toufar launchedA diocesan level of the beatification process of Fr. Josef Toufar, martyred by the communist regime in 1950, has started in the diocese of Hradec Králové, Czech republic, under the guidance of postulator Tomás Petrácek, historian and university docent. Fr. Toufar was brutally tortured in a communist prison where he was taken by the police after the Èího miracle when during a church service held on the third Sunday of Advent in 1949 in the Church of the Assumption of Virgin Mary several witnesses noticed that a half-meter long iron cross standing on the main altar moved several times on its own, without any human interference. Fr. Toufar recorded the testimonies of 19 witnesses and soon after the Czechoslovak National Security Corps arrived to the village to examine the church. The miracle that could not be explained any natural way was misused by the communist authorities for vast antireligious repressions all over the country. Fr. Toufar was tortured and died during the investigation of the event and his death was reported to his family only four years later. According to Milos Dolezal, author of his biography, Josef Toufar “wasn’t extraordinarily gifted preacher, he wasn’t a sportsman, nor an intellectual. But he was a fool for Christ… He unstancably followed Christ with his gifts and weaknesses, finding power in God, in prayer”. His death of martyr inspired lives of many people, which was admitted even by his torturers. “That Toufar has made believers out of common inhabitants”, commented by Hoskovec, regional inspector of the Communist Party.
