The Church faces the situation in the Country

The Diocese of Zilina has recently hosted a symposium on the Pastoral Plan of Catholic Church in Slovakia for 2007-2013, its compliance and outcomes for the forthcoming years. Six chapters focusing on family, youth and socially emarginated people comprise a document about the Church and for the Church, with the main aim to improve the ways of announcing the Gospel in Slovak society and the service to contemporary people. Signs of times. Catholic Church realizes that Slovakia has been changing its “face” quickly in the past few years. Apart from certain negative trends regarding demographic crisis, decrease of number of marriages or growing divorce rate there are also positive tendencies like improvement of living standard of the inhabitants, mobilization and activism of Catholic laity and creation of new Christian communities. Representatives of the Church admit that in the past there were some difficulties to offer an adequate reaction to this development and the Pastoral Plan offers the instruments to “read the situation and react in compliance with it, allowing the Church to engage in a dialogue with contemporary world”.Family in the first line. According to bishop Milan Chautur, president of the Council for Family of the Bishops´conference of Slovakia, there are three crucial problems that contemporary families have to face: isolation – mainly in big cities, the fact that young pairs get married without proper preparation, and problems regarding various types of addictions, violence and bad social situation. Mons. Chautur sees possible solutions in special focus on certain types of families – those marked by practical atheism, incomplete families, families indifferent to faith as well as those who search for spiritual dimension in their lives and desire to share it with others within Catholic communities. “If the pastoral care for families should have some system, there needs to be an institution in each diocese that would cover all pro-family activities,” emphasizes the prelate, adding that this idea has already found a sound response in several Slovak dioceses. In regard to pre-marriage pastoral care he pointed to a “very successful manual for those who intend to get married that has been published,” and to the importance of preparation courses including opportunity to discuss important marriage and family topics with experts in psychology, medicine or law. Service to people in need. One of the priorities of the Pastoral Plan aiming to help the emarginated groups of people was to develop charitable organizations and their activities, and to make the society more sensitive and attentive towards the people in need. “We have come to very interesting conclusions in this regard,” says Mons. Peter Rusnák, Greek Catholic eparch of Bratislava: “We often witness indifference towards the needy inside the Church, our own faithful are not willing to help them, while people who are not a part of the Catholic Church have many fruitful activities helping on this field. We need to pay more attention to searching for volunteers and collaborators on parish and diocesan level, in order to create a net that would be beneficial for those in need of our services.” In regard to legislation, the Church realizes the need to create a continuous conception of social aid in a close cooperation with state authorities. “Our potential is great and we need to get the most of it,” concludes Mons. Rusnák. Education to values and responsibility. “Work with young people who live their faith on everyday basis is easy, the schools and courses for the animators grow in quantity as well as in quality. What we need to improve is the contact with those who are distant from the Church, formation of these groups of people,” explains Ondrej Chrvala, secretary of the Council for Youth and Universities. Pastoral plan puts emphasis on formation of diocesan youth coordinators and now there are only two-three dioceses left where this system hasn´t been established yet. We welcome the growing number of diocesan youth centers and also the fact that more and more priests focus on this group of faithful as a priority of their pastoral care, to educate youth in values and responsible approach to life. Thus, what are the general outcomes of the Pastoral Plan? “In my opinion it has brought a respect towards reality. Willingness to communicate freely about how to serve and communicate better. Our concept prefers pastoral care based on relations – mainly in small groups and communities. It differentiates and searches for individual approach to people,” concludes bishop Tomás Galis, president of the Council for Youth and University.