CHURCHES IN BRIEF
Serbia: anniversary of the archdiocese of Belgrade Solemn celebrations marking the 90th anniversary of the restoration of the archdiocese of Belgrade will take place in the Christ the King Cathedral of the Serbian capital on Sunday October 26 presided over by the cardinal of Sarajevo Vinko Puljic, with the motto “Our birth”. For the occasion will be also commemorated the centenary of the concordat between the Holy See and the then Kingdom of Serbia. In addition to numerous pilgrims from across the archdiocese and from other Catholic dioceses in Serbia, the event will be attended by faithful from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia, along with representatives of civil authorities, and dignitaries from the Serbian Orthodox Church. In his pastoral letter “Without memory we are like a tree without roots”, written for the anniversary, the archbishop of Belgrade Msgr. Stanislav Hocevar, recalled “the rapid development of the Christian community on the Serbian territory”, “considering that in the fourth century the archdiocese included at least other five dioceses”. The bishop underlined that “the first written document bearing the name of Belgrade is a pontifical document”. Msgr. Hocevar highlighted the importance of “peaceful coexistence as a bastion against bloody conflicts, as the ones taking place in the Middle East today”. Spain: the Church of Huelva near the workers The Church of Huelva is close to the families of workers for the “Ence” company. The diocese views with concern and apprehension the reality of the district where unemployment rates in the second semester of 2014 rose to 28.1%. “We have seen with our own eyes – states a note of the dioceses -the situation of some 300 workers from the Ence company, that occupies indirectly 3 thousand workers in the district of Huelva; these families are threatened by measures that would plunge them into a state of desperation and an uncertain future, experiencing hopelessness before company measures that cause serious social frictions”. The Church of Huelva invites “all stakeholders, starting with those responsible at social level – enterprises, workers and public administrations – to “acknowledge the seriousness of the situation, which affects a large, important area of production in our district. The achievement of dialogue-initiated solutions, based on shared determination for the common good, demands an inescapable responsibility that will ensure the necessary stability for the development of future prospects and plausible expectations”. For the diocese, “the suffering of workers, of their families and of all those who are indirectly hit by this situation, is the suffering of the Church of Huelva; with this shared uncertainty we look at God and place that uncertainty in His hands, while asking all social service bodies to engage in a fruitful process thereby preventing the tragedy of unemployment for these families and prompting the development of a future of hope in our province”. Germany-Austria: 200 thousand theology books saved Over 200 thousand books that previously belonged to the library in the Faculty of Philosophy and Theology of the Salesians of Don Bosco in Benediktbeuern, High Bavaria, are planned to be transferred to the Cistercian university of Heilingenkreuz in Vienna, Austria. After the decision to shut down the faculty, linked to the Katholische Stiftungsfachhochschule München, the Catholic University for Social work and Pedagogy, the Salesians were worried that the academic world and its scholars would loose their precious library. Thus all the volumes were donated to the Cistercian library in Vienna. However, since construction works to expand the site are funded only through offerings, the process followed a very slow pace. The books, packed away by a company in Dortmund that will handle the transfer, were placed in the premises of the ex farm of Benediktbeuern. Transport should be completed by next Christmas. The University Centre of the city of High Bavaria has not abandoned its formative role, but in order to strengthen its social and educational role, typical of Salesian pastoral care, it renounced the faculty of philosophy and theology to focus on the aspect of training and cultural experience of the youths.
