With the words of faith” “

The presidents of the 34 episcopal conference that form part of the CCEE (Council of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe) met in Sarajevo from 3 to 6 October. We sounded out the views of some of them on questions on the agenda. Proposing the faith to outsiders. “Today one of the main tasks of evangelization is to form believers by helping them to build real Christian communities”, because in the years to come “we’ll have a need for strong, living, praying communities: communities that listen to the Word of God, that welcome strangers, that are missionary and open to the wider territory”. Archbishop Jean-Pierre Ricard of Bordeaux, president of the French Episcopal Conference, is convinced that Europe requires “a new phase of evangelization and inculturation of the Gospel”. “It’s not enough to propose the faith to those knocking at our door – he declared -; we need to reach those who don’t knock or those who have stopped doing so”. The archbishop suggested various possible spheres and methods: “A ‘word’ of the Church in the public square to respond to people’s need for points of references”; a greater “commitment of Christian communities wherever man is suffering and despised; a cultural approach to faith. “Presence and word are the two components of evangelization”, but after the time of discreet presence “today the importance of the word, of an explicit proclamation, is being emphasized far more”. Churches in dialogue with politicians. Why not promote a meeting between leaders of the Christian churches of Europe and politicians? The proposal was made by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, president of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, who said he was “profoundly convinced that as European Churches we must seek an opportunity for conducting a structured debate with politicians and promote a forum for establishing a relationship with them. Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor recommended, however, that such a meeting “should not be political, but rather a meeting between pastors and professionals: an occasion for the heart of the pastor to speak to the heart of the politician in honesty and sincerity”. In the dialogue between Churches and politicians the Cardinal lists four ethical areas on which discussion should be focused: the dignity of the human person “which must place the European institutions and the European States in the vanguard in terms of legislation, social policies and planning”; the family; the religious sense innate in the European population; and the promotion of justice and peace, because it is “absolutely crucial” to make “the voice of the Church distinctly” heard today. Vocations in Europe: “who shall go for us?”. “Almost half of all the candidates to the priesthood in Europe come from Poland and Italy: how come?”. And how can we speak of specific vocations without the vocation of the laity or the vocation to matrimony being devalued?”. These are some of the questions posed by Bishop Alois Kothgasser of Innsbruck and CCEE delegate for vocational ministry. “Before a young person finally opts for the form of life proposed by the Gospel – he said – the way is long. This decision must have reached a certain maturity before the candidate enters a seminary or novitiate”. Bishop Kothgasser expressed the Church’s concern about the lack of vocations in Europe. “The prophet Isaiah – he said – listens to the voice of the Lord who asks: Whom shall I send? Who shall go for us? This question put by God is also a matter of concern to bishops today”. “At a time when all Christians – he added – want to live their vocation to holiness and evangelization, there’s a greater, and not a lesser, need for specific vocations to the priesthood and to the consecrated life”. Parishes and movements. “The territory remains essential for a recognition of a collective identity. Even in a world characterized by extreme mobility, man must live somewhere and therefore the territorial community of faith is most in a position to ensure the continuity of the Christian message”. In tackling the question of the relation between the new movements and the parish communities, Cardinal Adrianus Johannes Simonis, primate of Holland, reconfirmed the centrality of the parish for Christianity in Europe. However, he added, “if hitherto this represented the best infrastructure to respond to the religious interest and commitment of man”, today the presence of the movements is also offering other opportunities. But some conditions need to be met: “In proportion as the new communities wish to realize a community of faith – said Cardinal Simonis – they cannot enclose themselves in their own self-sufficiency and keep their distance from the great tasks of the Church in our time”. Otherwise they would run the risk of “isolating themselves from everything that does not belong to their own experience” and would very soon lose their involvement in the local Christian community. “The need to be situated in the local Church (with all its circumstances) – added the cardinal – is an important criterion for the achievement of a balanced spiritual life and a witness of faith that is at once personal and community-based”. Ecumenism: the hope of full communion. “It’s especially Christians living in mixed marriages who suffer the consequences of the division of the Church and who urge us to make further steps towards unity”. So said Bishop Heinrich Mussinghoff of Aachen. The first ecumenical day will be held in Berlin at the end of May 2003: it will represent for Germany – said the bishop – an occasion for “strengthening cooperation and common witness between the Christians of the various confessions in our country”. On the proposal of representatives of the evangelic churches to invite Catholics to the evangelic liturgy and the request made to the Catholic Church to permit Protestants to participate in the Eucharist, Mussinghoff explained: “The eucharistic celebration is not only a liturgical act: it simultaneously integrates, condenses and fosters the whole Christian life and the ecclesial community”. It follows that “the dynamism of baptism in our ecumenical relations is not yet sufficiently developed to permit a shared celebration of the eucharist. With the words ‘not yet’ – added Mussinghoff – we express the hope that this dynamism in our Churches may not diminish and may lead us to the achievement of unity”. Faith and culture. In Italy too, in spite of the “strong” social presence of the Church, there’s a risk of a “cultural context being formed in which the faith is ever more marginal and ever less plausible”. The point was made by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, president of the Italian Episcopal Conference. In spite of the Church’s strong social presence in Italy, there’s also – he noted – “a certain weakening of its influence on culture and that’s why a specific cultural commitment seems all the more necessary”. According to Ruini, if faith disappears, Christian culture “is in turn destined to become progressively weaker”. That’s why “it’s essential to foster the enormous Christian cultural heritage bequeathed to us by history”. “What’s needed – concluded Ruini – is a pastoral ministry of intelligence, especially aimed at giving believers the ‘appetite to understand'”. Proposals for the future constitutional treaty of the EU. The Christian Churches of Europe in recent days sent a document to the president of the Convention on the future of Europe, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, in which they ask for a specific recognition of the churches in the future constitutional treaty of the European Union (cf. SirEurope no. 35 of 3 October 2002). News of the submission of this document was given by the general secretary of COMECE (Commission of the episcopates of the European Community), Msgr. Noël Treanor, who signed it together with the assistant general secretary of the KEK (Conference of the European Churches), Keith Jenkins. The Churches are asking the Convention to insert the following pledge in the treaty now being prepared: “The European Union shall recognize and respect the right of the churches and religious communities to organza themselves freely in conformity with the national laws, their convictions and statutes, and to pursue their own religious aims in respect for fundamental rights”. Moreover, “the European Union shall respect the specific identity and contribution to public life of the churches and religious communities and shall maintain a structured dialogue with them”.