Some 40 bishops with special responsibility for education and schooling from 22 European countries met at Bensberg, in Germany, on 16 June, for a seminar on Catholic schools. The meeting, which brought together for the first time bishops from Western and Eastern Europe on the question, was held on the initiative of the CEEC, centre of studies and information founded in 1974, which represents over 38,000 schools and coordinates the work of Catholic schools in 22 European countries, including Belgium, Bosnia, England and Wales, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Croatia, Lithuania, Norway, Austria, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Czech Republic and Hungary. The seminar was chaired by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, president of the Austrian Episcopal Conference and archbishop of Vienna who underlined the role of Catholic schools in society. He also urged delegates to have the courage “openly to say what we live by and for and what we offer to people in all seriousness. For in a pluralist society, characterized by widespread insecurity of values, our identity signifies strength”.
