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John Paul II’s relations with Europe and with the CCEE (Council of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe), and the challenges currently posed by the continent to the Church, in the light of the post-synodal document “Ecclesia in Europa”, published in June, were at the centre of the keynote address with which the president of the CCEE, Bishop Amédée Grab , opened the Council’s plenary assembly in Vilnius (Lithuania) on 2 October; the assembly, attended by the presidents of the European episcopal conferences, will end on 5 October. New evangelization of the continent, greater cooperation of the Church in Europe with those of other continents, promotion of ecumenical and interreligious dialogue: these were the main challenges described by Msgr. Grab. We are glad to devote the first page of this number of SirEurope to his intervention. “Prophet of a new Europe”: that’s how Msgr. Grab defined the Pope, who with his over 700 interventions on the theme has constantly appealed to the “continent fertilised by Christianity” to “make its Christian heritage bear fruit”. With John Paul II, the new season of the CCEE said Msgr. Grab was also inaugurated and its task of “service to the new evangelization” relaunched through “the promotion of ever closer communion between the dioceses and the episcopal conferences”. Progress made. According to Grab, “the exchange between East and West has grown within catholicity in the years after 1989”; we need however he said – to “examine together the challenge of secularisation and religious pluralism, issues “common to all our countries”. Noting the “reflection on the need for a renewal of ecumenical structures begun by KEK (Conference of the Churches of Europe) and the WCC (World Council of Churches), Msgr. Grab declared that it was undoubtedly “a question also addressed to the Catholic Church”. Current challenges. First, the re-evangelization of Europe in a scenario characterised by “worrying signals” loss of memory, fear of the future, weakening of solidarity” and, at the same time, signs of hope growth of civil and political Europe, service of parishes and ecclesial movements, progress in ecumenism”. Second, the relation of the Church in Europe with those of the other continents, beginning with collaboration with CELAM (Latin-American Episcopal Council) in such fields as “vocations and the exchange of priests, migrations, the support of pastoral activities and ecumenical projects”. On the agenda of the plenary assembly is discussion of “a proposed symposium between the bishops of Africa and the bishops of Europe”, announced Grab, remarking on our continent’s incapacity to offer “positive political solutions to the grave tensions in the Middle East” in recent months. Expressing the hope that Europe would “responsibly fulfil its own role within the global order” and referring to the recent conflict in Iraq, Grab said: “I ask myself whether the CCEE should not begin a regular exchange with the USA”. As for the process of European reunification and the imminent opening of the Intergovernmental Conference in Rome (4 October), the CCEE president stressed that “Europe cannot repudiate its Christian identity” and announced the possibility of the assembly of European bishops sending a message to the summit. Evangelization and pastoral ministry. “The power of the proclamation of the Gospel”, he declared, would be “more effective if linked to the witness of a profound communion in the Church” which he defined as the “organic integration of legitimate diversities”. Meanwhile, “as the process of the Charta oecumenica continues” and “reflection is beginning on a third European ecumenical assembly, after Basel (1989) and Graz (1997)”, Msgr. Grab announced that one of the questions to be tackled by the assembly is the possible establishment of a commission with the task of “accompanying dialogue with the other faiths, in particular with Islam and Buddhism”.
