In a land without adults

Moldavia is a country with an Orthodox majority (95%). It has a population of 4,300,000. There are only some 20,000 Catholics, all of them belonging to the country’s single diocese, Chisinau. As its bishop Msgr. ANTONIO COSA explains , “the diocese is busily organizing its structures. We now have 15 parishes of Latin rite and one of oriental rite”. The bishop, who is also Apostolic Administrator of Moldavia, says “the religious identity of the faithful, characterized by a majority Polish ethnic component, to which Catholics of German, Ukrainian, Latvian and Lithuanian origin are added, is lively and variegated. There’s also an English and Italian component for whom we celebrate a mass each month in their respective national languages”. The language spoken in the country is Moldovan, “which is really – explains Monsignor Cosa – Romanian”. During the plenary assembly of the CCEE (Council of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe), held at Fatima from 3 to 7 October, the diocese of Chisinau and the archdiocese of the Principality of Monaco became members of the CCEE, which now comprises 36 members. “FORCES” OF THE CHURCH. “We now have 28 priests engaged in pastoral activity, most of them Romanians; of these 9 are fidei donum and 3 are conventual Franciscans from the St. Joseph Province of Moldavia”. But the Moldovian Catholic Church can also count on the assistance of priests from geographically distant dioceses: “the head of our Caritas agency is an Austrian, and various Italians help in social activities, in particular with street children”. The “forces” of the Church further comprise 50 nuns of 12 congregations involved in pastoral activities on the territory; 3 seminarians are studying in the country; a further 7 are studying in Poland. MASS EMIGRATION. “The Russian Orthodox Church has a strong presence in Moldavia – continues Msgr. Cosa – and membership of the Romanian Orthodox Church is also high. This division of the Church is reflected in the government and in parliament and, in the last analysis, is society as a whole. In Moldavia, perhaps the only one still led by a Communist President, society is divided between diehards who nostalgically dream of a return to the past – especially the elderly – and those who look with hope to Europe, in particular the young”. “One of the major social problems – underlines the Bishop of Chisinau – is mass emigration to the West: 25% of the Moldavian population now live abroad, either in employment or looking for work. The repatriated earnings of workers abroad represent almost 25% of GNP. Emigration penalizes our country and causes instability or even the break up of many families. In Moldavia jobs are not lacking, but it’s the wages that are inadequate. So people who remain in the country are forced to have at least two jobs. If they are fathers or mothers, it’s clear they hardly have any free time left and their prolonged absence from home has negative consequences on the education of their children”. PRIORITIES. The crucial problem of Moldavian society, according to the bishop, consists in the lack of the intermediate age group: “adults in search of work leave the country; the elderly, instead of being grandparents, deputise for them as parents to their own grandchildren, who, once they have completed their schooling, try in turn to emigrate”. In this situation “large numbers of elderly people are in need of assistance; they are often abandoned and destitute. So children and the elderly are the prime social emergencies in which our Church is most involved, siphoning off time and resources from more strictly pastoral activities”, explains the bishop. “Our churches in fact seem to have become agencies of humanitarian assistance; it’s a task we gladly perform but it doesn’t leave us much time to devote to activities of spiritual and religious formation”. The Moldavian Church is relatively young: “in 1990 – says Cosa – there was just one parish in the country. Since then we have made big strides: we have built churches, religious centres, convents, but a lot more still needs to be done. We would like to create a Catholic school, other than the few parish nursery schools run by Sisters and attended by Catholic children and those of other faiths. It would be important to tackle the educational challenge of the young with a high level spiritual and moral educational proposal”. According to the bishop “it’s a mission that can wait no longer. Our youngsters receive a good cultural education at school, but we need to create and preserve in them a strong religious identity that may inspire them in their choice of lifestyles. Each year we promote a youth meeting in August and succeed in bringing together 500/600 youth, but a deeper and territorially more widespread effort is needed”.