“A certain malaise”

At the end of the recent meeting of the permanent Council of the Portuguese Bishops’ Conference (CEP) in Fatima, the secretary, Monsignor CARLOS AZEVEDO , lamented the “lack of dialogue” in the relations of the Portuguese government with the Catholic Church. He admitted a certain malaise in the accumulation of situations that remain unresolved. In particular, the bishops refer to the “problems regarding education, social solidarity, the mass media, the spiritual accompaniment of the sick and of prison inmates, support for families and for childbirth, and the absence of state aid in the construction of places of worship”. SECULARISM WITHOUT FUTURE. At the core of the CEP’s “concerns” are especially “the secular mentality and the delays in the implementation of the Concordat signed in 2004”: the auxiliary bishop of Lisbon pointed out that “the premises have still to be found for a dialogue that may lead to the adaptation to the new juridical configuration prescribed by the Concordat. This has left specific sectors still waiting for their proper regulation, as in the case of prison and hospital chaplaincies”. On the other hand – continues the bishop – “neither the joint Commission, nor the bilateral Commission have yet to meet, and the determination of the government to implement the recent law on religious freedom has relegated to second place everything that still needs to be done to put into practice the terms of the Concordat”. Within Portuguese society the bishops also criticise the presence of an intransigent minority profoundly attached to an antiquated social model, whose negative consequences are all too evident in Portugal’s history, a model that claims to repudiate the religious dimension of society”. “Yet this dimension – pointed out Bishop Azevedo – forms an integral part of the fullness of the human being; it is essential for its harmony; and any State that possesses a social conscience cannot be guided by the influence of secular currents devoid of any future”. “We agree that states are secular; but they must respect the national reality and the pluralism expressed by the religious component of society”. EDUCATION AND FREEDOM OF INFORMATION. The secretary of the CEP also said he was concerned by the “lack of freedom of information and by the prejudice against the regional press, much of which is Christian in inspiration and able to play an important role in the promotion of social harmony”. In response to the legislative projects announced by the government, he said that “intervening on the editorial status of the mass media constitutes an attack on freedom of information”. With regard to the delicate situation of the Associations of teachers and lectors (ATL) the bishops fear that the decision to prolong school hours and the lack of accords on the matter will lead to thousands of teachers being sacked”. “It is the parents – said Father LINO MAIO , President of the National Confederation of Institutions of Solidarity – that must choose between the prolongation of school hours proposed by the state schools and the ATL’s of our private institutions of social solidarity”. In the area of education the permanent Council of the Portuguese Bishops pointed out “the lack of support for Catholic schools”, indicating that “it would be of fundamental importance to grant economic benefits to families, to enable them to choose to enrol their own children in the schools in which they think they would best be educated”. “The current Minister of Education has not even replied to the requests made by the episcopal Commission of education regarding the teaching of religion in schools”. Not being able to brush under the carpet the reality of all these “concerns”, a delegation of bishops led by Msgr. Policarpo officially met the Portuguese Prime Minister José Socrates to express to him directly “the social malaise created after the signing of the Concordat”, and to ask that “the legislative gap be filled as rapidly as possible with new and effective measures”.