Greece: Cathedral of Saint Denis, restoration still offDespite the damage caused by the 1999 earthquake, further aggravated by the earthquake of January 6th this year, the restoration of the Catholic Cathedral of Saint Denis in Athens, a city’s historical landmark, is still off. This was denounced by the Catholic archbishop of Athens, mgr. Nicolas Foscolos, who has been fighting for years for the restoration of the cathedral, considered damaged by the Greek authorities themselves. Some Orthodox churches have been restored by the government – states the archbishop to SIR – while the restoration of the Catholic cathedral is still off. Why?” To voice his opinion, on January 6th, the day of the earthquake, Foscolos sent a letter to the new Greek Minister of Culture, Michail Liapis, in which he expressed all his “concern for the state in which the cathedral of Saint Denis is” and recalled that “special funds are allocated to the restoration of damaged buildings”.”After the 1999 earthquake – the archbishop wrote in his letter -, we took all the legal steps required for the restoration of the cathedral to be included in the Government’s recovery plan and for such restoration to be carried out as soon as possible, since thousands of devotees attend Mass and many tourists visit the Cathedral, especially in the summer”. “For 8 years – reports mgr. Foscolos -, the Greek Ministry of Culture has been turning a deaf ear to our requests, as it never replied our letters in writing and only made verbal promises, which it never kept”. “An attitude – he concludes – that reasonably also raises doubts on the safety of the people who go to the Cathedral”. In the Nineties, the Cathedral of Saint Denis had undergone a restoration which had been totally funded by the Catholic archdiocese, which had sold some of its property and raised funds and offerings from the congregation. The damage caused by the 1999 earthquake is so extensive that the archdiocese cannot cover its costs.Germany: the sick patient, an individualCard. Karl Lehmann, President of the Bishops conference and bishop of Magonza, warned against “a health system that is guided by economic principles”. “We cannot reach the point where a treatment is limited to what is viewed as strictly necessary from a medical viewpoint”, he declared in Berlin during a congress organized by the Federal German Doctors Association. The Cardinal expressed his concern for “a competition where the winners are those who don’t view the individual in his entirety but rather as a case with a series of diseases”. Cardinal Lehmann criticized “the daily conflicts and the constant adjustments to health politics strategies”, which “hinder the elimination of deficiencies and the solution to new urgencies”. He equally identified “contradictory objectives” within the health system. “On the one side is the intention to implement market mechanisms in the hospitals, on the other side, we find rigorous planning and limited health delivery. This jeopardizes all forms of competition; in fact it is more similar to planned economy”, he underlined. Cardinal Lehmann requested that measures aimed at limiting expenses do not overstep “the human dimension”: “it is necessary to constantly verify whether bureaucratic requirements are indispensable”, he added. “We must not reach the point where human contact and the time to talk are not enough or that they arouse feelings of guilt”, he concluded.Spain: a day of peace and reconciliationA Day of Peace and Reconciliation: it will be held on March 8th by the “John Paul II” International Charity and Volunteer agency at Ucam (Catholic University of Saint Anthony at Murcia), under the patronage of the Papal Council Cor Unum of the Holy See. The event is part of the VII World Days of Charity and Volunteering that will be held in Murcia and Madrid from February 26th to March 9th. One of the purposes of the Day is to stop all conflicts and terrorism, give a chance to reconciliation, and do something for peace. But the key reason behind the event is to pray for the eradication of violence and the promotion of activities that show the will to achieve a peaceful cohabitation of different peoples. In addition, the International Charity and Volunteer agency invites the civil bodies and the population to show, with some outer signs, for instance a white tie or a white cloth, their wish to work for peace and reconciliation between different peoples. The organisers of the Day would also like people to observe one minute’s silence on March 8th. Not only Catholics but also Christians of other confessions and believers of other religions are invited to join the Day.
