Portugal: children listen to the Bible In order to encourage child Catechism, the Portuguese Catholic Foundation, AIS, Ajuda à Igreja que sofre (Help to the suffering Church) produced an audio-book called “God speaks to his children”. The three CDs, lasting a total of 8 hours, introduce children to 99 passages from the Bible with a modern and attractive approach. “We believe that in this Pauline Year we ought to commemorate two-thousand years since the birth of the Church’s major apostle in the most appropriate way. We must follow his evangelizing example with new communication tools”, AIS officials declared. “Another symbolic reason for this initiative is linked to the forthcoming Bishops Synod that will focus on The Word of God in the life and in the mission of the Church,” they added. Since 1979, AIS has enabled millions of children to access child-designed Bibles. “This audio-book is a concrete example of missionary undertaking and solidarity, since ten children living in Congo will receive the Christian message in their mother tongue, Tshiluba“. “We must not forget that in Asia and in Africa our small bibles are unfortunately the first and only books owned by these children, which enable their literacy in the communities’ meager schools”. Austria: a greater commitment for lifeA greater commitment for life: the claim was reaffirmed by Msgr. Egon Kapellari, bishop of the diocese of Graz announcing the establishment of a fund for pregnant mothers. The fund will initially consist in 50,000 thousand euro per year starting the month of December. In his opening address for the Parish Week of the dioceses of Grazz-Seckau delivered at the Seggau castle, Msgr. Kapellari described the initiative as “a concrete fruit of the Year for Life” in “Stiria”. The bishop recalled the message of the Day of Mittel -European Catholics held in Mariazell in 2004: “Christians support life, the life that is born and that which is not yet born, the developed and the disabled one, the life that ends and the eternal life”. Msgr. Kapellari pointed out that despite all that has already been done in support and in the defense of life, “the initiative of ‘The Year of Life'” has given further impetus to this claim. The bishop equally addressed the crisis in priestly vocation and the debate over celibacy: “I don’t intend to diminish the problems and I respect the view of those asking for modifications in the conditions regulating admission to the sacrament of Ordination”, he affirmed. “Reflections over celibacy and the life devoted to God constitute a challenge to contemporary Western society”. “Celibacy is a sign of faithfulness and transcendence from the world within a society deeply marked by the breaking up of marriages and families”, he explained. Finally, the bishop exhorted to view opposition to priestly celibacy abolition “as the instinctively prophetical attitude of the Universal Church vis à vis the spirit of our times”. Belgium: for the Sans-PapiersBelgium’s Bishops conveyed their appreciation for the Government’s decision to stop keeping illegal immigrant families and their children in closed immigration detention centres. The tragedy of the “ sans-papiers” – the undocumented immigrants – has always been attentively followed by Belgium’s episcopate. In a Note issued a few days ago, the bishops positively welcomed “our rulers’ decision to reach a global solution enabling the sans-papiers to recover from critical situations while promoting realistic, just and generous regularization policies”. The prelates declared they “understand that this cannot be done overnight”. Thus, in the Note, they urge politicians “not to loose track of the urgent humanitarian situation”. The Bishops appealed to the sans-papiers to interrupt the hunger strike held in sign of protest and “heartily” called on “political representatives to take on their responsibilities regarding this problem”.
