Italy: Church and “educational emergency””Educating men and women who will build the Italy and the Europe of tomorrow”: that’s the commitment assumed by the Italian Church to respond to the “very serious alarm” being felt on the educational front, in the words of Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI), in his opening address at the Bishops’ Assembly (now underway in the Vatican until 28 May). “In the light of the experiences of recent years, not all of them positive, what we need to construct is a Europe of citizens and peoples, not a Europe of bureaucracies”, urged the cardinal in the run-up to the European elections: “A Europe that can once again become a luminous ideal only if it pays attention to consciences and cultures, and is generous in its external relations because it is faithful to its own roots and creatively inspired by them”. “Education means far more than instruction”, stressed the President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, referring to the central theme of the Assembly: in response to the “danger” of “surrender”, of “loss of confidence”, of “pessimism”, we need to “react” and “swim against the tide”, bearing in mind that “it’s adults who are the real problem of youth”: hence the need, not to protest, not to “express outrage at the scandal”, but to “correct” those “models that kill the soul” of the young. For her part, the Italian Church intends to “resume and intensify” her “extraordinary formative and educational mission”, thus placing herself “in an attitude of service that will probably meet the hopes of many families”. The issues touched on by the cardinal in his prolusion included, not least, immigration: “Beware of underrating the signals of alarm that are being registered in our country here and there”, warned Bagnasco, according to whom the “response” to the phenomenon of immigration “cannot be merely one of public order”, but must consist in ensuring “the mechanisms of a kind of cohabitation that conforms to the immemorial identity of our people and becomes capable of encountering other identities, of positively opening ourselves to their contagion according to intercultural models, though without ever yielding to a relativistic logic”. Referring to the Italian government’s recent decree law on security, Bagnasco cited the “controversial practice of rejecting immigrants and sending them back”. He pointed out that the “fundamental criterion with which to evaluate such episodes” is “the insuppressible value of human life, its dignity, its alienable rights”, which comprise “the freedom for everyone to live a dignified life in their own country, but also the freedom to emigrate”. Cardinal Bagnasco underlined, in this regard, the need to follow “the way of international cooperation”, which “must become a cross-party benchmark of Italian and also European policy”. Ireland: the “response” to the abusesThe Catholic Church of Ireland has opened a new phase of reflection to find solutions so that the abuses denounced in the publication of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Report never happen again. The question will be at the centre of debate at the next General Meeting of the bishops of Ireland in June, to which the superiors of religious congregations and institutes will also be invited. These are among the commitments made at the meeting of the Standing Committee of Irish Bishops held at Maynooth on 25 May. In a statement issued at the end of the meeting, the Standing Committee writes as follows: “We apologise to those so cruelly abused during their childhood while in Catholic-run industrial and reformatory schools. This abuse is all the greater because it was perpetrated by those called to care in the name of Jesus Christ”. “No response to this far-reaching Report – continue the bishops – can be confined to a single statement. To properly address past failures, and to safeguard children today, the whole Church needs to analyse how and why such an abusive environment was allowed to develop and become endemic”. “Our ongoing response – insist the bishops in their statement – must support survivors of abuse and promote a civilization of love for children so that they can receive the best possible care and protection. We will carefully reflect on the Report and discuss its findings and recommendations more fully at the June General Meeting of Bishops. We will work closely with religious congregations and institutes in addressing the needs of survivors of abuse and in the healing process. We will continue to promote a safe, effective and accountable environment for children in cooperation with the National Office for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church and with all the relevant statutory agencies”. Also in recent days, the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, has written a letter (published in the Irish Times ) to ask the Irish religious orders involved in the inquiry to do more for the thousands of children who were the victims of violence. In particular, the archbishop asks the orders to reach an agreement with the Irish government for the setting up a fund to help those of the victims who are still alive.
