Ccee: meeting on Islam and catholic church”Catholic Church and Muslim communities in Europe: how far did we get? Experiences, initiatives, problems and answers from dialogue in Europe”. Those will be the topics on the agenda of the first European Meeting of bishops and delegates of the Bishops’ Conferences in charge for relationships with Muslims in Europe, which is taking place by initiative of CCEE in Bordeaux, France, on 27 and 28 April. “The experts and people in charge of Bishops’ Conferences for relations with Muslims in Europe will meet in a two-day session to take stock of the situation of dialogue, taking into account challenges and questions involving the Catholic Church, and defining possible common projects of collaboration”, it was written in a notice made known today. The president of the Papal Council for interreligious dialogue, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, will also take part in the meeting on “Catholic/Muslim dialogue in Europe: status of the question”. Father Hans Vöcking will also speak. He will take stock of the experiences made on ecumenical level. On the other hand, Father Andrea Pacini (Italy) will speak about the second and third generations of emigrated Muslims. The purpose of the meeting of Bordeaux, said Secretary General of CCEE, Father Duarte da Cunha, is “taking stock of the situation of dialogue with Muslim communities in Europe”, and “to define possible work directions in common”. “The presence of Muslims in Europe is diversified, with some countries where the Muslim presence is part of ancient tradition and others which have seen an increase in Muslim presence especially following migrations”, stated the CCEE General Secretary Fr Duarte da Cunha. “In recent years among Bishops’ Conferences, too, attention on this dialogue has grown and has become an ordinary element [of their work]. Therefore it seemed opportune and unexceptional to gather for the first time those who, within the Bishops’ Conferences, are responsible for relations with the Muslim world so that the state of the dialogue with Muslim communities in Europe might be examined, with a view to tracing the shape of European Islam and checking together the challenges Islam places before European society”. “It is not a meeting about theological issues”, Fr da Cunha continued, “but an opportunity to compare matters and map out the Catholic institutions (research centres, social and aid agencies, educative works) present in Europe and define possible areas of common work between the continent’s Bishops’ Conferences”.Italy: teachers of religion to meet the PopeFor the first time, teachers of the Catholic faith in Italy will be able to listen to the “direct words” of the Pope, and thus “receive new vigour and support in their difficult educational task”. The meeting with the Pope is due to take place in the Vatican on 25 April. It will be the culmination of the Meeting promoted by the national service for the teaching of Catholic religion of the Italian Bishops’ Conference and being held in Rome from 23 to 25 April on “I am not ashamed of the gospel (Rom 1: 16). The teaching of Catholic religion for a culture at the service of man”. The title of the meeting, explain its promoters, “is aimed at recalling, on the one hand, the human significance of the Gospel, inspirer of the civilization of love in the current social and cultural context; on the other, the role of the teaching of Catholic religion as a school subject at the service of the human person and his/her integral growth”. All this is based on the consciousness that “the care and skill with which teachers of religion perform their daily task is a resource not only for schools, but for society as a whole, since it meets the cultural and educational needs of pupils and their families by showing an educational commitment to the full realization of man”. The first part of the Meeting consists of the Congress (23-24 April) to be attended by some 500 delegates representing the individual dioceses. The meeting with the Pope in the Vatican is expected to be attended by over 7,000 teachers.Malta: the Archbishop, “let’s welcome immigrants”Let’s hold out a welcoming hand to immigrants, just as the shipwrecked Paul was welcomed. That’s how the Archbishop of Malta, Paul Cremona, appeals to the Catholic community of the island and, more generally, to the whole population. On 22 April, in an interview with the Holy See’s daily, L’Osservatore Romano, the archbishop explains that by welcoming the apostle St. Paul, the Maltese showed “a strong sense of opening to those who are ‘different’, to foreigners. This is a sentiment, he said, that needs to be preserved and practised also in our time, in a period characterized by mass migration: a phenomenon that is manifested in a quite particular way at Malta, situated in the very centre of the Mediterranean, and a favourite landing point for the boats bringing irregular or clandestine immigrants from Africa”. A few days after the conclusion of the stand-off of the immigrant-packed Turkish merchant vessel, the Pinar, Archbishop Cremona emphasizes that “there’s an aspect of the problem that transcends politics and the controversies that are their consequence: it’s the humanitarian aspect”. We need to “eliminate prejudices – he declares – and consider immigrants primarily as persons. Yes, it’s true, there’s also a particular political situation behind the migratory phenomenon, but we should never forget that these people are suffering. We in the Church should be the first to set an example by providing real humanitarian aid. At the present time some 400 immigrants are being assisted by our diocesan office for refugees and immigrants; in addition a hostel for immigrants run by the Jesuit Refugee Service is open at Cospicua: various services, including a legal counselling service, are offered to them. That’s the response of our community”.
