Poland: seminary in the Diaspora The Metropolitan Archbishop of Czestochowa, Msgr. Stanislaw Nowak, officially inaugurated the Pastoral for Vocations of the Archdiocese of Czestochowa a few days ago. “We must pray for priestly and religious vocations in our archdiocese. We must all take good care of vocations”, the Archbishops told the priests attending the Chrismal Mass in the Cathedral of the Holy Family of Nazareth in Czestochowa. On Holy Thursday, which is the day the Church celebrates the institution of the Eucharist and of priestly ministry, the Archbishop officially opened the Apostolate of the Prayer for Vocations at the Major Seminary of the Archdiocese of Czestochowa along with the Association of the Friends of the Major Seminary. Participants in the Apostolate include priests, religious men and women and families in the Archdiocese. The initiative of the Apostolate of Prayer for Vocations also enjoys the support of the Catholic weekly Niedziela. “With our Apostolate we call upon the faithful to pray for vocations and for our Major Seminary – father Andrzej Przybylski, the dean of the Major Seminary, told Fides-. The purpose of the initiative is to create a ‘Seminary in the Diaspora’. Namely, giving our daily support to the youth who feel the calling for vocation. ‘The Seminary in Diaspora’ also represents families’ prayers for vocations along with the presence of seminarians among the youth”.Austria: peace tour in JerusalemOn April 13 the “tour of peace” took off: 22 Austrian cyclists – men and women – will cover 3,500 km crossing nine Countries, with final destination in Jerusalem. The team left from Vienna on Easter Monday, and will travel on pilgrimage for 40 days. The “cyclists of peace” will bring a sign of peace in the Middle East and promote inter-religious dialogue between Christians, Jews and Muslims. The long journey is also aimed at promoting encounter, as journalist Werner Ertel, promoter of the initiative, underlined to Catholic news agency Kathpress: “We wish to exchange the values pertaining to our respective religions, cultures, and traditions, and jointly celebrate religious holidays that fall in the period of the Peace Tour”. Cyclists will be in Belgrade on the occasion of Orthodox Easter celebration, after having visited a synagogue in Novi Sad. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I will receive the Austrian pilgrims in Istanbul. In Damascus they will visit a program for refugees and will be received by the Great Mufti of Syria. Along the way, the cycling pilgrims will pass through the sites of Saint Paul in Turkey: Tarsus, Konya and Antiochia, where they will be received by the assistant for German Pastoral Care Barbara Kallasch at the “Home of encounter”, that every weeks gives hospitality to Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim youth for an ecumenical prayer for peace. At the end of the pilgrimage the team will have meetings with human rights and peace groups’ representatives from Israel and from the Palestinian territories.Germany: a differently abled supermarket A supermarket for and run by disabled people. The Caritas of Geldern-Kevelaer, in the North Rhine-Westphalia Land, promoted the initiative. A supermarket for differently abled persons has been operative in the town of Geldern for over the past year. Lower racks and larger corridors that enable even those on a wheelchair to move without difficulties, characterize the market. The business is run by a team of fifteen employees, eight of whom are disabled. Holger Latza, with 27 years experience in foodstuff trading, manages the activity. At the beginning it wasn’t easy. The supermarket was empty for seven months, there were hardly any customers and competition with discount stores was dearly felt. The town’s inhabitants were sceptical. “But now some of our customers are served only by disabled employees”, he told the local Caritas. The supermarket provides attentive assistance, adjusted to the customers’ needs. For example, if a person can’t reach the shelf with the needed product, he/she can ask the help of one of the shop-assistants. The supermarket also provides home-delivery within an area of 20 km and even a “taxi” service for disabled clients who are not self-sufficient but who wish go shopping to be with other people. There are many regular clients who avail themselves of this opportunity that Caritas offers for free. Until today, this supermarket is the only one run by the organisation that lies within the province of the diocese of Münster. However, expenses remain too high and the budget is in the red. Caritas grants initial funding, but on the long run the business will need to be self-sufficient. There’s a total of 70 similar supermarket located across Germany, organized in the form of cooperatives for the disabled. (Gdw).
