Ccee: meeting of the Bishops of Eastern and Central European CountriesOn the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and of the 10th anniversary of the beatification of Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, Archbishop of Zagreb, a martyr of the Communist regime, the cardinals and the presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences of the Eastern and Central European countries will meet in Zagreb on Tuesday 10 February. The theme is the "Mission of the Church in Eastern and Central European countries twenty years after the fall of the Communist regime (1989-2009)." The meeting will be attended, among others, by Card. Audrys Juozas Baèkis, Archbishop of Vilnius, Card. Stanis³aw Dziwisz, Metropolitan Archbishop of Kraków, Card. Péter Erdõ, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest and Primate of Hungary, Card. Angelo Scola, Patriarch of Venice, as well as by the representatives of the Bishops’ Conferences of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Hungary, and of the International Bishops’ Conference of Sts Cyril and Methodius. The speeches by Card. Scola, representing the Western European Church, and by Card Péter Erdõ, CCEE chairman, will open the meeting. A Mass for the Feast of Blessed Alojzije Stepinac is also on the agenda. The meeting in Zagreb is the third meeting after those held in Budapest in 2004 and in Prague in 2007.Spain: questioned the freedom of education The ruling of Spain’s Supreme Court establishing that "conscientious objection" against "Education to Citizenship" (EPC) "does not exist", which passed with 22 ayes and 7 noes, raised much criticism. According to the Court, the subject "does not harm the parents’ rights to choose the religious and moral education of their children". The ruling will serve as a criterion of reference which all Spanish tribunals are called to adopt. The objecting parents who fight to defend their freedom and that of their children said this fact is unacceptable, "since a democratic government cannot be ignore the fact that over 52 thousand petitions were filed against Education to Citizenship along with almost 2000 litigations". Organizations in defense of conscientious objection don’t rule out the possibility of filing petitions to the Constitutional Court and other international bodies. The Catholic Confederation of family parents (Concapa) proposed the objecting families to continue defending their constitutional rights and continue educating their children following the philosophical, moral and religious beliefs they consider most appropriate for them, while waiting to learn about the ruling’s motivation and decide upon the actions to be taken. Also Professionals for ethics, one of the organizations promoting conscientious objection, remarked, "the ruling of the Supreme Court refers to concrete cases that were filed in the proceedings. It has no effects on other cases of objectors envisaged in other rulings, sentences or precautionary measures".Portugal: family difficulties in the parish The Bishops Commission for the Laity of the Family that convened in Fatima congratulated the family pastoral care parish groups. According to the Secretary of the Commission, father Luís Inácio João, "local commitment is crucial in addressing current attacks that undermine the family establishment". "Opposing legislative policies, Catholics’ divorce, the civil recognition of same-sex unions are challenges which only parish groups can address, since they represent the living foundations of local realities and the only implementing reception". "Being able to receive is a distinctive feature of the family environment added father João and its implementation ought to be developed within all families that represent the ecclesial community". In recalling that cardinal Ennio Antonelli, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, recently received the Association of Christian Separated Families, the secretary declared, "local groups can play a crucial role in accepting and integrating in the association people who had a second civil marriage along with other special cases. This is not an approval; rather it ought to be viewed as an act of Christian charity. France: requests of faith to the youth "I am very interested in the meeting with hundreds of young people yearning for explanations on faith". Thus Msgr. Hyppolite Simon, archbishop of Clermont and vice-President of France’s Bishops’ Conference explained his participation in the national meeting of the network "Chrétiens en Grande Ecole" (CGE) that opens tomorrow in Cergy (Val d’Oise). For two days, until Sunday, over 800 students from Higher Education institutes will convene "for a weekend devoted to training and confrontation" on the topic, "Christianity: cultural product or creator of cultures?" These young people, for Msgr. Simon, who will deliver an address on "Christianity, public space and the common good", "belong to a generation without heirs. My peers have drifted away from faith and did not transmit the points of reference they had been given. Forty years later, their children find it difficult to find their placement". "In two-thousand years of history explained CGE President Ségolène Delvallée Christianity has taken roots in different cultures conveying a transforming message, while the cultures were transfigured by this encounter". CGE (www.cgenational.com), which refers to the National Service for the evangelization of the youth, represents Christian communities of Higher Education engineering, journalism and business Schools along with the Ecoles Normales and Political Studies’ institutions: 110 schools representing 3 thousand students and 80 chaplains.
