SOCIAL WEEKS
Croatia: the fourth Social Week in preparationThe 41st plenary assembly of the Croatian Bishops’ Conference ended at Lovran on 21 October. During the meeting – says the communiqué issued on 24 October – the bishops discussed the 40th plenary assembly of the Council of European Episcopal Conferences (CCEE), held at Zagreb at the end of September, emphasizing that this was an “exceptionally important event for the Church and for the Republic of Croatia”. The bishops also discussed the fourth “Croatian Social Week”, an event that hasn’t been held for decades, and decided it should finally go ahead next year: it will be held at Zagreb from 21 to 23 October 2011. During the assembly, Mgr. Ante Ivas di ibenik, chairman of the Youth Committee of the Croatian Bishops’ Conference, and Archbishop elimir Puljic of Zadar presented a report on the national meeting of Croatian Catholic youth, held at Zadar in May; it was attended by over 30,000 youngsters from Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and areas of the diaspora. The next youth meeting will be held at Sisak on 5-6 May 2012. The bishops also discussed the proposal to begin a canonization process for priests and religious killed during the period of the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century, and decided to establish a commission to this end that would act on the basis of canon law and the directives of local bishops. In their final communiqué, the bishops further announced a joint meeting, to be held on 24 January 2011, between the Croatian Bishops’ Conference and the Bishops’ Conference of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Lastly, a Croatian-Slovenian pilgrimage to the Marian sanctuary of Ptujska Gora is scheduled for 2 July. Ukraine: presence on the mediaThe fourth “Social Days” promoted by the Greek-Catholic Church of Ukraine (UGCC) will be officially launched at Kiev on 7 November. The theme chosen this year is “In the beginning was the Word: communication in the 21st century”. The “Social Days” will continue through the whole of November and will be held at Kiev, Zhytomyr, Kharkiv, Odessa, Kherson, Kirovohrad, and Lutsk. The programme of events is decidedly ecumenical and interreligious. “The participants – says the press release of the Ukrainian Catholic agency “Risu” presenting the initiative – will have the opportunity to discuss challenges and problems of communication on various levels and in various forms and share views about how to communicate with greater effectiveness”. The “Social Days” will also include actions of solidarity with visits to prisons, orphanages, nursing homes and families in need. Promoted by the UGCC, the “Social Days” (previously called “Social Week”) are “a forum for discussion open to members of other churches and communities, and all people of good will. They are also an attempt to involve representatives of the religious organizations and NGOs in a public discussion at the local and national level”. Again on the theme of communication, a conference on “Christian MediaMobilization” is due to be held at Irpin in the Kyiv Region on 13-14 November; its participants will include journalists, bloggers, computer experts, and staff from the Church’s press centres. “We’re now living in the age of communication – explains Pavlo Ungurian, head of the Association of Young Christians in Ukraine – so Christians ought to be trained in the use of the media, so as to be able effectively to bear witness to Christ in the world in which they live and work”. The conference will touch on four thematic sectors: trends and challenges of the modern age; mobilization and lobbying; evangelization and innovation; and journalistic skills. The Religious Information Service of Ukraine (RISU) is the media partner of the conference.Italy: conclusions and prospects”May the search for the common good always represent the secure reference point for the commitment of Catholics in social and political action”, said Benedict XVI in his Angelus on Sunday 17 October, addressing his remarks particularly at the 1,200 participants of the 46th Social Week of Italian Catholics, which ended at Reggio Calabria and which had – said the Pope – “traced an agenda of hope for the country’s future”. The participants in the Social Week were able to follow a live TV relay of the Pope’s Angelus and so listen to the words of the Pontiff, which came after Mgr. Arrigo Miglio, chairman of the organizing committee, and his deputy, Luca Diotallevi, had described the conclusions of the Week. Political involvement, education, immigration, work, and development: these were some of the themes at the centre of the thematic sessions that enunciated – at the end of a week of intensive debate – five pledges, five areas of endeavour, in which Italian Catholics have decided to work in the near future. The first action front is that of “completing the political transition” “without leaving the poor, the young and the unskilled behind”. Italian Catholics, secondly, ask that “growth be combined with solidarity” and that “the law on citizenship be changed” so that “fear of foreigners, rejection and prejudice may find no home in the ecclesial community”. From Reggio Calabria a “clear condemnation of the phenomenon of tax evasion” was also expressed. Lastly, in the session on “Educating for growth”, the identikit of the Catholic educator was delineated: “persons of solid character, credible, authoritative, and meaningful” who can be “a concrete and incisive reference point both for adolescents and for other adults”.
