CHURCHES IN BRIEF
Slovakia: bishops’pastoral letter for the census 2011″Our faith is our greatest treasure and it needs to be kept alive” – this is the message of Slovak bishops for the forthcoming Census 2011 in the country, due to take place 13-21 May. Special pastoral letter was read in all the parishes, encouraging people not to be afraid to present their churchmanship officially. According to the results of the last Census 2001 – 74 % of citizens of Slovakia claim to be Catholics. “Of course we wish to reach at least the same number as ten years ago, we even hope the figures could be higher because the number of inhabitants has grown. But on the other side it’s clear to us that the liberal understanding of values has progressed a lot since 2001 and the mentality of society has changed”, said the President of the Bishops´ conference of Slovakia, Mgr. Stanislav Zvolensky in an interview for SIR Europe and added that the expectations of the Catholic church are “in the God’s hands”. Bishops’pastoral letter emphasises an indispensable role of the Church in the area of protection of family, healthy education of children and moral values, in the service to entire society and common good. Prelates encourage all the baptised to show their faith publicly, using the words of the blessed John Paul II, who during his apostolic visit in 2003 exhorted Slovak nation not to be ashamed of the gospel.Switzerland: “A face for volunteering” campaign”Giving a face to volunteering” is the goal of the 2011 “Fishing for good news” campaign, launched on May 3rd in Berne, as stated in a notice of the Swiss Bishops Conference, by mgr. Martin Werlen, abbot of Einsiedeln and media director of the Swiss Bishops Conference. The initiative, explained Laure-Christine Grandjean of the News service of the Swiss Bishops Conference, “aims at finding experiences of volunteers on the Internet and putting them together”. Messages to “thank the volunteers” and at the same time “to encourage others to follow their example”. According to mgr. Werlen, “this is about acknowledging with gratitude the big things achieved by the blessed people, so as to have a faithful image of the Church and its life”. Hence the call to Catholic volunteering, which involves 870 thousand people in Switzerland and is “certainly in the forefront”. According to the Freiwilligen-Monitor 2010 by the Swiss Public Company in partnership with the Federal Statistic Office, 29% of Catholic women and 25% of Catholic men work in volunteering in the country. Posters and fliers have been handed out in approximately 2 thousand parishes and religious communities of the Swiss Catholic Church to launch the campaign. The campaign will go on until June 5th, “Media Sunday”, when a fund-raising event will be organised in support of the media of the Church.Germany: 350th anniversary of the “Consolatrix of the Afflicted”An ecumenical ceremony and solemn Marian vespers held on 2 May inaugurated the celebrations marking the 350th anniversary of the pilgrimage of the image of the Virgin “Consolatrix of the Afflicted” (Consolatrix afflictorum) at Werl in North Rhine Westphalia. “Faith in Mary speaks to our senses, it reaches our heart and soul”, said Archbishop Hans-Josef Becker of Paderborn, during the homily he gave in the basilica of Werl, which this year will attract well over 100,000 pilgrims up till November. “In recent decades, the Catholic and Evangelical Churches have become conscious of the fact that Mary is a special bridge-builder”, said the archbishop during the service held in the evangelical church of S. Maria. Becker emphasized that “what unites us in faith is stronger than what divides us” and said he was “grateful for the fact that Christians of different confessions now meet with great naturalness to pray and give praise to God together”. “From the point of view of contents, the veneration of Mary is far from unknown to us”, said Albert Henz, theological vice-chairman of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia”, in his welcoming address during the ceremony. “Mary belongs to the great examples of faith, also for Evangelical Christians”, he declared.Czech republic: first chapel consacrated to the blessed John Paul IIOnly few hours after beatification of the pope John Paul II, by the Holy Father Benedict XVI, the first chapel in Czech republic was dedicated to the honour of the newly blessed. It is situated in the Hospice of st. John N. Neumann in Prachatice and was consacrated on 1 May by the bishop of the Diocese of Ceské Budìjovice, Mgr. Jirí Pad’our. “This pope has shown us with his life how courageously, humbly, with hope and trust in the Almighty a human being can bear heavy suffering until the end of the earthly pilgrimage”, says the director of the institution Robert Hune. The Chapel of blessed John Paul II will serve mainly to the inhabitants of the hospice – elderly people who can find in his example a way of dignified coping with difficult situation caused by various kinds of diseases.
