CHURCHES IN BRIEF
Austria: conference on "Equality in a finished world"An appeal to "empathy towards future generations" marked the opening of the international ecumenical conference "Equality in a finished world" at the university of Vienna (January 10). The speech was delivered by German economic expert Gerhard Scherhorn, who accused "the present economic system to overlook the costs of environmental protection, thus neglecting the future". "It’s simply logic to assume that in a finished world infinite growth is not possible", he declared. "That’s why humanity must convert to sustainable economy, in the full respect of natural and socially-natural living conditions". "The new mentality" which must necessarily be spread, should also bring about a "change in social rules apt at making them more sustainable, thus obtaining an efficient protection of the common goods", Scherhorn said. The need for a change in mentality was also pointed out by Ingeborg Gabriel, director of the Austrian Institute for Catholic theology, who highlighted the role of Churches and religious communities as "major players of civil society". In this sense, he added, "we should join all of our forces", a process whereby "ecumenism could play a special role". The "common task" for the preservation of the Creation for the Churches was underlined by Nicolae Dura, president of the Ecumenical Council of Austrian Churches (Örkö). "The commitment for equality and the preservation of the Creation" are "inextricably mutually bound", Dura said. The director of the Catholic Social Academy, Fr Alois Riedlsperger, calls for "a joint commitment for questions regarding the future of humanity" and recalled that "for years, Christian Churches have been dealing with the themes of equality, peace and the preservation of the Creation", thus fulfilling what has been agreed in the Charta Oecumenica. However, he pointed out, all efforts should result in the "practice of the principle of sustainability". On the other hand, Romanian Orthodox theologian Dorin Oancea said he was confident that "the Catholic and Orthodox theology share similar views on issues of ecology, although they are conveyed with different wording". In fact, "for the Orthodox Church the human person collaborates in the creation and is therefore partly responsible for the Creation". Portugal: migrants and the Country’s developmentOn the occasion of the 99th World Day of Migrants and Refugees (Jan. 13), the XIII Meeting of workers for social and pastoral migration, organized by Caritas in collaboration with the Portuguese Catholic Works. The three-day meetings led participants to conclude: "Many Portuguese embarked on unplanned migration". The prolonged lack of employment and the inability to cope with financial obligations, have led to the "return of unreasoned emigration flows, lacking reliable information on the country of destination". Participants encouraged the preparation of a reference document on the Church’s teaching on human mobility by the Portuguese Episcopal Conference (CEP), and added: "It is advisable to live with few resources in home own countries than to risk facing even worse situations in a foreign land". On the other hand, in an interview published Online edition of the weekly "Ecclesia", the Chief Executive Officer of the Portuguese Council for Refugees (CPR) has raised the alarm on the lack of solutions regarding this population bracket: "Evidence shows that refugees in Portugal are not satisfied, there is a situation of generalized discontent that can no longer be ignored". Refugees do not pretend to be supported endlessly, but they "call for the necessary conditions that would enable them to perform their job skills, thus contributing to the development of the country that has received them", argued Teresa Tito Morais, who added: "in 2011 there has been a growing divide "between the facilities that helped the refugees, such as social Security and the Holy House of Mercy of Lisbon and the Cpr, left alone to deal with both the problems of those who already lived in the country, and with the needs of newcomers". Germany: no censorship by the Church on cases of abuseThe scholar from Essen Norbert Leygraf, defended the Catholic Church against accusations of censorship by criminologist Christian Pfeiffer, regarding the survey on sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. It was reported by the website of the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK), referring to an interview with German Catholic news agency KNA. Leygraf is the director of the Institute of forensic psychiatry at the University of Duisburg-Essen and is the coordinator of the second survey jointly commissioned with DBK on cases of abuse. "The Church has not no influenced or censored our final report", said Leygraf, emphasizing a "high participation" by dioceses and advising Catholic bishops to continue the survey with the support of a criminologist "less conditioned by the public opinion, whose contribution is conducted in more scientific manner. "The study conducted by Leygraf examined 78 reports presented by 21 dioceses in the years 2000 – 2010, presenting cases of abuse that took place several decades before. For his part, Msgr. Stephan Ackermann, head of DBK for the examination of abuse cases, told the weekly magazine "Der Spiegel" that the project will continue with a new partner.
