” “Today within the European Union “9% of the population is exposed to a continued risk of poverty” and Switzerland too, “considered one of the wealthiest countries in the world”, now numbers “nearly one million poor people”; a category which, according to Unicef, now includes as many as 7% of Swiss children. The disturbing scenario is outlined by Mario Galgano, spokesman of the Swiss Bishops Conference, in a release that opens the new issue of SirEuropa, online from tonight at old.agensir.it (available in English at Sir’s daily news). In the Swiss Confederation, according to a recent survey by the Swiss Caritas, the “poor” families, i.e. those whose income is lower than one half of the mean national income, “are approximately one seventh of the population”. But not just large families or single-income families, unemployed or elderly people: this group, highlights Galgano, also includes “6.7% of employed people”, the so-called “working poor”. More generally, according to the Swiss bishops’ spokesman, “in the wealthy European continent”, still “too many citizens live in poverty”, and such new phenomena “as the poverty of children and employed people deserve to be timely and effectively addressed”. Hence, says Galgano, the task of the Church, “called not just to provide an answer but also to support people in distress with every possible means”. This issue of Sir Europa includes the “position” of the bishops of the continent about the satirical cartoons and an item on the “roots”, a team of British laymen who are responsible for contacting people who have strayed from their churches.
