Bruno Desidera

TERROR

Eighty kilos of explosives now risk blowing to pieces also the peace process in Colombia. The death toll of yesterday evening’s car bomb attack against General Santander police academy is tragically increasing by the hour. It was the deadliest attack in at least the past twelve years, which left 21 dead and 68 injured according […]

SCANDINAVIA

Not only in Stockholm: Swedish Christians will convene also in Göteborg, Linköping, Sandviken (and probably also in Jönköping), on Wednesday, January 16 to pray and publically voice their concerns over “systematic flaws in the evaluation process of asylum applications and converts carried out by the Swedish Migration Agency.” The issue has been worrying the Churches […]

UNITED KINGDOM

Next January 16 and 17 fifty bishops, half of them Catholic and half of them Anglican, will convene in Leicester, central England, a city with an important tradition of interreligious dialogue, for a two-day ecumenical meeting. These meetings take place every two or three years, providing participants with the opportunity to create precious relations based […]

POLITICAL ANALYSIS

The problems linked to Europe’s unification and the risks of its failure are bound to leave a deep mark on the year 2019. In the first weeks and months of the year, with the absurd spectacle linked to Brexit, ongoing in the British Parliament, we are set to witness the consequences of anti-European, nationalistic propaganda […]

EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE

After having chaired the six-month Presidency of the EU Council in the first half of 2018, Bulgaria is again in the European spotlight with Plovdiv, proclaimed European Capital of Culture 2019 together with the Italian city of Matera. “Plovdiv has always been the cultural capital of Bulgaria but now we can also perceive a European […]

COMMENT

Pope Francis’ address to the diplomatic corps for the traditional exchange of New Year greetings is hopeful. Of the many situations of conflict and tension across the globe, Europe included, it tends to enhance – while keeping nothing back of all the suffering – the aspects that give us reasons to hope. The attitude, the […]

MIGRANT RECEPTION

The bus station in the centre of El Paso now serves as an open-air shelter for hundreds of migrants. The effects of the shutdown of the US Congress, namely, the suspension of all administrative activity owing to controversies on the federal budget, here in this part of Texas, are seen in the faces of these […]

Comment

The feast of Christmas was introduced in the Christian calendar in 354 A.D. by Emperor Constantine. In the first centuries Christians celebrated only Easter, called “the Day of the Sun” because it marked Christ’s Resurrection. In ancient Rome December 25 marked the festival of the winter solstice and of the approaching Spring. It was a […]

BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

She is known as “the migrants’ photographer”, but Lejla Samardzic works as a teacher in Bihac, the Bosnian city at the border with Croatia where thousands of stranded people are hoping to cross the border into Croatia. Leila’s pictures, titled “the time of migrants” have thousands of followers on Twitter and her profile is very […]

MESSAGE

Your Holiness, on the day of Your birthday the page of the Gospel – with the accounts of the genealogy of Jesus – offers us an occasion to send You our affectionate thoughts. With Your Magisterium and Your personality you challenge us and inspire the Church to be steeped in history, a Church that is […]