Cristiana Dobner

Faith

Do we indulge in a devotion that pacifies and conciliates the difficulties in life and its tormented steps as we enter the month of May extending our gaze to the Holy Virgin? Undoubtedly, if understood as some sort of talisman enabling us to persevere along the same path. Moreover, Church tradition teaches us that the […]

End-of-life

The sorrow caused by the early departure – for impending causes and tragic circumstances, that are not unrelated to human action – of a young son that we feel also ours, a son of God and of the Church in whose faith he was baptised, makes it hard to put together words and overwhelming, overlapping […]

Society

  “Having a job is not enough: it must be a job that is not against life, dignity, nor against the full development of the human person”, declared Msgr. Filippo Santoro, Archbishop of Taranto, President of the Italian Bishops’ Commission for social problems and labour, justice and peace, protection of the creation, commenting on the message […]

Ahead of the Synod

Over 4.200 Slovakian youths answered the questionnaire ahead of the Synod with 50 questions on their vocation, their criteria of choice in life, their relationships, on religion, faith and the Church. In Slovakia the answers were collected and processed by the Council for young people and university. SIR addressed the theme with the Secretary of […]

Document

We, religious Communities in Albania: the Muslim Community, the Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church, the Bektashi Community and the Evangelical Fraternity, express our most sincere congratulations to the Albanian people, upon the recommendation of the European to open accession negotiations with the European Union. Our journey into Europe, to which we naturally belong, is a […]

End-of-life

The sad case of Alfie Evans (23 months–old) deserves further reflection and in-depth debate. The English toddler from Liverpool is unfortunately affected by a progressive neuro-degenerative condition that doctors have not been able to definitively identify (also in terms of administrating the appropriate treatment), with a very poor prognosis that left him in a semi-vegetative […]

Memory

Over the past days many people asked me to share a recollection of Don Tonino. Only now do I realize that while I experienced many important aspects of his life as pastor and man of faith, I failed to give his inner life the emphasis it deserves. I hope I will be able to remedy […]

Editorial

It’s a known story. It the story of a man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, wounded him, and left him half dead on the side of the road without a care. Today that man has a face: it’s the face of millions of […]

Ceremony

The ceremony held yesterday, April 18, at the headquarters of the European Institute of Cultural Routes in Luxembourg, a technical structure that promotes and supports the implementation of the Enlarged Partial Agreement of Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe (EPA), celebrated the Holy See as the 32nd member of the Agreement. The formal accession […]

Coe initiative

For over thirty years, since 1987, the program of cultural itineraries initiated by the Council of Europe invites citizens to discover the continent through some thirty “certified” proposals. The cultural map of Europe presently includes 31 itineraries: linear routes, such as the walks (from the first certified route of Santiago de Compostela in 1987 to […]