Redazione

COUNCIL OF EUROPE

“State, religion, secularism and human rights” and “Blasphemy, insults of a religious character and incitement to hatred against persons on grounds of their religion”: these are the two recommendations approved by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (COE), meeting in Strasbourg from 25 to 29June. The two recommendations are available in “provisional version” […]

EUROPEAN UNION

In the year when the 20th anniversary of the Erasmus programme is being celebrated, the EU is re-launching Erasmus Mundus in the grand style and throwing open the doors of the universities of its 27 member states to students from all over the world. At the same time the need is emerging to improve the […]

ECUMENISM

“God between loss of meaning and existential content”: that’s the theme of the 9th Summer Ecumenical Academy, held at Kremsmünster in Austria between 11 and 13 July. The conference ended with the traditional round table; its participants included the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan MICHAEL STAIKOS , the Catholic bishop MANFRED SCHEUER (Bishop of Innsbruck) and the […]

PORTUGAL

At the end of the recent meeting of the permanent Council of the Portuguese Bishops’ Conference (CEP) in Fatima, the secretary, Monsignor CARLOS AZEVEDO , lamented the “lack of dialogue” in the relations of the Portuguese government with the Catholic Church. He admitted a certain malaise in the accumulation of situations that remain unresolved. In […]

They are not only dedicated to monastic prayer and work, in fidelity to the Benedictine Rule, Ora et Labora , but, when needed, they transform themselves in voluntary firemen. They are the members of the voluntary fire-brigade unit of the monastic community of St. Ottilia (Benedictine missionaries) who celebrated the centenary of the unit’s foundation […]

Some 160,000 children are living in poor families or families threatened by poverty in the diocese of Münster alone. For many of these families the approaching school year means having to find the money for educational material (textbooks and the like). But to cover these expenses, points out Ulrich Thien of Caritas in Münster, the […]

GERMANY

The national Council of Bioethics in Germany issued a statement on 16 July regarding a possible amendment of the Law on stem cells, which would open the possibility of abrogating the ban on the importation of embryonic stem cells produced before 1st January 2002 (the so-called “Stichtagsregelung” or deadline regulation). The German Bishops’ Conference has […]

Building work on the construction of the new Catholic church, the first to be built in the country since 1917, began in the capital Minsk in recent days. The new church will form part of the parish of St. John the Baptist in the Serebrianka district of town. The foundations of the new church should […]

A Mass for young Irish emigrants and the children of Irish emigrants in Australia was recently celebrated in Sydney by the Archbishop of Dublin, the Right Rev. Diarmuid Martin, who wished in this way to raise the awareness of his compatriots in World Youth Day which will be held in the Australian city from 15 […]

The 2007 Communication Prize – promoted by the Media Commission of the Swiss Bishops’ Conference – will be presented to the editorial team of the magazine Ferment at Ebikon (Lucerne) on 26 August. Published by the Pallottine Fathers at Gossau (St. Gallen) since 1959 – says a press release of the Swiss episcopate announcing the […]