ECUMENISM

Switzerland: firm “no” to the new law on asylum

A joint communiqué rejecting the new Swiss law on asylum has been issued in recent days by the Federation of the Protestant Churches (Feps), the Catholic Bishops (Ces) and the Federation of the Jewish Communities (Fsci) in Switzerland. Opposition to the law, which will be submitted to the popular vote on 24 September, is motivated […]

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ENGLAND

Wish for communion

There were only a hundred or so among the 400,000 gathered at St. Peter’s for the Pentecost meeting with the Pope. They were few, but they were determined to make heard the fact that the Catholic movements of England, Scotland and Wales were also present there. They included some fifty neo-catechumenals, five members of “Youth […]

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CEC

Greater Eu commitment to refugees in Kenya

“Increasing the settlement of refugees in countries of the European Union”: that’s the conclusion reached by a delegation of six representatives of the Commission for Migrants in Europe (Ccme), which works within the Conference of European Churches (Cec), after a recent visit to the camp at Dadaab (Kenya) where some 130,000 refugees, in large part […]

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CCEE

European symposium of university teachers

The 4th European Symposium of university teachers will be held in Rome from Thursday 22 to Sunday 25 June on the theme “Business and the construction of a new humanism”. The symposium is being promoted by the Office of the University Apostolate of the Vicariate of Rome and organised by the Catholic University of the […]

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COMECE

No to research on human embryos

“There is no reason to make a moral distinction between the embryo at the very beginning of his or her life and after implantation in the womb or after 14 days. Human dignity does not depend – and must not be made dependent – on decisions of other human beings”, declares Monsignor Noel Treanor, general […]

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England: football and vocations

Exploiting the enormous interest aroused by the World Cup to boost vocations in the Catholic church: the idea is that of the national Office for Vocations of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, which recently launched an advertising campaign in which priests are compared with football champions. In the poster a football player holds […]

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Hungary: Cardinal Erdo writes to Bush

“God bless America”: so ends the letter of thanks in English that Cardinal Péter Erdo, Primate of Hungary and Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, has sent to US President George Bush, to mark the 50th anniversary of the revolution in Hungary in 1956. “I wish to express – writes Cardinal Erdo -, also on behalf of the […]

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Belgium: the rights of the child

“The right of the child is infinitely superior to the right to have a child” and there exists “an invisible moral frontier which technological progress cannot overstep”: that’s the warning of the Belgian Bishops’ Conference in commenting on the bill on medically assisted childbirth that will shortly be voted on by the country’s Senate. Anonymous […]

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Austria and Hungary: the bishops at Mariazell

The bishops of Hungary and Austria met together for the first time at Mariazell on 20 June. The meeting is reported by the Austrian Catholic press agency Kathpress, which notes that the Austrian bishops held their summer plenary session at the Marian sanctuary from 19 to 21 June, chaired by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn. The 20th […]

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Spain: the Statute of Catalonia

Bishop Joan-Enric Vives Sicilia of the Catalan diocese of Urgell, co-prince of Andorra, has asked Catalonia’s rulers to “apply the Catalan Statute with wisdom”. The Statute was approved on Sunday 18 June with 74% votes in its favour. But the bishop also declared that the fact that half the citizens of this “nation of Spain” […]

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