THE TEN OF THE 1ST MAY " "

Malta, an historic event” “” “

In our review of the ten states that will enter the European Union on 1st May, this week it’s the turn of Malta, which, after a long and turbulent process begun in 1970 with the Treaty of Association, has now arrived, with high hopes, at the finishing line of full EU membership. The Church’s commitment […]

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Great Britain: survey on faith” “

“The picture painted by the BBC in its survey on religious faith is too catastrophic. 67% of people in the UK say they believe in God or in some superior power and 75% say they have prayed at least once in their life”. The comment on the last survey by British state television on the […]

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Germany: ‘no’ to reduction in religious lessons” “

Bishop Walter Mixa of Eichstätt has denounced any reduction of religious lessons in elementary schools in Bavaria. He expressed his view in a pastoral letter for Lent, read out in parish churches during mass on Sunday, 7 March. “We Christians cannot accept the fact of religious lessons being reduced in Bavarian schools, characterized by Christian […]

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Romania: a tradition of tribute to women” “

An occasion to pay tribute to women: that’s the Romanian tradition of the “martisor” (pronounced “marzziscior”), as explained by Gabriel Mateescu in an article in the illustrated magazine “Lumea credinþei” (The World of Faith), reported on the site of the Romanian Episcopal Conference (ww.w.catholica.ro). Historically, says the author, the tradition “was only found in the […]

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rom and sinti" "

Nine million citizens” “” “

Four times the population of Slovenia, double that of Ireland, more than that of Austria and roughly the same as that of Sweden: gipsies form a group of some 9 million people scattered all over Europe and are present in almost all the member states of the Council of Europe. There are in all eighteen […]

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switzerland " "

At the centre but outside” “

Not all the countries of Europe have taken the road towards European integration. Of the few States that still remain outside the frontiers of the EU, Switzerland is looking to the Union with interest, signs bilateral accords with Brussels (the problems of “banking confidentiality” and the Schengen treaty for the circulation of persons still remain […]

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Ecumenism" "

Ten thousand to celebrate EU enlargement” “

Over 10,000 members of 160 Christian movements and communities (Catholics, Anglicans and Orthodox) from all over Europe will meet in Stuttgart on 8th May to celebrate the enlargement of the EU to ten new countries in Eastern and Southern Europe (on 1st May). The event – promoted by an organizing committee that comprises, among Catholic […]

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Anglicans: ordination of women, doubts and proposals” “

A third Anglican province apart from Canterbury and York, with an independent archbishop and its own hierarchy separate from the rest of the Church of England, in which all the faithful contrary to the ordination of women bishops could find a home: the proposal is made by the archbishop of York David Hope, second in […]

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France: Evangelicals, "we are not a sect"” “

A dossier published in the French paper “Le Nouvel Observateur” with the title “The Evangelicals: a sect that wants to conquer the world” has triggered an immediate reaction from Evangelicals and Protestants in France. In a letter to the authors of the article, the secretary of the French Evangelical Alliance, pastor Stéphan Lauzet, denies the […]

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Esa" "

The space boffins” “

It’s a golden moment for ESA, the European Space Agency, which is emerging as one of the great protagonists of research to unlock the secrets of the stars in the sky and the universe. And while the spotlights are turned on Kourou, the European cosmodrome situated in French Guinea, for the launch of the Rosetta […]

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