" "Romania" "

” “Restoring confiscated properties” “

“Restoring, according to a criterion of justice, confiscated church properties, so as to enable the Catholic Church to use such properties for the fulfilment of her mission”. The appeal was made by John Paul II, on receiving in recent days the new ambassador of Romania to the Holy See, Mihail Dobre. During the audience, the […]

di Redazione

United Kingdom" "

” “The Queen’s Golden Jubilee” “

Not only rock concerts, carriage processions and gospel choirs in the celebrations marking the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II as queen of Great Britain: although British society is often described as secularized and remote from the teachings of the Gospel, the spiritual dimension was an important component of these four days of “jubilee”. The sovereign […]

di Silvia Guzzetti - London" "" "

monks" "

They’ve always been European-minded” “

“Europe was born from the cross, the book and the plough”: Paul VI’s graphic image alludes to the great contribution made by Benedictine monastic life to the formation of the old continent. What can monasticism say today when faced by the challenges that await Europe, torn between the process of reunification and the distintegration of […]

di Redazione

ecumenism" "

” “England: unity pact between the Churches” “

“We pledge to persevere in the search for a common understanding of the salvific message of Christ in the Gospel; and to work, in the light of the Holy Spirit, for the visible unity of the Church of Christ in the one faith”. This is the “pact” signed at Windsor on Sunday, 2 June, in […]

di Redazione

Adriatic Sea: ” “the signature of the Pope and Bartholomew I ” “

John Paul II will also sign the “Venice Declaration”, together with the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, on the afternoon of 10 June, at the end of the Symposium, “A Sea at risk, unity of intentions”, promoted by the Patriarchate and dedicated this year to the Adriatic Sea. The announcement was made by an […]

di Redazione

KEK: secretary Clements reconfirmed in his post” “

The new chairman of the “Church and Society” Commission of the Conference of the European Churches (KEK) is pastor Ruediger Noll, a well-known figure in ecumenical circles thanks to his role as co-secretary and organizer of the Ecumenical Assembly in Graz in 2001. He was nominated by KEK’s central Committee at its annual meeting, being […]

di Redazione

Brussels: the Churches and immigration” “

“If the European Union wants to take seriously the question of human rights, it must begin to combat the deep-seated causes of forced immigration, instead of combating migrants themselves, in their attempts to reach European territory”: this is one of the conclusions reached by the representatives of the churches of southern Europe and of the […]

di Redazione

” “Europe: workers at risk ” “of mobbing” “

In Europe there are 12 million people who suffer forms of psychosocial violence on the workplace. That’s what emerges from a survey conducted by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions and presented in recent days at an ACLI conference on “Mobbing: professional disease”. Another finding of the survey is that […]

di Redazione

Germany: promoting education” “

“Promoting the value of education”: that is what is urged by Sylvia Kroll, professor of psychology and spokesperson of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) for social questions, in a communiqué issued on 2 June, to coincide with the meeting of the Commission of the German Parliament for the family, during which the new […]

di Redazione

Italy: 93.2% of students have opted for religious education at school” “

In the 2001/2002 school year, 93.2% of Italian students chose the teaching of the Catholic religion as against 6.8% of students who preferred “not to avail themselves of it”. This is what emerged from the 2002 yearbook, published by the CRT (Catholic Religious Teaching) department of the Italian Bishops’ Conference in recent days. The yearbook […]

di Redazione