On line on December 19th, 20th and 21st, an experiment from SIR Daily News in English. The service will officially start on January 9th 2006
For the European episcopate, the year 2006 will begin with a visit to Jerusalem from January 16th to 19th, as the sign of a Christian Europe committed to peace. This important event in the Holy Land will open the 2006 agenda of the Council of the Bishops Conferences of Europe (Ccee). Since its establishment in 1971 explains, in a release written for SIR, mgr Aldo Giordano, secretary general of the European body – Ccee "has expressed a Europe that politically could not even be dreamt of: a Europe beyond the wall and the Iron Curtain. Now, we have new, big historical and cultural challenges that urge Ccee to work harder for evangelisation and to contribute in new ways to the walk of unity in Europe and all over the world". The agenda of Ccee for the next two years is marked by the process of the third European Ecumenical Assembly(Aee3) due in Sibiu (Romania) in September 2007. The first step of this ecumenical "pilgrimage" will be the meeting (in Rome, January 24th to 27th) of approximately 150 delegates from the Bishops Conferences, the Churches and the ecumenical bodies. Another important ecumenical event is the meeting, next March, of the Ccee-Kek common Committee, which deals with relations with Muslims in Europe. They will work on extremely delicate points, such as mixed marriages, mutuality, praying, relations between religion and State, religion and violence, common contributions to values. "Ccee recalls mgr Giordano is first of all a European venue of a collective nature and of Catholic communion. Over these years, we have seen many networks of European bishops being strengthened and extended". This is the purpose of the plenary meetings of Ccee with the Presidents of the 34 Bishops Conferences of Europe: next year, the meeting will take place for the very first time in Russia, in Saint Petersburg.
