Card. Peter Erdö (54 years of age), archbishop of Budapest and primate of Hungary, is the new president of Ccee (Council of European Bishops Conferences) for the five years’ period 2006-2011, appointed during the plenary meeting of the body that brings together the 34 Bishops Conferences of the continent, which ended yesterday 8th October in Saint Petersburg. The new deputy presidents will be the archbishop of Zagreb, card. Josip Bozaniæ re-elected for another five years’ term and mgr. Jean-Pierre Ricard, archbishop of Bordeaux. "Ecumenical dialogue; cooperation with the bishops of the other continents, especially Africa; dialogue with Islam" and "the challenge of the laicisation of the continent" are the priorities of the new president of Ccee who stated he wants to take inspiration from the Pope’s magisterium. "Faith highlights must be the driving force of our lives". One further area "to which, as Christians, we must deeply commit ourselves", according to the new president of Ccee, is the "respect of life, of the family and of human dignity"; subjects that, as well as vocations and the educations of priests, in his message to the assembly, Benedict XVI had defined as "indispensable for the new evangelisation, but generally for life itself and for the real progress of Europe".
