"In this time and age, somehow marked by great progress, but also ruled by a culture that tries to thwart the Christian presence within society, by confining faith to the private sphere, the common house of Europe must be built on principles which can support it, enlighten it and give it a soul". With these words, card. Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Congregation for the Bishops, opened in Fatima tonight the meeting of the presidents of the European Bishops Conferences (Ccee). "As bishops added the cardinal , we must help Europe find again the centrality of God in the human, personal and social life. Europe is in the clutch of many different problems, but no true solution can be found unless God is let again into the life of our continent. As the Holy Father said a few weeks ago during the sermon at Mariazell: only where God is, there is the future". "The advance of the secularisation that modernity has taken along and that which Pope Benedict XVI defined as the dictatorship of relativism must not make us lose heart: this is not a time for despondency! This is a time for commitment! And we, as bishops, must be in the forefront of this frontier of commitment".
