The first meeting of the CCEE Commission Evangelization and Culture took place in Riga (Latvia) on March 15th.
The new Commission was set up by the 2017 CCEE Plenary Assembly, and is divided into four sections: culture, social communications, interreligious dialogue and catechesis. These sections represent three pastoral areas already covered by CCEE, with the area of culture now added as a new section.
This commission is a sign of the Church’s commitment in Europe to evangelization: offering the joy of the Gospel through the proclamation and witness of Christ to the men and women of Europe today, and to the culture of our societies that are increasingly secularized and in continuous and rapid change. In its mission, the commission intends to follow Pope Francis’s invitation to put the Kerygma (the central message of the Christian faith – that God became man in Jesus Christ and, through his death and resurrection, frees us from sin and gives us new life) at the “the centre of all evangelizing activity and all efforts at Church renewal also because (…) it is the message capable of responding to the desire for the infinite which abides in every human heart” (Cf. EG 164-165)
The Commission’s work, led by the President of the Commission, the Archbishop of Riga, H.E. Mgr Zbignevs Stankevics, began with an evaluation of the work carried out in previous years in each of the areas covered by the Commission. Subsequently, the members of the Commission worked on each of the four sections, formulating guidelines for the years ahead, guidelines that will be presented to the presidency and the next Plenary Assembly of the CCEE.
On the CCEE Commission Evangelization and Culture
The CCEE Commission for Evangelization and Culture is made up of H.E. Mgr Zbignevs Stankevics, Archbishop of Riga (Latvia), elected President of the Commission by the Plenary Assembly last autumn (28 September – 1 October 2017) in Minsk. He is assisted by a Vice-President of the Commission in the person of H.E. Mgr Grzegorz Ryś, Archbishop of Łódź (Poland).
The bishops in charge of the other sections are: for the Interreligious Dialogue, H.E. Mgr Brendan Leahy, D.D., Bishop of Limerick (Ireland); for the Social Communications, H.E. Mgr Nuno Brás, Auxiliary Bishop of Lisbon (Portugal); for the Culture, H.E. Mgr Jesus Sanz Montes, Archbishop of Oviedo (Spain); for the Catechesis, H.E. Mgr Đuro Hranić, Archbishop of Dakovo-Osijek (Croatia).
The Secretary of the Commission is Fr Mihails Volohovs, a priest of the clergy of the Diocese of Liepaja (Latvia).
Other information are available here.
The news release is available in English, Italian and Latvian.