The meeting of the national delegates for Catechesis took place in Rome this year from 18 to 20 March at the headquarters of the Italian Bishops Conference.
This meeting, which saw the participation of over 40 Bishops and delegates representing the Bishops´ Conferences of Europe, was opened with a greeting from H. E. Mgr. Đuro Hranić, head of the Catechesis Section for the Evangelisation and Culture Commission of the CCEE and from Fr Martin Michalíček, General Secretary of the CCEE.
After much time of dialogue and sharing between the delegates on their national situations with regards to catechesis and to good practices, the work continued with the report of H.E. Mgr. Zbignevs Stankevics, President of the Evangelisation and Culture Commission, on the contribution of Pope Francis to the work of the Synod on the Youth.
Professor Fr. Salvatore Currò, collaborator of the special Secretariat to the Synod and Professors of the Pontifical Salesian University of Rome, held a report on ´Catechesis and the Synodal Process´ which analysed what the Synod says of Catechesis and how it is to cause a radical renewal.
Time was also given to a presentation of “YOUCAT for kids”, a catechetical project of the New Evangelisation, given by Dr Bernhard Meuser, co-founder and co-author of the project and the presentation of the draft of the new General Directory for Catechesis by S.E. Mons. Franz-Peter Tebartz-van-Elst, delegate for Catechesis of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation.
The work was concluded with a discourse from His Eminence Card. Angelo Bagnasco, CCEE President, that reaffirmed “the necessity of catechists formation and the continuity of the faith because we live in a time of religious illiteracy in which a culture of emotionalism emerges which values emotions more than Truth as the criteria for the faith. If the Word does not illumine our life (the moral life), it is irrelevant. Surely the ethical dimension is fundamental, but always illumined by Christ and with the strength of Grace”.