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CATHOLIC-ORTHODOX: EUROPEAN FORUM IN LISBON ABOUT ECONOMIC CRISIS AND POVERTY

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Creato: 05 Giugno 2012

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Metropolitan bishops of the Orthodox Churches ands Catholic bishops of Europe will be meeting in Lisbon to talk about “Economic crisis and poverty. Challenges for today’s Europe”. Aa from tomorrow, the Portuguese capital will be hosting the “Third European Catholic-Orthodox Forum”, with two large delegations: the Orthodox delegation includes the Metropolitan bishop Gennadios of Sassima (Ecumenical Patriarchate), the Metropolitan bishop Policarpo of Spain and Portugal (Ecumenical Patriarchate), and delegates of the Patriarchates of Moscow, Serbia, Romania, Georgia, the Church of Cyprus, Poland and Albania. The Catholic delegation is led by card. Péter Erdõ, archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest and president of the Council of European Bishops Conferences, with the participation, among others, of mgr. Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, archbishop of Minsk (Belarus), mgr. Paolo Pezzi of the archdiocese of Mother of God at Moscow, and mgr. Mansueto Bianchi, bishop of Pistoia. The theme of the meeting -a release, posted by Ccee this morning, states - will be examined from three perspectives: the search for the origins of the current economic crisis; the search for common answers proper to the Churches, and, finally, the role the Churches are called to undertake at this particular moment of the life of the European continent”.

“We do not intend to carry out a purely economic-financial analysis of the current economic crisis, even though experts in these fields will be present for our reflections”, said Cardinal Péter Erdõ. “We are aware that the current economic decline, which endangers our very own models of society, constitutes just the tip of the iceberg and has much deeper origins”. He continued: “Many people have evoked the start of a total economic collapse, which ultimately is none other than the decline of a cultural model, permeated by uncontrolled and unconstrained liberalism, which places economic profit above the good of the whole human person”. According to the president of the European bishops, “to get back on one’s feet in this crisis there is no other solution than learning to love again. Yes, only an economy of love which places [at the centre] love for the human person, for work, for our societies can enable us to tackle this difficult situation”. The meeting will be marked by moments of work and prayer. There will be an ecumenical prayer service on Wednesday 6 June at 1900 in the Colégio Bom Sucesso and the Solemn Mass on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, Thursday 7 June at 1130 in Lisbon Cathedral. The First European Catholic-Orthodox Forum took place in 2008 (11-14 December) at Trent, in Italy, on the theme The family: a good for humanity; the 2nd European Catholic-Orthodox Forum took place on the island of Rhodes in Greece in 2010 (18-22 October) on the theme Church-State relations.

© www.agensir.it - june 4th 2012