40 years at the service of the communion of the bishops in Europe

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Rome on Friday 25 November at 13 30 at Palazzo San Pio X – Via della Conciliazione 5A News Conference will take place – Rome. CCEE is celebrating its forty years of service of communion between the bishops in Europe with a seminar on Europe and the New Evangelisation, to be held in Rome on 22 November from 0900 to 1230 (Sala San Pio X – Palazzo San Pio X – Via della Conciliazione 5). The meeting, jointly organised by the Council of European Episcopal Conferences (CCEE) and the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation, will begin with a welcome address from the Cardinal Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone, and an introduction from the CCEE President, Cardinal Péter Erdő. The focus of the work will be reports from Prof. Philippe Capelle-Dumont, lecturer at the Philosophy Faculty in the Institut Catholique in Paris, on The cultural context of Europe today and the Gospel, and from Honorable Luca Volonté, a parliamentarian at the Council of Europe, on The Contribution of Catholics to European social and political life. The meeting will be drawn to an end by the President of the Vatican dicastery co-ordinating the meeting, Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella. The Presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences members of CCEE have been invited to the meeting, along with representatives of Vatican dicasteries, Ambassadors to the Holy See from European nations, and experts from the worlds of culture and communication.
In the afternoon, the CCEE Presidency, comprising a President, Cardinal Péter Erdő, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest (Hungary), and two Vice-Presidents, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, Archbishop of Genoa (Italy), and the Archbishop of Przemysl (Poland), Mgr Józef Michalik, will begin their traditional visit to the Vatican dicasteries.On Wednesday 23 November, at the end of the General Audience, the CCEE Presidency and an Orthodox delegation, comprising, inter alia, Metropolitan Gennadios of Sassima (Ecumenical Patriarchate), Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk (Patriarchate of Moscow) and some representatives of other Orthodox Churches in Europe, will give to Pope Benedict XVI a special edition of the Acta of the 2nd European Catholic-Orthodox Forum which took places in Rhodes (18-22 October 2011) on the theme Church-State Relations.
The Roman visit will end on Friday 25 November with a private audience of the CCEE Presidency with the Holy Father and subsequently with the Cardinal Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone.
To the Council of the Bishops´ Conferences of Europe (CCEE) belong, as members, the current 33 European Bishops’ Conferences of this Continent, represented by right by their Presidents, and the Archbishops of Luxembourg, of the Principality of Monaco, the Maronite Archbishop of Cyprus and the Bishop of Chişinău (Moldova Rep.) and the Eparchial Bishop of Mukachevo. The President is Cardinal Péter Erdő, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, Primate of Hungary; the Vice-Presidents are Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, Archbishop of Genoa, and Mgr Józef Michalik, Archbishop of Przemyśl. The General Secretary is Mgr. Duarte da Cunha. The Secretariat is based at St Gallen (Switzerland).