EUROPE - European Vocations Service meeting concludes: “offer young people courageous and bold ideas that will help them hear Jesus' call to "come and follow me”

Strasbourg (Fides Service) - Europe's national delegates for vocations ministry met in Strasbourg from 1st to 4th July 2004 to study the theme Good Master, What should I do? (Lk 18.1): Accompanying young people on the their vocational journeys. In this year of further enlargement in the European Union, the choice of the city of Strasbourg was particularly symbolic. On the first day, participants from 25 countries had the opportunity of visiting the European Parliament. Father Gilbert Caffin, an Oratorian priest, came to explain to them the work of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) at the Council of Europe. His remarks on education proved to lead quite naturally on to questions concerning young people, addressed later that day by Father Michael Kühn, national director of pastoral care for young people in Germany, who spoke on the theme The joys and hopes, the sadness and fears of young people today.
Father Riccardo Tonelli, director of the Institute for the Pastoral Care of Young People at the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome, placed a great deal of emphasis on the foundations of Christian vocation: the personal encounter with Jesus Christ that is a "faith adventure". He remarked "The basis for our passion for life and compassion for everyone's life is taking sides with Jesus". That enables us to offer young people courageous and bold ideas that will help them hear Jesus' call to "come and follow me".
Four particular approaches were discussed: the idea of a diaconal year, the principles behind the programmes in one national vocations centre, a highly developed programme based in Assisi, designed to help young people come to terms with their vocations, and the developing vocational strategy of one of the Bishops' Conferences.
There is a 'European' awareness of the issue of vocations, but it is crystallising in some extremely different contexts: the climate in the West does not seem auspicious in terms of a growth in responses to God's call, while the dominant factor in the Churches of Eastern Europe is the rediscovery of freedom, and the Church lives and works as a tiny minority in the Nordic countries: people are becoming more and more aware that, as Christians, we are all meant to call others, welcoming our own call and accepting our responsibility to help others recognise theirs. The next congress will take place from 30th June to 3rd July in Slovakia. SL (Fides Service 8/7/2004 EM lines 27 Words: 367)