AMERICA/ARGENTINA - “The Catholic identity of Cultural Centres and young people in public life”, Salta 2nd meeting of Head of Catholic Cultural Centres in the Southern Cone

Salta (Fides Service) -The Second Meeting of Heads of Catholic Cultural Centres in the Southern Cone opened today in Salta (Argentina) 14-16 June.
The program covers two principal themes: preferential concern for young people, threatened by the temptation to ever greater isolation from their commitment to public life; and the Catholic identity of the Church's cultural centers..
Participants, head of cultural centres in the region and members of the Pontifical Council for the Culture, will reflect on the main challenges facing young people and suggest concrete initiatives for cultural centres to collaborate in the process of transmitting the faith and integrating youth in society.
In his opening address “The Catholic Identity of Cultural Centers and Young People in Search of the Beauty that Captivates” Cardinal Paul Poupard President of the Pontifical Council for Culture spoke about the mythical figure of Ulysses attracted by mermaids. From this picture he presented in the first part the figure of Jesus Christ whose beauty is captivating. In the second he examined the situation of young people, “drawn by the beauty of Jesus Christ and the narcotic song of the mermaids”, new languages and situations. Lastly in the third part he proposed a programme of action for the cultural centres starting from a strong Catholic identity seeing that , the song of the mermaids demand new personal existential language to show the beauty of Christ and be his disciple.
(AP) (14/6/2005 Agenzia Fides; Righe:24; Parole:288)