Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Fides Service) - Representatives of at least 25 countries of Europe, Africa and Asia have gathered in Sarajevo for an International Meeting of Catholic Cultural Centres in the Mediterranean and Balkan regions which opens today.
“The challenge of a new cultural dialogue in the context of globalisation” is the theme of the three day meeting, 8-10 July, organised by the Pontifical Council for Culture in collaboration with the Hrvatsko Kulturno Društvo Napredak Centre in Sarajevo.
The aim of the meeting is to discuss urgen problems common to cultural centres in the Mediterranean region and give new impulse to pastoral work. The event part of a serious of meetings held in Barcelona in 1996, Bologna 1998, Fatka in Lebanon in 2001 and again in Barcelona in 2003.
After listening to a welcome address by Cardinal Paul Poupard, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture and an introduction on the theolgical basis of dialogue, participants will discuss dialogue with the Bizantine culture and with Muslims in the light of migration, as well as dialogue with non belivers, secularisation in the west and communist atheism in the east. At round table discussions participants will present their respective pastoral work at Catholic cultural centres in front line at the service of the Church. The meeting will conclude with Mass with the local community in Sarajevo’s Catholic Cathedral.
Napredak (Progress) Centre run by the Catholic archdiocese of Sarajevo celerbated its 100th anniversary in 2002. Opened in 1902, for high school and university students it was closed under the communist regime. It reopened in 1990 and offers various types of cultural activity, theatre, choirs, brass bands, as well as sports, radio and publications. It has about 20,000 members and 66 branches all over the world.
(AP) (7/7/2005 Agenzia Fides; Righe:27; Parole:316)
