EN | IT – The 99 cells of Santo Stefano prison on the island of Ventotene, where Altiero Spinelli was imprisoned for his aversion to the fascist regime, will become 99 rooms of a campus for European Union students. It is a sign of hope – although of a high symbolic intensity – for this European historical passage.
EN | IT – “Is Brexit for you a distant subject that does not interest you, or is it of some interest for you as well? And if so, in what way?”. That question was posed after the outcome of Brexit to a cloistered nun. The answer, shown here, appears on “santalessandro” the online weekly of the diocese of Bergamo – Italy.
EN | IT | FR | DE – Statement by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, President of Comece, following the referendum in the United Kingdom. “After this referendum, time has come for Europe to look ahead. The decision of the British electorate confronts the European Union and its Member States with questions about their goals and their tasks. The European Union needs a new departure. We need to ‘rethink’ Europe in some way. The deliberations on the future development of the European Union must therefore take place on a broad social basis”.
EN | IT – The response of the British people to the EU has arrived. The comments, reactions and concerns of one side stand hard-nosed with the other side’s ones. Nightmares, collapses, resignations are looming. A sad and predictable scenario, but it is not the time to lose one’s head, raising walls against walls.
EN | IT | FR – This year’s theme for the Global Media Forum, due to be held in Bonn in mid June, is “Media. Freedom. Values”. A University Chair in “European values” was inaugurated in Brussels recently on 4 May. The Presidents of the European Commission and Parliament, Jean-Claude Juncker and Martin Schulz, were heard to declare, in joint platform when they visited the Vatican together on 6 May, that “Europe’s soul is its values.” But what exactly are these values?
EN | IT | PL – Monday, May 9th, 2016 Europe Day has been celebrated in the West. In countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic or Hungary, however, 9th May is commemorated as the day of the capitulation of Nazi Germany and the end of the Second World War. For the peoples of those countries May 9th , 1945 also meant the beginning of Soviet supremacy which lasted 45 years…
EN | IT | FR | DE – Conference of European Churches (CEC) and Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE) message on the occasion of International Roma Day
EN | IT – Today, Europe is in search of its soul. There is no gap that cannot be filled. To all those whom God loves, to those who believe to be non-believers, to the Christians is the great task of bringing to fruition what Adenauer, De Gasperi and Schuman began.
EN | IT – Indeed, this turning of the back on Europe is itself the work of the abiding British demon of xenophobic nationalism and isolationism. A prime function of the EU is to subdue national demons like these, then to hold them at arm’s length.
EN | IT – A major problem of Central European countries that got rid of communist totalitarianism some 26 years ago seems to be the fact that they still haven’t rooted in western liberal democratic mindset sufficiently. The Czech post-communist political scene offers a good illustration.