Category Archives: JESCletter Nr. 16 / January 2012

Editorial

In 2012 JEO-OCIPE (Brussels) is being restructured as the Jesuit European Social Centre (JESC).
Following a decision of the Conference of European Provincials at its plenary assembly in Poland in October 2011, OCIPE, also known as the Jesuit European Office, is being restructured. Up to this point, OCIPE has been an international Jesuit network in Brussels, Budapest, Strasbourg and Warsaw. Juridically, though, it is a lay association registered in Strasbourg.
As a result of the change, the offices in Budapest and Warsaw will become social centres of their respective provinces. The precise framework and scope of the future work in Strasbourg, linked especially to the Council of Europe, is currently under discussion, but remains of close concern to the Society of Jesus and to the new Brussels JESC office. JESC itself will be a separate legal entity, apostolically under the aegis of the Conference of European Provincials.
Operationally, JESC will continue to reflect and comment on European affairs from the perspective of faith, to maintain our relationships in the EU institutions and with our other partners in Brussels such as COMECE, and to bring Catholic Social Thought to bear on the affairs of the EU. So we shall have two principal roles: of coordination/networking at the level of the European social apostolate, and of reflection and commentary on European Affairs.
These changes entail a new title, new email addresses, etc. We become the Jesuit European Social Centre (JESC). Our website is now www.jesc.net and our office email addresses have changed from surname@ocipe.info to surname@jesc.net. Please take note of these changes and adapt your bookmarks and address books accordingly. Thank you and Happy New Year!

Sakharov Prize - image: European parliament (cc: by-nc-nd)

Western observers have sympathised with the demonstrators and the rebels in North Africa who have expelled their dictators. They have taken great risks to gain their new liberty. They deserved even more sympathy when their action in the streets was prolonged to participate in free elections. Thus, so inferred our observers, they took a major step toward establishing a true democracy: a good thing for them and a good thing for us, since democratic authorities tend to have peaceful relationships with foreign countries. However we are gradually learning more. It was indeed a first step, but only a first step. A stable democracy is not achieved by means of a single, more-or-less successful electoral process. Continue reading →

Church ceiling - image: Feuillu (cc: by-nc)

Les scandales de la pédophilie dans l’Eglise catholique dont se sont rendus coupables des prêtres, des religieux et jusqu’à des évêques en divers pays d’Europe ont provoqué une grande crise de confiance, affaibli l’autorité des responsables et contribué à accentuer une certaine marginalisation de cette institution dans la société civile et politique. Mais celle-ci tente actuellement, sous l’impulsion du pape lui-même, de recenser les victimes, de coopérer avec les services de justice, en cessant de se réfugier dans un silence complice. Le million de jeunes rassemblés à Madrid pour les Journées mondiales de la Jeunesse a apporté, en sens inverse, des images réconfortantes: soif de prière, joie de vivre malgré la crise menaçante, confiance faite au pape et à la hiérarchie, capacité de passer de l’agitation bruyante au silence général, ce mélange des genres tellement contraire à la nature des médias que l’on sent désarmés devant l’absence de sons captables et d’images parlantes. Continue reading →

Chapel of the Resurrection

Ilsemarie Weiffen

The history of the Chapel of the Resurrection in Brussels goes back to the “Chapel of the Holy Sacrament of the Miracle”. That Chapel was built in 1455 in the Rue de Sols in the centre of Brussels. In the course of urban development in the 20th Century it had to make way for the construction of the Central Station. An exact copy was built in Rue Van Maerlant, consecrated on 14 October 1908 and opened for worship. After the Sisters to whom the care of the Chapel had been entrusted left, due to their advanced age in 1974, it stood there ripe for demolition. In 1999 the building was purchased by an international non-profit organization founded by officials of the European Union and other European institutions. The purchase of the building, restoration and development was funded by donations. Continue reading →

Environment - image: wikimedia

Sur la problématique de la destruction de l’environnement, le monde ne manque pas d’études détaillées, d’évaluations des risques et de prévisions. Parmi les analyses les plus récentes, une étude, réalisée pour le ministère de l’énergie des Etats-Unis, calcule que l’émission d’anhydride carbonique, gaz à effet de serre nuisible pour le climat, a atteint, dans l’année écoulée, un record mondial, en dépit de toutes les protestations et les déclarations d’intention politiques. Ces développements et d’autres semblables, dans leur complexité, leur dynamique et leur étendue historiquement sans précédent, font comprendre qu’une solution durable à la question du rapport entre l’homme et la nature ne peut pas être trouvée en restant dans le schème d’un mode de penser mono-disciplinaire, mais requiert une alliance de toutes les forces et de toutes les composantes de la société. Continue reading →

Work and Family - image: exlibris (cc: by-nc-nd)

Gergely Ternovszky

Today, job expectations may many times conflitct with the possibilities of finding a wife or husband, living a true family life, having children. Could it be different, for the profit of everyone?
Work needs to be organised in such a way as enable people to found families. If work and family are not in balance, there may be serious consequences for the whole of society.
A remarkable civil initiative, ‘Three little Princes, Three little Princesses – Population Roundtable’, launched with the assistance of social, economic and religious experts in Hungary has formulated recommendations to stop the decrease of the population (haromkiralyfi.hu). The movement’s rationale is to ‘Let planned children be born ‘. Among the most important proposals is that of the need to create family friendly policies in the workplace. Excessive expectations and stress at work is one of the reason for a low birth-rate. Continue reading →

From Copenhagen to Brussels

Dear Brussels,

“Bridge over troubled water?” – It’s all in a sentence, perhaps. At least, it seems that the Danish Minister of European Affairs, Mr Wammen, has described the role of the Danish EU-presidency fairly succinctly. The troubled water is an image of the current state of the EU, of course, while the bridge would be the contribution of the Danish government in overcoming this situation of peril and calamity. Thus, the role of Denmark in this scenario is to work for comprise and common understanding across the variety of interests marking the EU initiatives at present. The background for this optimism is inspired by the results obtained when Denmark last has been presiding the EU in 2002, and an agreement on the Eastern European enlargement was reached. Yet, the situation was very different then, particularly because the question was whether more should be invited to the estate party rather than the owners doubting whether they were interested in staying together at all.
Doubt is a key notion for describing the overall Danish attitude towards the EU. Continue reading →

50 years ago

L’Europe des personnes et des peuples
Lettre de l’OCIPE n° 11 (1), janvier 1962.

La 49e Semaine Sociale de France va tenir ses assises à Strasbourg du 17 au 22 juillet 1962.
Depuis 1904, date de sa première assemblée à Lyon, la “Faculté itinérante”, comme on l’a appelée, s’est transportée régulièrement chaque année – sauf dix années de guerre – d’une grande ville de France à l’autre, et l’importance de cette institution dans l’histoire de la pensée et de l’action sociale des catholiques de France a été considérable.
Jusqu’à la guerre de 1914 les Semaines Sociales ne se sont pas fixé de thème d’étude particulier ; elles faisaient chaque année un large tout d’horizon, confrontant l’ensemble de l’actualité sociale du pays aux directives de l’Eglise, et fixant aux catholiques d’action les objectifs urgents à atteindre d’une année à l’autre. Il fallait parer au plus pressé, et, comme tous les problèmes se posaient à la fois, en cette période d’organisation de la pensée et du travail social, il n’était pas question d’en isoler un pour lui réserver l’attention des congressistes. Continue reading →