They - Card. Erdõ continued - “represent different peoples, with different Christian vocations, like St. Bridget of Sweden and St. Catherine of Siena; cultivated people who, enlightened by the grace, by virtue of their legacy and personal vocation, have united in their martyrdom the Chosen People and the People of the New Covenant, like Edith Stein who became ‘Saint Teresa Benedict of the Cross’”. In other words, the patrons of Europe are “common spiritual resources, common basis of the highest and truest European culture, pillars of the temple of God”. They “strengthen the identity of the Christian community. Every parish, every diocese can have a patron saint. Peoples have their angels, Christians are given the name of a saint at Baptism, a name which is an expression of their personal identity”. So this is why, for the president of CCEE, “it is important” also for “this great community of peoples” which is the Old Continent “to have its patron saints as an expression of its identity”. “When the European Bishops’ Conferences work together to promote the new evangelisation – he concluded –, they act in full communion with the universal Church and in fraternal collaboration with one another”.

09/05/2012 -