Help sought for rebuilding Church in Europe
Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published February 9, 2007
Archbishop John Myers of Newark leads the procession during the Eucharistic Congress in Bratislava, Slovakia in 2002 | Detroit – In places like Magadan, Russia, where prisoners of Stalinist labor camps once used bits of their bread ration to fashion rosaries with which to pray, the Catholic Church is being built up again with the help of money donated by Catholics in the United States.
The funds to build new or restore old churches, and support seminaries, social service programs, youth ministry and evangelization efforts are raised through the annual Collection for Aid to the Church in Central and Eastern Europe.
The collection will be taken in all churches of the Archdiocese of Detroit at Masses the weekend of Feb. 24-25.
"Having traveled extensively over the years through Central and Eastern Europe on behalf of the bishops' conference, I have seen firsthand the many positive things which have been accomplished by the generosity of Americans and their contributions to this collection. In the almost two decades now since the end of communism, new needs continue to emerge and we must all consider how we can help," said Cardinal Adam Maida, chairman of the bishops' Ad Hoc Committee for Aid to the Church in Central and Eastern Europe.
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Special collection
What: 2007 Collection for Aid to the Church in Central and Eastern Europe
When: At all Masses on Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 24-25 | The theme for the 2007 collection, "Love is the only light," draws on Pope Benedict XVI's first encyclical, "Deus Caritas Est," in which he writes, " Love is the light — and in the end, the only light — that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working."
During the decades of communist rule, the Catholic Church in what came to be called the Iron Curtain countries faced restrictions to varying degrees. In some of the countries, many bishops, priests, religious and lay leaders were imprisoned, and in some cases murdered. Efforts to destroy the Church did not succeed, but there was great devastation. Many churches, seminaries and other institutions were closed and converted to other uses, such as storage depots or barracks.
Shortly after the fall of communism, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops established the Office to Aid the Church in Central and Eastern Europe as the Church tried to regain its footing in countries where it had been driven underground for decades. Besides the huge task of rehabilitating old church buildings and constructing new churches in areas where the population had shifted, there was the need to fund the spiritual reconstruction of this traumatized region—training seminarians and lay leaders, reaching out to young people, reviving Catholic charities, and renewing programs of catechesis and communication.
Since 1991, the Collection has provided more than $100 million to Catholics in post-Communist Russia and Central and Eastern Europe. These funds have supported more than 3,500 Church projects in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.
While the people hunger for spiritual sustenance, educational materials are in short supply, seminaries and convents are short of funds, and most outreach programs are still at an early stage.
For more information about the Church in Central and Eastern Europe, access www.aidtoeasterneurope.org on the Internet.
News Release: "Love Is The Only Light"
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