Cardinal Schoenborn to participate in international conference
Moscow, April 20, Interfax - An international conference called "European Meeting of Christian Culture" on the theme Give a Soul to Europe - the Mission and the Responsibility of the Churches will be held from May 3 to 5 in Vienna, Austria.
It is organized by the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate. The logistics is undertaken by Pro Oriente, a Catholic organization, Interfax was told Thursday in DECR.
The aim of the conference is to review the challenges facing Christian Churches today, such as the globalization and the spreading of sects and new forms of unbelief and religious indifference. On the other hand, the participants plan to offer their own vision of coming out of the crisis through education of the younger generation on the basis of Christian values and through efforts to increase the influence of Christian ethics on politics, economy and the mass media.
The meeting is called also to assess the resources of inter-Christian cooperation in restoring Christian ethical foundations in European society and the advantages of dialogue between Christian Churches and other religions and representatives of secular humanism.
Among Russian participants in the conference are Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, chairman of the DECR, Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria, Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyev, rector of St. Tikhon's Humanitarian University, Hegumen Philaret Bulekov, representative of the Russian Orthodox Church in Strasbourg, Sergey Khoruzhiy, Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, and others.
The European side will be represented mostly by members of the Pontifical Council for Culture led by its president, Cardinal Paul Poupard, as well as Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Mr. Michel Camdessus, former general secretary of the International Monetary Fund, representatives of Catholic communities, public organizations and educational institutions.
