杏MAP导航

By Lydia O'Kane

Political and religious leaders have gathered in the Vatican this weekend to participate in an dialogue on Europe.

The three day event entitled 鈥淩ethinking Europe鈥� has been organised by, the Brussels-based Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community.

Apart from the discussion, there is also a papal audience on Saturday afternoon with the Holy Father, while on Sunday 29th participants will attend Mass in St Peter鈥檚 Basilica.

One of the participants attending the meeting is the first Vice President of the European Parliament, Mairead McGuinness, MEP, whose role also includes responsibility for Article 17 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon, which provides for the first time, a legal basis for an open, transparent and regular dialogue between the EU institutions and churches, religious associations, and philosophical and non-confessional organisations.

Before being received in private audience with 杏MAP导航 Francis on Saturday, Mairead McGuinness spoke to Lydia O鈥橩ane about the meeting and the importance of engaging with religious communities.

Europe and the Local Church

鈥淚t鈥檚 been very enlightening to hear different views from Christians in Europe and I think from the point of view of the Catholic Church to organise this, I think was absolutely fantastic; the challenge is to bring this conversation back to the parishes and to give people ownership of the conversation and to some extent to give them ownership of Europe again, because there is a sense in which people feel a bit disconnected perhaps, or maybe we think they feel disconnected and I鈥檇 like to understand if that is the case and the only way we will reconnect with them is to have this conversation back in our parishes鈥︹��

Article 17

Asked about her Article 17 role, the Vice President said, 鈥渕y role with responsibility for article 17 is to have dialogue with religious communities, directly on one to one with each Church and non-confessional organisations; part of that is interreligious but not mainly, it is really so that the religious communities feel they have an input into policy鈥� I think that engagement we鈥檝e had has been very fruitful,鈥� she said.

Ms McGuinness also noted that people in everyday life have concerns 鈥渨hich are more than just economy and growth rates. They have concerns about spiritual issues, about caring, about the soul and I think it鈥檚 good for us sometimes to pull back from the hard economics which we鈥檝e been going through because of the economic crisis鈥�

The COMECE 鈥淩ethinking Europe鈥� concludes on Sunday 29th October.