Bishops' official urges church to be open to East European Catholics

Published: 2004-04-30

OXFORD, England (CNS) -- The secretary-general of a European bishops' organization urged Western church leaders to be more receptive to Catholics from Eastern Europe after the May 1 expansion of the European Union. "Europe has now rediscovered its unity -- we are working together," said Msgr. Noel Treanor, Irish-born secretary-general of the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Union, known as COMECE. "But bishops from the region are concerned that their spiritual traditions should be respected. There should be a strong desire now to recognize what they are and to incorporate and learn from their experience of being the church," he said. Bishops' conferences from Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia and Malta -- all countries scheduled to join the European Union May 1 -- were formally inaugurated into the bishops' commission at its April 24 plenary session in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Two other new European Union states, Estonia and Cyprus, have no separate bishops' conferences.

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