The European Cultural Reviews Network meets in Budapest

The annual meeting of the European Cultural Reviews network edited by the Society of Jesus took place this year in Budapest, Hungary, between the 16th and 20th of May. This year there were eleven editors and the President of the Conference of the European Jesuit Provincials, Franck Janin SJ.

At these meetings, each of the participants has the time to share about the new developments in his/her editorial house.

This time the main issue was the question “What could be our contribution to support dialogue and to open our societies in a world where there are quite clear tendencies to undemocratic developments?”  We invited Botond Feledy, an expert in political sciences, and Professor of the Catholic University Pázmány Péter in Budapest. He spoke about the so called Visegrad countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary), comparing these countries with each other and comparing this group of countries to the rest of Europe.

We also visited Tihany, a Benedictine monastery at the Balaton lake, where the newly elected very young Prior, Mihályi Jeromos (32 years old), introduced us in the situation of the Church in Hungary. The Benedictine prior tod us: “there are very clear tendencies of renewal in the church of Hungary, and this was in putting new priorities in many dioceses, according to which it is not so much the hard pastoral work that counts, but the spiritual and mental integrity of people who are in charge of the faithful. Many bishops try to keep their priests from too much work, which leads to burning out.”

In the picture: Arpad Horvath SJ, A Szív, Hungary, Stefan Kiechle SJ, Stimmen der Zeit, Germany, Tadija Milikić SJ, Obnovljeni Život, Croatia, François Euvé SJ, Etude, France, Antonio Júlio Trigueiros SJ, Revista Brotéria, Portugal, Antonio Spadaro SJ, La Civiltá Cattolica, Italy, Jan Koenot SJ, Streven, Belgium, Lucienne Bittar, Choisir, Switzerland, Ulf Johnson SJ, Signum, Sweden, Jaime Tatay SJ, Razón y Fe, Spain, Theodoros Kodidis SJ, Anoichtoi Orizontes, Greece, and Franck Janin SJ, President of the European Jesuit Provincials Conference, Brussels.

IMAGE by Jesuits in Europe