BISHOPS CONVENE IN SARAJEVO TO DISCUSS RELATIONS IN EUROPE

SARAJEVO, Oct 3 (Hina) - A three-day plenary session of the Council of European Bishops' Conferences (CCEE), which has pooled about forty cardinals, archbishops and bishops from the entire European continent, began in Sarajevo on Thursday. #L# Announcing the session, Sarajevo Archbishop Cardinal Vinko Puljic said he was glad that Sarajevo was the venue of this gathering, as the event would help Bosnia-Herzegovina to again attract the attention of the international public. "Bosnia has recently been going into oblivion as if it was everything all right here but it is not," Cardinal Puljic said. He said the Catholic Church in Bosnia would like to be a part of Europe, and the work of the CCEE directly supported the process of the European integration. CCEE President, Bishop of Chur, Amedee Grab, said the members of the CCEE were aware that they were now in country which had suffered much and therefore they came in Sarajevo to express their support to Bosnia. Zagreb Archbishop Josip Bozanic, who represented Croatia at this event and who is a vice-president of the CCEE, said the Church in Bosnia would like to be a bridge between this country and Europe. "We do not want to see a new division between European Union members and other European countries at the beginning of the third millennium," Bozanic said adding that the plenary session of the CCEE would revolve around evangelisation as well as about the EU's enlargement and the dialogue between the Church and responsible factors in society. (hina) ms