After 53 years in Switzerland, beginning in Chur and then for the last 47 years in St. Gallen, the seat of the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences has been moved to via della Pigna 13, in Rome.
Blessing the new CCEE offices in the Maffei Marescotti palace was Card. Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State. With him were present Card. Robert Francis Prevost, Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, and H.E. Msgr. Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States and International Organisations.
The inauguration was attended by some Prefects of the Vatican Dicasteries with which the CCEE collaborates most closely, and by many European Ambassadors accredited to the Holy See.
Also present were H.E. Msgr. Mariano CROCIATA, President of COMECE, and H.E. Msgr. Noël TREANOR, Apostolic Nuncio to the European Union, together with the entire COMECE Presidency and a delegation from the Catholic Diocese and Administration of St. Gallen.
In his address, H.E. Msgr. Gintaras Grušas, CCEE President, emphasised that “with the new headquarters in Rome we want to help strengthen the collaboration and exchange of the European Bishops with each other and with the Holy See as well as to initiate consultative relationships with experts in various fields” and thanked “the Swiss Bishops and especially the diocese of St. Gallen for their welcome and financial support over the many years together”.
The transfer of the headquarters, recalled Card. Parolin, must not imply any lessening of CCEE’s own vocation to remain at the heart of the ecclesial life of Europe, but must rather be “the occasion to develop even more the links between the various Bishops’ Conferences and the See of Peter through a more constant dialogue with the various Dicasteries of the Roman Curia, starting from the predominantly pastoral nature that characterises the CCEE. This character is called upon to assume today the face of synodality, that is to say, that of a Church which, starting from the Word of truth of the Gospel, goes out to meet the men and women of our time, enlightened and sustained by the very presence of Christ”.
And he concluded: “the closeness of the European Bishops to the Pope and the Holy See’s Dicasteries can provide a new pastoral impetus and ecumenical momentum, particularly in the Jubilee year as well as during the synodal journey”.
