SEMINAR FOR AVIATION CHAPLAINS OPENS TODAY IN HUNGARY

VATICAN CITY, FEB 23, 1999 (VIS) - The Second European Seminar for Catholic Chaplains and Pastoral Workers in Civil Aviation, promoted by the Hungarian Episcopal Conference, starts today in Budapest, Hungary, on the theme "Catholic Airport Chaplaincies of Europe on the Threshold of the Third Millennium."

Also collaborating in this four-day seminar are the European Secretariat of Catholic Chaplains in Civil Aviation and the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People. Twenty chaplains from ten European nations are scheduled to attend, as is Cardinal Laszlo Paskai, O.F.M., archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest and primate of Hungary.

This meeting is subsequent to the first such seminar which took place in Warsaw in 1996. At that time it was proposed to create the European Association of Catholic Chaplains, a proposal which became a reality in 1997. A communique announcing the seminar notes that chaplaincies have been opened in recent years in several Central European countries, including Hungary. It also states that "a greater opening towards Eastern countries, especially those of the former USSR, would be desirable."

"The seminar will above all deal with the theme of preparation in airports for the Great Jubilee," says the communique. "The discussion will turn to various aspects of this great event: the pilgrimage of airport workers themselves, collaboration with tour guides and pilgrimages, receiving and welcoming pilgrims in airports and the involvement and participation of the mass-media in preparing personnel and passengers."

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