“A motherly Church that looks after her children, so much that she rolls up her sleeves to find new avenues”. The 53^rd Ordinary Assembly of the Albanian Bishops’ Conference (Kish), held in Tirana from 29^th to 31^st October, is “told” like that, in an official release. The Assembly’s work “led to review information, share and take decisions that have to do with the good of the devotees entrusted to the pastoral care and service of pastors in Albania”. “It was visible, and could be visibly read on their faces, how much the pastors wished to be told by their brother, the synodal father, mgr. Ottavio Vitale, about the Synod on Young People held in Rome in October”. In a report, Vitale described the gist of what come out of the Synod: the need to support today’s young people so that they can be “the protagonists of the mission of the Church, for a vital encounter with Christ, to be His witnesses so much as to touch people’s hearts”. The items on the agenda included: “the need to support young people through serving and praying; educational efforts, in which everybody, without exceptions, is involved; emigration as an enrichment for the community and for society”; different forms of abuse through the “firm commitment to take strict preventive measures that prevent them ever occurring again”; social justice and the role of the Church as a drive for young people “to take part in and be committed to social battles, in their passion for art, music and sport”.

In addition, a Church “that tries to find more suitable ways to convey its point of view on the body and human love”, offering young people “an anthropology of love and sexuality that leads to the values of chastity and purity”.