European women’s symposium

Dear Pax Romana Women Friends in Europe,

Since the International Assembly in Warsaw and Krakov, more than a year has passed. Let me refer to some women talk among a few European participants there, such as new ways of stressing “women topics” as a prior agenda of our future work in Pax Romana, or exchanging ideas by active communication, and finally, arranging a women’s meeting in Tirana.

I am most grateful to Elvira Daberdaku from Albania, Gina Garagouni-Scheerbarth from Greece, Eulalia Pasqual from Catalonia, and to Lidia Tresalti from Italy for establishing closer contact with me. I personally consider this a positive step towards a better understanding of past and current problems of women in different parts of Europe, and for developing issues of common interest and mutual help.

When we left Poland in August 2004, some of us felt encouraged to start thinking of a possible motto and of topics for a kind of symposium on “women matters”. It was Elvira Daberdaku and I who began some brain-storming activities, frequently sending e-mails to and fro. Her special wish was to pick up a topic dealing with “women in post-dictatorship communist societies”, while I thought that in addition, the question of emancipation (practiced by our church and in society) as well as women’s (lack of) self-confidence were still worth discussing.  Finally, Lidia Tresalti came up with a really universal title for a European women’s meeting: “The (essential) contribution of women (or female intellectuals / professionals) to the construction of Europe”, with regard to church, civil society, past and present, etc.

With all this in mind, I went to the Maritain symposium and to the European assembly in Bilbao last September hoping to meet Pax Romana women from every corner of Europe with whom one could discuss, change and alter, expand and criticise what had been “produced” so far, and carry on brainstorming, and finally initiate a prestigious project in the near future. Unfortunately, there were only four member countries represented by women: Catalonia by Nuria Sastre and Eulalia Tort, Italy by Lidia Tresalti, the Netherlands by Edith Brugmans, and Austria by myself. We were granted two extra hours to talk about our specific matters, and in the end we agreed that we – such a small group of five (or rather four) – were not authorized to vote in favour or against the acceptance of any topic, or propose new ones, or make arrangements for something like a European women’s symposium.

We parted with the wish to persuade you, dear Pax Romana Women Friends, to come to the next  meeting which will be on in Prague from Friday 20th to Sunday 22nd of January 2006, so that we can re-establish our personal contacts and start some more successful work on future women projects, and also on the once proposed “women’s symposium”.

Before ending this letter, I want to say a special thank-you to Lidia Tresalti, not only for her advice and help, but this time particularly for her effort to sum up “The stages of progressive attention to women problems in ICMICA” from 1983 to the present. You all will soon receive this valuable piece of information and be able to appreciate it too. Many, many thanks, Lidia!

With my best wishes to all of you for taking the above to heart, and for a prosperous and beneficial work in Pax Romana I am looking forward to meeting you in Prague next January,

Sincerely yours,

Annemarie Weinzettl