Bishop Segura: "The focus of this campaign is to give thanks"."We are all proud of something, and our convictions are also a reason to be proud of something". This is what the bishop of Bilbao and head of the Secretariat for the Support of the ChurchJoseba Segura.
Segura made this statement in the context of a breakfast presentation of the campaign for the Diocesan Church Day of this 2023 to the media.
In this meeting, the Bishop of Bilbao also emphasized that this traditional campaign of the diocesan Church "increasingly places less emphasis on the economic aspect to give more value to daily life and the contribution of the Church to the world."
Segura also wanted to emphasize that the campaign presented was carried out in a social context in which among so many "meaningful proposals, the Church becomes one more and leads us to ask ourselves to what extent we are convinced that our proposal has a social value".
"Spanish society has a great respect for the manifestations of faith of other confessions and, at times, Catholics are afraid to explicitly present our convictions," said the bishop in charge of the Secretariat for the Support of the Church.
Not being "ashamed" of being believers
This is, in fact, the visual storyline of the 2023 campaign, in which the audiovisual proposal focuses on situations "that occur regularly" in the opinion of those responsible for this campaign.
The video shows how three lay people, two young men and a young woman, seem to be "ashamed" to show their faith and how a reflection on the work of the Church, -personalized in a priest who gives communion to a sick woman, another priest who helps the homeless and a nun dedicated to education-, leads them to a change of attitude and to show, "with pride" their belonging to the Catholic community.
In this context, José María Albalad, director of the secretariat for the support of the Church, stressed that this is a positive campaign, which wants to highlight what the Church does in society and that it is not "against anything or anyone".
The campaign, reiterated Albalad, "wants to show that Christians are not weirdos" and that "the feeling of belonging to this community" is the basis for the co-responsibility of all in the life of the Church.
Although the Diocesan Church Day campaign does not make, in this edition, an explicit reference to the way of economic collaboration, this is part of the different ways of collaborating that the Spanish Church presents to believers and non-believers: prayer, time, qualities and economic contribution.
The campaign will be visible in all types of media from October 31 to November 12, the Sunday of Diocesan Church Day.
