Prague, Sept 10 (CTK) – The Czech Roman Catholic Church will launch an Internet register for all kind of help offered to refugees by September 24, the Czech Bishops’ Conference (CBK) headed by Cardinal Dominik Duka announced Thursday.
The online register would be administered by the Czech Charity organisation, run by the church.
The CBK has asked parishes and religious orders to join the register and write down what they can offer to the refugees.
Last week, Pope Francis asked European parishes, monasteries and religious communities to take care of at least one refugee family. Duka and CBK deputy head Jan Graubner said discussions were not enough and action was needed.
Hundreds of thousands of refugees have arrived in Europe this year, a big part of them coming from the war-stricken Syria.
Earlier this year, the European Commission proposed that EU member countries accept 60,000 migrants in the next two years based on mandatory quotas. On September 9, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker presented the proposal for the redistribution of further 120,000 refugees across Europe.
But some EU countries, including the Czech Republic, oppose the mandatory quotas. The Czech government has promised to accept 1500 refugees by the end of 2017.
In relation to the refugee wave, the CBK called on Czech citizens not to let fear get control of them and not to get attracted by irrational extremist speeches, but to look at refugees as individual people with their own life stories.
Czech bishops offered assistance in accepting refugees to the government in July.
“We again confirm our readiness to participate in providing aid to people who are forced to leave their homes,” the CBK writes Thursday.
The Czech Charity has been seeking ways of helping people in the regions where the migration wave arose, the CBK writes.
It writes that the European Union, the United Nations and individual countries should also try to remove the causes of the migration wave in the home countries of the refugees.
