Helmut Schift • CLC Switzerland Eurolink Meeting • Hungary 2010 • T1

Italy

AustriaFrance

Germany CLC Switzerland on the Map

Biel/Bienne

Zürich Chur

Luzern

BernGümligen

Basel

80 „members“5 formal CLC commitment

Lausanne

Helmut Schift • CLC Switzerland Eurolink Meeting • Hungary 2010 • T2

CLC ExCo in Switzerland

Susanne Brand (secretary)Dorothee Fischer (Euro-link) Christoph Albrecht SJ (ecclesiastical assistant)

Bernadette Seeholzer (coordination) Martina Fäh (president)Missing: Lisbeth Ineichen (co-opted member)

Helmut Schift • CLC Switzerland Eurolink Meeting • Hungary 2010 • T3

Plenary meeting – March 2010

Helmut Schift • CLC Switzerland Eurolink Meeting • Hungary 2010 • T4

Meeting of group coordinators – Sept. 2010

Helmut Schift • CLC Switzerland Eurolink Meeting • Hungary 2010 • T5

Making CLC visible in SwitzerlandWays of disseminations

• We posted this poster in churches and retreat houses

• We maintain and update our website, which was the point of contact to us for some new members

• We set-up a course on ignatian spirituality (3 meetings) open for people who are not closely linked to the church (low interest and problem how to reach them)

Helmut Schift • CLC Switzerland Eurolink Meeting • Hungary 2010 • T6

Twinning with Congo (Lubumbashi)

Aim: Exchange: How do we live in Switzerland / Congo feeling as a world community

Concrete projects find support by Swiss CLC community members Contacts only between single persons / big technical

communication problems

● We support with finances a project from a CLC group in Lumbumbashi helping girls to have a better school formation

● We are in the process to discern if we send one oder two members of CLC Switzerland for a visit in Congo in January 2012

CLC initiatives in Switzerland

Helmut Schift • CLC Switzerland Eurolink Meeting • Hungary 2010 • T7

CLC initiatives in Switzerland

Spiritual exercises for families/parents

with small children

• Often difficult with small children because of constraints in time and budget

• We decided to continue this successful project

(exists since 12 years in cooperation with child care/program)

• CLC Switzerland will take over the complete organisation, the spiritual lead and the financial support for the 7 day retreat (until now the organization was done by a retreat house)

Helmut Schift • CLC Switzerland Eurolink Meeting • Hungary 2010 • T8

CLC initiatives in Switzerland

The special oecumenical perspective

• Some CLC group members are from the protestant churches (protestant/reformed/mennonite)

• Oecumenical exchange becomes the „normal case“ in Switzerland. There are more and more married couples from different denominations – in church and in CLC groups

• Exercises in daily life are offered as oecumenical project (by CLC members) – currently running in Biel/Bienne in a protestant church (the Jesuits have been banned from Switzerland until 1973)

Helmut Schift • CLC Switzerland Eurolink Meeting • Hungary 2010 • T9

CLC initiatives in Switzerland

Contact with the poor in our society:Once a year at our December (Advent) meeting we visit a

social „hot spot“ (trouble area) as a community

• 2009 Visit a sub-district in Zurich connected with prostitution,

meeting with a social worker who works with prostitutes

• 2010 Meeting with poor immigrants in Basel for dinner on

their Sunday meeting point

Helmut Schift • CLC Switzerland Eurolink Meeting • Hungary 2010 • T10

For the future: a common apostolic project?!

Our ecclesiastical assistant is currently starting a „Warming room for refused asylum seekers “

in Basel (daily open 9-19 h) within the framework of JRS Switzerland

CLC members and other volonteers are asked to work there