WHAT IS ?

  • A MEETING PLACE. First and foremost, it provides the opportunity for its members to meet together as friends, and for Catholic Scout leaders and officials to share their experiences as providers of an educational service from the viewpoint of the Catholic faith. It is also a Church experience in the communitarian sense of the term.

  • FORMATION AND INFORMATION. ICCS provides both Formation and information through workshops and seminars, publications and documents dealing with the spiritual dimension of Scout education, the Scout educational method and education in the faith, establishing the right relationship between membership in the Church and membership in the Scout Movement, and dialogue with other creeds in Scouting.

  • A REPRESENTATIVE ORGANIZATION. ICCS is also a representative organisation with twin links: with the Catholic Church and the Scouting movement. This requires the Conference to foster contacts and relations with a variety of different national and international institutions. ICCS is often asked For advice in problem situations, such as when organisations do not fully appreciate their rights and duties towards the movement or towards their local Church, at the national level.

  • ICCS is not empowered to take up any position or take part in the decision- making processes of the Associations, but it offers them help to develop programmes for education in the faith and respect for different religious views and practices.

  • THE PURPOSE of ICCS is, as Article 1 of its Statutes states, to contribute to the complete education of young people through Scouting from the point of view of the Catholic faith; to cooperate in developing and enhancing the spiritual dimension of Scouting in accordance with the unity and the diversity of the World Scout Movement; to ensure that Catholic Scouts are actively present in the Church and guarantee communication between the Catholic Church and the World Scout Movement.

  • THE MAIN BENCHMARKS for everything that ICCS does are the world Constitution of the Scout Movement and the Scouts' Catholic Charter which was approved by the Holy See in 1977. At the international level, ICCS is the institutional linkage or hinge between Scouting and the Catholic Church.

  • IN WORLD SCOUTING, ICCS has been given the status of a consultative body by the World Committee. Within the Catholic Church it has the approval of the Holy See and the status of a Catholic International Organisation (CIO). ICCS actively cooperates with the Pontifical Council for the Laity and the CIO Conference.