” “A possible reconciliation

The lay principle, Christianity and the future of Europe: Is there a contradiction between the need to guarantee the secular State and a Christian presence in the architecture of a Europe that transcends the economic, political and juridical dimension? What possible place is there for Christianity within the civil society of the continent? These questions were discussed in recent days in Rome, at the St. Louis of France Cultural Centre at a conference on “Laity today”. “Paul VI, addressing the European bishops in 1975, had already conjured up ‘the dream of a spiritual unity that would restore to man a sense of his personal and collective responsibility”‘, recalled Pietro Scoppola, historian and president of the Orseri Foundation, on introducing the conference. In his view, “religions too tend to become consumer goods and the demand for the religious is also exposed to market pressures”; the crucial question that needs to be tackled is the “‘power of religion in response to the ‘weakness’ of faith”. The social dimension of Christianity. “It’s not possible to resuscitate the past and the lay principle is now unrelinquishable everywhere. Nonetheless, recognizing the social and cultural effects of Christianity on European civilization, without reducing it to an exclusively spiritual fact, implies neither an acceptance of it, nor a value judgement: it is a simple acknowledgement of an irrefutable reality”. The historian René Rémond, academician of France and president of the “Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques”, expressed his strong conviction of this, on addressing the conference. Hence the need – he said – for “the construction of Europe to be based on a reconciliation between civil life and religious phenomenon, whose social dimension cannot be ignored by any constitutional Charter”. And Christianity, he further pointed out, “must be a strong element of unification: as affirmed by Michel Camdessus – former president of the International Monetary Fund and now of the French Social Weeks – “we Christians have been reconciled; we must therefore contribute to pardon and reconciliation between Churches and peoples”. So an “inescapable imperative” is ecumenism, within which “there must be neither privileged nor excluded”, and, more generally, the dialogue with the other religions present in Europe: this is “a delicate and complex task”. Revelation and constitutional State. According to Rémond, “Church and Christians must not give rise to a pressure group, still less must they form political or economic movements”; they are called, rather, “to be the mouthpieces of the deepest moral needs of mankind and to commit themselves to the defence of the common values of which Christianity was the main inspirer”. In particular, “the dignity of the human person, the protection of life, solidarity, justice: these are principles that form the essence of the Revelation” and that are, at the same time, “indispensable for an authentic constitutional State”. But Christianity, “by virtue of the principle of the common belonging of all mankind to the same family”, may also present itself “as a curb against selfishness, against the possible temptation of a rich continent, like Europe, to shut itself off from the needs of the emerging countries”. Guiding civil life towards what is good. In Rémond’s view, “a serious ethical reflection” that encompasses all the fields of life, and that has an impact on “economic and political decisions”, is more than ever necessary. What is lacking today is precisely “an education in ethics”. We need to “reflect on the meaning and the goals of every public action and decision”. And given that we are living at a time when the autonomy of the individual conscience is often raised to a criterion of judgement, Rèmond devoted particular attention to the education of youth. “In their vocational training – he stressed – care must be devoted to the education of the conscience for the tasks that they are called to perform in the exercise of their profession”. That does not mean, he explained, “confusing the roles of Church and State”. The Church “has an exclusively moral authority: she certainly does not aspire to exercising dominion over society, but she may guide civil life towards what is good”. Giovanna Pasqualin Traversa