A European Constitution would be “a step forward” in the construction of a “common home” in our continent, but it’s an objective that “needs to be reached gradually, without claiming a totally new constitutional text, detached from the history of the European Treaties”. That’s the opinion of Manuel Braga da Cruz, rector of the Catholic University of Lisbon, according to whom “gathering” the heritage of Christianity means ensuring that religious values “are not merely values of the past, but a heritage that still needs to be expressed and defended today”. In the democratic “deficit” that accompanies the construction of the European identity, and that is especially expressed “in the distancing of citizens from the institutions”, the Churches may play “an active role in civil society by participating not only in the ‘mobilization’ of public opinion in such a way as to overcome the current pessimism, but also in the construction of a ‘cultural’ identity for the new Europe”. With regard to the phenomenon of the “nationalism” resurgent here and there in our continent, Braga da Cruz maintains that “it ought not to be combated, but rather ‘integrated’ in a cultural perspective based on enrichment in diversity. The values of each nation need to be defended, respected, promoted and integrated: Europe must not pose as an alternative to nationalism, but on the contrary must act as a supranational entity that transcends without destroying them, basing itself on the presupposition that the richness of Europe consists precisely in its diversity”.
