Human dignity in first place” “

Work on the reform of the Austrian Constitution began in Vienna on 30 June. The draft of a new Federal Constitution will be completed within eighteenth months. During the last audition, held in Parliament on 21 November, the representatives of the Christian Churches read out a joint declaration: protection of minorities, inalienability of social rights, and also a reference to the protection of human dignity. These are the fundamental principles to be inserted in the new Constitution. A possible reference to God – not only in the Austrian but also in the European Constitution – was also discussed at a symposium with the title “The God of the Europeans – God and the soul of Europe in the Constitution and elsewhere”, held in Vienna on 20 November. The participants included Cardinal Christoph Schönborn , archbishop of Vienna and president of the Austrian Episcopal Conference. “Protection of human dignity”: that is the shared desire of the Christian Churches. During the audition, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn expressed the joy of having succeeded “in achieving a unitary vote of all the Churches involved in the question of the constitutional reform” and thanked Christine Gleixner, chairperson of the Ecumenical Council of Austrian Churches (Örkö), for this result. Schönborn called “the protection of human dignity, now under threat in various ways”, a “priority request” of the Churches. The current Austrian Constitution is in fact devoid of any provision that expressly safeguards human dignity. An “open, transparent and regular dialogue between State and Churches and religious communities” was, in turn, the hope expressed by the Lutheran Evangelic bishop Herwig Sturm, according to whom “it’s not necessary to insert an ad hoc preamble to take into account the requests of the Churches, unless the convention consider it necessary”. The importance of “reconsidering the task of the State as ‘guarantor of peace'” was underlined by the Greek-Orthodox metropolitan of Vienna, Michael Staikos. “Cultural, religious, linguistic, ethnic and political variety – he said – must be recognised, protected and promoted”. He also stressed the fact that the Churches regard the protection of minorities as an “indispensable component of Austrian constitutional law”. The representative of the Reformed Church Peter Karner emphasised the need to incorporate fundamental rights in the social field in the Constitution; he referred in this connection to “Sozialwort”, a recent document of the Ecumenical Council of Austrian Churches on the social situation in the country. The leader of the Methodist Church Lothar Pöll asked for the recognition of the right to education and constitutional safeguards on the teaching of religion in public schools. The Syro-Orthodox bishop Emmanuel Aydin gave voice to the request of the Churches for a revision of the constitutional formula on the individual freedom of religion and the right to conscientious objection. The Coptic Orthodox bishop Gabriel stressed the need to insert an article in which the recognised Churches and religious communities would acquire the status of “public corporations”. Reference to God. “The decisive ‘reference to God’ must be the dignity of man”, declared Cardinal Schönborn during the Symposium organized by the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) together with the Cartellverband of Vienna, an association of Austrian Catholic students. “God must be present in the Constitution”, but “that does not necessarily mean that his name should be inserted”, explained Schönborn, who hoped for a reference to God “only under the aspect of responsibility”. Metropolitan Staikos expressed his support for an “explicit” reference “to the Christian roots” both in the Austrian and in the future European Constitution, though emphasising that “what counts is the witness” of the Churches, “particularly as regards tolerance and agreement in ecumenism and in interreligious dialogue”. The president of the Islamic community Anas Shakfeh declared that Muslims in Austria “do not wish an evolution towards non-confessionalism as in France”, and also expressed his support for a reference to God in the preamble of the Constitution “so long as no one is discriminated against”. The representative of the Jewish community Willy Weisz on the other hand said he was against a reference to God, since according to Judaism that would be “a blasphemy”. But he did hope for constitutional guarantees on “freedom of religion”.