The Book of the future” “

“Let’s not shut ourselves up in a European fortress, especially now that a modicum of euro-optimism has re-emerged with the entry of ten new countries into the Union”. That’s the hope expressed by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini (77) during a recent lecture he gave in the diocese of Milan of which he was the archbishop for 22 years. “When I’m in Jerusalem I feel nostalgia for Milan, when I’m in Milan I miss Jerusalem: I’m torn between two worlds”, said the cardinal, who talked of the Bible as the book of the future of Europe. MOTIVATIONS IN THE BIBLE FOR A GREAT EUROPEAN PEOPLE. “Book of the past of the whole of European history, ‘great lexicon from which the various literatures have drawn’, as Paul Claudel said, ‘coloured alphabet of hope’, according to the painter Marc Chagall”, the Bible – said the archbishop emeritus of Milan – is “also the book of the present, source of light for our everyday life and of strength to overcome our difficulties”. But he added, citing the words of John Paul II: “Only a Europe that does not remove, but rediscovers its own Christian roots shall be equal to the great challenges of the third millennium: peace, dialogue between the cultures and religions, the safeguard of the creation. So Holy Scripture is also the book of the future of Europe, because in its pages we shall increasingly recognize our roots and find in them the motivations for progressing together as the great European people”. “A Europe that has left behind it the wars of past centuries and has learned to understand their futility and destructive violence can and must be for the other continents a promoter and guarantor of peace. A fragile peace and always in need of rebuilding, but the only one possible in this world, at the social and political level”. TOWARDS ECUMENICAL COLLABORATION… Tracing an international picture in which “Europe, with the accession of new EU members, is greater and stronger, but also in a situation of suffering, danger and growing fears about the proliferation of acts of terrorism”, Martini defined the significance of the challenge that these conditions pose to the Church: “Will we succeed in this world – he asked – in cohabiting as different people without mutually destroying each other, but by respecting each other? Will we succeed in overcoming the impediments and tensions that the multiplication of conflicts of interest among the great proprietors of the media, politics and finance are producing in the world?”. It is in response to all this that the Bible, “a book in which each person may find himself reflected and rediscover himself”, becomes a book for the future of our continent. But only on precise conditions: “First, the duty of brotherly and convinced ecumenical collaboration between all the Christian confessions is posed in Europe. The union of the Churches can be a sign – declared Martini, recalling Paul VI – of reconciliation and hope for the whole world”. NEED FOR INTER-RELIGIOUS DIALOGUE. Also fundamental is the role that Europe can play at the international political level, suggested the cardinal, who spoke at some length “on the relation that links the Christian Churches to the Jewish people and to the uniqueness of Israel in the history of salvation for every nation”. “Europe was the land in which the most terrible persecution against the Jews took place with the Shoah and the death camps. The Europe of the future must be distinguished by ever-deeper friendship with the Jewish people, recognising the common roots that exist between Christianity and Judaism. Dialogue with Judaism will be fundamental for the Christian conscience and also for the overcoming of the divisions between Churches. And this is all the more true at a time when the anti-Semitic spirit seems to be growing in the world and in which Israel is experiencing a particularly dramatic time in its history. The conflict between Jews and Palestinians can only be overcome with the help of and through the assumption of responsibilities by all the great nations and, in particular, by the European Union”. The cardinal did not omit, in this context, to refer to Islam with which – he said – “a brotherly and intelligent relation needs to be established”. The opening to Islam must “permit mutual trust and support the Islamic forces interested in dialogue, albeit in the consciousness of the divergences existing between European and Arab culture”. In his conclusion Martini quoted the words of the Pope in his Apostolic Exhortation “Ecclesia in Europa”: “The future of the Church and her mission on behalf of European society are bound up with the knowledge, familiarity and love for Holy Scripture. Let’s be clear that we don’t mean by this to refer merely to a book. It won’t be a formula that saves us, but the living person of Christ who speaks to us in the Scriptures”.