Politics as service” “

The General Council of the Moselle and the “Robert Schuman European Centre” (CERS), signatories on 9 May 2000 of a partnership convention aimed at promoting Schuman’s work, recently organized “Europe Week” at Scy-Chazelles, the town 4 km from Metz where Schuman (“father of Europe” together with Konrad Adenauer and Alcide De Gasperi) lived and where he is buried. The first of the “European Weeks of Communication 2004 (cf. SirEurope no. 35/2004) ended on 8 May, with a visit to the house where Schuman lived from 1924 to his death, “the place – it has been said – where Europe was conceived”, and with commemoratory lectures by Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Council of Culture, and by the journalist and former director of information at the European Parliament, Paul Collowald. A SPACE OF INWARDNESS. “It’s a simple house, in the image of his modesty”, said Jean Monnet, the man with whom Schuman conceived the plan of unifying the production of coal and steel under a single supranational authority, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC): the original nucleus of the European Community. The “Schuman Declaration”, pronounced by Schuman in the Salle de l’Orologe at the Quai d’Orsay in Paris, on 9 May 1950, marks the beginning of the process of European integration. That’s why the date of 9 May was chosen as the “birthday of Europe”. Schuman’s house is simple and austere: it is imbued with the personality of the statesman who inhabited “this ‘space of inwardness'”, enriched with 50 metres of books, but “at the same time, open to the outside world”, thanks to its garden overlooking the valley of the Moselle. This is a metaphor of the ‘founding Father’ himself, a “reserved man, but also open to others, faithful to an ethical code that gave a meaning to his life, a life consecrated to service”. That’s how Cardinal PAUL POUPARD defined Schuman during the lecture he gave in the council chamber of the General Council of the Moselle in Metz on the evening of 8 May. FRONTIERSMAN. Cardinal Poupard underlined Schuman’s character as a “frontiersman”: he was “born in Luxembourg, and hence of German nationality by virtue of the treaty of Frankfurt, but at the same time he was the son of a father from Lorraine. This condition – the cardinal continued – undoubtedly influenced his idea that the identity of the ‘native of Europe’ is constructed by concentric circles that mutually complement and enrich each other”, and favoured his “willingness to enter into dialogue with everyone, taking into account the objections of others with calmness and courtesy. To achieve his aim, even the most important, Schuman never used vulgar means, exaggerated the weight of an argument, or raised his voice”. The president of the Pontifical Council of Culture lastly recalled how deeply the statesman was “inspired in his political life by genuine faith, strengthened by daily Mass and the Gospel”. SOUL OF EUROPE. The process of the beatification of Schuman, of which the diocesan phase of the canonical investigation has now been completed, was described by PAUL COLLOWALD. Since 1988, he said, “the ‘St. Benedict Patron of Europe’ Institute has devoted itself to Schuman’s beatification, since, according to its statute, ‘the government of peoples produces its finest results when it is exercised as a disinterested service. Schuman is one of these examples. His life, his thought and his political action are models of humanity, integrity and active solidarity'”. In Collowald’s view, “Schuman, with his innovative work, was one of the great artificers of peace in this century”. On 29 May Bishop Pierre Raffin of Metz will preside over the closing ceremony of the diocesan phase of the canonical investigation in the chapel of the Sisters of the Heart of Jesus, opposite Schuman’s house at Scy-Chazelles. Begun by Msgr. Raffin in 1990, and conducted under the responsibility of the postulator, canon lawyer Joseph Host, by two commissions, one historical, the other theological, respectively chaired by Jean Moes and Guy Villaros, this first phase of the investigation has produced a dossier that (as the St. Benedict Institute has announced) will be sent to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome in June. According to Collowald, “there’s a certain optimism about the favourable outcome of this process. It would be the just recognition of a man who was tireless in insisting on the need for Europe to be endowed with a soul”. from metz, Maria Lyra Traversa