Europe at the centre” “

During the Social Week of Italian Catholics held in Bologna, an often-repeated term was “Europe” and constant reference made to a renewed commitment of believers to the wider supranational horizon. As at the corresponding week of French Catholics held in Lille last month, the process of European integration was confirmed as a necessary element of evaluation and exchange. TOWARDS SOCIAL WEEKS AT THE EUROPEAN LEVEL? The European Union had also been placed at the centre of the Semaine sociale in Lille; at Bologna it was Cardinal RENATO MARTINO, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, who went one step further and launched the idea of establishing European Social Weeks, periodically bringing together the same experiences present in various nations. “An excellent idea, that confirms the priority attention that the Church assigns to the process of European unification”, explained Monsignor GIUSEPPE MERISI, representative of the Italian bishops at COMECE (Commission of the episcopates of the European Community), in a comment to SIR. “It would also be a further opportunity to promote the rapprochement of the countries that have just joined the EU with the ‘historic core’ of the Community. I have already had occasion to express these convictions to Cardinal Martino – pointed out Merisi -, with whom I intend to examine the proposal in greater depth, before bringing it to the attention of European bishops”. “Today there’s a great need to mobilize Catholics, and lead them to rediscover the richness of the social doctrine of the Church and its relevance to the challenges posed by the great transformations that are taking place, in Europe and in the world”, said NÖEL TREANOR, general secretary of COMECE, endorsing the idea that emerged at Bologna. “Structured opportunities for debates between believers, in the search for ideas, new categories of thought and projects in many fields, are traditionally present in various countries, and I cite for example France, Germany, and Italy itself”, declared Treanor to SIR. Moreover, “a similar proposal was made three or four years ago by the president of COMECE, Bishop Joseph Homeyer, who stressed the need to provide a forum at which Christians could debate the problems that continually present themselves in so dynamic and complex a world”. EU, AN EXAMPLE OF HOW TO GOVERN GLOBALIZATION. Europe was also the focus of attention on various other occasions during the reports and round tables of the Social Week of Italian Catholics. It dominated the lecture of the jurist FRANCESCO PAOLO CASAVOLA (“Europe, in its Constitution, has given itself the motto Unity in diversity. But do forces and values exist that are able to render real, and not utopian, this dialectical pair?”) and the address of European Commissioner MARIO MONTI, according to whom “the contribution that the EU can make to managing the phenomena of globalization and limiting their risks is essential. The Union has in fact an institutional model founded on political integration and on the coordination of public economic policies. Moreover she is the proponent of a social market economy in which the market is corrected in its effects by such principles as solidarity and sustainability”. In this sense “Europe is now the best ally of the future generations”, provided she is able to complete her own institutional system and acquire “a single and cohesive position on the international stage”. INDIVIDUALISM AND “FRAGMENTATION”: ENEMIES OF DEMOCRACY. HANNA GRONKIEWICZ-WALTZ, Polish Vice-President of the European Bank for Development and Reconstruction, taking her cue from the events that followed the fall of the Berlin wall, said: “We immediately learned, to our own cost, that democracy was not only the exercise of the vote, but required the creation of a social fabric in which powers and relations were balanced in the context of a free society”. Individualism and social fragmentation, according to Gronkiewicz-Waltz, are among the priority problems of this dawn of the third millennium, especially if we want to tackle the essential problems for the harmonious development of European states and of the EU as a whole: “the right to education, healthcare for families, and adequate pensions for the elderly”. To prevent the “empty populist promises” of some of our rulers, however, the “people’s participation in political life”, the implementation of the principle of solidarity “between individuals and peoples” and “measures aimed at arresting the demographic decline” of Europe, are essential.