Feeling at home” “

“The Holy See has always been favourable to the promotion of a united Europe on the basis of those common values that form part of its history. Taking account of the Christian roots of the Continent means drawing on a spiritual heritage that remains fundamental for the future developments of the Union”. With these words, JOHN PAUL II , in his Angelus address of 31 October, welcomed the signing of the European Constitutional Treaty (Rome, 29 October). He also expressed the hope that “also in the years to come, Christians would continue to imbue all the spheres of the European institutions with those evangelic ferments that are the guarantee of peace and cooperation between all citizens in the shared endeavour to serve the common good”. SIR has gathered some reactions of the European bishops. “The signing of the Constitution, though it represents a positive step towards unification, risks sounding somewhat rhetorical. Everything will depend on ratification in the individual member states”, comments Monsignor Aldo Giordano, general secretary of the CCEE, the Council of the European Episcopal Conferences. “There is no great enthusiasm – he adds – about this signing. The debate on the Christian roots has produced, especially in the countries of Eastern Europe, a sense of alienation from this treaty. Many interpreted the failure to make any reference to Christian roots as a sense of being left outside, of not feeling at home. It will be the task of Christians to seek to give content and value to the Constitution”. “I am happy about the signing of the Constitutional Treaty, thanks to which Europe is increasingly becoming a ‘union'”, said Bishop Jozef Wrobel of Helsinki. In his view, however, the Constitution “ought to have recognized the role played by Christianity, to which Europe as a whole owes a lot for the construction of a society founded on human values, even before religious ones”. Of the same view are the representatives of the Churches of Cyprus, Czech Republic and Greece: “The bitterness about the failure to recognize the Christian roots of Europe remains”. Father Umberto Barato, vicar apostolic of Nicosia (Cyprus), comments: “The values of which the Constitution speaks are and will remain rooted in the Gospel values. If Europe starts out anew from these values there is some hope of successfully pursuing the process of integration”. According to Monsignor Jan Graubner, president of the Czech episcopate, “united Europe is a great dream for all of us, but some negative points remain: in particular the absence of any mention of the Christian roots of Europe in the Constitution. This is a decision that fails to recognize the Christians who live in the Continent, not least in Eastern Europe. But it is just from here that Christian dedication in Europe must be reborn and requalified”. In this regard the president of the bishops in Greece, Monsignor Franghiskos Papamanòlis says that “the absence of any reference to the Christian roots calls into question Christians themselves and the insufficient preaching of the Word of God in the recent past. We are reaping today what we have sown. European society has been structured without God, not against God. From the signing of this Treaty a new commitment of Christians to Europe must be born”. In the view of the Portuguese bishop Januario Torgal Mendes Ferreira, military ordinary and head of Pax Christi, “this is an historic moment for Europe, but it is also a time of challenge. I hope that the values proclaimed in the European Constitution will give rise to greater social solidarity and a sensibility to Gospel values, which are human values. The Constitution is a way of recalling all the cultural values of Europe, in the first place those of the dignity of the human person”. According to Monsignor Giuseppe Merisi, auxiliary bishop of Milan and representative of Italian bishops at COMECE (Commission of the episcopates of the European Community), “the peoples of Europe must be the protagonists of a solid construction that has as its objectives peace, democracy, freedom and justice. This is a prospect that requires “Christian communities alert to the developments taking place in the Union and educated laypeople”.