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The Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (Com. E.C.E.), composed of bishop delegates of the various episcopates, was created by the Holy See on 3 March 1980. Twenty-five years service to the European project merits comment, especially in the case of a pro-active Church response to a project as unique in social, ethical and political terms as that achieved by the European Union. COMECE’s visionary founders were keen to establish an interface between the decision-making processes of the institutions and the Church, whilst developing a critical mass of Christian European public opinion. They also saw a need to foster the study of long-term issues in European construction. It was an innovative creation, in that it provided a supranational mechanism by which national Bishops’ Conferences would work together and provide input to the European institutions. At a new level and in respect of the new Community method, it was an application of the aspirations of the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, on the interaction between the Church and the political community. Initially, European Church organizations worked within the French model of separation between Church and State. Thus they were limited to being a presence close to the EC. Over time, the fledgling COMECE along with other Church organizations evolved ways of establishing a method of dialogue between the ecclesial community and political society as described in the Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Europa. With advances towards the completion of the single market, the end of the Cold War, and the deepening of political integration, Europe’s founding dynamic made it necessary to explore again the relationship between the market and political purpose. Jacques Delors’ challenge to the Churches in the early 1990s to become involved in the debate on the shaping of a European model of society opened the way to a more regular praxis of exchange with the EU institutions. Ultimately this informal co-operation led to historic milestones such as Declaration No. 11 annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam and Article 1-52 of the Constitutional Treaty. The regular exchange, which has evolved over the years between Churches and the EU, has now found a constitutional basis and quality within the Constitutional Treaty, which is still to be ratified. Decades of interaction have prepared the way for a partnership based on an open, regular and transparent dialogue in the service of participatory democracy. Our European leaders and civil servants know viscerally that legitimacy and good governance are enhanced by dialogue and partnership with all stakeholders in society. The Churches and religious traditions must take note that the debate on the European social model and on European identity, as set out in concrete policy decisions, requires comment from Christian anthropology more urgently than ever. Partnership must be attempted in the service of all Europeans.
