“The public role of the faith: politics and theology” was the theme of an international conference held in Cambridge in recent days, promoted by the Von Hugel Institute, a Catholic organization dedicated to the study of issues relating to faith and society. “The aim of the conference said Severine Deneulin, associate researcher of the Institute, in a comment to SIR was to rediscover the role of Christians within politics in seeking a more just world”. “In a society in which the issues of abortion and euthanasia predominate she explained Christians are called to give their witness, not in seeking power, nor in promoting the interests of the Church or a particular ideology, but in serving the poor, the defenceless and the weak. Politics is service. It is through it that we can change things and achieve a better system of taxation, healthcare and education…”. According to William Cavenaugh, professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, “many social problems could be solved if the Church were to develop to the maximum the theme of catholicity. People should see each other above all as ‘Christians’ and only then as members of a particular nation”. In his reflection on the present and future of Christianity in Europe, the Anglican Kenneth Medhurst, theologian at the University of Bradford, and director of the ecumenical network for the future of Europe (CAFÉ), said that “in spite of the great difficulties being suffered by the Churches such as the lack of priests and the flight of the faithful, one cannot speak of a decline in spirituality in Europe. The great challenge of the Churches is to reinterpret their role to communicate with all those persons who have no time for organized religions but who feel the need for spirituality”. That’s why, in Medhurst’s view, “the Churches must be increasingly close to each other. Ecumenism must enter into the agenda of them all, because it is only through greater unity and dialogue that we can reach the people who are seeking God”.
