Co-responsible citizens” “

The Church and Christians must “be” in Europe, because “Christianity is the only really unifying factor between the various European countries” and “it would be a political falsification” to wish to reduce the faith to a “private” fact, “irrelevant” for society at large, said Archbishop GIOVANNI LAJOLO , Vatican Secretary for relations with States, in an address that underlined the “Christian roots” as a factor of “unity” and “social cohesion” for our continent. The Vatican diplomatic exponent was speaking in Krakow on 9 September, at the opening of the international conference organized by the Pontifical Academy of Theology on “the role of the Catholic Church in the process of European integration”. “The presence of the Church and Christians in Europe must be accepted for what it has been in the history of Europe itself, what it is at present and will be in future”, said Archbishop Lajolo, recalling that “in the present European Union, out of a population of 456,581000, there are 368,870,000 Christians and 262,690,000 Catholics”. Hence the need to respond to the “repeated” and “insistent” (but hitherto unheard) appeal of John Paul II, who “ever since the start of his pontificate” exhorted Europe “to be conscious of its roots” which are still “living and vital” because “they have borne the most precious fruit in the past, still do so today, and must continue to do so in future”: If the Church, said Lajolo, “is by her very nature different from any political community”, since she is “autonomous and independent”, Christians” as European citizens are fully co-responsible for the institutional form and historical development of their country and of Europe, and “can exert an “influence” in the political field. “COMPETENCE”, “PRIDE” AND “ENTERPRISE”: These are the three indispensable requisites for the “public role” that Christians are called to express in Europe, a continent in which they form the majority of citizens but “don’t have a influence proportional to their number in the organs of political power, in the mass media and in public opinion, nor in the most influential cultural institutions”. Stressing the “role of Christian citizens for the future of Europe”, the Vatican exponent pointed out that “episodes are not lacking in which Christians are made to feel that their presence is barely tolerated, if not even rejected as incompatible” with “secularised culture” or with the principle of the “politically correct”. It is therefore all the more important for Christians to involve themselves in public life with a style based on “competence”, to “give a reason for the hope that is in them”. They must do so with a “basic attitude of dialogue that must characterize the whole life of the Christian, and all the more so in the social field”. They must also display “humble pride”, able to react to all the “isms” without “suffering any inferiority complex”. And they must show “enterprise” that consists in “seeking ways to disseminate the Christian message, and favouring “projects aimed at giving social force to the true values and opposing the illusory ones”. This is a task – underlined Lajolo – that is especially incumbent on the “Christians who play a political role”, but also on “all Christians who hold in their hand the power of the vote” and who “cannot complain of the inconsistency of their elected representatives if they themselves are inconsistent as electors”. RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND “SOCIAL COHESION”. “If the political community is rightly concerned by its own social cohesion, this cannot be achieved by ignoring a profound reality of its citizens: their religious faith”, declared Msgr. Lajolo, in justifying his appeal to the “defence of religious freedom” of European citizens. In the Catholic Church, in particular, “is realised, as in no other human reality, the unity of the whole in the diversity of its parts”. And precisely because “she acts spontaneously as a factor of unity between the various nations”, the Church invites Europe “to a greater social and political cohesion, and at the same time appeals to Europe to breathe ‘with both lungs’, in respecting the identity that belongs to each individual nation”. THE “PUBLIC ROLE” OF CHRISTIANS IN EUROPE. Among the “institutions” of “great public importance” to which the Church has made and intends to continue to make its own specific contribution, Lajolo cited the family founded on marriage, which, he said, must “not be discriminated against by imposing a common legislative treatment on radically different social relationships” or by undermining it with the “possibility of homosexual unions sanctioned by law”. He also cited the question of biogenetics, which “if it is to be really at the service of man can never be developed to the prejudice of his dignity”. Lajolo also claimed the right of the Church “to have her own schools and universities”, and recalled the long “history” of the ecclesial community at the side of the suffering, with her own charitable and healthcare institutions, and the recent fight against Aids. One problem that needs to be solved, in the view of the Holy See, is that of the relation between the “free market” and the “welfare state”: two extremes between which – he said – we need to seek, within the teaching of the Church in this field, a synthesis founded on the nature itself of the human, personal and social being, and not a hybrid of pragmatic character”.