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There’s a great dream that John Paul left as a gift to the old continent. The Polish pope undoubtedly invested many of his spiritual, pastoral and cultural energies in promoting a united, peaceful and prosperous Europe, able to give a face and a concrete form to its Christian roots. On receiving the Charlemagne Prize in March 2004, he declared: “The Europe I have in mind is a political, indeed spiritual unity, in which Christian politicians of all countries act in the consciousness of the human riches that the faith brings with it: men and women engaged in making these values bear fruit by placing themselves at the service of everyone for a Europe of man, on which the face of God shines forth”. This was the expression of a great desire that, he added, “I bear in my heart and that I would like to entrust to future generations”.The occasions in which the Church has appealed to believers to become constructors of the “common home” are innumerable: it would be enough in this sense to cite the teachings of the apostolic exhortation “Ecclesia in Europa” of 2003 and the various interventions of the European bishops.Addressing the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Krakow last week, Monsignor Giovanni Lajolo, placing himself on the horizon of the Pope’s dream, specified the characteristics and role of the Christian presence in a modern and secularised Europe, solicited by the challenges of globalization, and exposed to the demographic, social and cultural dynamics of the third millennium. In this context, “Christianity said Lajolo is the only real factor able to unify the various European countries”. In the Church “the unity of the whole in the diversity of its parts is realized, as in no other human reality; in her is reflected the variety of peoples, their languages, their customs and their traditions in the oneness of the faith”. But this “unifying factor” cannot remain a “hidden treasure”. To show their vitality, the Christian roots of the continent must germinate visible fruits. Lajolo then listed three “subjective requisites” for an effective commitment of Catholics to the Europe of the future: competence, humble pride, enterprise. The capacity to “give a reason for the hope” that is innate in faith in Christ urges believers to serve contemporary men and women, and share their truest and deepest hopes, by striving to furnish them with exhaustive responses “in the light of reason” and with the comfort of the social teaching of the Church. The European Union of our time, in particular, is seeking viable ways of achieving further enlargements of its frontiers without betraying its own identity: ways that may increase solidarity among its member countries, albeit in conformity with the principle of subsidiarity; and that may strengthen the “body” of the EU (institutions, norms, common policies…) while at the same time making the “soul” of the continent emerge. It is to this Europe that believing citizens cannot fail to make their original contribution.
