Being exemplary

“Values and perspectives for tomorrow – the 50th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome” is the theme of the European Congress that COMECE (Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community) is promoting in Rome from 23 to 25 March, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the founding Treaties of the then European Economic Community (EEC) and of the European Community of Atomic Energy (Euratom) in the Italian capital on 25 March 1957. The Congress will be attended by the delegations of the 23 Bishops’ Conferences of the EU, representatives of Catholic movements and religious communities. The main speakers will include the President of Comece and Bishop of Rotterdam, Adrianus van Luyn; the President of the European Parliament Hans-Gert Pöttering; and Wolfang Schäuble, representative of the current German Presidency of the EU. The Congress will open on 23 March with the presentation of the draft “Message of Rome”. Its definitive text will then be delivered on the following day to Italian premier Romano Prodi, who will present it in turn to the EU heads of state and of government gathered in Berlin on 25 March. The European leaders attending the summit will then approve the “Declaration of European Values”. On Sunday 25 March, after the Eucharist presided over by Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone in St. Peter’s, the participants in the COMECE Congress will attend the Angelus with Benedict XVI in St. Peter’s Square.Too long a succession of tragic events has profoundly marked the history of Europe. Their memory is painful and not all the wounds have been healed. Nonetheless, from the creation of the Council of Europe in 1949 and the signing of the Treaties of Rome on 25 March 1957, a new road has been opened in Europe’s history and pursued with a determination that has never slackened. Recent setbacks and convulsions have not been lacking, such as the French and Dutch rejection of the European Constitution.If the founding members of the EEC had initially been few, the circle has subsequently been enlarged. Overcoming the frontiers imposed during the forty years since the separation of the continent between East and West, the European Union now comprises 27 countries.During this slow process, brilliant statesmen like Robert Schuman, Alcide De Gasperi and Konrad Adenauer, tried, in the name of their own faith and together with non-believers, to restore dignity and rights to the peoples of Europe. To achieve this, a necessary condition was to demolish the walls of hatred between the French and the Germans, and between competing ideologies and economic systems. Europe’s founding fathers bequeathed an impetus that can still be felt, and their continuators are trying to pursue the European project.Christians moreover firmly believed in the need to build a reconciled Europe. Even after centuries of separation, the ecumenical process must bear witness to a possible reconciliation. Frère Alois, of the Taizé Community, asks that we “forget a painful past”, because “the Gospel asks us to overcome memory with forgiveness”. Even if it is difficult to build it, the common future does not rest merely on interests, but on a system of values shared by everyone. That demands a great deal of perseverance and humility. Both the leaders and inhabitants of the continent ought to better appreciate what peace and reconciliation have achieved, and what they have enabled us to consolidate over these last 50 years. If it is to become a model, Europe must be exemplary.