According to Cardinal Audrys Juozas Baèkis, Archbishop of Vilnius (Lithuania), entry into Europe has been shown to bring both positive and negative sides: “We entered Europe not with enthusiasm, but convinced of finding a society built on respect for man’s civil rights. Lithuanian society has discovered the advantages of pluralism, civil liberties and the market economy, but at the same time it has been exposed to the contradictions of Western society. The young in particular have not found genuine values to share”. Speaking at a meeting in Turin (Italy) on “Being Catholics in Europe”, Cardinal Baèkis underlined that “we are being offered the minimum common denominator of Europe as an institution, in terms of the family and human rights”. The role of the Church as guide and essential point of reference in the country is therefore crucial, he said. “The Church played a fundamental role in the defence of Lithuanian identity against the policy of ‘russification’ conducted first by Tsarist imperialism and then by Soviet power”. Under Bolshevik rule – the cardinal continued – “Catholics were forced to combat state atheism, suffering violence and humiliation”. But with the fall of Communist, the regaining of national independence and entry into the European Union, the country’s problems have not ended: “the Church has devoted itself in the front line to the country’s moral reconstruction and today it is faced by the task of filling with its teaching the deprivation of values, the inner emptiness, of a westernised Lithuania”. What most concern the archbishop of Vilnius are the risks of commercialised interpersonal relations and the crisis of the family. “The most important task – he explains – is reconstructing people’s heart. The young yearn for deeper values; they have been dazzled by the superficial allure of the Western world, but now they must learn how to use their own freedom”.
