For the future of Europe

On March 12 the Patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Angelo Scola, held a conference in the Benedictine Abbey of Santa Scolastica, in Subiaco (Italy), on “Christianity, a resource for the future of Europe”. The “front page” of this issue is devoted to part of the report. “Considering Christianity as a resource for Europe means acknowledging its importance as a publicly important social fact not only as relates to the past (a fact that only narrow ideological prejudice can outshine), but also for the future of the old Continent. This future will have to come to terms with present plural reality marked by strong intercultural elements. This data, according to some members of the academy, represents the resource to reduce present divisions of enlarged Europe and to avoid future ones, thus paving a privileged way to European integration. In Europe, due to the scarce importance given to intermediate realities, especially with the explosion of network civilization which changed the very nature of participation, it is widely believed that the relationship between the fundamental rights of the individual and the state in a plural democratic society can take place provided that no other elements of reference and mediation are introduced. In this context, religion would “play gooseberry”. It would be tolerated only if reduced to the private experience of individuals. However, I am convinced that denying religions public relevance in a plural democratic society is a weak position, which does not withstand the test of a serene critical examination. I’m saying this not because I’m a believer, but because I want to address this question in a rigorous manner. It must also be said – in parenthesis – that Islam will never be capable of accepting the logic of fundamental rights and of democracies on the basis of the privatistic reduction of the religious dimension. In France, Italy and Spain, marked by controversial debate on State secularism, it is generally affirmed that contemporary State must be secular. This formula however needs to be well interpreted. In fact, the more heated approaches define the “secular State” as a synonym of “antireligious”. This explains the strong diffidence with which other peoples, especially Muslim ones, view initiatives aimed at proposing a form of democracy based on this kind of “secularism”, as the “indispensable” condition to access the alleged beneficial effects of modernity.Isn’t it an extremely high price to pay to live in a society that of compelling believers to act as if they were atheists ( etsi Deus non daretur ), censoring the link between rationality and the divine origin of a given prescript? Most important, are we sure that we aren’t stripping society of its positive elements? In the present historical moment, what could be the role of religions in the West? I believe we should promote a plural and religiously-qualified public sphere, where religions act as public players, distinguished from the State institution and from civil society, despite its being part of it. Political powers should therefore go beyond passive tolerance towards religions to the benefit of an “actively open” attitude, which does not reduce the public relevance of religion to concordatory relations with the State. Religions should relinquish privatistic or fundamentalist modes of self-interpretation and lay the basis of a direct interchange with other religions and cultures; a space of dialogue where religions can play their role on civil values in the public sphere and express their historical judgement”.