The dream of the fathers

“Educating young generations to extend a passionate and disillusioned glance to Europe. The passionate outlook of those who are aware they are expected to propose, with their lives and their words, a high ideal that will give Europe a soul; the disillusioned glance of those who acknowledge difficulties related to an unrestrained use of freedom”. This “primarily cultural and educational commitment”, was expressed in Lodi (Italy) on March 18th by bishop Msgr. Giuseppe Merisi, who is also the delegate of Italy’s Bishops Conference at Comece (the Bishops Commission of the European Union), in his opening address of the conference “Is the dream of the Fathers of Europe still topical? Europe’s progress before modern culture”. The meeting was promoted on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the installation of the first Assembly of the European Parliament, and of the election of the first president, Robert Schuman (March 19 1958), by the Association “Amici di San Colombano per l’Europa”, together with Lodi’s diocese and the local daily “Il Cittadino”.At the service of the common good. “If the Church believes it is opportune to express its stand in favor of a specific political mode for Europe, at the same time it feels the need to recall that each political project under way will have to be put to the benefit of the common good, in the full respect of the human person and his dimensions”, recalled President Emeritus of the Pontifical Institute for Culture, cardinal Paul Poupard, who intervened during the meeting. “Europe won’t be able to develop on a pure market system. It requires a political will, founded on a series of common values which in the course of the centuries became the shared cultural patrimony we call Europe”. For this reason “we cannot leave out of the European home the religions which contributed and still contribute to the culture and humanism which Europe is justly proud of”. “The silence of the European Constitutional Charter on the positive action of religions is an aphasia added to a reductive amnesia which has failed to recognize religions’ potential of humanity and their creative capacity among peoples”. Laity and freedom of conscience. “The Church – pointed out Cardinal Poupard – certainly doesn’t pretend to take over State affairs, while it grants” to State authorities “full responsibility in the just separation of powers” considering “laity as the guarantee of the freedom of conscience of all citizens”. Its mission however, “is to inspire love towards what is good and rejecting evil” and it ensures “that the Gospel nourishes cultures, encourages politicians, develops charity for the good of man and society and constitutes the soul of Europe”. “According to the prelate, the mission of Christianity for Europe consists in restoring its true dimension, in order to be the receptive home of different peoples and cultures”. The battle in favour of man. “The construction of the new Europe”; a “developing reality” whose path is marked by difficulties”, His Eminence remarked, risks turning into “an oligarchic and bureaucratic Europe which doesn’t enable citizens to feel attracted by the European unitary project. This will lead them to no longer appreciate it”. It is a matter of understanding “which kind of Europe we intend to build, which cultural, social, anthropological and spiritual contents should be attached to the political and economic integration process”. According to Cardinal Poupard it is necessary to place man at the centre again, “heart of Christianity and of the European project, since only he can pave future’s path”. “The only battle worthwhile fighting is the one in favor of man”. This is why “a new humanism” is needed: “only the recognition of the centrality of the individual can enable the identification of a common ground” and the neutralization of “the disruptive power of ideologies”. A minority able to believe. Before the challenges of present culture, “there is no place for apathy and disengagement, even less for partiality and sectarianism”. This is why we mustn’t “surrender to fear or to pessimism”, but rather, “cultivate optimism and hope instead”, since “the destiny of a society always depends on a minority which is able to believe”. The prelate then underlined the importance of “interreligious and intercultural dialogue”, which “cannot be reduced to a seasonal choice”, since it represents “a vital need on which a large part of our future depends”. Dialogue must be conducted also “with lay culture”, in “a proximity and tension relationship”. The dream of Europe’s founding fathers, the Cardinal concluded , “is more than ever topical and it’s up to us to implement it in its difficult progress within modern culture”.