From night till dawn

“Europeanization of Europe. The cultural identity of Europe in the context of the integration process” is the name given to the doctoral dissertation of Father Piotr Mazurkiewicz, newly appointed secretary general of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE). In his essay, Father Mazurkiewicz addressed the question of Europe’s “Europeanization” highlighting the importance of the Continent’s cultural identity within the integration process. This issue has now become part of his personal mission. But first of all, in his capacities as Secretary General of COMECE, he will need to adapt to the life in Brussels and find his points of reference. However, European institutions will take care of this. Because of the many abbreviations and language inventions, institutional customs resemble a mysterious practice. As the representative of the Church in Europe, he will have the extraordinary opportunity of affecting the new and necessary cultural and spiritual definition of European unification.1945, the darkest year in the past century, was crucial to Europe’s unification. A number of people holding important posts in their respective Countries, renounced all yearnings of revenge to endorse a peace agreement. This was to become a long-lasting peace to the point that today its significance is almost taken for granted. However, Europe’s new peace order was confined to a part of Europe while in other parts of the world marked by ongoing persecutions and deprivations, peace was viewed as a meaningless term.Only in 1989, the most positive year of the past century, did things change for the better. Men and women’s want of freedom became more powerful than Communist dictatorships. To these populations, the lack of freedom of speech, the prohibition to practice their faith, along with their state of fear and indigence were factors that could no longer be borne. This thirst for a long-lasting – and not arbitrary – peace led the new independent states to address the European Union and seek to become a part of it. This is the reason why today peace and freedom are the founding elements of European unification. These foundations are bound together by the principle of solidarity that doesn’t consist in organized state assistance. Rather, it constitutes an attitude that is rooted within individuals. The years 1945 and 1989 are one single unit, their memory must serve as the spiritual basis for Europe’s unification. It is however possible that the European institutions’ leadership base their European vocation primarily on the events of the year 1945 and that, despite all motivations, they have not yet internalized the importance of the year 1989. It would be unfair to blame them. Values and ideas ought to turn into action in order to have an effect. To date, no representative of one of the new Member States has chaired a major European institution, exception made for the Slovenian presidency in this year’s first semester, and no representative of Central and East European Countries holds a leading position in one of Europe’s major associations. This is why we ought to rejoice and be proud of the fact that the Catholic Church plays a pioneer role in this area also with the appointment of the new Secretary of COMECE whose homeland is the same as John Paul II’s.