The future awaits us

On Sunday 14 June the Jewish community of Brussels paid tribute to the city’s Archbishop, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, with a ceremony in the Great Synagogue of the Belgian capital in which Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, exponents of secular thought and representatives of civil society took part. The chairman of the Jewish community of Brussels, Philippe Markiewicz, thanked Archbishop Danneels for his constant contribution to fostering relations between Jews and Christians. We present below an excerpt from the cardinal’s reflections on that occasion. Taking their cue from the Holocaust, they underline the common contribution and mission of Jews and Christians in Europe.”If man could express such huge contempt for man in this black period of our European history, is it not also because he had reached the point of holding even God in contempt? Only a God-less ideology could have planned and executed the extermination of a whole people. So, let us Jews and Christians join together in rescuing the image of the true God in the midst of all the idols that often fill the scene in our age. Let us preserve, well above the fray, the purity of the image of the true God. Did not the Jewish people perhaps receive from the Almighty the mission and the vocation of being this people of the memory? That’s why any form of Holocaust denial inflicts a twofold injury on the Jewish people: on the one hand because it denies the suffering of millions of innocent victims and on the other because it denies the memory of what they suffered. What would become of our world, which is progressing ever more rapidly, if it were to lose its memory? I wish to thank the Jewish people, our elder brothers and also our fathers, for keeping the lamp of memory lit up in the hearts of this world from century to century.But especially today I am glad because all of us – Jews and Christians – can boast of an immense spiritual common heritage thanks to a long history of relations between God and man that has lasted for centuries. Our common thought and action, our doctrine, our spiritual experience, and also our human experience consolidated in the centuries, urge us to combat evil with good. To quote the words of Pope Benedict XVI pronounced during his last visit to the Holy Land: “Jews and Christians are equally interested in ensuring respect for the sacredness of every human life, the centrality of the family, the education of the younger generations, and the freedom of religion and of conscience within a healthy society”.So, an immense task of service to the values and scale of norms of European society awaits us. Not only are we called to safeguard and preserve the purity of the thought of God but we have also been asked to protect the true image of man. It is our duty – together with all men of good will – to be at the service of man and act for his salvation.The European spirit – die europäische Gesinnung as Romano Guardini rightly called it – is conscious of the heritage of thought and action that is common to Jews and Christians. This is an historical fact that could have been mentioned in the preamble to the European Constitution.We are undoubtedly one of the main roots of European civilization but we are certainly not among those that claim any kind of supremacy and dominion. This heritage calls us to assume our responsibilities on the future of Europe and to intensify our efforts. All of us, Jews and Christians together, have behind us a great passion of which we can be proud, but ahead us there is still an infinity of things to be done. What we have built so far is of no little account, but what awaits us to do in the future is of even greater magnitude.Our past is important, but the future that awaits us, in Europe and in the world, is even more important and urgent. We need to understand it and gain awareness of it”