A sound laicality

A “just” distinction needs to be drawn between Church and State, but that does not mean “separating the Church from social and cultural life”, says Pope Benedict XVI in a message sent to the Presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe now meeting in Paris for the plenary session of the CCEE (Council of European Episcopal Conferences). Theme of this year’s meeting (1-4 October) is the relation between “Church and State, twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall”. Benedict XVI’s message (relayed by the Holy See’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone) was read out to the delegates by Cardinal Peter Erdö, Archbishop of Budapest and President of the CCEE, in the auditorium of the French Bishops’ Conference which is hosting this year’s plenary session of the CCEE. The Pope expresses his “warm spiritual closeness” to the European bishops. With regard to the theme chosen for this year’s session, the Pope writes: “A just distinction needs to be drawn between Church and State, though without separating the Church from social and cultural life. The Church is faithful to her mission of truth on behalf of a society made in the measure of man, his dignity and his vocation. This fidelity to man, created in the image of God, demands fidelity to truth. This is the guarantee of the hoped-for integral human development, as the remedy to the many imbalances from which our world is suffering today. The Church proclaims this truth through her teaching and her social doctrine. She thus concurs to the building of the universal city of God towards which the human family is progressing”. A sound laicality. In his address opening the plenary session, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, also spoke of the relation between Church and State. He expressed the hope for a “sound laicality that would permit the coexistence and collaboration between faith and reason, so that they would mutually help each other”. And he added: “In our time Europe is preoccupied by the current economic and financial crisis and seems uncertain of her future. More especially she is experiencing a progressive loss of significance of Christian values in social, cultural and political life. This situation represents for us bishops a challenge that calls on us to shoulder our responsibility and spare no effort to save our values and, in particular, the non-negotiable values of life, the family, the centrality of the human person, freedom of education and religious freedom”. Recalling the recent social encyclical of Benedict XVI, Cardinal Re said: “Only if they work together can faith and reason save mankind. Reason always needs to be purified by faith, and religion in turn always needs to be purified by reason to show her authentic human faith”. So the European episcopate must be impelled to “give a soul to Europe. The European Union – Cardinal Re continued – must not merely be a free market for trade or a free area for circulation, but must become a genuine community of nations that wish to unite their destinies and live in justice and solidarity, by promoting what Pope Paul VI called the civilization of love”.European survey. A European survey on the relation between “Church and State”, commissioned by the CCEE, was presented in Paris. Its findings show that “in principle” and “albeit in various forms and with different degrees of success”, the European Episcopal Conferences play “a significant role” in fostering relations with States. The survey reviews the various forms in which the Church enjoys legal recognition in the various European countries and concludes that “even where the Church is recognized, the status that is attributed to her does not always match her effective nature and all the needs that derive from it”. Of particular interest is the part of the survey dedicated to an analysis of the degree of appreciation registered in the various European countries with regard to the Church’s interventions in “socially relevant” matters. The answers given are variegated. Altogether – says the survey – it may be deduced that in some countries these interventions “are appreciated or at least taken into consideration, as in Germany, France, Lithuania, even Albania and Greece. In other States, by contrast, they are ignored (Bosnia and Slovenia), or, and especially when they conflict with the dominant mentality, they arouse outright hostility, as reported by the Austrian and Czech bishops, and sometimes they are even ridiculed in the mass media, as the Swiss bishops lament”. The episcopates of England, Moldavia, Poland and Portugal draw a distinction: “while the [Church’s] statements on issues of sexuality, the family and bioethics, if they are not totally passed over in silence, arouse negative reactions, those regarding social problems, such as human rights, solidarity, and development, are welcomed and held in high regard. It even happens that those who are wholly opposed to the former interventions, considering them an undue interference, would like a greater involvement of the Church in social issues. This is, as we know from direct experience, the Italian situation”.