History lessons

Europe’s current events were recently marked by two commemorations: the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9 1989, the end of the First World War, November 11 1918. Two events at the centre: Germany and Europe’s self-reconciliation. The significance of these events emerges to the light of the speeches Benedict XVI delivered in Prague a few weeks earlier: crucial statements that were followed by far too few comments. The man who chose the name of Benedict to pay a dual homage to Saint Benedict, who unified Europe through Christian faith and monasticism, and to his predecessor Benedict XV, who endeavored to restore peace in Europe wrecked by human folly, reminded the diplomats present in the beautiful Czech capital, “heart of Europe”, that “Europe is more than a continent. It is a home!” A single home for different peoples, whose history is stained by cruel confrontation, but which nonetheless remains a common home, whose foundations repose on Christian civilization. If Europe is faithful to its roots, it can nourish it “particular vocation” to be “at the service of the common good of individuals, communities and nations”. The Holy Father wished to “underline the irreplaceable role of Christianity for the formation of the conscience of each generation and the promotion of a basic ethical consensus that serves every person who calls this continent, ‘home!”. Indeed, in his speech to the academic community the Pope reaffirmed the role of formation, of the university environment. One of the oldest universities in Europe is to be found in Prague, the famous University Carlo, founded by the Pontiff’s predecessor Clement VI in 1347. For His Holiness this was the occasion to recall the role of the Church in the different parts of the European home, from Valladolid to Krakow, from Paris to Bologna, in those places of teaching and formation, where freedom – “that underlies the exercise of reason” – is directed to the pursuit of truth. Universities have a responsibility and the mission to enlighten spirits, to pave the ways, to be at the service of the promotion of “an authentic humanitas, the perfection of the individual within the unity of a well-ordered society”. This is an eminently humanistic vision of the University that was destroyed by totalitarian ideologies, aimed at the destruction of religion and human spirit, bearing in mind other past and present dangers, which include unrestrained individualism, mass society, means of mass destruction, absolute relativism. We know that the end of the First World War didn’t lead to peace. Several European politicians forgot the principles of the caritas, and based reconstruction on revenge and hatred, on the contempt of the human person. And other tragedies ensued. Europe had to witness further tragedies, and new generations of Christian politicians in order to create a new destiny for itself. But sixty years since the beginning of the European building, Benedict XVI identifies new dangers: “While the period of interference from political totalitarianism has passed, is it not the case that frequently, across the globe, the exercise of reason and academic research are – subtly and not so subtly – constrained to bow to the pressures of ideological interest groups and the lure of short-term utilitarian or pragmatic goals? What will happen if our culture builds itself only on fashionable arguments, with little reference to a genuine historical intellectual tradition, or on the viewpoints that are most vociferously promoted and most heavily funded?”The parts of 20th century history that have recently been commemorated remind us that freedom, truth and our very roots, are “denied at humanity’s own peril”.