Responsibility has no frontiers

“Consider that the responsibilities of Christians don’t stop at the frontiers of their country. That’s why it’s essential that Christians be endowed with a supranational mentality. Tell yourselves you don’t have the right to disinterest yourself in the efforts being made today to give Europe, in spite of past and present rivalries, a unity sufficiently strong to secure her freedom, security and prosperity. Faced by this task, undoubtedly difficult but indispensable, don’t be critical or sceptical. Instead, be men of good will who believe in united Europe because they want to construct it”.This long quotation belongs to another age. It’s taken from a letter on peace that the cardinals and archbishops of France published on 14 June 1950, a few days after the Declaration of Robert Schuman which would set the European peoples and nations on a new course and whose 60th anniversary is now being celebrated. The words of the French bishops have lost none of their relevance. May Catholics take pride in them, because at least the highest French prelates of the period were not mistaken in their encouragements. I don’t know the reactions of other Church hierarchies, but at least that of France expressed the right opinion without mincing its words.But even more important is the fact that this text has lost none of its actuality. Europe more than ever needs strong unity. But the impediments to the freedom, security and prosperity in question have since grown. Freedom is threatened, among other things, by private actors who – like some big banks or internet businesses – now pass among public actors, both states and international organizations. Rediscovering political superiority and respect for law sometimes imposes on us the need to overcome the European perspective and to think of a genuine world governance of finance and the economy.Security in Europe is no longer defined in terms of the relations between two opposing blocs. This political scenario came to an end in 1989. New forms of insecurity, new forms of conflict, have since appeared. In response to the new threats, such as terrorism, it is inconceivable that one nation alone, in this case the American nation, can guarantee world peace in the long run. A new geopolitical architecture needs to be devised today, and this only becomes possible if Europe, its governments and its citizens wish to commit themselves to it.It is impossible, lastly, to define prosperity today in a linear way and merely on the basis of per capita income. Other parameters, those that refer to the quality of our relations and out modes of consumption and production, must be taken into consideration. In particular, climate change demands a new quality in international relations. It is the European Union first and foremost that must learn the lesson from the relative failure of the UN climate change conference at Copenhagen in December last year and propose a different approach. These three examples show that we need a new supranational impetus. Sixty years after the Schuman Declaration, we must aspire to a declaration for a united world. With the experience of the last sixty years, it may be presumed that this declaration should be pronounced on the basis of Europe. We also need to hope that this impetus may come without too much delay, because our Schuman Declaration is approaching pensionable age (or has already reached it, according to the rules in force in the various countries of the Union). It strongly needs to be supported by a new and far-sighted document of great vision. Since our journey towards unification began from a fixed nucleus of countries, but not one fixed by others, the journey towards world unification should also start out from an initial group of states. This nucleus might be the G20, which would assume a commitment to freedom, security and prosperity respectful of the Creation. It might also be a smaller group. So let us take to heart the message of the cardinals and archbishops of France sixty years ago: let us endow ourselves with a supranational mentality. Let us tell ourselves that we don’t have any right to disinterest ourselves. Let us try not to be sceptical. Let us try instead to believe in a united world.