FRONT PAGE
Christian Churches and EU Institutions faced by the problem of poverty
In the “structured dialogue” between the Churches and the European institutions the steps are still small and sometimes hesitant, but something is moving.A small signal of such movement comes from the “seminar of dialogue” on the European Year of combating poverty and social exclusion held at the Palais Berlaymont in Brussels on 9 July, on the initiative of two European church organizations – COMECE (Commission of the Episcopates of the European Community) and the Church and Society Commission of the Conference of the European Churches (CEC) – and the European Commission represented by the Commissioner for work, social affairs and inclusion, László Andor.Another seminar, on the same question and undoubtedly more challenging in scope, will be held on 19 July when the representatives of the Christian Churches and of other religions will meet the highest officeholders of the EU Institutions. The Catholic Church will be represented by Cardinal Peter Erdo, President of the CCEE (Council of the European Bishops’ Conferences) and Bishop Adrianus Van Luyn, President of COMECE.Faced by some 80 million poor people in Europe, of whom 10 million are children, the Churches and the Institutions are meeting each other to define a perspective which, while respecting their different identities and roles, would be able to offer effective responses in a time of crisis, which is not only of an economic and financial kind.These meetings are testimonials of European maturity. They are opportunities for dialogue in which what prevails is that positive sense of ‘laicity’ that takes nothing away from the partners in dialogue but on the contrary gives substance to their efforts to construct a Europe more decided and visible in its pursuit of justice and solidarity.The Christian Churches have an opportunity to express their social sensibility both in action and in reflection and in culture.The Churches present themselves at such meetings not only as realities attentive to and actively involved in relieving the needs of the most vulnerable, but also as protagonists who, thanks to their concrete experience on the ground, are also the bearers of a political thought without ideological frontiers and without partisan interests.The Churches – and this is an image one gains throughout Europe – are not “stretcher bearers of history” as some would perhaps like them to be. Their going towards the aid of the poorest and most vulnerable is always combined with the request and proposal of policies that are consistent with the promotion of the dignity of each person and each community, however big or small.For the Institutions the European outlook of the Churches, which is always part of a universal outlook, offers the occasion and the stimulus to find reasons and courage to look beyond the entrenched positions of nationalism and dare a far-sighted common policy both at home and abroad. It’s a response to the vocation that the founding fathers envisaged for Europe and that they transformed into the great adventure of peace and development that remains to this day a beacon of responsibility and hope in the world.It is confidence-building gestures that help make the “structured dialogue” permanent and fruitful, and that removes it from the logic of lobbies. The European Christian Churches were the first in their determination not to run this risk and the first to point it out to the Institutions as the wrong way to go about involving them in the social and cultural development of Europe.The European Year of the fight against poverty and social exclusion has now reached its halfway stage. It forms part of the wider Europe 2020 strategy with the objective of reducing poverty by 25%: a goal that needs to be achieved if the EU is to rediscover the most genuine reasons of its being a common home.What must guide the decisions that need to be taken in pursuing this objective is the realism of those who do not close their eyes either to the steps that have remained unfulfilled or to those that have been achieved.The Churches add to it their message of hope.They say that the Christian optimism, especially in times of difficulties, is not just whistling in the dark, but the assumption of competence and responsibility.It is the sharing of this idea of positive ‘laicity’ that the Institutions and the Churches, in the distinction of roles, are called to render visible and effective with ever greater conviction: out of fidelity to Europe, and to those who inhabit her today and tomorrow.
