Indissoluble diversity

In order to provide a concrete contribution to the European integration process Christians are called “to reconsider the axioms on which our democracy procedures repose along with the lay principles on which they intend to be based on”. The patriarch of Venice Angelo Scola delivered his address at the Congress “Christian contribution to the European integration process” held a few days ago in Krakow. The meeting is promoted by the Pontifical University John Paul II in Krakow and by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Poland and the Robert Schuman Foundation in Luxembourg, in conjunction with the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE), the Polish delegation of the European People’s Party (EPP) at the European Parliament and the publishing house “Wokol Nas”. Christians’ presence in the public sphere, EU-Church cooperation and the responsibilities of Christian politicians in the new European building are some of the themes addressed in the three panel-discussions attended among others by the Metropolitan Archbishop of Krakow Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz; Bronislaw Komorowski, President of the Republic of Poland; Hans-Gert Pöttering and Jacques Santer, respectively presidents of the Adenauer and Schuman Foundations. A new laicity. According to Cardinal Scola “today Europe demands a new laicity that will enhance all the actors of plural societies ensuring the public expression of their deepest beliefs”. “Only in this way is potentially harmonious coexistence and principled living possible”. However, it requires “the practical acknowledgement of the shared material and spiritual goods”. Is it therefore necessary, “through established procedures, to confer political value to the primary social good of coexistence. Individuals and public bodies must raise this social fact to the level of political benefit”. “In the course of European history the religious, cultural, social and political events, – with the due distinctions – have been so intertwined that they cannot be separated from one another”, continues the patriarch of Venice. Religions are thus called to play a role in Europe’s future building”. Nonetheless in our continent there is the tendency to claim that public debate “must prescind from the religious roots of personal belief. This means” compelling “the faithful to act as if they were atheists, with the result of stripping society of important resources”. True religious freedom. In the opinion of the Patriarch of Venice “religions are capable of proposing universal truth in concrete terms. As opposed to the claims propounded by European culture in the course of modernity, values are never conveyed in an abstract manner (the Charter of Fundamental Rights risks becoming a mere list of formal propositions). Rather, they are conveyed within lived traditions”. Therefore “some of the underlying axioms of society”, such as the idea of freedom and equality, “can receive renewed thrust from the witness of the faithful on the basis of their experience in the community. This acknowledgement should entail the recognition of the public subjectivity of other religions on the part of political powers”. Hence “the need for public institutions to not only acknowledge but also actively promote true religious freedom”. The foundation of the polis. According to cardinal Scola Europe ought to become “a major player of globalization”, “resisting the temptation to absorb other cultures”. In order to do so, “it is necessary to refer to the unique relationship with the anthropological, social and ecological tenets implied in Christian Revelation, and marked by universal value”. “Precisely because Europe freely received these tenets it cannot consider itself as their owner”, the Patriarch said. “It must share them with the rest of the world, to show them, as late Cardinal Lustiger said, ‘un nouvel art de vivre'”. Europeans’ specific mission, His Eminence underlines, “is to promote ongoing dialogue with other cultures, witnessing their own good living behaviour as individuals and as community members, made of philìa, in the words of Aristotele, which the erection of the polis cannot refrain from reposing upon”. If these major features are preserved, “Europe’s contribution to the creation of a new world order, which the Church social Magisterium has longtime called for, will gain momentum, as happened in its highest moments in history”. Thus Europe, Cardinal Scola concludes, “will involve all continents in practicing the free coexistence of their citizens and of nations thus engendering a civil society that will not sacrifice differences but highlight them instead. This will prevent them from tearing the ever-more urgent need for the unity of world populations”.