For a Europe with a soul

The meeting of the bishops of Oradea, Romania (November 3-6) on the theme: “You will be my witnesses: evangelization in Eastern Catholic Churches of Europe”, was attended by many special guests, amongst whom figured Msgr. Cyril Vasil, Secretary of the Congregation for Eastern Churches. Danka Jaceckova interviewed him for SIR Europe from the offices in Bratislava. How would you describe efforts concerning new evangelization in terms of work and activities of the Congregation for Oriental Churches?“Communities that have been traditionally understood as Christian for long centuries need a new impulse today, because they are affected by exhaustion, secularization, dechristianization, atheism – we talk especially about communities of the western world. Eastern Catholic Churches have different history and exist in different contexts. Talking about Europe, we have Oriental Churches living in the Eastern Europe, that until recent times had been excluded from the legal frame and they have come out of ilegality very short time ago. They are still full of eagerness and striving for new organisation. Then we have Churches that have been free for several decades, living in the context of the Middle Europe – like Slovakia or Hungary – where we can still see trails of the communist regime, but also present are signs of secularization typical for the western countries. Contexts vary and so does the approach to different situations. Recently the Congregation has paid attention to the Churches renewing their activities after decades of formal non-existence – in the area of ecclesial life, creation of structures, formation of clergy and laity. So in this sense the new evangelization means a new beginning after the period of decay. Another challenge is associated with evangelization of the Greeek Catholic diaspore in the western countries. Many Greek Catholics have moved trying to find job abroad. They live in the western countries very often not completely integrated in their stable cultural context and it´s necessary to create opportunities for them to maintain their spiritual, religious identity, and at the same time to help them accomodate to their new homes”.When talking about perspectives of united Europe and ways to overcome its current crisis, how do you see a phenomenon of community and the role of faith in this process?“There were various attempts to unify in the past – based on imperialism, force, expansion, totalitarian regimes in the past, but those never last long. Then there is a different way of unification on the base of economical liaisons. Today we can see that these criteria, although of high importance, are not unifying enough to overcome obstacles that can arise. So we need to see a complex of elements that must be mutually linked. In this sense the Church is a kind of supranational, supracultural body. This fenomenon was noticed by the Christians of the first centuries when they said that the Christian is a citizen of every town and – at the same time – of no town at all, because heaven is his homeland. This paradox has been here since the birth of Christianity – affiliation to local communities considered as very important because it is a sign of dignity of every nation, language, community, and concurrently sense of belonging to wider ecumene, to bigger community of those who believe in Christ, to new Israel, to the nation of God. I think this element has helped to create the phenomenon we call Europe. It is not only a simplified statement that Europe has been shaped by Christianity. It is a fact that the Christianity helped fragmentated Europe after the fall of the Roman empire and invasion of various barbarian tribes. Christianity was accepted by those tribes as a unifying value and the phenomenon of mutual spiritual affinity has been created. Sense of brotherhood within one nation of God is something that exceeds political, economical, ethnical divisions and this is the main contribution to the unification of Europe. Because it´s unification on the level of common ideas, values – something much stronger than immediate economical or political interests. Those can prevail for a moment, but there´s something else that creates spiritual unity”.Blessed John Paul II always emphasized that Europe should equally breath with both sides of its lungs, talking about Eastern and Western Churches. How do you see the current situation in this regard? “This expression can be understood in a wider context than just as relation between Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic Churches. We can talk about about East and West in all their ecclesial expressions and understand it as a call to ecumenism towards Orthodox Churches, to global perception of Europe from the Atlantic ocean to Ural mountains. But principally a call to understand the European identity as growing from common Christian roots. I think for people from our region it is something natural, maybe that´s why the author of this idea was the pope of Poland. In these countries the mutual connection and intersection on the base of faith is understood as something natural, part of the tradition and culture. Perhaps it´s less obvious in the regions with more homogene rite structure. This need can be manifested in various forms, including getting to know each-other through joint meetings, as today the world is globalized also in the area of understanding of the Church life. Maybe we notice it more in the western countries with an interest in eastern liturgy, in the life of Eastern Churches. It´s often connected with certain amount of curiosity, but at the same time it´s an expression of need to add something to traditional western perception of faith. It´s necessary to adopt the same process in the eastern countries, pick the best elements of the western spirituality and implement them into the eastern comprehension of faith. Eastern Catholic Churches are a good example of this interconnection – they use traditional eastern components but their affinity to the Catholic Church, that identifies more with western tradition, gives them possibility to really breath with both sides of lungs”. Poland: a time of witness”In Poland, the secretary general of the Bishops’ Conference (KEP) liaises most of the Church’s external relations, notably with bishops’ conferences of other countries, CCEE and COMECE. He is in charge of bilateral commissions, such as the Polish-German commission, the Polish Lithuanian commission, the Polish-English commission as well as the committee for relations with the Russian Orthodox Church”, underlined Msgr. Wojciech Polak on November 9, when he took office as the new secretary of the Polish episcopacy. The 47-year-old has been in charge of vocational pastoral care and of the pastoral care of migrant people until now. In his capacities as the auxiliary bishop of Gniezno he assumed the elective office within the Permanent Council of the Bishops’ Conference of which he is now a member as of right. “Coordinating Church-State relations is a very important area that falls within the responsibilities of the KEP secretary”, pointed out the newly appointed secretary who will be part of the joint State-KEP Dignitaries Committee. In the light of the results of the parliament elections held a month ago in Poland (past October 9), Msgr. Polak identifies the lack of communication between the religious and secular realms as the motivation underlying specific critical stances against the Church by political groups. He maintains that during the electoral campaign the media “amplified a vision of the Church as a covetous, soulless institution”. Even though, as he remarks, “the anti-clerical sentiments of certain political representatives are the result of their personal defeats”. “The current situation in Poland requires authentic Christian witness”, underlines the prelate, for whom, “it is not a question of defending the institution or confronting its enemies. It is not time to wage war, it is time to bear witness”. According to recent opinion polls carried out by the CBOS survey institute, 95 % of all Poles describe themselves as Catholic, 92% as believers and over 50% say they are practicing Catholics. However, these figures show a 2% decrease compared to 2008, and they are even more significant if we consider that only 6% of Polish Catholics are part of one of the parish communities. In Poland, affirms Msgr. Polak, “we are faced with a rather superficial form of Catholicism” that has to be “deepened and revived as the bond uniting Christ and His Church, understood as a faith community”. “The Church should be seen as a home and a school of communion”, the prelate underlines, reiterating the need for a broad and concrete adult formation. For this purpose, among others, during the latest plenary in October the Polish bishops set up the Council for promoting the new evangelization, within the Commission for Pastoral Care “In Poland we can’t be content with saying that the new evangelization involve those countries where the Gospel has a minor echo”, points out the new KEP secretary general, who is aware “of a certain degree of superficiality that has been characterizing Polish Catholicism”, and therefore, he continues, “a deeper faith requires a new evangelization, a new style of thought, and new methods of pastoral care”.