Lack of vision

The entire passage dedicated to Europe from CEI President and CCEE vice-president card. Angelo Bagnasco’s opening speech on May 21st at the General Assembly of Italian Bishops."We would like to say a word about Europe. Undoubtedly the European man is living through a crisis. While yesterday, he was entitled to foresee a somewhat positive outcome from the community process, today he is forced to come to terms with a barely recognizable subject. Many studies have been carried out on the various euro-phases and reasons of its birth. We leave the answers to more competent people. But are urged to manifest a certain disappointment which today surrounds Europe, but also the illusion, perhaps, of being able to eliminate or confuse national weaknesses into a broader reality. We are lacking a vision of what we should expect from Europe, and are rather left with just the feeling that what is entitled to circulate is denial of the past presented through an apparently neutral figure, illusorily progressive, but clearly secularist. Furthermore, considering how the unmanageable economic situation is but the product of hasty decisions of what is deemed to be the most important sector, we must apologize to Europeans. We must ask them to start from scratch, and include their voice without underestimating some of their verdicts. Brought up following the teachings of John Paul II, Europe is for us too important to remain unfulfilled, suspended in the air, or an interrupted project where each country must find the less painful way to come out of it. Precisely the unexpected problems we are called to address, prove our need for Europe and risks of going back to the past. After all, there cannot be Europe without passion, without inwardness coming from historical, cultural and religious heritage that European peoples have in common. Europe without the cultural and religious aspects will not shape the feeling of belonging, and will never become a community of destiny. The need for brave self-criticism, starting from when the term community has been replaced by the more trivial one of union, and censorship of the Continent’s clearly Christian roots, considered as a trivial style of reticence. It is exactly this void which prevents mobilization, for there is nothing to relate to. Those who say that the European Community cannot exist without solidarity and cooperation are right because competition on its own is not enough. It just increases tension and wears out community constraints, leaving citizens exhausted and skeptical. Even the single currency can become a margin of true integration, if considered as a common good and not just a way to measure the power of Member States, but to nourish the European peoples conditions of life. Those who do not want to be citizens just on election day, and then go back to being subjects of technocratic red tape, in an attempt to forge an unpopular and discouraging European mission. By following this path we run the risk of going back to being Europeans only geographically".