European unification: ” “Christians’ commitment

The building process of a united Europe is long and complex. It also requires a lot of patience and understanding towards all those – the partners, “neighbours” – involved. Amidst all the ensuing difficulties, figures the danger to resign and give up hope that it’s worthwhile. The crises that are necessarily part of such a process may also present a temptation to look for shortcuts or simplistic solutions turning to old nationalist ideas, which were thought superseded. Christians with their faith and everything therein related possess the tools and arguments to resist the temptations of resignation and relapse into historically unsuccessful solutions. They also have the opportunity and the responsibility to convince others that it’s right to remain faithful, with confidence and perseverance, to what has been acknowledged as fair. This attitude of confidence and serenity, which befits Christians involved in the various activities in the pipelines of Europe, is facilitated by the fact that their ethics for European integration is essentially a Christian ethics, as expressed in the commitment of the founding fathers of the 1950s as well as in the fundamental documents and Treaties establishing the European Union. Considering the establishment of the European Community, it is not difficult to identify the values and principles that most determine and motivate the process of unification. These are: peace, reconciliation, solidarity, justice, freedom; values whose essential meaning for political action has been widely acknowledged once again after the terrible experience of World War II. These values form the foundation of ethical consensus on which is grafted the process of European unification and its most important concretization, the European Union. An important contribution of Christians in the future will be to ensure that the European Union is true to this ethics, both in the development of its constitutional order and in the formulation of its concrete policies. The overall positive experiences of Christian commitment in building Europe show that this is possible. But in the future it will not be a simple task. Christians will be required to be present, patient, persuasive and capable of initiative. Indeed, in the life of our States and our societies forces and trends seek to counter the Christian ethics underlying European integration. Not only in the founding of the European Community, but also in the Nineties, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, where its relevance was felt most powerfully, was experienced the attraction exerted by a Christian-social model. This model is based mainly on the social teachings of the Church and it refers, in relation to Europe, to the vision of the founding fathers (Robert Schuman, Alcide De Gasperi, Konrad Adenauer, Joseph Bech …) who were all believers and committed Catholics. At the same time, it can be observed that the Churches – the Catholic Church in particular – with their different realities and institutions (including organizations of lay people) have gradually recognized and assumed the EU as their domain of activity, while also European institutions – notably the Commission and Parliament – have gradually overcome their blindness towards Churches and religions, coming to recognize the religious dimension as critical to the unification and the construction of Europe, thereby opening up to dialogue. Finally, over the years, Christians involved in groups and ecclesial associations, trade unions, in every kind of civil society organization, gathered together at European level, to seek ways to carry on joint actions with the aim of shaping a new Europe, through the lenses of their Christian faith and their social beliefs and policies that derive from it. In other words: there emerges an overall encouraging pictures as regards opportunities for Christians to offer constructive contribution to Europe’s unification, thereby helping the EU to further reconciliation, peace, justice, solidarity and freedom. Pope Francis, with his visit to Strabourg and his speeches at the European Parliament and at the Council of Europe, has placed important signs.