Lay culture and community” “of believers” “

“Draft of the future Constitution and concern of the communities of believers in the European countries to have their identity, their specific contribution to the life of European society, and the status they enjoy under national legislations, respected”. All this – reported the director of the Vatican’s press room Joaquin Navarro Valls in briefing journalists – was discussed during the private audience granted by the Pope to Valery Giscard d’Estaing, president of the European Convention, on 31 October. To coincide with this meeting, the president of the “Luigi Sturzo” Institute in Rome, Gabriele De Rosa, released the proposal it presented to the European Convention, to insert in the preamble of a future constitutional Treaty a paragraph relating to the role of religions in the construction of Europe: a paragraph recalling “the importance of the principles of the great religious traditions and the lay culture of the European peoples and the need for the primacy of the values of the person, religious liberty, social solidarity, and co-existence between different ethnic groups, religions and cultures to converge on the objective of the social cohesion of the European Union”. Gabriele De Rosa describes for SirEurope the thought of the Luigi Sturzo Institute which for years has had contacts of study and research with many centres of European culture. The proposal to insert in the preamble of the forthcoming constitutional Treaty a paragraph relating to the role of religions in the construction of Europe underlines the need to ensure that the values based on respect for the person, and on co-existence between different ethnic groups, religions and cultures, converge on the objective of solidarity or social cohesion. These values find their foundation in the principles of the great religious traditions, and of lay culture, and are rooted in the history of the European peoples. The forthcoming enlargement of the Union to eight former satellite countries of the USSR, to Slovenia, Malta, Cyprus, Turkey and perhaps other countries in the Balkans, will mark the entry into the EU of countries that are particularly in need of solidarity, but that will undoubtedly contribute to the construction of a united Europe. Moreover, the deep religious feelings of many Nordic countries, victims of genocide and massacres that have become an indelible part of their history, could help to overcome any antagonism between different religions. The development of the single market, and of the economic and monetary union, also requires a considerable dose of solidarity, if account is to be taken of the involvement of persons when situations become difficult. The primacy of the values of the person therefore demands reciprocal tolerance and religious freedom, without any antagonism to the secular principle embodied in the political and institutional culture of modern and contemporary Europe. The need for co-existence between different ethnic groups, religions and cultures is already referred to, even if not yet developed, in a declaration annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam concerning respect for the status of the churches, religious associations or communities and philosophic and lay organizations. The future of Europe, however, with the forthcoming enlargement, will see a reinforcement, “simultaneously”, of all the religions present in the countries of the Union. Hence the proposal that steps be taken to ensure that “the primacy of the values of the person, religious liberty, social solidarity, and co-existence between different ethnic groups, religions and cultures converge on the objective of the social cohesion of the European Union”. Freedom in religious practice, combined with the reciprocal recognition of the values based on religion, also represent, in a context of democracy, a great opportunity for overcoming forms of extremism and fundamentalism.