Only crumbs?” “

Is a spiritual union of Europe possible? Will the continent succeed in breathing with the two lungs of East and West? These are some of the questions posed by Cardinal TomᚠŠpidlík , distinguished representative of the Czech Church and culture, on intervening in recent days in a conference organized by the University of Prague. We cite some passages from his address. WHAT WILL WE GIVE TO OTHERS IF WE DON’T KNOW WHO WE ARE? “The union of Europe is progressing in the political and economic fields; contacts of every kind are increasing. So the question arises: how can we speak of the spiritual union as it has been developed over two millennia? Memory has great importance for the identity of man. A sclerotic loss of memory leads to the destruction of the personality. So if we seek the identity of Europe, we would have to return to its past…. It is the general opinion that European culture is founded on three fundamental pillars: on Greek thought, on Roman law and on the religion of the Bible. It is also believed that a perfect synthesis between these three components has been achieved through the centuries. In fact the aim of the medieval universities was to reunite all the sciences in a philosophical and theological Summa. Unfortunately this vain effort has proved abortive. At the beginning of the modern age the various Summas were replaced by the encyclopaedias, and universal science was fragmented into numerous specializations. We did not feel this dissipation of unity too tragically, so long as everything happened within the closed circle of European thought. But today the situation is different. Europe is confronting new cultures, different mentalities, unknown traditions. What will we offer to the new peoples who enter into contact with us? Only crumbs? And what will we accept from them, if we don’t even know very well what we own?”. REAL GLOBALIZATION OR patches SEWN ONTO THREADBARE CLOTHES. “Elements coming from other cultures, corresponding to other mentalities, are spontaneously absorbed by means of modern systems of communication. Are we sure that they may constitute an organic complement of our growth or remain like a piece of different material sewn onto a threadbare garment? … Precocious assimilation is indicated by the pejorative term of globalization. Young people love to protest against it and at the same time succumb to its influence. Millions of emigrants seek to assimilate themselves into a new environment and at the end sadly feel that they have failed and that they will remain foreigners, ‘non-EU citizens’, until death… The Eastern and Western blocs appear once again on the world panorama. Europe could be a unifying bridge between them. Unfortunately no satisfactory synthesis of its culture has yet been produced. It still fails to ‘breathe with both lungs'”. THE DREAM OF A SYNTHESIS. “From ancient times to our own day we can observe two tendencies in European culture: empiricism and idealism. Each pursues its own path without communicating with the other. The first schism in our culture thus appeared. To which of these two tendencies do we give our preference?… And how was this problem translated into Christianity? … After the end of the Middle Ages, secularization and rationalization, which reinforces the value of abstract principles, both moral and social, rapidly progressed… At the same time the natural sciences were cultivated… Empiricism and idealism exist side by side in the modern world, but no longer feel the need to oppose, or even to communicate with each other. The mystic tendencies have not totally disappeared; on the contrary, in certain periods they make themselves strongly felt; but they have no intention of communicating either with the sciences or with rational thought. European culture has been divided into three main independent spheres: the empirical sciences, Kantian rationalism and mystic tendencies. The dream of their synthesis seems by now to have been lost”. “I alone” do not think, “we” think. “If we want to achieve the height of philosophy, we need to unite two opposite capacities: the supreme achievements of abstract thought and the supreme capacity to contemplate the concrete reality. Who could unite these two? …. The two can be united by means of a supralogical principle: by love. ‘Communion in love’, writes Berdiaev, the ability to be reconciled, is also the criterion of knowledge, a criterion that is opposed to the Cartesian Cogito ergo sum, ‘I think therefore I am’. ‘I alone’ do not think, ‘we’ think, and this ‘we’ means communion in love”.