Two different closures

A “secularist attitude” reigns in many Western countries, while “in the territories that have put behind them decades of Communist totalitarianism the idea of the independence of religion from the State has difficulty in gaining ground”. This, in essence, is the situation of religious freedom in Europe that emerges from the 2006 Report published by the charity of pontifical right “Aid to the Suffering Church” (ASC). The Report was presented, as usual in Italian, in Rome in recent days and, simultaneously, in Portuguese at Lisbon. In the section dedicated to the Old Continent, “the secularist attitude prevalent in many countries” is pointed out: it “seems to have its maximum expression in the EU institutions and, more particularly, in the European Parliament” and reveals “the inability of many EU countries to overcome the obsolete opposition between religion and civil life through a mature relation with society”. At the same time the Report dedicates wide coverage to the process of “denationalisation and autonomy of the Churches” in Eastern Europe. We present a brief résumé of the situation in these countries. For further details: www.acs-italia.org IN 2005 the right to religious freedom was fully respected in Armenia , and the ecumenical dialogue between the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Catholic Church continued to thrive. A new law on religious freedom came into force in Belarus in 2002. Though attributing to the Russian Orthodox Church the role of official religion of the country, it recognises “the spiritual, cultural and historical role of the Catholic Church in the territory”. Although in Georgia the legal situation of the Catholic Church remains precarious, the policy of President Michail Saachasvili, in power since January 2004, seems to have led to some improvement. On the other hand, the situation in Moldova , the only European country, other than France, that has systematically banned the teaching of religion by public schools, remains worrying. “After the victory of the Communist party in the general elections of March 2005 – observes the Report – a further hardening of the government’s stance on questions concerning religious freedom could be ascertained”. IN RUSSIA the position of the government towards the religious communities has been shown to be fair and neutral, and therefore it can be called an improvement over the past. The registration of the Transfiguration at Novosibirsk has increased the number of Catholic dioceses in Russia to four, and the problem of the granting of visas to foreign priests seems to have been overcome. While the Report acknowledges “the formal respect for Orthodoxy, identified as fundamental component of spiritual and cultural identity of the nation, it also denounces, within the political structures, and more widely in society, secularist and anti-clerical attitudes that are increasingly comparable to the mentality widespread in Europe”. Although problems are not registered in terms of religious freedom, the Czech Republic remains lumbered – says the Report – with the crippling legacy left by the Communist regime; this regards, in particular, the complex and tormented question of the restitution to the Catholic Church of the properties expropriated during the regime. Religious freedom is widely guaranteed also in Slovakia , even though accompanied by worrying episodes such as the interferences of international organizations and their efforts to condition legislation by pro-abortion lobbying. THE INJURIES INFLICTED BY THE CIVIL WAR in the former Yugoslavia “still remain difficult to heal, says the report: situations of hostility between the various religious communities, Christian and Islamic, often identified with ethnic groups, still persist” in the region. In Bosnia and Herzegovina there is a triple religious and ethnic divide, within which, says the Report, “the international organizations – EU, OSCE, UNO – practise a systematic discrimination against Bosnian Catholics formerly resident in the Serb majority zone of the country”. Still at risk is freedom of worship for Serbs in Kosovo, in particular as regards the ability of members of the various Churches to move about the territory. “The best known religious leaders – notes the Report – have to seek recourse to the armed escort of international troops”. THE NEW PRESIDENT of Ukraine, Viktor Juscenko, according to the Report, demonstrates an open and tolerant attitude to all the Christian confessions, whose ethical value for society and whose equality of rights he has repeatedly underlined. While the debate on the entry of Turkey into the EU continues in Europe, Turkey for her part has recognized greater rights to the Christian religious communities in the country, but what is still lacking is any recognition of their juridical personality. Local minorities in Turkey are also subjected to discrimination and sometimes to violent acts, such as the recent killing of the Italian missionary Father Andrea Santoro.