FRONT PAGE
“Justice in the eyes of God” is the biblical verse that provides the slogan for the 95th Katholikentag – the great meeting of German Catholics – due to be held in Saarbrücken from 24 to 28 May. In over a thousand initiatives (masses, meetings, discussion forums, reports) the participants will reflect on this verse from the Bible in the light of its relevance for Germany, Europe and the world today. The events will revolve around the theme of the responsibility of lay Catholics in politics, in the economy and in the social context.This year’s Katholikentag will place particular emphasis on the European dimension of this responsibility. Distinguished personalities from all over Europe will make their own contribution to the event to respond, each on the basis of the various national situations, to the fundamental question of justice.At the centre of the European debate on justice is the future of the “social model” to which Europeans owe their own stability and their own prosperity. Its distinctive sign is the reconciliation between economic and market needs on the one hand, and the principle of solidarity and of social justice on the other. The European social model has recently been subjected to renewed scrutiny after its efficiency – due to the process of globalization – was placed in doubt. The outcome of the debate on the questions that flow from it, in the field of economic and social policies, will be decisive for the future configuration of the ‘res publica europea’ and will characterise its identity. The theme of justice will also be posed in terms of the role assigned – in the process of integration – to the individual components of the complex that is beginning to take shape in the European Union. The aspiration to unity can be satisfied only if this unity reflects the diversities of Europe. This does not just mean national diversities. In each nation there exist a variety of other different realities: the regions with their own traditions and different political and social orders, the cultural minorities with their specific experiences and lifestyles. If justice is the yardstick with which the new Europe is to be measured, account will have to be taken of these different European entities.The theme of justice assumes a new value in the perspective of the enlargement of the European Union to new member states that claim membership on the basis of the principle of solidarity. But without basic agreement on its geographical frontiers, can a community rediscover itself, and its own identity, and acquire self-confidence? Can a community that does not know what its frontiers are, experience justice within its own frontiers and acquire self-consciousness, essential prerequisite for being able to be just to its own environment and to its own neighbours? If the European Union would measure itself with the yardstick of justice, new questions would be posed, also in consideration of the fact that it is founded on an ethical project of reconciliation and peace. It would have to guarantee, in future, reconciliation and peace between member states that had been enemies in the past, by promoting their operation in common. What are the implications of this ethical demand, if Europeans wish to be equal to it, for example in their policy towards their neighbouring countries in the Balkans desperately in need of aid, and still searching for peace? And what responsibility could or should Europe assume in the pursuit of justice and peace in the world and for the world?
