FRONT PAGE
Many young people were also present at the European seminar held at Clermont Ferrand from 9 to 11 October on the initiative of Comece (Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community) (cf. SirEurope 68 /2006). They included Johanna Touzel, press officer of Comece itself. We asked her for a reflection on Europe.Clermont-Ferrand, in the region of the Auvergne, land of extinct volcanoes and hot springs, might well be the source and wellspring of Christian commitment for Europe.It is this source that the participants in the seminar sought to rediscover by reviewing the last fifty years of European history. Alfred Grosser, Jean-Dominique Durand and Hanns-Jürgen Küsters recalled the circumstances surrounding the signing of the Treaty of Rome. The six founding countries of the European Economic Community did not, it seems, decide to embark on the adventure of the Common Market until impelled to do so by the international events of the Suez Crisis and the uprising in Budapest: faced by the supremacy of the two blocs, the Europeans in fact had no other choice but unity.Eyewitnesses of the period, who were either present at the meeting or whose intentions were retransmitted through images and soundtracks of the period, recalled how far those who believed in the Common Market had to remove, also with cunning, the doubts and misgivings of their respective governments. It seems to me that in the end it was a coincidence between international events of major significance and the tenacity of some politicians that permitted the birth of an unprecedented experiment in the history of humanity: the creation of a union of sovereign states, not only to establish a European space of peace and prosperity, but also to create an inspiring model for the rest of the world. I recognize here the fundamental role of historians who, as “messengers from the past”, remove events, ideas and testimonies from oblivion to enable us to learn from the lessons of the past, and discover the origins of the projects that still need to be brought to completion today. I feel myself to be the fortunate heir of a Europe that my fathers had the intelligence and the courage to begin. Without the determination of Schuman, Adenauer, De Gasperi and Spaak, today I would be living in a continent perhaps still torn by nationalism, impoverished by wars and sidelined from history. But, thanks to their brilliant intuition, I live in a land that has experienced no more wars for sixty years, where economic prosperity is guaranteed by a single market and a single currency, a land without frontiers where I can freely travel, study and now work abroad. In turn, what legacy will I leave to the generations that succeed me? Will I leave this heritage to perish after having profited from it so much?Out of respect for our fathers, love for future generations and especially a sense of responsibility for the world, the third world in particular, which has great hopes in Europe, I feel it is my duty to strive to consolidate this still fragile construction.It seems to me up to the young, my contemporaries, to decide in what direction Europe should go.That’s why a compass is needed to indicate the values that are at the origin of the European project. And that’s why, after the COMECE seminar at Clermont-Ferrand, I will be present at the meeting “Rome 2007” due to be held in the Italian capital from 23 to 25 March next year. Its aim is to commemorate, reflect on and plan Europe with other Christians of this continent.
