Build hope

The first six months of 2007 have been marked by two highlights: the fiftieth anniversary of the Treaties of Rome, celebrated on March 25th, and the positive outcome of the Reform of the Treaty of the European Union on June 23rd, during the European Council in Brussels. Hopefully, the mandate given to the Inter-Governmental Conference, due to open on July 23rd, during the Council of General Affairs, will deliver a result and will benefit from the support of the Heads of State and Government of the Union as well as of its citizens.50 years later, the European project has reached a point in which it needs a new injection of this moral and spiritual energy, which enabled its founders to gain confidence and determinedly face the huge task of the reconstruction.As to this, for us readers it would be particularly helpful to consult two recent allocutions on Europe that have been uttered by Pope Benedict XVI, the framework of which was offered by the celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of the Treaties of Rome: the COMECE Congress in Rome from March 23rd to 25th, and the meeting of the rectors and professors of the European Universities, also held in Rome from June 21st to 24th. The first of such allocutions led someone to think Benedict XVI had a negative attitude towards the European Union. But an unbiased reading of both texts leaves no doubts: the Holy Father directly encourages the believers to do “ their duty, with God’s help, to contribute to the consolidation of a new Europe”. He envisages a proactive involvement in the public debate on the European construction and ensures of his “ support and most fervent encouragement”. The two texts raise questions of crucial importance for society. They refer in particular to such problems as the need of a good balance between the social dimension and the economic dimension, the European identity to be deeply rooted in the universal values that Christianity has helped forge, the role of the citizens and their aspirations, the existence of a permanent human nature as the source of the common rights of all individuals, the relation between theism and a genuine humanism, the extension of our understanding of the rationality in the spheres of science and research, and the urgent pursuit of a new humanism vis-à-vis the “massive cultural evolution” that Europe is currently experiencing. In his March allocution, the Pope raises some longsighted questions that deserve to be discussed: in particular he wonders whether Europe, despite aspiring to be considered a community of values, does not seem to deny far more often the very existence of the universal and moral values. He even accused of apostasy this tendency to deny the universal values. It is therefore an alarm bell, the one the Pope rang, or, one could even say, an extremely hard judgement. But this diagnosis deserves a debate and discussions at different levels. In his June allocution, the Supreme Pontiff spoke of the importance of building a future of hope for a Europe that shows social instability and a faint-hearted attitude towards the traditional values.The mandate given to the Inter-Governmental Conference, which has been the fruit of the after-negotiations, is one of the sources of hope for Europe. Let’s hope this Conference will be quick and will deliver a result that may be supported by the Governments and the citizens. For this hope to gain a bigger critical mass, the issues raised by Pope Benedict XVI deserve to be studied by the institutions of the Union, by society and by the Christians of Europe.