Remembering a flight

On Sunday 13 April, Cardinal Sean Brady, Archbishop of Armagh (Ireland), presided over a Mass in the church of San Pietro in Montorio in Rome to mark the 400th anniversary of the arrival in Rome of three aristocratic Irish exiles, welcomed by Pope Paul V in April 1608 (the flight of the earls, as it was called). It was an event, said the cardinal, that marked the beginning “of close and irreversible ties between Ireland and the rest of Europe”. From the interview we have cited we have excerpted the “European reflection” of the Archbishop of Armagh.Thanks to the patient effort of many ‘good shepherds’ at local and national level, the relationship between Britain and Ireland has never been more interdependent, more characterised by respect and solidarity than it is today. I think it needs to be clearly noted that the development of the broader European project was critical to the healing of this relationship. Indeed the transformation of the relationship between Ireland and Britain generally, and the Northern Ireland peace process in particular, is one of the most recent and tangible manifestations of the founding aims of the European Union.This is but one reason why today we should give thanks for those who took the vision and experience of St. Columbanus, St. Gaul, Hugh O’Neill and the other Earls, to its logical conclusion by founding a European Union based on interdependence and solidarity as the principles of enduring peace. To commemorate the flight of the Earls is to celebrate the intimate and irreversible links between Ireland and the rest of Europe. To celebrate the principles of interdependence, solidarity and peace which inspire the European Union, is to celebrate values which are at the very heart of the Gospel. They are the values which allowed the Earls, as people of deep and abiding faith, to feel ‘at home’ in the Europe of their day.This is why I believe that developing the concept of a ‘Europe of values’ remains a critical but somewhat unresolved dimension of the European Union. In the context of an increasing technocratic and economic emphasis within Europe, the sense of vision and values which inspired the fundamental project of the European Union can all to easily, be lost.Unlike the Earls in their day, it is increasingly difficult for those of religious faith to feel completely ‘at home’ today with what appears to be the dominant values of the European Union. Some people of faith have even developed an innate disposition of suspicion towards any proposal from the Union, or its bodies, which has an ethical dimension. Put simply, people of religious faith who may be natural enthusiasts of the concept of a European Union, increasingly approach European developments with scepticism. They have an expectation that a secular, relativist and utilitarian approach dominates ethical considerations. It would appear that the right to maintain a distinctive ethos in religious institutions is constantly under threat. Issues such as the nature of marriage, the family or the origin and end of life have to be constantly defended against a dominant centralising and standardising tendency.This is why the structured dialogue between Governments, Churches and faith communities proposed in the Lisbon Treaty and already established by the Irish Government is so important. It would be regrettable if some people, on the assumption that the European Union is innately hostile to particular religious or ethical values, misjudged or misrepresented critical European developments. On the other hand, failure to give due recognition, equality and protection to the objective, rational and often shared ethical values of large numbers of citizens within the Union, undermines the very principle of tolerance and diversity on which the Union itself is based. It may also become a source of increasing threat to the successful progress of important European developments. It undermines the principle of subsidiarity and diversity on which so much of the success of the Union has been based to date.