For everyone’s good

Overlooking the Christian roots of Europe means exposing the European continent to the “risk” of allowing its “original thrust be crushed by individualism and utilitarianism”, underlined Pope Benedict XVI as he accepted the diplomatic credentials of Yves Gazzo, head of the Commission of European Communities to the Holy See. Following the wake of Christian values. In taking the floor the Pope recalled his latest apostolic visit to the Czech Republic, in which he commemorated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. “On this land that suffered the yoke of a painful ideology, I was given the possibility to render grace for the gift of recovered freedom that enabled the European continent to reinstate its integrity and its unity”. In order to become “an area of stability and peace”, the Pope said, the European Union must not forget its very values. These values, “are the fruit of a long and torturous history in which, no one can deny, Christianity has played a major role”, His Holiness declared. “The equal dignity of all human persons, the freedom of the act of faith is the root of all ensuing civil liberties and peace is the decisive element of the common good”. “When the Church recalls the Christian roots of Europe”, said the Holy Father, “she is not demanding a privileged statute for herself”. Indeed, hers is “the historical reminder” of the “Christian values that inspired the founding Fathers of the European Union”. This truth, the pope said, is increasingly “relegated to silence”. At a “deeper level”, the Church “wishes to reaffirm that values follow the wake of the Christian heritage which continues bearing its fruits even today”. The risk of forgetting. “ These common values are not an anarchic or accidental aggregate. They form a coherent whole that is historically ordered and articulated from a precise anthropological vision“, continued Benedict XVI. At this point the Pope raised a series of questions: “Can Europe omit the original organic principle of these values that, at the same time, have revealed to man his eminent dignity and the fact that his personal vocation opens him to all other men, with whom he is called to build only one family? Does allowing oneself to be led by this forgetfulness not mean to expose oneself to the risk of seeing these great and beautiful values enter into competition or conflict with one another? More than that, do these values not run the risk of being exploited by individuals and pressure groups yearning to further particular interests to the detriment of an ambitious collective project – which Europeans pursue – for the common good of the inhabitants of the Continent and of the whole world? This risk was perceived and criticized on many occasions by observers from different environments. Europe must not let its model of civilization be eroded, bit-by-bit. Its original thrust must not be curbed by individualism and utilitarianism”. Europe, “spiritual home”. The “immense intellectual, cultural and economic resources” that abound in Europe “shall continue bearing fruits if they are fertilized by the transcendent vision of the human person, which is the most precious treasure of European heritage”. “This humanist tradition, that so many families of different thoughts identify themselves with, makes Europe capable of addressing future challenges and of responding to its peoples’ expectations”. It is a question – the Pope added entering into the details – of finding “the right and delicate balance between economic efficiency and social requirements, safeguarding the environment and, above all, granting the indispensable and necessary support to human life from conception to natural death, and to the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman. Europe will correspond to its true self only if it will preserve the original bases that constituted its greatness and which could enable it to become, in the future, one of the major promoters of the integral development of the human person, which the Catholic Church regards as the genuine way to remedy contemporary world inequalities.” Europe, the Pope said upon concluding his speech, “is more than a Continent”. Indeed, it yearns to become “a spiritual home”. The Church wishes to “accompany” the construction of the European Union. For this reason, she also wishes to remind you of the fundamental and constitutive values of European society, so that they may be promoted for everyone’s good”.