"Is it not surprising asked Benedict XVI that today’s Europe, while it aspires to become a community of values, seems to be increasingly opposing to there being any universal and absolute values? Doesn’t this unique form of apostasy from itself, even more than from God, lead it to doubt its own identity?". According to the Pope, in this way one ends up "spreading the belief that the careful consideration of goods is the only way to moral judgement, and that the common good is synonym with compromise. In fact he explained , if compromise can be a legitimate balancing of different private interests, it turns into a common evil whenever it involves arrangements that are detrimental to man’s nature". "A community that is built without respecting the true identity of the human being" will eventually "be good to no one. That’s why it seems more and more essential that Europe steer clear of that pragmatic attitude, now largely widespread, that systematically justifies compromise on the basic human values, as if it were the unavoidable consequence of an alleged "lesser evil". A pragmatism that, according to the Pontiff, "denies that dimension of values and ideals that is inherent in the human nature". (to be continued)
