"Its identity is thousands of years old and has been run through by many currents, including those of anti-Christianity, while now by indifference. But all this cannot be appreciated without looking to the Christian culture". Less than one month before the French presidency of the European Union, card. Paul Poupard speaks on the website H2o news of the "delicate" matter of the Christian roots of the Old Continent. According to the cardinal, "this is a need that belongs to our very being. The current challenge is to be able to embody it, to make it develop, to make it grow". Instead of censoring silence on over one and a half millenniums of Christian life in Europe, the cardinal recalled that "it was the values of the Gospel that built it". However, he added, "they can still be expressed in the current society to heal it from the evil that is gripping it. Practical materialism, relativism, hedonism have slowly moved from West to the heart and East of Europe, and now all the magisterium of the Pope, the bishops and the Bishops Conferences is directed to helping Christians and non-Christians become aware of this challenge and help likewise the European institutions in Brussels and Strasbourg appreciate the heritage of the Christian culture, so that Europe will remain loyal to itself and will have a future".” ” ” “
