CHRISTIANS --THE AVANT-GARDE OF A NEW EUROPE
19/06/07 21:32 Filed in:
Killing Religion & Loss of Religious
Freedom
Here is an interview with Cardinal Bertone on the condition of faith in Europe. The interview is reprinted from the Polish Catholic publication niedziela:
Q: WLODZIMIERZ REDZIOCH: - Some political powers regard the presence of the Church as a threat to the secular character of the state...
A: CARDINAL TARCISIO BERTONE: - One should not mix secular character and laicism. A healthy laicism means the autonomy of the political sphere in relation to the religious sphere but not to morality. Faith is not a private act. Therefore, I am sad to see that some countries, for example France, strongly opposed the idea of including 'Christian roots' of the continent into the project of the European constitution.
Q: Why does Europe need faith?
A: I will begin by quoting the brief statement of Alexis de Tocqueville (the French historian, politician and specialist in American democracy, who lived in the years 1805-1859), 'Despotism can do without faith, but freedom cannot.' In order to be active subjects able to build democracy and common good people must be open to the fundamental values of human person and society. In the Christian vision these values come from God. This does not mean that an unbeliever cannot follow the fundamental values. But without referring to God these values are considerably weaker, which is what the Pope has told to the Latin American bishops recently.
Q: All the fathers of the united Europe: Aleide de Gasperi, Konrad Adenauer, Robert Schuman were practising Christians and wanted free and peaceful Europe the foundation of which would be Christian humanism. Whereas today most European politicians cut themselves from the Christian heritage of the continent and want to impose atheistic humanism on all nations. Will they succeed?
A: History has proved that messianisms without the messiah failed. They tried to separate values from Christianity and pushed faith to the private sphere and made morality independent from religion. People deluded themselves that they would build authentically free and worthy humanity. It was the context, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Roman Treaty, in which Benedict XVI spoke about Europe's apostasy, not only from God but also from herself, and about the paradox that Europe, wanting to be a community of values, defies the existence of the universal values. Closing itself to the universal values secularisation closes itself to the truth and replaces it with ideology, scepticism and nihilism. All these things, in contrast to the truth, do not nourish the intellect but poison it; they do not enlighten it but lead it astray; do not enrich inner life but make it complicated and even suppress it; they do not strengthen values but make them uncertain or meaningless.
Q: All the powers that want laicised Europe, Europe without religion, try to show the Church as some relic and try to drive Christians into the inferiority complex...
A: Christians should not feel that they are the remains, leftovers of Europe, which are going to vanish, but they should feel as the avant-garde of new Europe, which, as Benedict XVI has stressed recently, can be realistic but never cynical, rich in ideals and free from naive illusions, inspired by the eternal and reviving truth of the Good News.
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