Pope Francis: address to EU Heads of State and
Government
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis addressed Heads of State and
Heads of Government of European Union countries on Friday afternoon, the eve of
the 60° anniversary of the signing of the treaties creating the European
Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community – the first major
structural steps toward creating the European Union.
Below, please find the full text of the Holy Father’s
prepared remarks, in their official English translation
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Address of His Holiness Pope Francis
to European Heads of State and Government
24 March 2017
to European Heads of State and Government
24 March 2017
Distinguished Guests,
I thank you for your presence here tonight, on the eve of
the sixtieth anniversary of the signing of the Treaties instituting the
European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community. I
convey to each of you the affection of the Holy See for your respective
countries and for Europe itself, to whose future it is, in God’s providence,
inseparably linked. I am particularly grateful to the Honourable Paolo
Gentiloni, President of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Italy, for
his respectful words of greeting in your name and for the efforts that Italy
has made in preparing for this meeting. I also thank the Honourable
Antonio Tajani, President of the European Parliament, who has voiced the
aspirations of the peoples of the Union on this anniversary.
Returning to Rome, sixty years later, must not simply be a
remembrance of things past, but the expression of a desire to relive that event
in order to appreciate its significance for the present. We need to
immerse ourselves in the challenges of that time, so as to face those of today
and tomorrow. The Bible, with its rich historical narratives, can teach
us a basic lesson. We cannot understand our own times apart from the
past, seen not as an assemblage of distant facts, but as the lymph that gives
life to the present. Without such an awareness, reality loses its unity,
history loses its logical thread, and humanity loses a sense of the meaning of
its activity and its progress towards the future.
25 March 1957 was a day full of hope and expectation,
enthusiasm and apprehension. Only an event of exceptional significance
and historical consequences could make it unique in history. The memory
of that day is linked to today’s hopes and the expectations of the people of
Europe, who call for discernment in the present, so that the journey that has
begun can continue with renewed enthusiasm and confidence.
This was very clear to the founding fathers and the leaders
who, by signing the two Treaties, gave life to that political, economic,
cultural and primarily human reality which today we call the European
Union. As P.H. Spaak, the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs stated, it
was a matter “indeed, of the material prosperity of our peoples, the expansion
of our economies, social progress and completely new industrial and commercial
possibilities, but above all… a particular conception of life that is humane,
fraternal and just”.[1]
After the dark years and the bloodshed of the Second World
War, the leaders of the time had faith in the possibility of a better future.
“They did not lack boldness, nor did they act too late. The memory
of recent tragedies and failures seems to have inspired them and given them the
courage needed to leave behind their old disputes and to think and act in a
truly new way, in order to bring about the greatest transformation… of
Europe”.[2]
The founding fathers remind us that Europe is not a
conglomeration of rules to obey, or a manual of protocols and procedures to
follow. It is a way of life, a way of understanding man based on his
transcendent and inalienable dignity, as something more than simply a sum of
rights to defend or claims to advance. At the origin of the idea of
Europe, we find “the nature and the responsibility of the human person, with
his ferment of evangelical fraternity…, with his desire for truth and justice,
honed by a thousand-year-old experience”.[3] Rome, with its vocation to
universality,[4] symbolizes that experience and was thus chosen as the place
for the signing of the Treaties. For here – as the Dutch Minister of
Foreign Affairs, J. Luns, observed – “were laid the political, juridical and
social foundations of our civilization”.[5]
It was clear, then, from the outset, that the heart of the
European political project could only be man himself. It was also clear
that the Treaties could remain a dead letter; they needed to take on spirit and
life. The first element of European vitality must be solidarity. As
the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, J. Bech stated, “the European economic
community will prove lasting and successful only if it remains constantly
faithful to the spirit of European solidarity that created it, and if the
common will of the Europe now being born proves more powerful than the will of
individual nations”.[6] That spirit remains as necessary as ever today,
in the face of centrifugal impulses and the temptation to reduce the founding
ideals of the Union to productive, economic and financial needs.
Solidarity gives rise to openness towards others. “Our
plans are not inspired by self-interest”,[7] said the German Chancellor, K.
Adenauer. The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, C. Pineau, echoed this
sentiment: “Surely the countries about to unite… do not have the intention of
isolating themselves from the rest of the world and surrounding themselves with
insurmountable barriers”.[8] In a world that was all too familiar with
the tragedy of walls and divisions, it was clearly important to work for a
united and open Europe, and for the removal of the unnatural barrier that
divided the continent from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic. What efforts
were made to tear down that wall! Yet today the memory of those efforts
has been lost. Forgotten too is the tragedy of separated families,
poverty and destitution born of that division. Where generations longed
to see the fall of those signs of forced hostility, these days we debate how to
keep out the “dangers” of our time: beginning with the long file of women, men
and children fleeing war and poverty, seeking only a future for themselves and
their loved ones.
In today’s lapse of memory, we often forget another great
achievement of the solidarity ratified on 25 March 1957: the longest period of
peace experienced in recent centuries. “Peoples who over time often found
themselves in opposed camps, fighting with one another… now find themselves
united and enriched by their distinctive national identities”.[9] Peace
is always the fruit of a free and conscious contribution by all. Nonetheless,
“for many people today, peace appears as a blessing to be taken for
granted”,[10] one that can then easily come to be regarded as superfluous.
On the contrary, peace is a precious and essential good, for without it,
we cannot build a future for anyone, and we end up “living from day to day”.
United Europe was born of a clear, well-defined and
carefully pondered project, however embryonic at first. Every worthy
project looks to the future, and the future are the young, who are called to
realize its hopes and promises.[11] The founding fathers had a clear
sense of being part of a common effort that not only crossed national borders,
but also the borders of time, so as to bind generations among themselves, all
sharing equally in the building of the common home.
Distinguished Guests,
I have devoted this first part of my talk to the founding
fathers of Europe, so that we can be challenged by their words, the timeliness
of their thinking, their impassioned pursuit of the common good, their
certainty of sharing in a work greater than themselves, and the breadth of the
ideals that inspired them. Their common denominator was the spirit of
service, joined to passion for politics and the consciousness that “at the
origin of European civilization there is Christianity”,[12] without which the
Western values of dignity, freedom and justice would prove largely
incomprehensible. As Saint John Paul II affirmed: “Today too, the soul of
Europe remains united, because, in addition to its common origins, those same
Christian and human values are still alive. Respect for the dignity of
the human person, a profound sense of justice, freedom, industriousness, the
spirit of initiative, love of family, respect for life, tolerance, the desire
for cooperation and peace: all these are its distinctive marks”.[13] In
our multicultural world, these values will continue to have their rightful
place provided they maintain a vital connection to their deepest roots.
The fruitfulness of that connection will make it possible to build authentically
“lay” societies, free of ideological conflicts, with equal room for the native
and the immigrant, for believers and nonbelievers.
The world has changed greatly in the last sixty years.
If the founding fathers, after surviving a devastating conflict, were inspired
by the hope of a better future and were determined to pursue it by avoiding the
rise of new conflicts, our time is dominated more by the concept of crisis.
There is the economic crisis that has marked the past decade; there is
the crisis of the family and of established social models; there is a
widespread “crisis of institutions” and the migration crisis. So many
crises that engender fear and profound confusion in our contemporaries, who
look for a new way of envisioning the future. Yet the term “crisis” is not
necessarily negative. It does not simply indicate a painful moment to be
endured. The word “crisis” has its origin in the Greek verb kríno, which
means to discern, to weigh, to assess. Ours is a time of discernment, one
that invites us to determine what is essential and to build on it. It is
a time of challenge and opportunity.
So what is the interpretative key for reading the
difficulties of the present and finding answers for the future? Returning
to the thinking of the founding Fathers would be fruitless unless it could help
to point out a path and provide an incentive for facing the future and a source
of hope. When a body loses its sense of direction and is no longer able
to look ahead, it experiences a regression and, in the long run, risks dying.
What, then, is the legacy of the founding fathers? What prospects
do they indicate for surmounting the challenges that lie before us? What
hope do they offer for the Europe of today and of tomorrow?
Their answers are to be found precisely in the pillars on
which they determined to build the European economic community. I have
already mentioned these: the centrality of man, effective solidarity, openness
to the world, the pursuit of peace and development, openness to the future.
Those who govern are charged with discerning the paths of hope, identifying
specific ways forward to ensure that the significant steps taken thus far have
not been wasted, but serve as the pledge of a long and fruitful journey.
Europe finds new hope when man is the centre and the heart
of her institutions. I am convinced that this entails an attentive and
trust-filled readiness to hear the expectations voiced by individuals, society
and the peoples who make up the Union. Sadly, one frequently has the
sense that there is a growing “split” between the citizenry and the European
institutions, which are often perceived as distant and inattentive to the
different sensibilities present in the Union. Affirming the centrality of
man also means recovering the spirit of family, whereby each contributes freely
to the common home in accordance with his or her own abilities and gifts.
It helps to keep in mind that Europe is a family of peoples[14] and that
– as in every good family – there are different sensitivities, yet all can grow
to the extent that all are united. The European Union was born as a unity
of differences and a unity in differences. What is distinctive should not
be a reason for fear, nor should it be thought that unity is preserved by
uniformity. Unity is instead harmony within a community. The
founding fathers chose that very term as the hallmark of the agencies born of
the Treaties and they stressed that the resources and talents of each were now
being pooled. Today the European Union needs to recover the sense of
being primarily a “community” of persons and peoples, to realize that “the
whole is greater than the part, but it is also greater than the sum of its
parts”,[15] and that therefore “we constantly have to broaden our horizons and
see the greater good which will benefit us all”.[16] The founding fathers
sought that harmony in which the whole is present in every one of the parts,
and the parts are – each in its own unique way – present in the whole.
Europe finds new hope in solidarity, which is also the most
effective antidote to modern forms of populism. Solidarity entails the
awareness of being part of a single body, while at the same time involving a
capacity on the part of each member to “sympathize” with others and with the
whole. When one suffers, all suffer (cf. 1 Cor 12:26). Today, with
the United Kingdom, we mourn the victims of the attack that took place in
London two days ago. For solidarity is no mere ideal; it is expressed in
concrete actions and steps that draw us closer to our neighbours, in whatever
situation they find themselves. Forms of populism are instead the fruit
of an egotism that hems people in and prevents them from overcoming and
“looking beyond” their own narrow vision. There is a need to start
thinking once again as Europeans, so as to avert the opposite dangers of a
dreary uniformity or the triumph of particularisms. Politics needs this
kind of leadership, which avoids appealing to emotions to gain consent, but
instead, in a spirit of solidarity and subsidiarity, devises policies that can
make the Union as a whole develop harmoniously. As a result, those who
run faster can offer a hand to those who are slower, and those who find the
going harder can aim at catching up to those at the head of the line.
Europe finds new hope when she refuses to yield to fear or
close herself off in false forms of security. Quite the contrary, her
history has been greatly determined by encounters with other peoples and
cultures; hers “is, and always has been, a dynamic and multicultural
identity”.[17] The world looks to the European project with great
interest. This was the case from the first day, when crowds gathered in
Rome’s Capitol Square and messages of congratulation poured in from other
states. It is even more the case today, if we think of those countries
that have asked to become part of the Union and those states that receive the
aid so generously offered them for battling the effects of poverty, disease and
war. Openness to the world implies the capacity for “dialogue as a form
of encounter”[18] on all levels, beginning with dialogue between member states,
between institutions and citizens, and with the numerous immigrants landing on
the shores of the Union. It is not enough to handle the grave crisis of
immigration of recent years as if it were a mere numerical or economic problem,
or a question of security. The immigration issue poses a deeper question, one
that is primarily cultural. What kind of culture does Europe propose
today? The fearfulness that is becoming more and more evident has its
root cause in the loss of ideals. Without an approach inspired by those
ideals, we end up dominated by the fear that others will wrench us from our
usual habits, deprive us of familiar comforts, and somehow call into question a
lifestyle that all too often consists of material prosperity alone. Yet
the richness of Europe has always been her spiritual openness and her capacity
to raise basic questions about the meaning of life. Openness to the sense
of the eternal has also gone hand in hand, albeit not without tensions and
errors, with a positive openness to this world. Yet today’s prosperity
seems to have clipped the continent’s wings and lowered its gaze. Europe
has a patrimony of ideals and spiritual values unique in the world, one that
deserves to be proposed once more with passion and renewed vigour, for it is
the best antidote against the vacuum of values of our time, which provides a
fertile terrain for every form of extremism. These are the ideals that
shaped Europe, that “Peninsula of Asia” which stretches from the Urals to the
Atlantic.
Europe finds new hope when she invests in development and in
peace. Development is not the result of a combination of various systems
of production. It has to do with the whole human being: the dignity of
labour, decent living conditions, access to education and necessary medical
care. “Development is the new name of peace”,[19] said Pope Paul
VI, for there is no true peace whenever people are cast aside or forced to live
in dire poverty. There is no peace without employment and the prospect of
earning a dignified wage. There is no peace in the peripheries of our
cities, with their rampant drug abuse and violence.
Europe finds new hope when she is open to the future.
When she is open to young people, offering them serious prospects for
education and real possibilities for entering the work force. When she
invests in the family, which is the first and fundamental cell of society.
When she respects the consciences and the ideals of her citizens.
When she makes it possible to have children without the fear of being
unable to support them. When she defends life in all its sacredness.
Distinguished Guests,
Nowadays, with the general increase in people’s life span,
sixty is considered the age of full maturity, a critical time when we are once
again called to self-examination. The European Union, too, is called
today to examine itself, to care for the ailments that inevitably come with
age, and to find new ways to steer its course. Yet unlike human beings,
the European Union does not face an inevitable old age, but the possibility of
a new youthfulness. Its success will depend on its readiness to work
together once again, and by its willingness to wager on the future. As
leaders, you are called to blaze the path of a “new European humanism”[20] made
up of ideals and concrete actions. This will mean being unafraid to take
practical decisions capable of meeting people’s real problems and of standing
the test of time.
For my part, I readily assure you of the closeness of the
Holy See and the Church to Europe as a whole, to whose growth she has, and
always will, continue to contribute. Invoking upon Europe the Lord’s
blessings, I ask him to protect her and grant her peace and progress. I
make my own the words that Joseph Bech proclaimed on Rome’s Capitoline Hill:
Ceterum censeo Europam esse aedificandam – furthermore, I believe that Europe
ought to be built.
Thank you.
[1] P.H. SPAAK, Address on the Signing of the Treaties of
Rome, 25 March 1957.
[2] Ibid.
[3] A. DE GASPERI. La nostra patria Europa. Address to
the European Parliamentary Conference, 21 April 1954, in Alcide De Gasperi e la
politica internazionale, Cinque Lune, Rome, 1990, vol. III, 437-440.
[4] Cf. P.H. SPAAK, loc. cit.
[5] J. LUNS, Address on the Signing of the Treaties of Rome,
25 March 1957.
[6] J. BECH, Address on the Signing of the Treaties of Rome,
25 March 1957.
[7] K. ADENAUER, Address on the Signing of the Treaties of
Rome, 25 March 1957.
[8] C. PINEAU, Address on the Signing of the Treaties of
Rome, 25 March 1957.
[9] P.H. SPAAK, loc. cit.
[10] Address to Members of the Diplomatic Corps Accredited
to the Holy See, 9 January 2017.
[11] Cf. P.H. SPAAK, loc. cit.
[12] A. DE GASPERI, loc. cit.
[13] JOHN PAUL II, European Act, Santiago de Compostela, 9
November 1982: AAS 75/1 (1983), 329.
[14] Cf. Address to the European Parliament, Strasbourg, 25
November 2014: AAS 106 (2014), 1000.
[15] Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 235.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Address at the Conferral of the Charlemagne Prize, 6
May 2016: L’Osservatore Romano, 6-7 May 2016, p. 4.
[18] Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 239.
[19] PAUL VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio, 26
March 1967, 87: AAS 59 (1967), 299.
[20] Address at the Conferral of the Charlemagne Prize, loc.
cit., p. 5.
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