Pope on Christians' contribution to the future of
Europe
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Saturday
addressed the participants of a conference, sponsored by the Commission
of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE), on the
theme of "(Re)Thinking Europe — A Christian Contribution to the Future
of the European Project."
“It is significant,” the Pope said, “that this meeting was
intended above all as a dialogue, pursued in a spirit of openness
and freedom, for the sake of mutual enrichment.” Speaking of a “Christian
contribution” to the future of the continent, he said, means “to consider our
task, as Christians today, in these lands which have been so richly shaped by
the faith down the centuries.”
Beginning with the figure of St Benedict, the
patron of Europe, the Holy Father focused especially on two main
contributions that Christians have made to Europe, and can make for
the future. The first, “and perhaps the greatest” contribution Christians can
make to Europe is "to remind her that she is not a mass of statistics
or institutions, but is made up of people.” The second contribution is
related to the first: “To acknowledge that others are persons means to value
what unites us to them. To be a person connects us with others; it makes us a
community.” The second contribution, then, is "to help recover the
sense of belonging to a community.”
It is within the family, “the primordial
community,” that we are first able to come to an understanding of unity in
diversity. The family, the Pope said, “is the harmonious union of the
differences between man and woman, which becomes stronger and more authentic to
the extent that it is fruitful, capable of opening itself to life and to
others.” The wider civic community is similar, in that it is able to flourish
when it is open to the “differences and gifts” of every person within the
community.
“Person and community are thus the foundations of the Europe
that we, as Christians, want and can contribute to building,” the Pope said.
And “the bricks of this structure are dialogue, inclusion, solidarity,
development and peace.”
Pope Francis concluded his address with a quote from the
Letter to Diognetus, a writing from the earliest ages of Christianity, which
says, “what the soul is to the body, Christians are to the world.” “In
our day,” the Pope said, “Christians are called to revitalize Europe and to
revive its conscience, not by occupying spaces, but by generating processes
capable of awakening new energies in society.” Once again calling to mind St
Benedict, Pope Francis said, “He was not concerned to occupy spaces in a
wayward and confused world. Sustained by faith, Benedict looked
ahead, and from a tiny cave in Subiaco he gave birth to an exciting and
irresistible movement that changed the face of Europe.”
The Pope prayed, “May Saint Benedict, ‘messenger of peace,
promoter of union, master of civilization’ make clear to us, the Christians of
our own time, how a joyful hope, flowing from faith, is able to change the
world.”
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