A road map for the future of
Europe and its peoples
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| Pope Francis in Romania (ANSA) |
On the first day of his visit to Romania, Pope Francis
recalls that the way to verify the actual goodness of any social model is to
see how it cares for its most disadvantaged members.
By Andrea Tornielli
The speeches given by Pope Francis on his first day in
Romania reveal a road map for the future of Europe and the world. Speaking to
the President and Authorities of the country, the Pope explained that attention
to the weak and the poor represents “the best indicator of the actual goodness
of the social model that one is attempting to build”. The Pope continued,
saying: “Only to the extent that a society is concerned for its most
disadvantaged members, can it be considered truly civil”. To achieve this, we
need a heart and soul that is free from “the growing power of centres of high
finance”, and filled with “an awareness of the centrality of the human person
and of his or her inalienable rights”.
This is certainly not the first time the Pope has pointed
out one of the plagues of our time: an economic-financial system that idolizes
the "god of money", instead of placing working women and men at the
centre. These words of the Successor of Peter are transversal and
uncomfortable, because they are cannot be easily confused. His words describe
the malaise experienced by so many peoples against powers and structures they
feel are increasingly intrusive and inhumane. They are a wake-up call for a
Europe that sometimes forgets to care about people. A Europe that should be
closer to the soul of the people the Pope speaks about.
Pope Francis expressed a similar intuition during the
meeting with the Permanent Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church. The Pope
invited Christians to "listen together to the Lord", especially in
these more recent years, “when our world has experienced rapid social and
cultural changes. Technological development and economic prosperity may have
benefitted many, yet even more have remained hopelessly excluded, while a
globalization that tends to level differences has contributed to uprooting
traditional values and weakening ethics and social life, which more recently
has witnessed a growing sense of fear that, often skilfully stoked, leads to
attitudes of rejection and hate”.
Pope Francis continued: “We need to help one another not to
yield to the seductions of an individualistic “culture of hate” that, perhaps
no longer ideological as in the time of the atheist persecution, is nonetheless
more persuasive and no less materialist. Often it takes on the appearance
of a path to development that appears fast and easy, but in reality is
indifferent and superficial”.
In the new Orthodox Cathedral of Bucharest, Pope Francis
paraphrased the “Our Father”. The prayer the Lord gives all Christians includes
“the bread of memory, the grace to nurture the shared roots of our Christian
identity, so indispensable in an age when humanity, and the young in
particular, tend to feel rootless amid the uncertainties of life, and incapable
of building their lives on a solid foundation”.
The rediscovery of common roots, values and the dreams of
Europe’s Founding Fathers, do not represent an element of "identity"
that creates separations and new walls. Instead, they are a hidden heritage to
be unearthed in order to create new bonds, a new ability to welcome, and true
integration.
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