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Archbishop Angel Amato on Catholicism
and secularism in contemporary Europe
The following are excerpts from the discourse given by
Archbishop Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of
Saints, to professors and students at the University of Notre Dame in
Indiana, U.S.A.
What will the detachment of Europe from Christianity
bring? In 2005, shortly before his election as Supreme Pontiff, Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger lamented the religious and moral crisis of the European
continent where "a culture has developed that constitutes in a most
absolutely radical way the contradiction not only of Christianity but of
the religious and moral traditions of humanity" (L'Europa di
Benedetto nella crisi delle culture, Siena, Cantagalli, 2005, p.
37).
And, in fact, the European
Constitution does not make any reference to God and to the Christian
roots of its civilization. In this way, the profound structure of a
society that is spiritual and cultural, more than political and
economic, is forgotten. And European identity is disfigured.
Is the accent on the
Christian roots of Europe an offense to non-Christians, who are present
in great numbers on the old continent?
"Who would be offended?"
asked Cardinal Ratzinger. "Whose identity is threatened? The Muslims,
who in this aspect are often and willingly called into play, do not feel
themselves threatened by our Christian moral foundations, but by the
cynicism of a secularized culture that denies its own foundations. And
even our fellow Jewish citizens are not offended by reference to the
Christian roots of Europe, in so far as these roots reach back to Mount
Sinai: they carry the imprint of the voice that made itself heard on the
mountain of God and they unite us in the great fundamental orientations
that the Decalogue has given to humanity. The same is true for the
reference to God: it is not the mention of God that offends those who
belong to other religions, but rather the attempt to build the human
community absolutely without God" (ibid., p. 40).
The reason for this double
"no", to God and to Christian roots, is found in the presupposition that
only a radical rationalist culture can constitute European identity. But
the tragic history of Europe of the last century has shown that human
freedom, detached from God and from his law, leads to a dogmatism that,
in the end, humiliated man by suppressing his freedom. The atheistic
ideologies of Nazism and Communism have not produced earthly paradises
but only tragic regimes of terror that have denied dignity and freedom
to the human being, to their victims and even to their own executioners.
The Christian response to
atheistic secularism is based upon the experience of the centuries, on
the golden rule according to which "living in the truth can
change that which in history seems unchangeable".
In contemporary Europe
emancipation from God and the denial of his law produces effective
behavior which is blameworthy. Just as in the economy and politics, so
also in biomedicine and biotechnology, research that is detached from
ethics allows man, with impunity, to dispose of life and of other human
beings, above all of the most weak and defenceless. Biopolitics,
which makes no reference to natural law, can permit, for example, the
annihilation of fetuses, the manipulation of embryos considered as
simply biological material, clonation, hybridization, contraception and
euthanasia. Life loses its inviolability and the human being loses his
identity. Then, the very notion of family as a community composed of a
father, a mother and children is attacked. Marriage is no longer
between just a man and a woman. The adoption of children even by
homosexual couples is permitted.
If this is Europe
—
one can ask
—
why insist on its Christian roots since it finds itself culturally alien
to Christianity?
The answer is to be found
in the fact that Europe can not be understood without Christianity. It
loses its identity and its originality. European history demonstrates
that the "concept Europe" is a plurimillenary construction made up of
diverse and complementary strata (Joseph Ratzinger, Chiesa,
ecumenismo e politica. Nuovi saggi di ecclesiologia, Cinisello
Balsamo, San Paolo, 1987, pp. 207-221).
The first stratum is that
offered by Greek civilization. Europe, as a word and as a geographical
and spiritual concept, is a Greek creation. The elements of this "Greek-ness"
could be synthesized in this way: right of conscience, relationship
between reason and religion (ratio et religio), the
affirmation of democracy in a binding harmony with that which is just
and right.
The second stratum is that
inherited from Christianity, from its humanism that, in Jesus Christ,
the synthesis between the faith of Israel and the Greek spirit is
operative.
The third stratum is that inherited from the Latin
tradition. In history, Europe has been identified with the west, and,
that is, with the sphere of the Latin culture and Church which, however,
embraced the people of the Romance languages, Germanic peoples,
Anglo-Saxons and a part of the Slavic peoples. The "Christian res
publica" (res publica christiana) was certainly not a
politically constituted European reality. It existed in the totality of
a unifying culture, visible in its juridical systems, universities,
councils, religious orders, and the circulation of the life of the
Church. The whole had Rome as its center.
Finally, the fourth stratum of Europe is inherited from
the modern era. The elements of such an heredity are: the distinction
between State and Church, the freedom of conscience, human rights and
the self-responsibility of reason.
All of these diverse elements have been brought together
into a unity by the Church of Christ, that has been the matrix of
European civilization, of its defense and of its spreading in the world.
In his volume, How the Catholic Church has built western civilization,
(Siena, Cantagalli, 2007) Thomas E. Woods, Jr, lists the multiple
contributions that the Catholic Church has brought to European
civilization, with its monasteries, universities, scientific research,
art, international law, economy, charity, ethics and, above all, with
freedom.
Thus, Europe of the future can not be only the product
of a political and economic unification, but also the synthesis of the
values inherited from tradition. It would, therefore, have to take into
account its Greek roots and the intimate relationship between democracy
and good government (eunomia). It would have to base its
laws upon moral norms which respect the natural law. It would, also,
have to bind its public law to respect for the moral values of
Christianity and not relegate God just to the private sphere. It would,
rather, have to recognize him publicly as supreme value. An exasperated
atheism would not guarantee the survival of a State of law.
For this reason, the Catholic Church above all by means
of papal magisterium, both of John Paul II with his Post-Synodal
Exhortation, The Church in Europe, and of Benedict XVI
with the three exemplary lessons given at Regensburg (12 September
2006), at the Rome University La Sapienza (18 January 2008) and
at Paris (13 September 2008), does not flatten out on the agenda of
ideological and political secularism. It rather continuously solicits an
attitude of "positive laicism" that values the input of Christianity
with its "yes" to life, liberty, democracy and respect of the dignity of
every human being. This attitude seems to recall what Blaise Pascal said
to his non-believer friends when he invited them to live "as if God
existed" (veluti si Deus daretur). In this way, no one
loses his freedom, and moral decisions find a sure foundation which they
urgently need.
With its aversion to Christianity, the European
community is a body that is always growing but without a soul. In his
analysis of the project of the European Constitution, Joseph H. H.
Weiler, an orthodox Jew born in South Africa, Professor of law at the
New York University School of Law, recognizes the historical absurdity
of eliminating Christianity from modern European history. Indeed, he
arrives at the affirmation that a European Constitution, which
deliberately ignores the Christian roots of Europe, would be
constitutionally illegitimate (cf. Un'Europa cristiana: Un saggio
esplorativo, Milan, Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli, 2003). A
Christian Europe, in fact, would respect the rights of all citizens,
believers and non-believers, Christians and non-Christians. The deficit
of its Christian roots brings about the deficit of democracy.
Weiler also speaks of Christophobia that
manifests itself with diverse accents and motivations. For example,
there is the mistaken conviction of European intellectuals who consider
the tragedy of the holocaust to be a logical conclusion of an historical
anti-Judaism, whereas it is the direct consequence of the atheistic
conception of National Socialism. A second component of Christophobia is
present in the followers of the youth revolution of the 1960s, which was
substantially anti-Christian. Furthermore, Christophobia is the
psychological and ideological counter-attack to the fall of communism in
1989 in Eastern Europe due to the extraordinary influence of the
personality of John Paul II.
It is unthinkable, however, to dream of a Europe as "a
special place of human hope" (the Preamble of the projected European
Constitution) without the men and women, great and small, who have
contributed their genius and creativity to European civilization. In the
same way, it would be unthinkable that Europe might defend "the
universal values of the inviolable and inalienable rights of the human
person" without the foundation of Christian civilization.
This apostasy from Christianity, that is propagated in
the daily press, is in reality plunging Europe into a grave moral and
social crisis: "Relativism, laicism, scientism and all that which today
is put in the place of faith are poisons, not the antidotes, the viruses
that attack the body that is already ill, not the anti-bodies that
defend it" (Marcello Pera, Perché
dobbiamo dirci cristiani. Milan, Mondadori, 2008, p. 5).
The experiment that is taking place today in Europe, and
that is, living as if God does not exist, is not producing its promised
fruits.
Above all secularism, which is the basis of civil
rights, does not justify itself without a strong reference to the good
and the true. It remains without foundation. Christianity, on the other
hand, which perceives man as the image of God, brings to society the
incommensurable value of personal dignity. Without this, there is
neither freedom nor equality, neither solidarity nor justice.
Furthermore, Europeanists lament the lack of
"European identity" and seek a soul for the new Europe. Without
Christian identity, however, Europe is not more open, more tolerant and
more peaceful. On the contrary, "Without the awareness of Christian
identity, Europe detaches itself from America and divides the West; it
loses the sense of its own limits and becomes an indistinct container;
it does not succeed in integrating immigrants, in fact it places them in
ghettoes or it surrenders itself to their culture; it is not capable of
defeating Islamic fundamentalism, in fact it favors the martyrdom of
Christians in many parts of the world and even in its own home" (ibid.,
p. 6).
Thirdly, it is affirmed that freedom consists in
welcoming all freedoms and, therefore, it would not be necessary to
insist upon the Christian religion since democracy is a religion in
itself. As Plato had already seen, however, one discovers that such a
relativist democracy is self-destructive. It devours itself (cf. Plato,
The Republic, VIII, xi-xiv). If truth no longer exists, but only
the sum of the various beliefs does; if the moral natural law no longer
exists, but only the absolute freedom of the individual does, "then, the
moral good need only be put to a vote and a vote, look at our laws on
bioethical questions, can decide that anything is good" (M. Pera,
Perché
dobbiamo dirci cristiani, p. 7).
Europe must profess itself to be Christian if it wishes
to find again its soul, its identity, its foundations and the truth of
things. The great theoreticians of liberalism, John Locke, Thomas
Jefferson and Immanuel Kant exalted human freedom, but placed a precise
condition in order to be able to realize it: respect for the natural
law. For Kant and the others, respect for that law, however, was assured
by the duty of conscience to adhere to the principle of good and not to
that of evil. And the good, to which Kant also was referring with his
religion in the limits of reason, was that proper to the Christian
ethic.
There are many reasons that would have to motivate
Europeans to profess that they are Christians: the memory of their
origin, the possibility of overcoming the crisis of their society, the
inhumanity of a self-sufficient and atheistic secularism, the
maintenance of social stability, the pride of the universality of
European civilization, the rational and non-prejudicial foundation of
the distinction between State and Church and the survival of
sociopolitical institutions.
Benedetto Croce, also, in
August of 1942, right in the middle of the Second World War and at the
height of the greatest crisis of civilization in Europe with Marxism and
Nazism, wrote the work, Why we cannot not profess ourselves to be
Christians. For him Christianity was the greatest revolution of
humanity that has produced an extraordinary human civilization, which
still today sustains contemporary society. Christianity is at the basis
of modern thought and of its ethical ideal.
Today Europe is without a
soul because it rejects that Christian soul which history has given it.
It is not sufficient to speak of unity in diversity or of
mestizaje of cultures. These are ambiguous formulas because they do
not provide an identity. Integration presupposes an integrating subject.
In
the end, Europe must profess to be
Christian if it wishes to be united, if it wishes to affirm itself as a
civilization of fundamental human rights; if it wishes to defend itself
and avoid wars of religion; if it wishes to overcome the tragic season
of its recent past; if it intends to defeat its profound moral crisis.
Why do millions of people
from other continents and from other non-Christian cultures knock not
only at the doors of the United States of America but also at those of
Europe, and invade it? Do they do it only to find a job and a better
condition of life? Perhaps. But the deeper reason is only one: because
they find liberty and because the real native country of mankind is not
the territory where he or she was born but the land where he and she can
live free.
If Europe wishes to
continue to live with freedom for all, it must continue to live "even if
God existed" (etsi Deus daretur), and be based upon Christian
tradition. If Europe wishes to integrate people coming from other
cultures, it cannot be without identity. It must, however, still have
trust in the values that identify it, appreciate them and even have the
serenity to consider them good. If they were not good, they would not be
sought after by millions of immigrants.
Does integration then mean
conversion to Christianity? Not necessarily. Integration means adhesion
to the fundamental values of European civilization: "If Europe is not a
melting pot but only a container, it is because it does not have the
sufficient energy of its identity to blend the contents" (ibid.).
The community without God, which Europe is constructing through
laicism, relativism, scientism and multiculturalism, is not just an
obstacle to its identity. It is also an impediment to the politics of
integration. Does this presuppose a new Christian fundamentalism? No,
because while Christianity recognizes itself as the religion of
universal salvation in the mystery of Christ, it avoids fundamentalism
through the antidote of religious liberty, of respect for the individual
conscience, of the distinction between error and the one who errs, of
the commandment of love towards all, even towards one's enemies.
The attitude of the Church
in regard to contemporary Europe reflects the Gospel message of love and
freedom: "Go out into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every
creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved" (Mk 16:15-16);
"He came among his own people, but his own, however, did not receive
him. To those who did receive him, he gave the power to become children
of God" (Jn 1:11-12). The Church proposes, but does not impose, the
Gospel.
The Gospel is essentially
good news even for today. As a result, our reflection on the situation
of Catholicism in secularized Europe is intended to be good news.
The task of the Church in
Europe is threefold: to accept the Gospel, to witness to it with
coherence and to announce it in the modern Areopaghi of culture, of
politics, of mass media and of the education of youth. For Europe, the
Gospel remains, even for the third millennium, its Book par excellence,
a book of life, of truth and of light, as Christ, the Word of God
incarnate, is life, truth and light. Let us once again take into our
hands this Book. Let us devour it, taste it and celebrate it. This was
the exhortation of the Servant of God John Paul II.
On his part, the Holy Father Benedict XVI, a great
scholar of Europe and of its Christian identity, has at various times
encouraged Europe not to be ashamed of the Gospel, but to appreciate and
live it. During his meeting with French intellectuals in Paris on 12
September 2008, he stated: "For many, God has become truly the great
Unknown.... A merely positivist culture that has removed into the
subjective field the question about God as nonscientific, would be the
capitulation of reason, the renouncement of its highest possibilities
and therefore a breakdown of humanism, the consequences of which could
only be grave. That which has established the culture of Europe, the
search for God and the willingness to listen to Him, remains even today
the foundation of every authentic culture".
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