Europe must recover its “vigour” and “idealism”, by renewing its commitment to human dignity, entering into “meaningful” and “open” dialogue with its religious traditions, and being unafraid to acknowledge its Christian history, Pope Francis has told the European Parliament.
In a wide-ranging address that mixed praise for European institutions with strong criticism, the Pope echoed his predecessor Benedict XVI in arguing that Christianity’s role in promoting the centrality of the human person to the European ideal is not a relic of the past but a living reality.
He said that, far from threatening the independence of the Union’s institutions or the secularity of Europe’s states, Christian ideals and ideas would enrich Europe. “This is clear,” he said, “from the ideals which shaped Europe from the beginning, such as peace, subsidiarity and reciprocal solidarity, and a humanism centered on respect for the dignity of the human person.”
The 2,000-year history that links Europe and Christianity, he said, “isn’t free of conflicts and errors, even sins,” but at its best, it’s driven by “the desire to work for the good of all.”
Francis rued what he called a “great vacuum of ideals which we are currently witnessing in the West,” including “forgetfulness of God.” In place of a humanistic vision, he said, what Europe breeds today are “uniform systems of economic power at the service of unseen empires.”
Pope Francis pointed out that our “inalienable rights” can never justly be taken away. We go astray, however, if we broaden the concept of rights while forgetting the “essential and complementary concept of duty,” as though our lives as individuals can be lived “without regard for the fact that each human being is part of a social context wherein his or her rights and duties are bound up with those of others and with the common good of society itself.”
The Pope once again denounced a “throw-away culture,” and cited among its victims immigrants who die in the attempt to reach Europe, as well as “the terminally ill, the elderly who are abandoned and uncared for, and children who are killed in the womb.”
Pope Francis also spoke about education, once again noting the importance of the family.
“To give Europe hope means more than simply acknowledging the centrality of the human person; it also implies nurturing the gifts of each man and woman. It means investing in individuals and in those settings in which their talents are shaped and flourish” he said.
“The first area surely is that of education, beginning with the family, the fundamental cell and most precious element of any society. The family, united, fruitful and indissoluble, possesses the elements fundamental for fostering hope in the future. Without this solid basis, the future ends up being built on sand, with dire social consequences.”
“The future of Europe,” Pope Francis said, “depends on the recovery of the vital connection between these (the transcendent and practical elements of life). A Europe which is no longer open to the transcendent dimension of life is a Europe which risks slowly losing its own soul and that ‘humanistic spirit’ which it still loves and defends.”