Professor: Christianity is not dead in Europe, but needs to free itself from old demons

KRAKÓW, Poland (OSV News) — Christianity “freed from the old demons” can be a driving force of Europe, a French professor argued during the Sept. 20-21 international conference on “The New Shape of Europe,” part of a series on the role of Christians in the process of European integration.

The remarks vibrated in a room full of European officials — many of them Catholic.

“Christianity, if freed from the old demons, will be able to help us immensely in the anxiety-filled modern times,” said professor Chantal Delsol, who is also a philosopher, political historian and novelist, in her Sept. 20 lecture in Kraków. Listing “demons” such as the abuse crisis and the crisis of identity, she said that Europe often takes the path of being convinced it is able “to bring about an ideal society.” She said that while “Marxism has fortunately been overthrown,” the temptation “to build a paradise on earth is returning in other ways.”

Even though people who laid the ground for the European Union member states after World War II were in fact mostly Catholic — French politician Jean Monnet, Italians Alcide de Gasperi and Altiero Spinelli and Robert Schuman, whose beatification process is under way — a 2004 draft treaty establishing the European constitution refrained from acknowledging the Christian roots of the movement. The preamble instead mentioned “the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe.”

The popes however — whether European or not — have made it clear that the “Christian roots of Europe are the main guarantee of its future,” as St. John Paul II said in a homily June 28, 2003. “Could a tree that had no roots grow and develop? Europe, do not forget your history!”

Pope Francis, though, stressed in 2019 that Europe has refused to embrace its Christian heritage and that’s the reason why its experiencing a “profound crisis of identity” today.

Father Kazimierz Sowa, organizer of the conference and a member of the Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek Foundation, told OSV News, “In Europe we still have people who want to discuss its future in reference to its foundations.”

Throughout the years, top European politicians were Christian, he said, such as former Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek, president of the European Parliament between 2009 and 2012, who is Lutheran, as well as former Belgian Prime Minister Herman Von Rompuy, first permanent president of the European Council from 2009 to 2014, who is Catholic. Both were present during the conference.

Father Manuel Barrios, general secretary of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union, or COMECE, told OSV News that theologically and morally, Christianity will remain in Europe,” though as Christians “we have to also fight for that.”

“Churches have to do a lot of homework,” he added, to remain leaders of European societies. “This is also a message. I think we have to lose our self-referential attitude of what we think about ourselves and give really good answers to the concerns of the people. So I think we have a lot of potential,” Father Barrios said.

For Father Sowa, since in many European countries “extreme right parties gain more and more political recognition,” the European Union will most likely prefer to “hold on to the lack of references to Christianity in its official documents.”

Father Barrios stressed, however, it’s the church that needs to hold on to its values, such as welcoming migrants and refugees, and show the way.

“Promoting, welcoming people that are coming for different reasons” is an urgent task of Christians in Europe, he said.

“They’re looking for freedom. They’re looking for a better life for themselves or their families. So they’re coming for good reasons. And as a European society, which has solidarity as one of its main values, we have to be open to welcoming them and to integrate them into our society,” Father Barrios said.

Regarding migration, Father Sowa added that “the conference showed clearly that Europe is rich in its diversity and those cultural differences have to be taken into account in creating laws and proposals of top-down solutions,” Father Sowa said.

“The dialogue is needed especially regarding migration policies,” Father Sowa said.

In his Sept. 20 remarks, Piotr Sztompka, a Polish professor of sociology, expert in Europe’s religiosity said that “God is not dead in Europe, but lives differently.”

“While not recognizing religious dogma, most Europeans do not reject spirituality, the sacred, humility in the face of reality and the world, awe in the face of nature,” he said.

The conference, which each year gathers politicians, academic and church leaders, awarded Buzek and Von Rompuy with its annual “In Veritate” award.

Buzek, who is a former member of the anti-communist Polish trade union Solidarity — first one in the Soviet bloc — said that the word “Solidarity” always had a Christian dimension throughout his political career.

“This word in itself for us Poles means deep immersion in Christian tradition, Christian values and Christian faith,” Buzek stressed.

“When Solidarity was formed and we had our first convention in Gdansk, every day of that convention began with Mass,” he remembered the 1981 historical forming of the trade union.

“We took this moment very seriously. … In a sea of communism, we acted as a free trade union of free Polish women and men,” he said.

Von Rumpoy stressed for his part that solidarity today means for Europe to support Ukraine in its fight for freedom.

“For me, Ukraine, in a spiritual, moral, political way, is already a member of the European Union,” he said, according to Polish Catholic news agency KAI.

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