In today's Il Foglio, Paolo Rodari (who moved from Il Riformista to Il Foglio recently) wrote a good article linking the Pope's strong reaffirmation of a Christian Europe in his address to the new European Commission ambassador yesterday, and the CDF announcement today on conditions for Anglican bishops and prelates wishing to cross over to the Roman Catholic Church.
The Pope defends Europe's
Christian roots, while preparing
to welcome traditional Anglicans
by Paolo Rodari
Translated from
October 20, 2009
Twenty-four hours before the announcement at the Vatican today by Cardinal William Joseph Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, of the conditions under which Anglican prelates and priests who have so requested may join the Roman Catholic Church - the Traditional Anglican Communion alone has some 500,000 members worldwide who have asked to be admitted en masse into the Church - Pope Benedict XVI reiterated his appeal for Europe to retain and sustain it Christian heritage.
The Pope delivered an intense exhortation - almost a mini 'lectio
magistralis' - upon receiving the credentials of the new ambassador of the European Commission to the Holy See, Yves Gazzo. The Pope once again dwelt on the Christian roots of Europe which still exist but, as the Pope said, "are increasingly being ignored by the European Union".
Papa Ratzinger referred to 'forgotten' truths, such as the "decisively Christian inspiration of the founding fathers of the European Union".
Their values, he said, were "the fruit of a long and sinuous history in which - no one will deny it - Christianity played a foreground role".
The Pope went on to list these roots and values that now tend to be overlooked and therefore, in some way, betrayed: "The equal dignity of all human beings, the freedom of the act of faith as the root of all other civilian liberties, peace as a decisive element of the common good, human development - intellectual, social and economic - as a divine vocation (cf. Caritas in Veritate, n. 16-19), and the historical significance that flows from all this..."
Papa Ratzinger also spoke about the "immense intellectual, cultural and economic resources of the continent", resources which will "continue to bear fruit if they are fertilized by the transcendent vision of the human being that constitutes the most precious treasure of the European heritage".
"This humanist tradition, in which there are several families of thought that are also quite diverse, makes Europe capable of facing the challenges of tomorrow and to respond to the expectations of its population.
"These have to do principally with the search for the correct but delicate equilibrium between economic efficiency and social demands, of safeguarding the environment, and above all, the indispensable and necessary support of human life from conception to natural death and of the family founded on marriage between a man and woman. "
These are the elements which characterized the Europe that the founding fathers had in mind, and that notwithstanding their being ignored today by European institutions, are not forgotten, much less rejected by so many Catholic faithful.
Significantly, not by many Anglicans who, in the name of those values - and against the church led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, which has become lax towards these values (allowing ordination of women and openly practising homosexuals) - have asked to be admitted into the Roman Catholic Church.
In doing so, married Anglican bishops will be re-ordained priests in the Catholic rite but cannot be bishops, following the practice in the Orthodox Church adn in the Eastern rites.
It may simply have been coincidental that the Pope delivered his new exhortation to Europe and the announcement about the Anglicans today. But it does say a great deal: that even outside the Catholic world, there are many Christian faithful desiring to recover and safeguard Christian roots and values as they were before secularization became widespread.
Of course, one must consider those who may want to instrumentalize these values. The Pope referred to "individuals or pressure groups" who wish to advance certain special interests to the detriment of "an ambitious collective plan that Europeans expect" for the common good of the continent and of the whole world.
He said this danger has been "perceived and denounced by numerous observers" of different persuasions. It is important, therefore, that Europe not abandon its model of civilization and that the original momentum of the European Union not be "stifled by individualism or utilitarianism".
I will post subsequent stories on the Anglican rapprochement in the CHURCH&VATICAN thread, unless the item has to do with Pope Benedict directly.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 20/10/2009 18:34]