EUROPE CHRISTI
FR. IRENEUSZ SKUBIŚ, THE HONOURABLE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF ‘NIEDZIELA’
If we are to find the reasons of discontent among the Europeans – not only the British – with the European Union, the biggest one is the fact that we are dealing with its undemocratic dispositions through which it deprives particular nations of their sovereignty. As Poles we are experiencing that all the time. We are a nation rooted in Christianity and we are simply feeling rejected.
EU decision-makers are entering our life and want to organize our life, allegedly knowing what we need. The Union has departed from ideas which were at its beginnings, a symbol of Mary’s stars on its flag has been forgotten. Today, very little means for Eurocrats that founders of united Europe – Robert Schuman, Alcide De Gasperi and Konrad Adeauer – were ideal Catholics. When I was an editor-in-chief of ‘Niedziela’ I was visited by a woman from Brussels who wanted to publish a book about Schuman. She said that in Brussels there is no money for this purpose. The rich Union which pays high salaries to clerks, did not have any money to publish such an important book!
The voice of Great Britain, which decided to exit the community is significant. And it seems that the Union requires a big reform today and depriving politicians of authority, who contributed to its crisis, introducing an ideology unfamiliar for countries belonging to it.
Because Europe is going towards an incorrect direction. It forgot about its identity - although it is facing a dangerous confrontation with Islam – and is going towards atheism and moral liberation.
Therefore, today we need not so much economic or financial reform but we need to recall its rooting which has evangelical dimension. Europe is two thousand years of Christian culture, civilization which leads to a real material and spiritual development. John Paul II emphasized that one cannot understand a man without Christ, similarly as one cannot understand Europe without Christ and what was brought by the Gospel and the Church.
In a name-day symposium about which we read in the current issue of ‘Niedziela’, it was clearly stated that in order to fulfill its great mission left by founders-fathers, EU must go towards rebuilding the truth about the man, understanding philosophy of its existence which has its source in God. So, Europe must become Europe of Christ – ‘Europe Christi’. This motto should accompany discussions about today’s Europe and be the leaven for the great Christian movement, based on lots of thoughts and indications of the great contemporary European – St. John Paul II.
AA
„Niedziela” 28/2016