EUROPE NEEDS THE SAINTS IN SUITS
LIDIA DUDKIEWICZ, THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF ‘NIEDZIELA’
Saint people were building Europe as a community under the eye of Divine Providence a few dozen years ago. Also now the saints must save Europe, approaching to self-destruction because of cutting itself off Christian roots – says Fr. Ireneusz Skubić, a promoter of the ‘Europa Christi’ movement. The movement which was created at the feet of Jasna Góra, is calling to whole Europe, after St. John Paul II, so that it would reopen its door to Christ and discovered its Christian soul anew. If it does not do it – it will lose its life. For, it has been at the precipice. What is urgent is that the European bureaucracy and political parties should have leaders who would be people living according to the Gospel, respecting all commandments of the Decalogue. Cold rigid offices of Europe must get revived with Christian awareness. We must pray in this intention. Therefore, on 11-12 March this year, a pilgrimage to Jasna Góra by the ‘Europa Christi’ movement, connected with the I Congress of Schuman’s groups. A prayer in the intention of return of Europe to Christian roots was undertaken through following by God’s servants Robert Schuman (called a saint in a suit) and Alcide de Gasperi (the prime minister and a foreign minister of Italy in the years 1945-53), and their approaching beatification. So, in the sanctuary of the Polish nation a great European event took place, being also an answer to what has recently happened in the European Union, which proclaims lofty mottos about democracy and also, using a method of a pointing finger, it chooses its highly-positioned clerk and using the mouth of the France president, it says that important structural funds are important, not principles.
If Europe does not return to Christ and values connected with Him, its inhabitants will feel ‘foreigners in their own history and culture’ – warned archbishop Wacław Depo, who was presiding over the Appeal Prayer at Jasna Góra, opening the pilgrimage of people concerned about the future of Europe. He pointed to dangerous processes of de-christianization existing in modern Europe. He noted that there was even a suggestion of breaking human relations with traditions and values based on the Decalogue. He emphasized how important it is in our times to ‘bring back the feeling of dignity and the authority to people caring for the common welfare. All this is necessary in order to protect Christian fundaments and values during elections of political groups leaders’.
During the Holy Mass being the central point of the European meeting at Jasna Góra, bishop Artur Miziński said that the Old Continent needed Jesus not to lose its soul. - We need to build Europe which is turning not around its own economy, but around the holiness of a human being. The general secretary of the Polish Episcopate quoted important words of Alcide de Gasperi, who said that ‘Catholicism is a permanent rule which the man should follow from a cradle to a coffin, it is the soul and base of all the things’.
So, it is time – as the promoter of the ‘Europa Christi’ points – the Christian of Europe organized themselves and uncovered the roads of return to their roots with their spiritual power. And they should be going to the future with the words:’ Praised be Jesus Christ!’ and say this greeting in all modern languages.
AA
„Niedziela” 12/2017