QUO VADIS, EUROPE?
LIDIA DUDKIEWICZ, THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF ‘NIEDZIELA’
Recently in the headquarter of the Editorial Office of ‘Niedziela’ there was another dispute of the Movement ‘Europe Christi’, whose moderator is Fr. Dr. Ireneusz Skubiś. It reminded about the founders of united Europe: the God’s servant Alcide de Gaspari and the God’s servant Robert Schumann. It were them who were building Europe of spirit, based on strong Christian roots, under the eye of Divine Providence and through intercession of saint patrons of Europe. Now, when the Old Continent is tottering, the Christians must get organized and set off to help lost Europe, living with selfish illusion that the man can cope with everything without God. Reminding about the great statesmen, their vision of united Europe based on Christian values and the natural law, is very important today when waves of Islamic immigrants are coming to the gates of our continent, which implies a danger of terrorism. After all, we see that terrorism has invaded a lot of societies and is paralyzing the life of European cities.
The areas overwhelmed by the war and Islamic terrorism are still visited by Fr. Prof. Waldemar Cisło, being at the helm of the Polish section of the Papal Association Help to Church in Need. He became the voice of those who lose their life because of faith in Jesus Christ, are tortured and raped. Every three minutes one Christian is killed as a martyr in the world, because he or she does not want to renounce Christ. Facing the dilemmas whether let in immigrants to our European home or not, Fr. Cisło says that – certainly – we should help them, but the best form of support is helping them on the spot. Otherwise, the wave of muslim immigrants and refugees to Europe may be a part of a clash of western civilization and fighting islam. I encourage you to read a book of the White Crow Publishing House entitled: ‘Immigrants at the gates. Crisis of a refugee and martyrdom of the Christians of XXI century’, in which Fr. Prof. Cisło discusses these issues in a long interview. We find out that Christian bishops from the countries of Near East are not followers of emigration of those peoples towards Europe. Whereas they expect helping them on the spot, otherwise those lands on which Christianity was born, are endangered by dechristianization. The best solution of the conflict is providing peace in Syria, Iraq and in other war-like points. ‘Why does nobody governing our continent want to think on what will happen with the countries overwhelmed by military conflicts, when they are deprived of young people who will emigrate to Europe’ – this problem is put forward by publishers of the book. And they answer: ‘Maybe this is the reason for which countries rich with oil are being ravaged and colonized? Then there will be no Christians; they will be murdered first so that they would not disturb anybody with their old-fashioned system of values, with their virtues or nobility, for which they are even ready to devote their life’.
In relation to discussions on letting in immigrants to Europe, it is worth recalling the words of cardinal Stefan Wyszyński from 40 years before, concerning a suitable hierarchy of purposes and aspirations and the order of loving others: ‘We should not look around everywhere. We should not feed the whole world, we should not want to save everybody. We should look at our homeland, on which supporting one another, we are looking towards Heaven. We should want to help our brothers, feed Polish children, serve them here, and, first of all, fulfill our duty here – so as not to get succumbed to the temptation of ‘saving the world’ at the cost of our own homeland’ – said cardinal Wyszyński.
AA
„Niedziela” 27/2017