Pope Benedict XVI waves as he arrives for his special audience for the XXV Anniversary of the Pontifical recognition of the Fraternity of Communion and liberation in St. Peter's square at the Vatican, yesterday.- REUTERSVATICAN CITY (Reuters):
Pope Benedict strongly criticised the European Union (EU) yesterday for excluding a mention of God and Europe's Christian roots in declarations marking the 50th anniversary of its founding.
In a toughly-worded speech to European bishops, Benedict said Europe was committing a form of "apostasy of itself" and was thus doubting its own identity. The Pope, who like his predecessor John Paul has often called for a mention of God and Christianity in the European Constitution, said leaders could not exclude values that helped forge the "very soul" of the continent.
"If on the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome the governments of the Union want to get closer to their citizens, how can they exclude an element as essential to the identity of Europe as Christianity, in which the vast majority of its people continue to identify?" he said.
No surprise
"It is no surprise that today's Europe, while it purports to be a community of values, seems to increasingly contest the existence of absolute and universal values," he said.
"Does not this unique form of apostasy of itself, even before God, lead it (Europe) to doubt its very identity?"
Apostasy is a total desertion of or departure from one's religion. One of the Pope's compatriots, German ChancellorAngela Merkel, aims to relaunch the EU constitution and last month made a plea for the bloc to include references to Christian roots. Plans to include such a reference in the original EU treaty, rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005, were blocked by French President Jacques Chirac.
Reviving the constitution
Merkel, as holder of the EU's rotating presidency, is now in the process of reviving the constitution. Comments from Merkel, the daughter of a pastor, have encou-raged religious leaders around Europe to redouble efforts to modify the constitution. In his address to the European bishops, Pope Benedict said the European Union was headed up a slippery slope of indifference if it did not recognise religion and God.
"A community that builds itself without respecting the true dignity of the human being, forgetting that each person is created in the image of God, ends up doing good for no one," he said.
He called for a "realistic but not cynical" Europe and said the continent's leaders could not deny it had a "historical, cultural and moral identity" that Christianity helped forge.
