THE POPE has called for a reinvigorated Europe to strengthen
human dignity, during an address on Tuesday morning to MEPs and
invited guests at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
"Despite a larger and stronger Union, Europe gives the
impression of being aged and weary, feeling less and less a
protagonist in a world which frequently regards it with aloofness,
mistrust and even, at times, suspicion," Pope Francis told
MEPs.
It was a theme he returned to during his 35-minute speech: "As
the European Union has expanded, there has been growing mistrust on
the part of citizens towards institutions considered to be aloof,
engaged in laying down rules perceived as insensitive to individual
peoples, if not downright harmful.
"In many quarters we encounter a general impression of weariness
and ageing, of a Europe which is now a grandmother, no longer
fertile and lively. As a result, the great ideas which once
inspired Europe seem to have lost their attraction, only to be
replaced by the bureaucratic technicalities of its
institutions."
He said that this had combined with "certain rather selfish
lifestyles, marked by an opulence which is no longer sustainable
and frequently indifferent to the world around us" to create a
system in which people risked "being reduced to mere cogs in a
machine that treats them as items of consumption to be exploited,
with the result that, as is so tragically apparent, whenever a
human life no longer proves useful for that machine, it is
discarded with few qualms, as in the case of the terminally ill,
the elderly who are abandoned and uncared for, and children who are
killed before they are born."
Quoting the words of his predecessor, Pope Benedict, in Caritas
in Veritate, he said that it was a great mistake "when technology
is allowed to take over. . .
"The result is a confusion between ends and means. It is the
inevitable consequence of a throwaway culture and an uncontrolled
consumerism.
"Upholding the dignity of the person means instead acknowledging
the value of human life, which is freely given us and hence cannot
be an object of trade or commerce."
MEPs, he said, were "called to a great mission which may at
times seem an impossible one: to tend to the needs of individuals
and peoples."
The Pope described the EU's commitment to promoting human rights
as a "praiseworthy commitment", but warned: "Today, there is a
tendency to claim ever broader individual rights, and, I am tempted
to say, individualistic rights. Underlying this is a conception of
the human person as detached from all social and anthropological
context, as if the person were a monad, increasingly unconcerned
with other surrounding monads."
The concept of duty had been divorced from the concept of
rights, he said. "As a result, the rights of the individual are
upheld without regard for the fact that each human being is part of
a social context wherein his or her rights and duties are bound up
with those of others and with the common good of society
itself."
Using as an example Raphael's fresco of the School of Athens,
with Plato's finger pointed to heaven and Aristotle holding his
hand towards the viewer, the Pope said: "The future of Europe
depends on the recovery of the vital connection between these two
elements. A Europe which is no longer open to the transcendent
dimension of life is a Europe which risks slowly losing its own
soul and that humanistic spirit which it still loves and
defends."
He considered fundamental "not only the legacy that Christianity
has offered in the past to the social and cultural formation of the
continent, but, above all, the contribution which it desires to
offer today."
This should not be seen as "a threat to the secularity of states
or to the independence of the institutions of the European Union,
but rather an enrichment," he said.
The Catholic Church, he said, was "ready . . . to engage in
meaningful, open and transparent dialogue with the institutions of
the European Union"; saying that "a Europe which is capable of
appreciating its religious roots and of grasping their fruitfulness
and potential, will be all the more able to resist the many forms
of extremism spreading in the world today, not least as a result of
the great vacuum of ideals which we are currently existing in the
West.
He referred to the "many instances of injustice and persecution
which daily afflict religious minorities, and Christians in
particular, in various parts of our world. Communities and
individuals are today subjected to barbaric acts of violence; they
are driven away from their homes and native lands, sold as slaves,
killed, beheaded, crucified or burned alive with the shameful and
complicit silence of so many."
Pope Francis called for a "united response" to the problems
caused by migration, particularly to the refugee crisis across
North Africa (News, 14
November). "We cannot allow the Mediterranean to become a vast
cemetery," he said. "The absence of mutual support within the
European Union runs the risk of encouraging particularistic
solutions to this problem, solutions which don't take into account
the human dignity of immigrants and this contribute to slave labour
and continuing social tensions."
MEPs gave Pope Francis a 90-second standing ovation at the end
of his speech. The President of the European Parliament, Martin
Schulz MEP, thanked spoke of him as "a person who gives guidance at
a time when we have lost our compass".
After his visit to the European Parliament, Pope Francis
concluded his one-day visit to Strasbourg with a visit to the
Council of Europe, before returning to the Vatican in the
afternoon.