Dissatisfaction with the European Union’s attitude towards Christianity may be behind waning support for the union among Christians, according to the Primate of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland.
Cardinal Sean Brady warned that Christians rejected the EU reform treaty (Lisbon Treaty) in June because of fear the European Union is becoming too secular. He said that “at least some of those who were previously enthusiastic about the founding aims of the EU, both social and economic, are now expressing unease," as he spoke at a political summer school, according to the Irish Times.
There is, he continued, “a fairly widespread culture in European affairs which relegates manifestations of one's own religious convictions to the private and subjective sphere."
He pointed to what the late Pope John Paul II termed a “loss of Christian memory” within European institutions and policy-making bodies. And the “prevailing culture and social agenda” within the EU appear to be dominated by secularism “rather than by the Christian memory and heritage of the vast majority of member states,” Brady noted.
The remarks were made at the Humbert Summer School in Co Mayo on Sunday, when the school came to a close.
He told the audience: "Successive decisions ... have undermined the family based on marriage, the right to life from the moment of conception to natural death, the sacredness of the Sabbath, the right of Christian institutions to maintain and promote their ethos, including schools."
"These and other decisions have made it more difficult for committed Christians to maintain their instinctive commitment to the European project," he added.
"Ignoring this trend within the EU and its impact on people of faith has inevitable political and social consequences, not least on levels of support for the project itself."
Meanwhile, Brady commended the United States for its openness on faith, particularly as it heads toward the November presidential election.
He said he was "intrigued to discover last weekend that it was quite natural to expect the US presidential candidates to answer direct questions about their commitment to faith, their willingness to support faith-based organizations, their position on moral issues and how it would affect their appointment of public officials."
Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama had answered a series of questions, some of which touched on their Christian faith and moral values, at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., earlier this month.
Urging for a country that can also consider highly such values, Brady said, "We need a Europe that doesn't confine its debates to politics and history, but also takes into account social values, social cohesion, and the place of the family."
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FreeInChrist Here is something for you to consider:
Perhaps you are not familiar with centuries of anti-Semitism by the Christians of Europe which made Hitler's extermination of European Jewry possible.
chris70 "There are more curry shops in England than fish and chip shops."
This is a good thing, Brits not known for good food.
Chris
It's strange that you should accuse me of Catholic bigotry because I am a Catholic, born and bred...I think your comments would make my parents laugh(when I was an alter boy, I could say the mass in latin from memory). Not certain what your various passports have to do with your comments though. I work in supermarkets, have done all my working life (30 years +) people seem to speak English to me (does my opinion count as I only have one passport?). AS for your comment about a country being destroyed by immigration thats quite amusing coming from an American....
Best wishes
Steve
P.s Theres nothing quite like a nice ruby murry on a saturday night....
Steveh20,
Ireland has been Catholic for 1600 years. Yes, the Catholic Church has gone through some tough times recently in Ireland. This is only a small blip on the screen of history. The Catholic Church has authority in Ireland and people do listen.
I have an American, British and Irish passport. Father was from England, grandmother was Irish. You have a lot of Catholic bigotry in your voice. I would appreciate it if you were more charitable.
The Catholic Church still has a lot of influence and THANK GOD THEY DO. Europe is losing its Christian roots and therefore is in decline.
There are more curry shops in England than fish and chip shops. England has become unEnglish! I have no use for an English passport when I go to England and no one speaks English in the supermarkets, etc.
England has died.
England has been run over by Liberalism and they will and are paying the price. Immigration has killed GB.
Maybe I should add that there is not the persercution complex prevalent here that one finds in certain streams of Christanity in the states, where if somebody disagrees with you its persercution...
I can't really talk for "secular Europeans" opinions as such, I'm not really certain people over here go round giving themselves labels like that. What I can say is that in England thats it fine for anybody(muslims, Christians,Mormons, whatever) to express their faith within their social life as long as it is within the law, its not a problem for people. In England we are pretty relaxed about that sort of thing....
What is secular Europeans perception of Christians who normally express their faith in their social live.
Can you rephrase the question please I don't understand it..Thanks
question for steve,
in your view what is the three main perception European (in general, if not British) have on people who express their faith and their delight being reborn into the body of Christ, sometime but not all the time?
Because Hitler and Mussolini were baptised, as infants, into the Roman church, does not make them Christian. If you were born in a hospital, would that make you a physician?
Homoousia316,
Blaming Christianity for Hitler? Really? The entire regime was built upon a naturalistic framework. Have you any idea of Hitler's fascination with this philosophy? 'Christians' throughout the centuries have indeed wrought their share of destruction, but it cannot honestly be said that this was in keeping with the teachings of Christ; unlike Hitler, who's actions cannot be objected to on the basis of an atheistic worldview, which has no absolute basis upon which to determine right vs wrong. Take if from Victor Franco, who himselft spent some time in one of Hitler's concentration camps:
"If we present man with a concept of man which is not true, we may well corrupt him. When we present him as an automation of reflexes, as a mind machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drives & reactions, as a mere product of instincts, heredity & environment, we feed the despair to which man is in any case prone. I became acquainted with the last stages of corruption in my second concentration camp in Auschwitz. The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment, or as the Nazi's like to say, of blood and soil. I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblincher, and Mideneg were ultimately prepared, not in some ministry or the other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers."
No Cardinal Sean, it was not a matter of "Christians" rejecting the EU in the referendum, but the Irish people seeing the EU for the "pigs in the trough" organisation it has become. This vote had nothing to do with religion, it was far deeper than that. The church in Ireland cannot get over the fact that it does not have the power over the people of that country it once had and so the good cardinal feels he has to put his two pennyworth in, that the people cannot reject it for anyother reason seems beyond him. At least they had a chance to vote though, Tony Blair (that champion of democracy?)never gave the British people that opportunity.
Hurrah Eurabia
I wonder if the good bishop has any idea how deeply run the seas of blood spilled by European Christendom. Theocratic states from Constantine through Hitler and Mussolini's shared Catholic totalitarianism have washed the continent in the blood of heretical Christian and non-Christian alike. I hope that his vision of the TRUE religious history of Christianity in Europe is not tainted by Vatican propaganda about Pope Pius sparing a handful of Jews here while allowing a million to be melted into soap and lampshades there.