Cardinal Warns Against EU's Attitude to Christianity
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."
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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."
