Without Christianity, man will turn into a producer and, by the same token, a
victim of consumerism. I wonder, how much deprivation will be needed before we
realise that, without days of fast and abstinence from desires, man is tied to
the chariot of the ever and deliberately growing needs? How many tears need be
shed before we learn to see that, if man cannot feel the distinction between
days of retirement and days of feast, then he will only enjoy himself like a pig
in its own dirt?
Without Christianity, the United Europe will not be a civilisation but an
enlarged marketplace. It will be nothing but a rearing farm of a greasy, grey
shapeless mass.
Europe has been our vision. It is now up to us to create the United Europe, and
not the united cowshed.
We do not ask that all Europeans be Christians. Religious tolerance is also our
own request, not just a request of non-Christians. We do not ask that the Church
should direct the state. The independence of the state from religion is also our
own request.
What
we do wish for is that the face of Europe be not lost; that we not wreck Europe
by throwing away as irrelevancies its civilisation, its languages, its
traditions.
The Church does not ask for anything, she does not act like a corporation. The
Church is anxious; the Church is praying. And I would like to share with you the
prayer for Europe not to be deprived of our Christian future. I wish to share
with you the prayer for our fight for the unification of Europe to turn out to
be not a sin but a blessing.
