Benedict's Backyard Revival
by Francis X. Rocca
published August 17, 2005

When Pope Benedict XVI travels to Cologne, Germany, tomorrow, he will be making his first international trip as pontiff, appropriately enough to his native land.

At Catholic World Youth Day, where attendance is expected to approach one million, he will make his first appearance before an audience of John Paul II scale. The pope has already indicated that he will use his four-day visit to rally support for what should prove one of the defining efforts of his papacy, a campaign to reinvigorate Christianity in Europe.

It is no surprise that the new pope should make the Old World one of his highest priorities. The most secular continent on earth is increasingly barren ground for Benedict's church, with attendance at mass plummeting even in traditionally Catholic countries such as Ireland and Poland. But the pope's aim is not only to bring stray sheep back into the fold; he also has a less obvious political motivation. As Benedict has explained in extensive writings, including those quoted below, he believes that Europe cannot remain united and at peace unless it embraces anew the Christian values at its roots.

The idea of Europe has been entwined with Christianity since Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor of the West in the year 800; and Benedict finds it no coincidence that most of the founding fathers of the European Union, including Konrad Adenauer, Alcide De Gasperi and Robert Schuman, were practicing Christians. Their drive for postwar reconciliation was inspired by faith, as was their (nondenominational) ideal of a common European identity to supersede destructive nationalisms.

Over the last half century, the original "ethical and religious" goal of European integration has been almost totally eclipsed by the drive to make the EU a global economic force. The same period has witnessed the rise to power of a "radical enlightenment culture," which has virtually excluded religion from European public life, as seen most clearly in the proposed European constitution's lack of any reference to God or Christianity.

This secular values system is fundamentally incompatible with the European project, Benedict argues, since European identity is based on a shared set of ethical norms, above all a belief in the inviolability of human rights, which are ultimately of divine origin. Christianity affirms these rights with the teaching that God created man in his own image and likeness. But take away that premise, and such values are prone to distortion and abuse.

Defenders of abortion, for instance, make their case on grounds of liberty. But for Benedict, the practice bespeaks a belief that "law is founded on force," undermining the "very bases of an authentic democracy founded on justice." Genetic engineering may appear to serve human progress, but in fact it reduces human beings to means of scientific experimentation. Invoking tolerance can become a way of censoring politically incorrect views, including expressions of religious belief.

Such internal contradictions undercut the moral basis of a European polity, Benedict says, for "only if man is sacred and inviolable for man, can we trust each other and live together in peace."

To realize this ideal, the pope wants to bring Christianity back into Europe's public life; but he does not seek official endorsement of any church. On the contrary, he views the separation of church and state as vital to the freedom and integrity of religion itself, so long as that separation does not imply a government hostile toward faith. The pope writes admiringly of America's tradition of respect and protection for independent churches, which has permitted it to develop a "Christian civil religion" (though he warns that the U.S. is fast catching up to Europe along the path of secularization).

The pope stakes his biggest hopes for Europe on the emergence of "creative minorities" of believers who, like the monks of an earlier age, might inspire the wider population by their example of joyous living and through their moral insights. Benedict calls on European Christians to join their secular neighbors in developing an "ethic of reason" compatible with faith, yet convincing to nonbelievers.

A restoration of Christian values would not only enhance the cohesion of European society, Benedict argues; it would help Europeans to communicate with other cultures, because we cannot respect what is sacred to others unless "the sacred, God, is not alien to ourselves."

Nevertheless, the pope's goal of a more Christian Europe inevitably points toward tensions with the continent's fastest-growing religion, Islam. Non-Christian cultures do not espouse the same set of fundamental values that underpin European identity, he argues. This largely explains Benedict's opposition to Turkey's membership in the EU, despite the apparent compatibility with European secularism of that country's Kemalist regime.

What this implies for Muslims already inside the EU is less clear. Does Benedict believe that they can participate in the "renewed humanism in European societies" for which he prayed publicly on July 24, "in which faith and reason cooperate in fruitful dialogue for the advancement of human beings and the construction of true peace"?

In the wake of the July 7 terrorist bombings in London, the pope surprised some listeners by refusing to affirm categorically that Islam is a religion of peace. "Certainly there are also elements that can favor peace and also other elements," he told reporters on July 25. "We must try to find the best elements to help."

More diplomatic language may be necessary if the pope aspires to lead in interfaith dialogue. Yet he evidently assumes that Muslims would find him a more worthy interlocutor than any representative of that contemporary European culture which he criticizes with such passion and cogency. Muslims "do not feel threatened by the Christian bases of our morality," he insists, "but by the cynicism of a secularized culture that denies its own bases."

Benedict certainly sees today's Europe as a cultural battlefield, but for him the real clash is not between religions; it is between religious culture on one side, and a deracinated, godless, radical enlightenment culture on the other. Despite his unfashionable insistence on Europe's Christian heritage, he might end up needing some unlikely allies.

Mr. Rocca, an American writer in Rome, is the co-author, with Rockwell A. Schnabel, of "The Next Superpower? The Rise of Europe and Its Challenge to the United States," which will be published next month by Rowman & Littlefield.

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112424775933915328,00.html

Copyright © 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.