Today’s eleventh High-Level Religious Leaders’ Meeting with the EU institutions was dedicated to the theme: ‘Living together and disagreeing well.’ After the attacks in Paris and Copenhagen earlier in the year, the EU Commission wanted to devote its dialogue with the Religious Leaders to the enormous challenges being currently faced by European society.
(Credit: European Commission)
On the occasion of this annual meeting, the President of COMECE, His Eminence Cardinal Reinhard Marx, stated that at the heart of the social cohesion issue lay the matter of social justice: ‘Lurking behind social alienation and exclusion, we can detect among many people fear that the modern world represents a threat to them.’ The modern world is very complex and challenging. ‘The religious message can come to the rescue, it can help people handle their freedom with responsibility and win them round to respecting diversity.’
It is not so that the western model of the free society will always remain successful. ‘Europe finds itself in a very precarious situation. In the domain of foreign relations there is deep uncertainty, on the home front there is a variety of tensions.’ Taking his queue from Pope Francis’ address to the European Parliament, Cardinal Marx flagged up the Church’s strong support for the ideal of a united Europe. The Pope had made it clear to the MEP’s that the EU needed to reflect on its foundational ideals and on its calling, to bring together different peoples and cultures. The president of the Catholic lay movement Focolare, Maria Voce, who also participated at the meeting, expressed the view that ‘Dialogue is not just an activity, it is an attitude to life.’
With the migrants who make their way to Europe in mind, Cardinal Marx pointed out that the Church can contribute to bringing together people from different religious and cultural backgrounds: ‘The Church is still the backbone of social involvement of people in civil society.’
The hosts of the meeting, held in the Berlaymont HQ of the EU Commission in Brussels, were the Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans and the Vice-President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani.
The annual High-Level Religious Leaders’ Meetings were initiated in 2005 by the then President of the EU Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso. They are held under the terms of Article 17 of the TFEU which stipulate that the EU shall engage in “an open, transparent and regular dialogue’ with the churches and religious communities. COMECE participates in these meetings on behalf of the Catholic Church.
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