The first symptom is Europe’s refusal to mention its Judeo-Christian roots in the Preamble to the European Constitutional Treaty, which, following the French and Dutch referendums, has now failed. The title itself is revealing of an ambiguity. A Treaty is not a Constitution and a Constitution cannot be a Treaty. The European Constitutional Treaty is something in between, a document hanging in limbo with no precise form, despite its more than 400 pages, running from major principles to the most analytic norms.
Regarding Europe’s cultural and spiritual origins, the Treaty adopts two slightly different formulations which were accepted after a long debate and many quarrels. One states that “the peoples of Europe…[are] conscious of its spiritual and moral heritage.” The other refers to the “cultural, religious and humanistic heritage of Europe.” It is patent that both statements are extremely poor and reticent, because neither of them defines exactly what heritage and what religion Europe stems from. The question then is: Can Europe unify economically, socially, and politically if it lacks the strength even to mention that Judeo-Christian religion without which it would not even exist? My answer is: No, it cannot.
The second symptom of the European crisis is the antecedent of the first. What role is played by religion in European society? After the wars of religion, Europe slowly attained the separation between State and Church. This separation—which actually stems from the Gospels—is a civil achievement of which we should be proud but about which we should not be confused. It refers to political institutions and their mutual relations, not to personal dimensions and their autonomy of expression. In other words, the separation between State and Church, sets limits to the legislation of them both, in the sense that one is forbidden to pass norms over the domain of the other, but it does not imply that religion must be expelled from social life, or that it should be considered only a private affair. In still other words, the secularity of the state, which is a juridical regime, does not imply the secularism of the society, which is an ideological philosophy. It is one thing to separate State and Church; it is quite a different thing to separate religion from the lives of the people.
This is however what is happening in Europe. Today, religion is not allowed to express itself in public. As a consequence, religion cannot nourish our civil customs, provide a spiritual ground for our societies, or act in support of our public rules and behavior. And, of course, once the links with the religious tradition are severed, the allegiance to the very same values which are the core of our living together starts losing its strength and gets weaker and weaker.
Marcello Pera Europe, America and the Continental Drift
