The Fiftieth anniversary of the Treaty of Rome: Values and perspectives for Europe’s future

The Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE) organized a congress in Rome, between March 23 and 25, on the theme Values and perspectives for Europe’s future, the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. The signing of the Treaty of Rome, on March 1957, initiated the European Community.
At the end of the congress, the participants addressed a “Message of Rome” to the heads of States and of government gathered at the European Council of Berlin, on March 25. After the departure of Hans-Gert Pöttering, the president of the European Parliament, Bishop Dominique Mamberti, secretary of the Holy See for relations with the States, said in the presence of the representatives of the 23 European Bishops Conferences: “During the last two terms of the European Parliament, the positions of the Catholic Church and of the Vatican have been attacked almost 30 times and unjustly accused of illegitimate political intervention in the European domain.” Now, “the very serious and unacceptable results of a scientific research which does not place the human person at the center of its objectives” and which “indirectly favors the destruction of embryos” are unacceptable for the Church. “A democracy which, instead of being at the service of human life, subjects it to votes and supports those who suppress it, seems to be prey to prevarication and intolerance.” The will expressed by the European Commission or Parliament is not what should be considered sufficient to define what is good and evil in such serious issues, continued Mgr Mamberti.
The Roman diplomat also asked Catholics engaged in the public domain to be “fully consistent with their faith” and to consider “the defense of life from its conception until natural death, and the defense of the family structure as the union between a man and a woman, based on marriage” as their priority. The falling birth rate on the old Continent must incite political and economical institutions to “call into question a consumerist and hedonist life-style” and to support families.