Courtney McGrailEurope needs a “memory transfusion” if it is to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, and to pursue a renewed dream of Europe based on Europe’s deep roots, rather than “the shifting sands of immediate results”, Pope Francis has said.
Speaking at a ceremony to mark his being awarded the Charlemagne Prize for service on behalf of European unification, the Pope called on Europe to recall the vision of the founders of the European movement, who he described as “heralds of peace and prophets of the future”, and said “only a Church rich in witnesses will be able to bring back the pure water of the Gospel to the roots of Europe”.
Roots
To reach those roots, he said, it was necessary “to take a step back from the present to listen to the voice of our forebears”, adding that, “Remembering will help us not to repeat our past mistakes, but also to re-appropriate those experiences that enabled our peoples to surmount the crises of the past.
“A memory transfusion,” he continued, “can free us from today’s temptation to build hastily on the shifting sands of immediate results, which may produce ‘quick and easy short-term political gains, but do not enhance human fulfilment’.”
Doing this, he said, would enable the renewal of Europe, creating “a Europe capable of giving birth to a new humanism based on three capacities: the capacity to integrate, the capacity for dialogue and the capacity to generate”.
A capacity for renewal and rebirth is part of the soul of Europe, the Pope said, praising how, “in the last century, Europe bore witness to humanity that a new beginning was indeed possible”, creating something new – a common European home – from the ashes of the Second World War.