OUT WITH THE OLD; IN WITH THE NEW

An Oxymoron: Europe Without Christianity (KENNETH L. WOODWARD, 6/14/03, NY Times)

Of course, the culture of modern Europe is pervasively secular. And many on Europe's left reflexively identify religion with political reaction. "We don't like God," was the reported comment of one diplomat from France, which led the secularist forces that wanted no mention of the deity in the union's constitution. Indeed, as convention president, former President Valery Giscard d'Estaing of France, a practicing Catholic, almost single-handedly prevented any reference to God or Christianity in the text. But delegates from Germany, Italy, Portugal and Malta, among others, argued for inclusion.

Among those in the ambivalent middle was an Irish delegate to the constitutional convention who declared: "I am most firmly convinced that God is everywhere. I am very doubtful how apt a place Article Two in the constitution is for him to appear in." I tend to agree. Why mention God as a source of European values when most Europeans find theirs in economics? Such a gesture would be no more genuine than if the union were to print "In God We Trust" on the euro.

But the failure to acknowledge Europe's specifically Christian heritage is something else. At one point in the process, the preamble referred to the "humanism" of Greek and Roman civilization, then skipped without pause to the 18th-century Enlightenment. Those specific references to Europe's past have been cut, but the preamble still ignores Christianity's contribution to the core European values that the union is pledged to uphold: "the central role of the human person, and his inviolable and inalienable rights, and of respect for law." What kind of history is this? Surely it was Christianity that made the human person, as a child of God, central to European values. And it was the canon law of the Catholic Church, the oldest legal system in the West, that nurtured respect for law long before the rise of Europe's nation-states.

Isn't the point really that Europe no longer believes in either the dignity of the human being or the Law that precedes the State? We can argue Europe's Christian heritage until we're blue in the face, but here's its present, All hospitals 'must permit euthanasia' (Expatica, 13 June 2003):

The right to euthanasia must exist in all hospitals, negotiators forming Belgium's new government said Friday in a move to counter opposition by some Catholic hospitals that have allegedly refused to permit assisted suicide on their premises. [...]

The chairman of the Flemish liberal VLD party, Karel De Gucht said euthanasia is the business of a doctor and a patient, and that hospitals should not interfere.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 14, 2003 6:35 AM