“I dream of a Europe, the heart of the West, which puts its ingenuity to good use in extinguishing outbreaks of war and kindling lights of hope; a Europe which knows how to rediscover its young soul, dreaming of the greatness of the whole and going beyond the immediate needs; a Europe that includes peoples and individuals, without chasing theories and ideological colonisations”. He underlines it Pope francesco in one of the passages of the articulated speech to the authorities and civil society in Lisbon, on the occasion of World Youth Day.
“The world needs true Europe”, he warns, continuing: “According to a disputed etymology, the name Europe derives from a word that indicates the direction of the west. However, it is certain that Lisbon is the westernmost capital of continental Europe. It – observes Bergoglio – therefore recalls the need to open wider ways of meeting, as Portugal already does, especially with countries of other continents sharing the same language”.
The Pope therefore hopes that “World Youth Day will be an impulse of universal openness for the ‘old continent’. Because the world needs Europe, true Europe: it needs its role as bridge and peacemaker in its eastern part, in the Mediterranean, in Africa and in the Middle East”.
“Thus – says Francis – Europe will be able to bring, within the international scenario, its specific originality, which emerged in the last century when, from the crucible of world conflicts, it let the spark of reconciliation strike, making the dream of building the future come true with yesterday’s enemy, to initiate paths of dialogue and inclusion, developing a diplomacy of peace that extinguishes conflicts and eases tensions, capable of grasping the faintest signs of relaxation and of reading between the most crooked lines”.
“Lisbon can suggest a change of pace”, continues Bergoglio quoting the EU Treaty: “Here, in 2007, the homonymous reform treaty of the European Union was signed. It states that ‘the Union’s aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples’; but goes further, asserting that ‘in relations with the rest of the world it contributes to peace, security, sustainable development of the Earth, solidarity and mutual respect between peoples, free and fair trade, the eradication of poverty and the protection of human rights’”.
“They are not just words – he admonishes – but milestones for the journey of the European community, engraved in the memory of this city. Here is the spirit of the whole, animated by the European dream of a wider multilateralism than just the Western context”.
“In today’s developed world, it has paradoxically become a priority to defend human life, put at risk by utilitarian drifts, which use and discard it”, the Pope underlines. Last May, the Portuguese parliament approved the law on euthanasia . Off the cuff, the Pope observes without going around the bush: “I am thinking of so many sophisticated laws on euthanasia”. The Pope’s tone is serious: “I think of so many unborn children and the elderly left to themselves, of the difficulty of welcoming, protecting, promoting and integrating those who come from afar and knock on doors, of the loneliness of many families in difficulty putting to the world and raise children. Here too one would have to say: where are you sailing towards, Europe and the West, with the waste of the old, the walls with barbed wire, the massacres at sea and empty cradles? Where do you go if, faced with the evil of living, you offer hasty and wrong remedies, such as easy access to death, a convenient solution that appears sweet, but is actually more bitter than the waters of the sea?”.
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