The world needs the Northern Ireland peace process to work to show that Christians can co-exist together, Pope Benedict told President McAleese yesterday during a 35 minute meeting.He also complimented Ireland on its White Paper on development aid and expressed his hope that this aid would continue in partnership with Irish missionaries whose work has been so well-recognised throughout the decades.
The Pope and the President also discussed the ‘structured dialogue’ that had begun between Church and state which, according to a Vatican statement, was seen as “a promising way toward a positive contribution of churches to the life of society.”
The statement indicated that the Pope and the Irish president had also discussed the peace process in Northern Ireland and the religious heritage of Europe.
According to President McAleese, the Pope also indicated that the Irish bishops had invited him to visit Ireland and he added: "We must see what is possible."
The President told him: "I, the Irish people and the Government would welcome this visit and support it in every way possible."
McAleese brought the German-born Pope a book by a German who came to live in Ireland after the Second World War and a Waterford crystal cross.
The Pope gave her a 16th century etching of the restoration of St Peter’s Basilica.
Last night, during an address to the European bishops (COMECE) during a congress celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, President McAleese said the Treaty could be seen as a living testament to the “resilience of a value system based on reconciliation and the dignity of the individual which continued to put out green shoots even in the face of brute evil which had mocked Europe’s Christian heritage and confounded the great commandment to love one another.”
Citing among the achievements of the Union: a collegial partnership between bitter enemies who fought two atrocious World Wars, now grown to a membership of 27 states, the single market, the euro, fifty years of peace and fifty years working together, the President said the Union re-introduced the concept of love, "not as an emotion but as a verb, a doing word, a living discipline in which the everyday, institutionalised practice of partnership, co-operation wouldconsolidate a humanly decent common European homeland made up of good neighbours".
The fathers of the European Union, were not deterred when an ambitious scheme for a political union was rejected by France in 1953 but “by working through realpolitik with a dogged persistence” continued the slow process.
“It remains true today that we must work with the world as we find it and yet still work towards remaking it as we would like it to be,” commented the President.
Against the background of European history, conflict among EU Member States is today unthinkable, she said.
France and Germany had overcome historic rivalries, Europe had helped Spain, Greece and Portugal in ending dictatorships, and it helped the ending of communist regimes.
Ireland had been transformed from a poor to a prosperous nation, and the Union "was entitled to take considerable credit for the altered relationship between Ireland and Great Britain."
Out of this friendship between came the temperate, painstaking diplomacy and common focus which produced the Good Friday Agreement, "a brilliant example of the new European politics of diversity managed by consensus and underpinned by structures which embed a culture of civilised discourse.”
However this was not an ‘end of history’ type moment. Some Europeans felt integration had gone to far, others that it had not gone far enough.
Europe had a duty to the rest of the world – for example in giving a lead in facing up to the threat of climate change, one of the ‘gravest challenges our planet has ever faced’.
The President urged the "speedy resolution of the constitutional issue" so that the Union would be freed up to "get on with constructing the best narrative possible both within Europe and on the global stage".
She highlighted the important role played by religion, by churches and interfaith dialogue, which was now part of a recognised structured process under Article 1 – 52 of the draft Constitutional Treaty.
“The immediate implication of institutionalised dialogue with the faith communities is that it acknowledges in a concrete way the mutuality of the State, secular and religious spheres and creates a forum in which the debate about the role and extent of the reach of each can be progressed coherently.”
The EU’s readiness to engage with churches and faith communities was an important recognition of the considerable moral influence of faith communities as well as their great contribution to civic strength and well-being.
”There are those who believe that neither work and productivity, nor bread and circuses answer our unending search for meaning, the yearnings of our ‘pilgrim souls’,” remarked the President who went on to talk about the dialogue between faith and reason.
“Reason sets a limit to the claims of religion and religion sets a limit to the claims of reason. In this the most educated age ever in Europe we have a fascinating debate to look forward to in the fruitful and hopefully respectful interaction of the two,” she said.
President McAleese also highlighted the vital importance of interfaith and interdenominational dialogue.
“There is a raw, nervy touchiness which is in need of healing, in need of being ministered to.
Governments hold some of the cards in promoting mutual understanding across geographic and spiritual borders but they do not hold them all. The churches arguably hold the aces.”
(Article 1,100)
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