God and the European Union.Brussels--A news report from Brussels on May 30 said that God has no place in the European Union European Union (EU), name given since the ratification (Nov., 1993) of the Treaty of European Union, or Maastricht Treaty, to the European Community . According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the long-awaited preamble to the European constitution, Europe's history is leavened leav·en n. 1. An agent, such as yeast, that causes batter or dough to rise, especially by fermentation. 2. An element, influence, or agent that works subtly to lighten, enliven, or modify a whole. tr.v. by a "spiritual impulse," but God is nowhere to be found in the document. The text, written by French politician Valery Giscard d'Estaing, is full of flowery flow·er·y adj. flow·er·i·er, flow·er·i·est 1. Of, relating to, or suggestive of flowers: a flowery perfume. 2. Abounding in or covered with flowers. 3. prose describing Europe as the continent which brought forth civilisation and which has embedded its perception of the central role of the human person in society. There is no mention that Christianity created Europe and that all its great institutions are based on Christian foundations. In response to criticism, one spokeswoman, Gisella Stuart, said, "Look, this is a legal text. I don't think we should be mixing God with politics." (Editor: These were the identical views of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau when in 1981 he fought the mention of God in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (also known as The Charter of Rights and Freedoms or simply The Charter) is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada. It forms the first part of the Constitution Act, 1982. . He lost.) Poland, the Vatican, and others are annoyed by the tone of the preamble which emphasizes Europe's "humanist inheritance" and the "philosophical currents of the Enlightenment" but says nothing about the real driving power of its civilization, Christianity. Poland's president, Aleksander Kwasniewski, denounced the godless god·less adj. 1. Recognizing or worshiping no god. 2. Wicked, impious, or immoral. god  less·ly adv. tone of the constitution, saying it was shameful to highlight the ideologies of the left but omit Europe's Christian heritage in the opening words. "I am an atheist and everybody knows it," he said, "but there are no excuses for making references to ancient Greece and Rome and the Enlightenment without making references to the Christian values which are so important to the development of Europe. The most significant feature of every city and town in Europe is either a cathedral or a church." Comment After the close of the Second World War those principally responsible for the formation of the European Union were three great Catholic leaders, Konrad Adenauer of Germany, Robert Schuman of France, and Aleide de Gasperi of Italy, together with the Catholic leaders of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. One of them, Robert Schuman, is even being considered for canonization canonization (kăn'ənĭzā`shən), in the Roman Catholic Church, process by which a person is classified as a saint. It is now performed at Rome alone, although in the Middle Ages and earlier bishops elsewhere used to canonize. (see July/August, p. 25). |
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