The European Union at 50.

"The only difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time," observed American philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand.

She might have been describing the European Union which celebrated its 50th anniversary on March 25.

Like other fifty-year-olds, the EU has become increasingly sclerotic, its arteries ever more diseased with the accumulating plaque of bureaucracy. In its resolute embrace of secularism, it has also cut itself off from the living water of Jesus Christ which means its death is also a matter of time.

Pope Benedict XVI said as much when on March 25 he strongly criticized the European Union for excluding a mention of God and Europe's Christian roots in declarations marking the anniversary of its founding. In a toughly-worded speech to European bishops, Benedict said Europe was committing a form of "apostasy of itself."

His Holiness warned that the bloc was headed down a slippery slope of indifference and said it could not deny its "historical, cultural and moral identity" that Christianity helped forge. "A community that builds itself without respecting the true dignity of the human being, forgetting that each person is created in the image of God, ends up doing good for no one," he said.

Although he did not refer specifically to the damage, both economic and personal, already wrought by the secularist EU, its open border policy is just one example. This dysfunctional policy has led to out-of-control migration from poorer EU countries such as Poland, Bulgaria and Romania, to richer EU countries such as Britain, Italy and Germany.

While Britain benefits economically from an influx of young Polish, Bulgarian and Romanian workers, their families and their countries are further impoverished by their absence, as evidenced most recently by shocking reports that, since Romania's admission to the EU in January, hundreds of thousands of Romanian parents are leaving their children behind to search for better jobs. Abandoned to fend for themselves, some of these unhappy children, unable to cope without their parents, are committing suicide.

The Romanian government says that 38,000 families have officially registered as having at least one parent out of the country looking for work, but the children's group Alternative Sociale, which first raised the alarm, estimates that the real figure is ten times that.

But few were paying attention during the EU's anniversary weekend as pundits desperately tried to generate some semblance of festivity by reminding the EU's 450-million citizens of its achievements--namely better produce in supermarkets and cheap flights to continental destinations. Yet such superficial perks were achievable through mere trade agreements, a fact the Norwegians and the Swiss have long understood and why, as non-EU members, their economies are faring so much better than their EU neighbours.

And many Europeans are now realising this--that the sacrifice of their Christian heritage and their sovereignty in exchange for material benefits and onerous taxation was no bargain.

There is also growing resentment among Europeans towards the increasingly oppressive influence of EU ideology which is socialist, statist, and politically correct. For example, France has passed hate speech laws ostensibly protecting homosexuals and Britain has passed similar laws governing race and religious speech which, as England's Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor recently pointed out, are essentially undemocratic.

"We are being asked to accept a different version of our democracy, one in which diversity and equality are held to be at odds with religion," he said. "What looks like liberality is in reality a radical explusion of religion from the public sphere."

It is this deepening concern and gloom among Europeans and Britons that accounted for the spectacularly joyless birthday celebrations centred in Berlin where German president Angela Merkel reaffirmed her commitment to reviving an EU constitution--which France and the Netherlands have already thunderously rejected in referendums. Not that such democratic demonstrations would discourage Merkel, whose East German totalitarian roots occasionally show.

True, there is no European KGB. Yet. But time will tell. During the celebrations, Merkel made yet another call for a standing European army to, one supposes, eclipse NATO. She also called for "ever closer ties" among EU members which means ever more centralised controls over daily lives.

As for the euro, seen by EU enthusiasts as a great triumph, a majority within member nations such as France want to go back to their original currencies.

What are the chances that the Eurocrats and European elite will allow this to happen? About as high as Europeans rioting for less bread and more taxes.

Paula Adamick is a professional journalist. She writes from London, England, where she publishes the monthly Canada Post.