We need a fruitful dialogue between church and state - in Ireland and across the EU - if we are to build a Europe based on people and not money, writes Bertie Ahern
Today I have the honour of being received by Pope Benedict XVI. I am conscious, as a Catholic, of the religious significance to me personally of the successor of Saint Peter as a pastor and a teacher. As an Irish Catholic, I am especially aware of the enormous cultural and political significance of the papacy in the history of our island.
The Holy See continues to have a significant influence in Irish and European society.
The Catholic Church in Ireland has been a teacher, a nurse, a doctor and a friend to the poor and the friendless. It has also been a powerful institution that wielded great influence upon our culture and authority in our State.
Although I am a Catholic, my faith is a personal matter for me. As Taoiseach, I represent equally, not only Catholics, but those of all faiths and none. This is not only my constitutional duty; it is at the heart of my republican values.
Ireland today is a country that is changing rapidly and that even as it is embracing success is facing uncertainty too. Our Irish dilemma is not unique. It is firmly situated in a wider European debate about the future direction of European society and in particular of the European Union.
I understand that I am one of the first European heads of government to visit Pope Benedict since his installation. He is a German who has succeeded a Pole, each of whom lived as young men through the second World War. Their close co-operation and shared faith richly illustrate the "Europe of Reconciliation" we have created over the past two generations.
John Paul II, a founding father of the reunification of Europe, and Benedict XVI, a writer who explores the European identity, are strong supporters of the European project. Yet they invite us to reflect carefully on the question, "What is Europe for?" This question is, in its various forms, at the heart of public debate across the continent. Often it is expressed in very local and immediate ways that are closely related to people's lives.
The threat of globalisation to the life and culture of farmers in France, for example, or the challenges we face here in Ireland in caring adequately for our children and our elderly now that both partners are likely to be working are part of the threat we feel from change. We must deal with these issues in the context of larger concerns about our relations with America in the West, the Muslim world in the East and our complex relationship with the desperately poor countries of Africa in the South.
In taking the name Benedict, the Pope sought to root himself in the core of our shared European culture. St Benedict was the civilising force of western Europe in the dark ages, the founder in many ways of modern European culture, and is celebrated as the patron of Europe.
The Christian tradition passed down from St Benedict has within its enormous wealth and depth much of the spiritual and moral foundation that we need to face the future confidently.
There is a powerful tradition of concern about, and indeed outright opposition to, unbridled liberalism in Christian thought. In the 1930s, Pope Pius XI insisted on the fundamental value of the human being and opposed the power of capital over people. In particular, he advocated subsidiarity, namely, that decision-making should be devolved to the lowest practicable level. (Pope John Paul II further developed this teaching in our own time.) That ethos, together with the subsequent experience of world war, was a powerful influence on the founders of the European project. More recently, it strongly influenced Jacques Delors to put the case for a social Europe at the heart of our common concerns.
The Irish model of social partnership is a local but unique expression of this shared philosophy.
The evolution of this philosophical debate about the future of Europe culminated in the emergence of a proposed European constitution during the Irish presidency of the EU last year.
The debate on the European constitution has unfortunately become mired in what are essentially two separate issues. The first is about the constitution itself. That document is a fair and balanced compromise on how, as a union of 25 states, we can administer our affairs effectively.
The second issue is by far the larger one. It is about the nature and meaning of Europe itself. Ironically, putting in place a constitution that allows us to do our business more effectively would better enable us to work through the profound questions we face together.
Since the French Revolution there has been a continuing and sharp decline in the influence of Christian thought in Europe. The power of the church, like every other form of power, sometimes corrupted those that wielded it.
But it is no coincidence that the receding of the Christian conscience, coinciding with the rise of technology, resulted in repeated world war and genocide across the continent. In a culture and society where God is dead, humanity cannot truly live.
If we want a European Union that is based on people rather than money, if we want a Europe of communities rather than of companies we will have to listen again to old truths.
Here in our relatively young State we enjoy the longest period of continuity under a written constitution of any country in the European Union. Our formal dialogue with the Catholic Church has passed from being uncomfortably close to too often being almost incidental. In the past, our relations with the other churches were never those of a favoured special position. Today they are all equally close and distant.
I believe that it is a sign of maturity that the Irish State is now inaugurating a formal dialogue with the churches and faith communities as well as non-confessional organisations. This is in the spirit of Article 52 of the proposed European constitutional treaty.
We are the first member-state of the European Union to take this step. Structured dialogue with the churches offers the opportunity to listen anew in an open and transparent way to an inner voice in the Irish and European tradition.
The dialogue that I anticipate at home, and that I aspire to for the whole European Union, is that fruitful give and take of church and state, faith and reason, to which John Paul II and Benedict XVI, with other Christian leaders, have looked forward.
Our future can only be shaped with confidence when we are securely rooted in our culture and in our community. One pillar of that culture is the Christian tradition. It is a culture of community, but one with deep respect for the individual. It reminds us of our responsibility for our neighbour as well as of justice for ourselves. It is the foundation of our common European inheritance.