Madam, - Letters from Gerard Arthurs and Dermot Casey (October 18th) objected to Dana Rosemary Scallon's call for the recognition of a Christian Europe in the new EU constitution. I agree with them but from an exactly opposite point of view, and indeed from Dana's own point of view.
Madam, - Letters from Gerard Arthurs and Dermot Casey (October 18th) objected to Dana Rosemary Scallon's call for the recognition of a Christian Europe in the new EU constitution. I agree with them but from an exactly opposite point of view, and indeed from Dana's own point of view.
Europe is not Christian in faith, morals or laws and even if Mr Arthurs and Mr Casey are happy with the notion of a Christian heritage, let me say that without a living faith, there is no Christianity.
They both assume that the secular humanism that constitutes the main source of Europe's values is sufficient to include values cherished by believing Christians, but every Christian church that has endorsed this viewpoint has been sucked dry and become a religion of myth and a service of comfort.
Furthermore, values represent the "ought to" or "must do/must not do" moral perception rather than just the things we like to do, and anyone who has campaigned against divorce or abortion knows how coercive this humanist morality can be.
It is an illusion that we can treat all beliefs equally (even fantasies?) and that we can tolerate every religion on its own terms. That is not the experience of Catholics whose values most certainly are not tolerated or respected by secular humanists when they have the power to impose their own will on the laws and policies of the country.
Mr Arthurs and Mr Casey refer to religious wars in Europe but these were also political wars and the theological and moral differences involved were not trivial or fantastical. Overtly religious wars have stopped in Europe because the Catholics lost. The secular powers have agreed that religion should be trivialised and maginalised and that our core values should be based on the New Man and the democratic vision with no duty to God at all.
It is time the illusion of Christian Europe was stripped away, precisely as the draft constitution of the EU proposes and it can only enlighten religious people to the reality of their place, when it is made clear to them that the moral culture of their political establishment is openly godless. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN MCCRORY, Castlemurray, Strabane, Co Tyrone.