Bells of Europe: Reasons for the Holy Father's Hope for a New Awakening of Christianity in Europe

By Vatican Information Service
10/17/2012
Vatican Information Service

Faith in Jesus Christ, is quite simply true; and the truth never ages

The first reason for my hope consists in the fact that the desire for God, the search for God, is profoundly inscribed into each human soul and cannot disappear. Certainly we can forget God for a time, lay Him aside and concern ourselves with other things, but God never disappears. Among the new generations we are seeing the reawakening of this restlessness, and they too begin their journey making new discoveries of the beauty of Christianity; not a cut-price or watered-down version, but Christianity in all its radicalism and profundity

Faith in Jesus Christ, is quite simply true; and the truth never ages. (Pope Benedict XVI)

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VATICAN CITY (VIS) - At the end of Monday afternoon's session of the Synod of Bishops, a film entitled "Bells of Europe - Campane d'Europa" was shown in a special screening for the Synod Fathers. The film, which deals with the relationship between Christianity, European culture and the future of the continent, includes extracts from a series of interviews with important religious leaders from the main Christian confessions: Pope Benedict XVI, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, Patriarch Kirill I of Moscow, Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury and Lutheran Bishop Huber; and with leading figures from the world of politics and culture.

The thread binding their reflections together is the sound of bells ringing out from various parts of the continent, the casting of a bell in the ancient foundry of Agnone, and the music of the Estonian composer Arvo Part.

The film, based on an idea by Fr. Germano Marani, has been produced by the Vatican Television Centre with the support of a number of different institutions including the Gregorian Foundation. The distribution rights, both as a television transmission and as a home video, belong to RAI Cinema.
The full text of the interview with Benedict XVI is given below.

Question - Your Holiness, your Encyclicals present a compelling view of man: a man inhabited by God's charity, a man whose reason is broadened by the experience of faith, a man who possesses social responsibility thanks to the dynamism of charity received and given in truth. Holiness, it is from this anthropological standpoint - in which the evangelical message exalts all the laudable aspects of humankind, purifying the grime that covers the authentic countenance of man created in the image and likeness of God - that you have repeatedly stated that this rediscovery of the human countenance, of evangelical values, of the deepest roots of Europe, is a cause of great hope for the European continent and not only for the European continent. Can you explain to us the reasons for your hope?

Answer - The first reason for my hope consists in the fact that the desire for God, the search for God, is profoundly inscribed into each human soul and cannot disappear. Certainly we can forget God for a time, lay Him aside and concern ourselves with other things, but God never disappears. St. Augustine's words are true: we men are restless until we have found God. This restlessness also exists today, and is an expression of the hope that man may, ever and anew, even today, start to journey towards this God.

The second reason for my hope lies in the fact that the Gospel of Jesus Christ, faith in Jesus Christ, is quite simply true; and the truth never ages. It too may be forgotten for a time, it may be laid aside and attention may turn to other things, but the truth as such does not disappear. Ideologies have their days numbered. They appear powerful and irresistible but, after a certain period, they wear out and lose their energy because they lack profound truth. They are particles of truth, but in the end they are consumed.

The Gospel, on the other hand, is true and can therefore never wear out. In each period of history it reveals new dimensions, it emerges in all its novelty as it responds to the needs of the heart and mind of human beings, who can walk in this truth and so discover themselves. It is for this reason, therefore, that I am convinced there will also be a new springtime for Christianity.

A third reason, an empirical reason, is evident in the fact that this sense of restlessness today exists among the young. Young people have seen much - the proposals of the various ideologies and of consumerism - and they have become aware of the emptiness and insufficiency of those things. Man was created for the infinite, the finite is too little.

Thus, among the new generations we are seeing the reawakening of this restlessness, and they too begin their journey making new discoveries of the beauty of Christianity; not a cut-price or watered-down version, but Christianity in all its radicalism and profundity. Thus I believe that anthropology, as such, is showing us that there will always be a new reawakening of Christianity. The facts confirm this in a single phrase: Deep foundations. That is Christianity; it is true and the truth always has a future.

Question - Your Holiness, you have repeatedly said that Europe has had, and continues to have, a cultural influence on the entire human race, and it cannot but feel a particular sense of responsibility, not only for its own future, but also for that of humankind as a whole. Looking ahead, is it possible to discern the contours of the visible witness Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants in Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals must show as, living the Gospel values in which they believe, they contribute to the building of a Europe faithful to ...

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1 - 8 of 8 Comments

DLL
6 months ago
No one can love a theology,the mere idea that presents God as A Something to be considered as a mere possibility,as some source of creation. Evolution is a theory of creation a mere explanation of what might have happened through time. Neither is lovable in theology or theory,as such both get a yawn instead of an enthusiastic response. God became incarnate in form and substance,in the form of Jesus Christ,a real human person,that all can choose to love or hate. The second person of the Holy Spirit is real never the less. Jesus transcends mere theology. Mystically Jesus is still real,body,blood,soul and Divinity through the power of the Holy Spirit in the Holy Eucharist. Excitement is to attend Holy Mass and to come to know what that means. Then it all gets real and personal. God through Christ becomes real to our human senses,He touches us through Christ,it becomes personal,than we love,we can really love God,as Father,Son,and Holy Spirit. Faith like this,in a true bond with Christ,is not to be lost,as it is real,it redeems us and purifies our souls. In God we trust,how could there be any other love?
Tommy
6 months ago
I love the Catechism of the church
but to quote 841 of the Catechism as a definitive when it in fact contains a doubting thomas statement "these profess to hold the faith of Abraham" which if we accept it (and I don't) must therefore point to
844 of the Catechism
In their religious behavior, however, men also display the limits and errors that disfigure the image of God in them:-- Very often, deceived by the Evil One, men have become vain in their reasonings, and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and served the creature rather than the Creator. Or else, living and dying in this world without God, they are exposed to ultimate despair
Mathew Thankachen O.Praem
6 months ago
Pope Benedict's Optimism to re-evangelize Europe on the ground of 'Natural Law embedded in human nature to seek God' as the foundation is a sublime thought, elevating the believers, atheists, materialists and humanists alike, for no one can deny his own nature. However, it is observed in Europe, those seekers are not seeking God in Christ, Church or in the Word of God, rather they turn to Hindu Ashram, yoga system or followers of Gurus or fakirs to " satiate and to find serenity" which they could not find in the sex, wealth, drugs and other comforts offered by science and various ideologies. The present scenario of conflict between the " double souls" of Europe viz. the " abstract, anti- religious, anti-historical" and "Christian rational, critical soul" are to be dealt with sympathetic dialogue, for the Church and family are equally responsible for the present state of affairs. The ' status quo" role of the " parish administration" of clerics are to be attuned to dynamic involvement and transformation in all spheres of personal and family life in such a way they grasp the " rationality of faith" the Church stands for. Actually, the young generation is not ' anti- historical', rather they " lost the root" as their parents and fore-parents did not reminded them of their past as did by the elders of Israel of the Liberative deeds of Yahweh.So, they are historically " dislocated" which could be corrected through " rational dialogue and exchanges" in the parish and university level. where there are less young and dynamic priests, the few catholic youth could be trained for such catalyst agents among the youth. Gradually they will come to realize " the truth expounded by science is not in opposition to the truth propounded by the Church as the former seeks the glory of man in relation with the physics and cosmos around while the latter is the ultimate source of all reasons and psychic seeking like the waves and ocean where one is not there without the other, although both are distinct. The malady of Europe is that they have divorced scientific truth and Religious truth, materialism and spiritualism, Reason and Faith, individual and family and the macro family, the Church. The very Religion (Relegare) stands to " relate, integrate, tie the knot together". The integrity of reason and faith, science and religion, reason and passion, individuality and socio-politiical life which the US is trying today not to be thwarted such integrity of moral and family life by the political parties for their petty vote bank politics. only then can we hear the " Bell ringing in Europe" or elsewhere, for Jesus, the Wisdom and Truth embodied is the only " bell of the conscience" that can set man Free, make this earth " a heaven".
Mathew Thankachen O.Praem.
patricia jones
6 months ago
Since I do not have a religion - I am a Spiritualist - it has long been my opinion that religion per se - is devisive and the bane of mankind. Religion has caused more world wars than enough. If people have a religion they want to follow so be it - but let others alone to worship the One God in their way. The very fact that not all religious beliefs incorporates our Lord Jesus Christ does not in any way detract from sincere faith. In my opinion the Islamic faith wants to dominate as the ONE AND ONLY FAITH - therefore it is, as Tommy says ' the antithesis of Christianity'- and other faiths. It attempts to do this is a most controlling, hatefilled and murderous manner with extreme acts of terrorisim against all who would stand in its way. I am glad I have the opportunity to live in these times and be part of the preparation for the coming influences of a SPIRITUAL NATURE that must eventually rule the World
100% haram
6 months ago
Some Ideologies indeed have their days numbered and chief among these is the ideology we know as islam. Read the quran and the contents thereof which blaspheme the Christian belief in Christ as being merely a man, not divine in any way, a lesser prophet than Mohammed, and did not die on the cross at all.

Can G-d lie? If the triune G-d is TRUE, then allaah MUST BE FALSE. They are not one and the same, or else G-d has lied to us, telling us Jesus is both His Son, but also not His Son, divine, but merely a common mortal man with no divine aspect, that He both died an atoning death on the cross, and also did not die to save us.You simply can NOT have it both ways. If Christianity is really true, the ideology of islam is really false.

Then ask yourself who in all of creation sets himself up to be a god, or pretends to be G-d, and thereby misleads seekers. Then you may discern the true identity of allaah. Even the elect will be deceived. Yes, that is clear.
CarolAnn
6 months ago
This is a good reflection on Europe today. I like the two souls idea, especially how it describes the non-Godly one, "one is abstract anti-historical reason."

Part of the problem is that this mindset has taken hold so widely and deeply, in the press, in academics, with politicians, the media and mainline churches that Europeans are estranged from God. The very notion of God or belief in Him is antiquated, anathema, something to be ridiculed.

Unfortunately, so many point to the number of inter-European and other wars and atrocities committed in Christianity's name, not that this has always been the true root of all these wars. The European Union is essentially an effort to avoid the inter-European wars that had wracked the continent for so many centuries. In a sense, then, the EU has been subtly or overtly planted in the minds of its indigenous citizens as the antithesis or rejection of Christianity, although it need not be.

Whatever the reasons, this has left Europeans in a largely spiritual vacuum, and the need for a constant supply of oil and cheap labor has been deluging Europe with an ever growing supply of Muslims, with their intense, fundamentalist, often fanatic, violent, supremacist ideology, and the irony is that Islam, to a growing degree, is filling this spiritual vacuum.

The pro-Islam, politically correct attitude and the money supplied by Islamic oil countries and their political operatives to keep it that way is so pervasive, that it has stifled the need for an honest conversation about how antithetical Islam is to Christians AND "abstract anti-historical reason" people, alike (although many true Christians already know this).

It would be an unparalleled irony for Europe to have struggled for centuries, fighting off Islam, developing a sense of sensitivity and honor for individual, women's and children's rights, educational systems of great depth and breadth, to lose it all to such a retrograde and barbaric religious ideology as Islam. Yet Europe is doing just that.

Christianity -- especially The Church should NOT apologize to Islam for saying the truth about it, although it makes the massively puerile Muslims "insulted" and "angry". Not only is this allowing Islam to continue to take over, which is its GOAL, but this is bad for Muslims as well, who live in a dark, oppressive void of their own. They MUST hear the truth about their awful religion and history, instead of being brainwashed that theirs is actually a religion of peace and Christianity somehow less so.

Christianity and the Church might also take some note of the behavioral successes of Islam, in that Islam is, to a great degree, a system of law. Every part of every day for a believing Muslim is infused with rituals (prayer five times a day, washing, etc.), a system of discipline that is very appealing to Europeans who are without this and are spiritually adrift.

If a vibrant Christianity dies, history has shown time and time again, that Islam will not only replace it, but Islam will destroy the remaining adherents, too.

No apologies.
Per
6 months ago
Catechism of the Catholic Church para 841:
"The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day."
Tommy
6 months ago
A quote from the
ADDRESS OF POPE JOHN PAUL II TO THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE COLLOQUIUM
ON HOLINESS IN CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM»
Quote...As I have often said in other meetings with Muslims, your God and ours is one and the same, and we are brothers and sisters in the faith of Abraham....Unquote

Some statements from the church need clarification- God's covenant was with Abraham,Isaac and Jacob not with Ishmael whom God specifically ruled out.
Muslims believe in a single god called Alla,they do not believe in Jesus but a character called Iesa (born to Miriam the sister of Moses 1500 years before the Christian Jesus was born) and they believe that the trinity consists of Father God,Mother God (Miriam) and iesa
Sura 5:116 And (remember) when Allâh will say (on the Day of Resurrection): "O 'Iesa
, son of Maryam! Did you say unto men: 'Worship me and my mother as two gods besides Allâh?'

So you see poor old alla was confused as to the Trinity.

Unless we are crystal clear that islam is the antithesis of Christianity and Muhammed the antithesis of Jesus the future is bleak

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