Fr Anthony Paganoni, Scalabrinian, begins a series for The Record this week reflecting on what, if any, future the Church has in Europe and why this is important for us. This week: Is Europe on the sick list?
By Fr Anthony Paganoni
For some years now the Vatican’s central office has been publishing an annual report, detailing the most minute components and developments within the worldwide Catholic community. However this report may not cover the most contemporary activity. But despite the slightly out-of-date information, aficionados of statistics can feast their eyes and minds on the wealth of data it provides.
I am not implying that this series of articles is the outcome of rummaging around in that mine of information. Rather, some American writers are becoming increasingly curious about Europe. A notable example is Philip Jenkins’ recent book God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam and Europe’s Religious Crisis, which happens to be one of the sources at my disposal. But even that source, along with the Vatican reports, would leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that in Europe (and also in Oceania, unlike other regions of the world), the word decline has become all too familiar over the last few decades.
Less priests, less people attending church, less young men entering the seminary, less membership in lay organisation, – and less revenue. Numerous other publications convey the same message: Europe’s Catholicism and Christianity in general appear to be on the verge of radical change. Simply change – or gradual disappearance?
Shortly before his election as Pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger published a little volume under the title Europe Today and Tomorrow.
The book evokes the continent’s Christian roots, but also sounds a wake-up call: without a return to its spiritual foundations, Europe’s moral and political disintegration is all but inevitable. Secularists and atheists, the fastest-growing groups compared to the major and minor religious denominations, would argue that Europe’s Christian roots have had fluctuating fortunes during the past 20 centuries, and indeed that its roots could doubtless be found elsewhere, beyond the domain of Christendom.
The reality is that, in a very real sense, Europe’s civil societies and religious organisations have always found their rhythms, mutually adapting when not shaping historical decisions.
Instances of interference between the secular and sacred spheres have always abounded within the same borders: on the one hand self-serving states and on the other followers of the self-giving Christ. People and nations are defined by shared memory. But does this imply that a mere recollecting of its past within Christendom will be sufficient for Catholicism in Europe to remain afloat?
Some years ago, a wise observer posed this question: “Suppose instead of trying to understand the Gospel from the point of view of our culture, we tried to understand our culture from the point of view of the Gospel?”
The way we choose to answer the question may be crucial for the survival of Christianity in the “old continent”.
To be continued…