Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Huesca (Fides Service) - Commenting Pope Benedict’s Angelus address last Sunday when he relaunched the call to Europe made by John Paul II in 1982: “Europe be what you are, never betray your Christian roots”, Bishop Jesús Sanz Montes, OFM of Huesca and Jaca said the Christian People has roots and these roots must be loved.
In a comment with the title “Love the roots of the People to which we Christians belong” the Bishop said: “These words are a warning and an exhortation to this old Europe of ours which continues to ignore the roots of its history”. Europe can hold aloft its titles and heraldry, its laws and arts but to little effect “if it ignores its bi-millennial origin, its twenty centuries of history” forgetting “the builder: the Christian”. “There is a move to bury Europe’s Christian footprints” said Bishop Sanz, but “notwithstanding its errors and sins, Christian history succeeded in tracing paths of freedom, dignity, goodness and truth” the Bishop said adding that the government in Spain is backing this move with recent laws which he dencounces as “legal” attacks on the nation’s Christian roots. “The aim is to eliminate those Christian traces which made our people a Christian People. We see this in the legislation they are imposing not for the benefit of a presumed majority denied its fundamental rights, or to respond to a presumed social demand which might justify these laws. They do this determined to attack the sole institution which confutes so many extremes”. Nevertheless “they cannot silence a people which has come out of its passivity and anonymity now that what is being attacked is something so important, so all important as the family, marriage and upbringing of children ”. Bishop Sanz warns of the danger entailed “this attack will destroy society”. To adulterate what is established by God and demanded by life - the Bishop concludes - is to undermine the very foundations of society robbing people of the truth. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 26/7/2005 - Righe 24, Parole 346)
