European Parliament elections will be held next spring, followed by the Hungarian EU presidency, Judit Varga noted.Continue reading
The European Union calls itself a community of values while increasingly denying universal values, Lőrinc Nacsa, vice chairman of the KDNP parliamentary group, said on Friday in Budapest.
Speaking at a conference on Pope Benedict XVI’s social critique and vision of Europe, jointly organized by the Christian Democratic Institute and the St. Stephen’s Institute, the Christian Democratic politician said Europe was practicing a strange form of apostasy if it thought that the Christianity that once gave it a solid foundation, elevated it and made it great, could now be locked away in a museum behind a glass case.
In recent decades, European left-liberal politics has become an intellectual mainstream that has moved beyond politics into culture, the media, and, in many places, the churches.
It has created a canon of liberal politics that has been able to force the Christian democratic politics of Western Europe to conform.
These parties have lost their identity and compass.
In his view, the crisis of Christian democracy in Western Europe is precisely that it has ceased to be a Christian democracy because it has abandoned its main goal, which is to represent Christian values in politics.
Lőrinc Nacsa emphasized that Christianity is the past, present, and future of Europe. The European Union itself is a Christian democratic innovation invented by Christian democratic politicians and parties.
Ernő Schaller-Baross, Fidesz MEP, said that the three pillars of European identity mentioned by Pope Benedict XVI – human dignity, family and religion – are part of Christian thought, on which Europe’s past, future, and present are based.
During the conference, Reformed Bishop Zoltán Balog, Greek Catholic Bishop Fülöp Kocsis and Roman Catholic Bishop Balázs Levente Martos spoke about Pope Benedict XVI and the challenges facing Christianity.
Speaking on the future of Christianity, Fülöp Kocsis said it is important that Christian communities remain vibrant and attractive oases in the face of Europe’s spiritual and emotional “desertification.”
Martos said that while he sees the church as a community as an effective means of salvation, he believes that the “hunger for individual experience” that characterizes our times must be taken seriously. Young people who seek that special oasis in the church are looking for and want to experience a very intimate religiosity.
Bishop Balog called the inner renewal of the Church a central theme. He said that
an interesting experiment is underway in Hungary on how to combine the structural strengthening of Christian communities, which the government sees as its task, and inner renewal.
Via MTI, Featured Image via Facebook/Balog Zoltán