Pope Francis expressed his vision of the European Union during his speech on Saturday at the end of a two-day conference at the Vatican called “Re-Thinking Europe”. The pontiff urged rediscovering unity if EU wants a solid future.
Pope called all the leaders of Europe to unify, the Catalan developments and news weren’t too inspiring this week, so the unity of Europe should be kept. Francis urged the EU to “recover the sense of being a single community” if it wants a future of prosperity and fairness for all.
The two-day conference at the Vatican gathered dozens of participants attended, including European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, the vice president of the EC, Frans Timmermans, and religious leaders. In his address, the pope told about the unity and wisdom but did not specifically mention the situation in Spain or Britain, the most discussible European topics.
The pontiff spoke of solidarity, teamwork and mutual sacrifice, the Catalan situation and Brexit are the most bright examples when the political leaders call for destroying the unity, making their regions weaker and plunging them into chaos.
“A European Union that, in facing its crises, fails to recover a sense of being a single community that sustains and assists its members – and not just a collection of small interest groups – would miss out not only on one of the greatest challenges of its history, but also on one of the greatest opportunities for its own future,”
Pope Francis said.
Pontiff warned as well against the dangers to Europe posed by populist anti-immigrant parties, extremist and populist groups. According to the head of Catholic Church, politics had often gone astray, losing their wisdom and vision,
“Sadly, all too often we see how politics is becoming instead a forum for clashes between opposing forces,”
Francis added.
