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Pope, in France, Urges Europe to Open Its Arms to Refugees At European Parliament, Pope Bluntly Critiques a Continent’s Malaise
(about 7 hours later)
STRASBOURG, France — In a major address to the European Parliament on Tuesday, Pope Francis warned that Europe had become too “fearful and self-absorbed,” and that it needed to recover its confidence and give “acceptance and assistance” to people fleeing war and poverty. STRASBOURG, France — The last pope to address the European Parliament, John Paul II, rejoiced at what he described as a “special moment in the history of this continent” in October 1988, as Communism was crumbling and Europe was drawing closer together.
Asserting that Europe had lost its vitality and often seemed “elderly and haggard,” the pope took a swipe at technocrats who seek to draw together Europe through rigid rules and regulations, warning that “the great ideas which once inspired Europe seem to have lost their attraction, only to be replaced by the bureaucratic technicalities of its institutions.” On Tuesday, after a break of more than a quarter-century, another pope, Francis, returned here to the same setting, but with a grimly somber diagnosis.
Even as the pope condemned European attitudes toward immigrants, he embraced one of the favorite themes of populist politicians who are hostile to the European Union. He warned that the 28-nation bloc faced “growing mistrust on the part of citizens toward institutions considered to be aloof, engaged in laying down rules perceived as insensitive to individual peoples, if not downright harmful.” Europe, he declared, has lost its way, its energies sapped by economic crisis and a remote, technocratic bureaucracy. It is increasingly a bystander in a world that has become “less and less Eurocentric,” and that frequently looks at the Continent “with aloofness, mistrust and even, at times, suspicion.”
Gently delivered, it was nevertheless a failing grade.
“In many quarters we encounter a general impression of weariness and aging, of a Europe which is now a ‘grandmother,’ no longer fertile and vibrant,” the pope, an Argentine, told the Parliament, where speeches usually trade in platitudes or mind-numbing technicalities.
“The time has come for us to abandon the idea of a Europe which is fearful and self-absorbed,” the pope added.
While the Roman Catholic Church has been losing followers in Europe for decades, what the pope says still carries weight. His speech, which he described as a “message of hope and encouragement,” amounted to a strikingly blunt critique of Europe’s malaise from the first non-European pontiff in more than a millennium.
John Thavis, an American writer on the Catholic Church and the author of “The Vatican Diaries,” said Pope Francis had a very different take on Europe than his two immediate predecessors, a Pole and then a German, for whom “Europe was the center of the universe.”
By contrast, Francis gave little direct encouragement to calls for “more Europe,” and instead echoed some of the complaints from surging populist politicians who view the European Union as a meddlesome force that inhibits rather than promotes ambition and economic growth.
“In recent years, as the European Union has expanded, there has been growing mistrust on the part of citizens toward institutions considered to be aloof, engaged in laying down rules perceived as insensitive to individual peoples, if not downright harmful,” Francis said, dressed in white clerical robes as he addressed the packed hall.
Public discontent with the European Union’s bureaucracy, widely seen as wasteful, elitist and self-serving, helped propel France’s far-right National Front party and several other once-fringe nationalist groups to strong gains in May elections for the European Parliament. In France, the National Front came ahead of all other parties.Public discontent with the European Union’s bureaucracy, widely seen as wasteful, elitist and self-serving, helped propel France’s far-right National Front party and several other once-fringe nationalist groups to strong gains in May elections for the European Parliament. In France, the National Front came ahead of all other parties.
The European Parliament, which meets both here in this city near the German border and in the Belgian capital, Brussels, has become an emblem of the waste and detachment from ordinary people’s concerns. Those worries have drained support from the so-called European project, a half-century-long push for greater integration. The European Parliament, which maintains huge premises and staffs in both this French city near the German border and the Belgian capital, Brussels, has itself become an emblem of the waste and detachment from ordinary people’s concerns that have drained support from a half-century push for greater integration and aided the rise of anti-European nationalists.
Francis, an Argentine who last year became the first non-European pope in more than a millennium, spent less than four hours in Strasbourg, the shortest foreign trip by a modern pope. After addressing the European Parliament, he spoke to the Council of Europe, a second European assembly based in Strasbourg with a palatial building, little authority and virtually no resonance with the general public. In his speech, however, the pope also took aim at these populists, many of whom demand sharp curbs on immigration and denounce migrants as freeloaders, by pleading for more compassion toward immigrants.
The last time a pope addressed the European Parliament was in 1988, when Pope John Paul II faced heckling from Ian Paisley, a Protestant pastor and member of the assembly from Northern Ireland. Mr. Paisley accused the pope of being “the Antichrist,” and secularists denounced him over his insistent warnings that Europe faced ruin if it did not recover its Christian roots. The plea has been a regular feature of the Vatican’s agenda since Francis became pope after the surprise retirement of Benedict XVI last year. On his first trip outside Rome after his election, the new pope denounced the “globalization of indifference” during a visit to the Italian island of Lampedusa, near where scores of migrants have drowned while trying to reach Europe from Africa in flimsy boats.
Francis, by contrast, faced no such disruptions and instead stirred repeated rounds of applause from members of Parliament. He referred to Europe’s Christian past and the dangers of losing it but focused instead on current issues such as poverty, immigration and joblessness. “We cannot allow the Mediterranean to become a vast cemetery,” the pope said Tuesday. “The boats landing daily on the shores of Europe are filled with men and women who need acceptance and assistance.”
John Thavis, an American writer on the Roman Catholic Church and author of “The Vatican Diaries,” said Francis had a very different take on Europe than his two immediate predecessors, a Pole and a German, for whom “Europe was the center of the universe.” He added that the European Union’s failure to find a common response to the flow of desperate migrants had led individual countries to adopt their own measures, “which fail to take into account the human dignity of immigrants and thus contribute to slave labor and continuing social tensions.”
Francis, he said, shared their concern about declining Christian faith among Europeans, but “his priorities do not include picking an ideological battle with secularists” as “he is more focused on the here and now.” Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the Parliament’s Alliance of Democrats and Liberals, said he agreed with the pope that Europe suffered from a “lack of dynamism” and seized on this to push his own stalled demands for a “new leap forward” toward greater European integration.
In his speech on Tuesday, Francis received particularly loud applause for remarks that seemed to challenge a largely German-scripted economic policy rooted in austerity as the cure to Europe’s economic ills. Mr. Verhofstadt said Europe needed “a new vision, a new ambition, exactly the same as in 1992,” when the 12 members of what is today a 28-nation bloc moved to open their economies to cross-border competition as part of efforts to create a so-called single market by December of that year.
“The time has come to promote policies which create employment, but above all, there is a need to restore dignity to labor by ensuring proper working conditions,” the pope said. Still, some of the pope’s strongest supporters in Europe are not free-market liberals like Mr. Verhofstadt, but leftists like the Greek opposition leader Alexis Tsipras, a self-described atheist who visited the Vatican in September and hailed Francis as the “pontiff of the poor.”
After his selection as pope last year, Francis signaled his interest in the plight of the dispossessed by making his first trip outside Rome to the Italian island of Lampedusa, near where scores of immigrants have drowned while trying to reach Europe from Africa in flimsy boats. He denounced what he called the “globalization of indifference” to the suffering of immigrants, and he returned to the theme in Strasbourg. The pope won particularly loud applause on Tuesday with remarks that seemed to challenge a largely German-scripted policy rooted in austerity as the cure to Europe’s economic ills.
“We cannot allow the Mediterranean to become a vast cemetery,” he said. “The boats landing daily on the shores of Europe are filled with men and women who need acceptance and assistance.” “The time has come to promote policies which create employment,” he said, “but above all, there is a need to restore dignity to labor by ensuring proper working conditions.”
He added that the European Union’s failure to find a common solution had led individual countries to adopt their own measures, “which fail to take into account the human dignity of immigrants and thus contribute to slave labor and continuing social tensions.” In a second speech Tuesday to the Council of Europe, another Strasbourg assembly with a palatial building but little resonance among ordinary people, Francis said, “It is my profound hope that the foundations will be laid for a new social and economic cooperation.”
While generally welcomed, the pope still hit a few discordant notes. A lone activist from the feminist group Femen took off her shirt in the Strasbourg cathedral to protest his visit, and a left-wing French member of the Parliament, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, complained that the European Parliament had violated “the rule of secularism” by inviting Francis to speak. He noted that the Catholic Church had played an important role over centuries in providing charity for Europe’s poor but added: “How many of them there are in our streets! They ask not only for the food they need for survival, which is the most elementary of rights, but also for a renewed appreciation of the value of their own life, which poverty obscures, and a rediscovery of the dignity conferred by work.”
The European Parliament, like other European institutions, has no ban on religion but has generally shunned issues of faith, seeing them as divisive and disruptive to the goal of “ever closer union” laid down in the 1957 Treaty of Rome. Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament and Francis’ host on Tuesday, helped lead a successful campaign in 2004 to block an Italian nominee to the union’s executive arm because he had voiced personal support for the Catholic Church’s teachings on abortion and homosexuality. When John Paul II addressed the Strasbourg Parliament in 1988, he denounced Europe’s steady drift from its Christian roots, warning that the “exclusion of God from public life” imperiled the Continent’s future. His speech, though generally upbeat about the drawing together of Eastern and Western Europe, drew strong criticism from secularists who insisted that religion had no place in European institutions.
Francis, by contrast, faced no such opposition and instead stirred repeated rounds of applause from members of Parliament. He also referred to Europe’s Christian heritage and the dangers of losing it, but focused instead on issues like poverty, immigration and joblessness.
The European Parliament has generally shunned issues of faith, seeing them as divisive and disruptive to the goal of “ever closer union” laid down in the 1957 Treaty of Rome.
Martin Shultz, the president of the European Parliament and Francis’ host on Tuesday, helped lead a successful campaign in 2004 to block an Italian nominee to the union’s executive arm because he had voiced personal support for Catholic teachings on abortion and homosexuality.
All the same, Europe remains suffused with Christianity, its landscape dotted with ancient — now mostly empty — churches, and the anthems of many countries paying homage to God.
Even the European Union’s flag — a circle of 12 yellow stars on a blue background — has a coded Christian message. Arsène Heitz, a French Catholic who designed the flag in 1955, originally for the Council of Europe, drew inspiration from Christian iconography of the Virgin Mary wearing a crown with 12 stars. But official accounts of the flag today make no reference to this.