Europe will stay Christian inspired
Montblanc Updated: 2004-05-26 09:50
I just can not see what is suddenly wrong from a Chinese stand point, if some Europeans do not want to favor Christianity in their new common constitution.
This constitution has to be religiously neutral, as there are three major Christian fractions in Europe, Protestants and Catholics in West Europe and with the present and future enlargement of the Union towards eastern Europe , the Orthodox Christians become a sizable number. Then come on top of the tree majors, many smaller Christian faiths groups (Sects) differing in certain aspects.
Do readers on this Forums know, that in France, the second largest religion after Catholicism is Islam, with about 10 million faithful, bigger in number than Protestantism ? In Germany too, the Islam is the religion of millions ( about 3 Million). The new constitution is supposed to be the constitution of all religions, as of agnostics too.
The new European constitution is also supposed to respect the so called "Subsidarisme", which means that the Union is not supposed to mix into things, which are better or as well dealt with on a lower government level. That means that every member state can have its own constitution and if this constitution is already favoring Christianism, it can stay as it is. Below the national constitution you have in several federally organized European states, constitutions for the sub national entities, called "L?nder", or "cantons" or something similar. They also have constitutions which are at varying degrees pro Christian, but rarely outright secular.
Keeping the new European Constitution "secular" does neither mean that there can not exist, like in the past, very strong political parties with Christian denominations, like "Christian social" , "Christian conservative" and so forth.
They facing generally "secular" minded leftist parties, including in some European countries real "communist parties".
But as one says, that Socialism and Communism has also a lot of Christian elements in it, Europe is und will stay far away from a weakening of Christianism if the new constitution does not favor this religion.
Anyway. It is not yet the Unionist constitution who makes or unmakes Christians in Europe. If the Churches get emptier and emptier, it is because the actual European Christianism is giving less and less answers on how to deal with today's problems.
The above content represents the view of the author only. |
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