Question 4.88

4.88 You seem to be very critical, perhaps even a bit harsh, with regard to the development of the old Christian Europe.

I know very well that not all the aspirations permeating the Western world are bad. I would never dare to contradict John Paul II, who sought reasons for hope and encouraging signs in our world. Following Benedict XVI, I am convinced that one of the most important tasks of the Church is to make the West rediscover the radiant face of Jesus. Europe must not forget that its entire culture is imbued with Christianity and the fragrance of the Gospel. If the Old Continent cuts itself off from its roots definitively, I fear that it will cause a major crisis for all mankind, and I see some beginnings of it here and there. Who can fail to deplore the legalization of abortion and euthanasia, the new laws about marriage and the family?

I do not forget that together with my family I came to know about Christ thanks to some French missionaries. My parents and I believed thanks to Europe. My grandmother was baptized by a French priest as she was leaving this world. I might never have left my village if the Holy Ghost Fathers had not spoken about Christ to some poor villagers. How can we Africans comprehend the fact that Europeans no longer believe what they gave us so joyfully, in the worst possible conditions? Allow me to repeat: without the missionaries who came from France, I might never have known God. How can we forget this sublime heritage that the Westerners seem to leave to gather dust?

I am not the only one critical of the West. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had harsh words for those who perverted the meaning of liberty and set up a lie as a rule of life. In 1980, in his book L’erreur de l’Occident,⁷ he wrote: “The Western world has arrived at a decisive moment. Over the next few years, it will gamble the existence of the civilization that created it. I think that it is not aware of it. Time has eroded your notion of liberty. You have kept the word and devised a different notion. You have forgotten the meaning of liberty. When Europe acquired it, around the eighteenth century, it was a sacred notion. Liberty led to virtue and heroism. You have forgotten that. This liberty, which for us is still a flame that lights up our night, has become for you a stunted, sometimes disappointing reality, because it is full of imitation jewelry, wealth, and emptiness. For this ghost of the former liberty, you are no longer capable of making sacrifices but only compromises. . . Deep down, you think that liberty is won once and for all, and this is why you can afford the luxury of disdaining it. You are engaged in a formidable battle, and you behave as though it were a ping pong match.” This man who experienced repression in the gulags of the former USSR can use such language. He knows firsthand what true liberty is.

Today in Europe, there are forces in the world of finance and in the media that are trying to prevent Catholics from exercising their liberty. In France, the “Manif pour tous” [a demonstration supporting traditional marriage] offers an example of the necessary initiatives. It was a manifestation of the spirit of Christianity.