MaxedOutMama
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Europa's Bull
I am now wondering if religious freedom is effectively dead in Europe. I have written so much about the cultural, legal and social developments within the EU and its constituent countries in part because it is a sort of experiment in which we may contemplate one of our possible futures. This is valuable for us all.
The second reason is a purely selfish one. When I was in elementary school I spent a lot of time thinking about why the American Revolution came about. I wondered why and how such an apparently dramatic break with human tradition exploded on these shores. One thing that we tend to forget is that the ideology behind the American Constitution evolved before the Constitution. We look to it as the wellspring of our society (at least some do), but the real wellspring is whatever caused the Colonies to create such a document in the belief that it would work as a framework for a society.
What brings my skepticism about Europe to the foreground of my mind today is this article in the EU Observer, discussing the implications of the Charter of Fundamental Rights contained within the proposed EU Constitution. A number of advocacy groups are planning to use it to pursue liberalization of abortion laws (more restrictive than those in the US) and even such measures as an attempt to retaliate against the Catholic church for its refusal to ordain female priests:
The second reason is a purely selfish one. When I was in elementary school I spent a lot of time thinking about why the American Revolution came about. I wondered why and how such an apparently dramatic break with human tradition exploded on these shores. One thing that we tend to forget is that the ideology behind the American Constitution evolved before the Constitution. We look to it as the wellspring of our society (at least some do), but the real wellspring is whatever caused the Colonies to create such a document in the belief that it would work as a framework for a society.
What brings my skepticism about Europe to the foreground of my mind today is this article in the EU Observer, discussing the implications of the Charter of Fundamental Rights contained within the proposed EU Constitution. A number of advocacy groups are planning to use it to pursue liberalization of abortion laws (more restrictive than those in the US) and even such measures as an attempt to retaliate against the Catholic church for its refusal to ordain female priests:
Opponents of the EU charter also point to a possibility of rulings against the Catholic Church provision on male-only priests.This is a very real possibility. There is hostility towards those who publicly profess a private adherence to orthodox Catholic doctrine, as Rocco Buttiglione discovered. See this prior post about how and why he lost his seat on the European Commission. In it I quote from the article Buttiglione wrote in the WSJ:
They argue this could be attacked on the basis of "non-discrimination" rights especially in those countries where priests are financed from public funds.
The current Pope, Benedict XXIV, pointed to these concerns in April, saying "the fact that the Church is convinced of not having the right to confer priestly ordination of women, is now considered by some as irreconcilable with the European Constitution".
One of America's founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton, was convinced that politics needed values it could not produce itself and had to rely on other agencies (mainly the churches) to nurture the virtues civil life needs. The state could therefore not privilege any church in particular but had to maintain a positive attitude to religion in general.Rocco Buttiglione may be a modern prophet. I think the current trend in the EU will be to attempt to impose the secular values of "old Europe" (see this post and Chirac's statement) upon the countries of "new Europe" and upon any contradicting sources of authority such as orthodox churches. In Sweden, the pastor who was first convicted for hate speech for preaching a sermon against homosexuality in his own church, then had the verdict overturned on appeal is now facing an appeal of his acquittal to the High Court of Sweden. See this summary (religious source).
"Jean Jacques Rousseau thought, on the contrary, that the state needed a kind of civil religion of its own and the existing churches had to bow to this civil religion by incorporating its commandments in their theology. Many scholars see in this idea of Rousseau's the seminal principle of totalitarianism. The tradition of Rousseau and of the Jacobins has survived in Europe in less virulent forms than in the not too distant past, but it's still part of the European political and ideological landscape.
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There are times one could reasonably argue that the secular is indeed the profane.
When the point of secularism morphs from one of seperation or destinction to one of persecutor and prosecutor, we are in big trouble.
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When the point of secularism morphs from one of seperation or destinction to one of persecutor and prosecutor, we are in big trouble.
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