{"id":330719,"date":"2018-02-23T08:56:24","date_gmt":"2018-02-23T07:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webdev.flars.net\/being-for-europe-2\/"},"modified":"2018-02-23T08:56:24","modified_gmt":"2018-02-23T07:56:24","slug":"being-for-europe-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.together4europe.org\/en\/being-for-europe-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Being “for” Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

“We marvel at the action of the Holy Spirit in our times”.\u00a0<\/em>Cardinal Kasper accompanied and supported Together for Europe<\/em> network from its very beginnings. On the 30th June 2016, on the occasion of the last Congress in Munich, he shared his views on the importance of the network and his hopes for the future.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

THE SPIRIT OF GOD IS STILL AT WORK TODAY<\/b><\/p>\n

Dear friends, it is wonderful to be with you again and even more wonderful to see what has become of you since Stuttgart 2004.\u00a0 The dream of that time is becoming reality. The Spirit of God is still bearing fruit today.\u00a0 We have good reason to be grateful.<\/p>\n

Our Dream<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It all started on 31 October 1999 in Augsburg.\u00a0 Protestant and Catholic Christians made an official and collective declaration: together we acknowledge that Jesus is our salvation. Many said this declaration means nothing, that nothing has changed.\u00a0 No, things have changed.\u00a0 You are the result. Your movement is the fruit.\u00a0 Pope John Paul II was right. The declaration was a milestone.<\/p>\n

A milestone is a marker along the way, not the goal.\u00a0 The next marker is ahead of us: Autumn 2016 in Lund, October 2017 in Wittenberg. Once again there are those who are skeptical.\u00a0 We say five hundred years of separation is enough. Something has to change. It would be betraying Jesus Christ and a disgrace for the world if we didn\u2019t act upon our words.<\/p>\n

We have a dream.\u00a0 We know that ecumenism is the Holy Spirit\u2019s passage through the Church. We can rely on Him. \u00a0It was He who initiated the movement for ecumenism, and He will lead it to the finish-line. Unity in reconciled diversity is possible.\u00a0 Tell those hesitant experts of division that we are the experts of unity. We have seen that even today unity is more possible than you think! Everyone needs to start moving; everyone needs to change their ways and way of thinking!<\/p>\n

T<\/em>ogether in Europe<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Unity in the Church is now more important than ever because unity in Europe is in danger.\u00a0 \u201cTogether for Europe\u201d is now more important than it has ever been.\u00a0 When I was young, after the disaster of the Second World War, Europe signified a peace project for us young people. Enemies were to become friends and we did. We were granted seventy years of peace and prosperity that our forefathers would never have dreamt of and it isn\u2019t a dream; it\u2019s reality. It\u2019s our future.<\/p>\n

Noone is denying the fact that Europe needs a flourishing economy to achieve this.\u00a0 An economic system is needed for life and survival but it is needed for life. It\u2019s not the meaning of life itself which is why Europe needs more than an economic system. Europe isn\u2019t just an economic community. Europe is a community of values. It has strong Christian foundations without which Europe cannot be called Europe. Many people have forgotten this. So, it is our duty to stand up for it again.<\/p>\n

We cannot allow the ghosts of nationalistic egoism \u2013 believed to have died long ago \u2013 to rise from their graves and spread fear and terror. Every one of us loves our own homeland, our own language and our own culture. We\u2019re not looking for uniformity. Europe\u2019s diversity is the Europe\u2019s wealth. Patriotism has nothing to do with nationalism which creates walls and fences.\u00a0 Nor does it mean withdrawing to a national \u201cIsland of the Blessed.\u201d Patriotism is about being open; it allows itself to be enriched and seeks to enrich others. Whoever raises the drawbridge in front of it will soon starve.<\/p>\n

Pope Francis recently said Europe is a \u201cwork in progress.\u201d Europe was never simply a fait accompli; it has always been \u201cin progress\u201d. It has always been its strength to integrate other cultures: Celts, Germanic tribes, Normans, Slavs and Muslims whom we are not meeting for the first time today.<\/p>\n

We were ecstatic after the fall of the Berlin Wall, hoping for borderfree communication, universal democracy and universal human rights. We are now facing the problems of the world becoming one which do not appear as abstract numbers but as real people with real faces. They are children of God. They present us with new challenges.\u00a0 We need to show them how attractive Christianity is, show them that being a Christian is a good thing. We can only do this together as Protestants and Catholics if we set aside our differences.<\/p>\n

Is it possible? Yes, it is. As Christians we believe in the resurrection and the power of the Spirit of God.\u00a0 We believe that life is stronger than death and that love is stronger than hate. Jesus Christ is in our midst; he goes before us.\u00a0 As Christians we are witnesses of hope that we can live and work together as Christians and live and work together in Europe.\u00a0 What\u2019s needed is not fear, but hope.\u00a0 Let us not be those who doubt, but those who build bridges and bring hope.<\/p>\n

Cardinal Walter Kasper, Cardinal Emeritus of the Roman Curia and President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity<\/em><\/p>\n

Download:\u00a0 TfE Munich 2016 – Keys for prompts of dialogue on Cardinal W. Kasper’s speech on 30 June 2016, Sr. Nicole Grochowina<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“We marvel at the action of the Holy Spirit in our times”.\u00a0Cardinal Kasper accompanied and supported Together for Europe network from its very beginnings. On the 30th June 2016, on the occasion of the last Congress in Munich, he shared his views on the importance of the network and his hopes for the future. THE […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":14847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"Holy Spirit's Impact: Unity in Europe Today","_seopress_titles_desc":"Explore how the Holy Spirit inspires unity in the Together for Europe network, fostering peace and reconciliation among Christians.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2388,2435,3136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-330719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2016-munich-en","category-experiences-reflections-and-interviews","category-news-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.together4europe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.together4europe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.together4europe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.together4europe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.together4europe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.together4europe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.together4europe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.together4europe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.together4europe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.together4europe.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}