Church Robert Schuman (1886-1963) The Father of Europe In the Steps of St Benedict Last May saw the conclusion of the diocesan process for the beatification of the great French statesman, Robert Schuman. His friendship with Adenauer and De Gasperi was the beginning of European unity. “Democracy owes its existence to Christianity” by Edoardo Zin* On the occasion of the signing of the European Constitution by the heads of states and governments, the press informed us that the signing took place in Rome at the Capitoline Palace because it was there, in 1957, that the Treaty of Rome was signed, marking the birth of the European Community. But that wasn’t quite how things went. The first European Community was born on May 9, 1950. The “Feast of Europe” has been celebrated for some years now in all the countries of the European Union, and that date was solemnly sanctioned by the European Constitution recently signed. On May 9, 1950, with a celebrated declaration, Robert Schuman, the French Foreign Minister, laid the first stone in the building of the Common European Home. The Declaration of May 9, 1950 It was on May 9, 1950, that Robert Schuman decided to make his own the proposal of Jean Monnet, his close collaborator, who had been working for months on a plan for a communitarian organization independent of governments for a supranational control of the coal and steel industries. Robert Schuman had no time to waste. He knew that on May 10th there would be a meeting in London of Allied Foreign Ministers. On the morning of May 9th, Schuman sent a confidential file to the German Chancellor Adenauer, containing the proposal that the French Cabinet would approve that same morning, and that he would present to the world press in the late afternoon the same day. The short and essential declaration–now set down in history as the official act of the birth of the first European Community–opened with a broad, almost prophetic vision of the political prospects: “World peace cannot be safeguarded without creative efforts that measure up to the dangers that threaten it.” Then Schuman affirmed his functionalistic vision: “Europe will not be made in one move, nor by an overall construction; it will be made through concrete facts that create a de facto solidarity.” The statesman hoped for the overcoming of the centuries-old rivalry between France and Germany: “To this end, the French Government proposes immediately to focus action on a limited but decisive point: the French Government proposes to place the French and German coal and steel production under a common authority in an organization open to the participation of other countries of Europe. (…) Thus will be realized simply and rapidly the fusion of interests indispensable for the creation of an economic community, and the ferment of a broader and deeper community between countries long opposed by bloody divisions will be introduced.” The unification of the French and German heavy industries, the ability to keep them under control, meant preventing these countries from preparing or waging war. Economic union was to be realized seven years later, on March 25, 1957, with the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC, also known as the European Common Market) and of the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM), which evolved into the present European Union. The three builders of Europe The international horizon in the early 1950s was very bleak. The Soviet Union organized a violent campaign against the USA and consolidated its position in the East, dividing the planet into two blocs (the “Cold War”). The West formed a coalition against Germany, considered a threat to peace. In France, General de Gaulle promoted very tough policies against defeated Germany. In 1954, Robert Schuman entered the Quai D’Orsay as Foreign Minister and immediately thought of bringing Germany back into the fold of European nations through a policy of partnership between France and Germany. In 1950, Germany saw the outburst of a violent nationalistic campaign against France. The Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, was accused of “selling” the Saar and the Ruhr to the Allies. The crisis reached its peak when France was given the concession of exploiting the coalmines of Lorraine. This was when Schuman was convinced that Europe was the only formula for solving the German problem. The entrance of Germany alongside the countries that won the Second World War would avoid the re-emergence of nationalist politics and would also lead to the creation of a European Community. Schuman and Adenauer had known each other since 1948. They shared a high esteem and mutual trust for each other. In the letters they exchanged, they spoke of sincere friendship and their common Christian convictions. Alcide De Gasperi, the Italian statesman, was also anxious to smooth over Franco-German relationships and dreamed of a united Europe. Schuman and De Gasperi were both men who had lived on the borders, amongst ethnic minorities, the former in Lorraine, when it was part of the second German Reich; the latter in Trent, when it belonged to Austria. They were convinced that nationalism could be transcended by a higher European spirit. The friendship with De Gasperi was not so long. “We met late in life,” Schuman wrote to him on February 28, 1953, “but our friendship was deep and unreserved. Without doubt, we were predestined in the moment when a new policy was defined for our nations. You have often been an effective and disinterested mediator, always a clear-sighted animator.” Schuman, Adenauer and De Gasperi had in common the concreteness that made them abandon intellectualism and abstraction, the inborn gift of human contact, the taste for reserve and prudence, and the art of searching for great projects in which to commit not only words but apparently contradictory interests. What united them above all was a convinced Christian faith that led them to practice the evangelical virtues. The wholly Christian virtue of forgiveness and reconciliation was lived in an extraordinary way by Adenauer, De Gasperi, and Schuman in their lives, so much so that inquiries have been made in all three cases to assess the possibility of beginning a canonical process for beatification. While for the first two the diocesan processes have not yet been concluded, that of Schuman has already been completed, and the acts of the process have already been forwarded to the Roman Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Wisdom and self-control The whole political endeavor of Robert Schuman, from 1919 till 1960, when sickness forced him to retire from public life, was carried out in light of a deep coherence between life, faith and the Church’s Christian doctrine. From the beginning to the end of his political activity, he never considered faith and socio-political action to be in opposition. He had a biblical conception of man: Man must conform, in freedom, to God who is love and of whom he is the living image. This concept inspired Schuman’s whole life. Whoever approached him felt to be in the presence of a man of God, without personal desires or ambitions, who sought to serve others, guided only by his Christian conscience, which he never vaunted or imposed. He was fond of citing St Augustine: “A law is not a law if it is not just. If it strays from justice, it is a corruption of the law.” Before the attacks of the left in the National Assembly, who accused him of being a “dirty Prussian,” he assumed an attitude of wisdom and self-control that was dictated by his kind and humble nature. On leaving the chamber one day he said, “They are only poor manipulated men. Their accusations must not arouse any aversion on my part, but only pity. It’s better to pray for them than to curse them.” Similarly explicit were certain affirmations of his that would provoke scandal today. In his book For Europe, he wrote, “Democracy owes its existence to Christianity.” He had a biblical concept of man, every man, which he witnessed in an age when “man is nothing but mold on the surface of a dead star” (Nietzsche), or an accidental tissue impregnated with sexuality (Freud), or simply “an absurdity” (Sartre). In his daily battles, he found strength in daily Communion, in a virile devotion to Our Lady, in an attentive listening to the Word of God and in the conviction of being merely an instrument in God’s hands. “We are all tools, albeit imperfect, of Providence, who uses them for projects that transcend them,” he wrote in 1960. The man who transformed coal and steel, for centuries motives for conflict, into peaceful instruments of reconciliation, was proud to pronounce these words before the European Parliament on March 19, 1958: “All the countries of Europe are permeated by Christian civilization. This is Europe’s soul and we must give it back to her.” European Constitution There was fierce opposition, which in the end prevailed, to the inserting into the preamble of the European Constitution an explicit reference to the Judeo-Christian roots of the continent. This extreme was reached because Europe has lost the concept of person that is in its turn the concept of God, since the person is founded on the concept of love, and God is love. It cannot be denied that at the origin of this European civilization lies Christianity with its unitary morality, which exalts the figure and the responsibility of the human person, which ferments with evangelical solidarity, with its culture of rights inherited from Roman civilization, and with its desire for truth and justice sharpened by thousands of years of experience. But Christianity is not only at the origin of our society, it has been lived, witnessed to, and practiced by the founding fathers of the European Union, and in a particular way by Robert Schuman. And no one can deny it. *Edoardo Zin is a member of the St Benedict, Patron of Europe, Institute, Postulator of the Cause of Beatification of Robert Schuman His Life (by Benedetta Villani)1886 Robert Schuman was born on June 29th in Clausen, a suburb of Luxembourg, in the Region of Alsace, then part of the German Reich. He spent his youth between Luxembourg and Lorraine, studying Law at the Universities of Berlin, Munich, Bonn and Strasbourg. He graduated in Jurisprudence at Strasbourg and worked as an attorney in Metz. During the First World War, he refused to join the German armed forces and was sent to prison. 1913 Was amongst the organizers of the Katholikentag (Congress of German Catholics) at Metz. 1919 On the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, elected deputy at the National Assembly for the region of Moselle, for the Popular Democratic Party. Subsequently re-elected, and later deputy for Thionville-East. Member of many Parliamentary Commissions and member of the Consultative Commission for Alsace-Lorraine. 1940 During the Second World War, arrested and deported to Germany, but managed to escape two years later, returning to France to join the French Resistance. 1945 Elected deputy in the ranks of the MRP (the Popular Republican Movement, a party of Catholic inspiration). 1946 Appointed Minister of Finance. 1947 Headed the government, but only for a year. 1948 Appointed Foreign Minister, mostly taken up by the project for European unification, aware that more wars could be avoided only by overcoming nationalistic tendencies. 1950 With Jean Monnet, he drafted the famous Schuman Plan, published May 9th, which proposed control by a supranational organism of the production of coal and steel, the chief raw materials for the arms industry. 1951 In April, the Schuman Plan became a reality with the institution of the European Coal and Steel Community, involving Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and Holland. 1958 Took up the Presidency of the European Parliament. 1960 Retired from politics. 1963 Died September 4th at Scy Chazelles, near Metz.