Religion & Law

When I saw this headline in ZENIT:  "Pope Benedict Honors a Coherent Politician", my first thought was, boy, have the shenanigans of Governors Spitzer and Sanford, and Senators Edwards and Ensign, lowered the bar for the honoring of politicians! 

But the honoree here is someone who sounds like a contemporary heir to Saints John Fischer and Thomas More, at least morally.  From ZENIT's description: 

Benedict XVI describes Alcide De Gasperi as a statesman of high moral quality and "great faith" -- a model for politicians of today.



De Gasperi (1881-1954) was the architect of Italy's reconstruction after World War II. Founder in 1942 of the Christian Democratic Party, he is considered, together with the German Konrad Adenauer and the Frenchman Robert Schuman, one of the fathers of the process of European integration. . . .

The Pontiff recognized De Gasperi's "recognized moral uprightness" and his "religious sensitivity." He spoke of his "indisputable fidelity to human and Christian values."



"Formed in the school of the Gospel, De Gasperi was capable of transforming the faith he professed into concrete and coherent actions," Benedict XVI continued. "Spirituality and politics were, in effect, two dimension that converged in his person and characterized his social and spiritual determination."



The Holy Father acknowledged that at times there were "difficulties and even perhaps misunderstandings with the ecclesial world, but De Gasperi never wavered in his adherence to the Church."



"Docile and obedient to the Church," he continued, "he was independent and responsible in his political decisions, without using the Church for political ends and never faltering in his commitment to his upright conscience."



De Gasperi was coherent to such a degree, the Holy Father noted, that "at the end of his life, he could say, 'I have done all that was in my hands to do. My conscience is at peace.'"

But there's an interesting contrast between what Rick suggests Fischer and More represent, politically, [in Rick's words: "that the Church was (and still must be) an institutional center of non-state authority, if individual freedom is to be secure from arbitrary state power"], and how Gasperi applied his faith -- in helping create the "supra-national" governmental authority of the European Union.  In teaching Comparative Consumer Law here in Rome this summer, I'm thinking more about the EU, and the tensions inherent in the rather striking subordination of national laws to the authority of the EU, than I have in years.  My impressions is that the Christian Democratic parties in Europe have traditionally been among the proponents of a strong EU, and they did fairly well in the recent elections to the European Parliament 2 weeks ago.  How might this support for the creation of an additional layer of "state power" by "Christian" political parties in Europe relate to the general decline of active participation in the life of the Church by many Europeans in their private lifes? 

I'd appreciate any thoughts more informed international scholars might have on this question.