Anti-Christian Europe

In today's WSJ: Italy's Foreign Minister speaks out on Europe's anti-Christian politics.


We still live in a world in which resources are limited, we have to work hard to have our share of them, we need the support of a family and we need the old traditional virtues that had been too easily dismissed. Americans have become aware of this state of affairs sooner than Europeans. This is another explanation of the difference between the two sides of the Atlantic. But we can expect also in Europe a change of attitudes within a comparatively short period of time. Our struggling economy and ageing society can survive and be modernized only if we recover at least some of the values of the past--among them the ethics of hardworking and caring fathers and mothers.

This is difficult to accept in Europe because our intellectuals were always convinced that modernity brings with itself the extinction of religious faith. Now America, the most advanced country in the world, shows us that religion may be and indeed is a fundamental element of a free society and of a modern economy.

Mr. Buttiglione , Italy's minister of European affairs, last month withdrew his candidacy to become European justice and home affairs commissioner.

I hope he is right, but i think it's just as possible that Europe will simply move farther and father away from faith. The anti-Americanism is too deep, and too irrational, to be approached with logic.