Back in 2003 the Slovakian government signed an agreement with the Catholic Church “to let doctors and health-care workers in Catholic hospitals decline to participate in abortions as a matter of conscience.” Let no good deed remain unpunished. This year “the EU's Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights... ruled Slovakia in violation of its EU 'obligations,'” according to Daniel Henninger. Tolerant, those Euro-secularists, aren’t they?
It is evident that Pope Benedict XVI understands the stakes. According to George Weigel, biographer of Pope John-Paul II,
"Ratzinger has been thinking about Europe for 25 years," Mr. Weigel told me. "He needs to address the problem of a Europe in which consciences are being coerced by transnational institutions. This is the cash-out of what he means by the dictatorship of relativism. It's a real issue with real world consequences."
Can the Church hope to make headway against the fierce secularism of Europe? Henninger thinks he may. In 2004 as Cardinal Ratzinger he had a debate with German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, the pope, if you like, of Euro-secularism, and Habermas emerged from the dialog to create
a mini-sensation by suggesting that religious communities deserve respect for having "preserved intact something which has elsewhere been lost."
In Italy there has been a renewal of interest in the monastic life among educated young women.
Today Benedict XVI lead the Way of the Cross procession in Rome. Opening with a prayer, Benedict said Jesus' suffering "is the whole of human history, a history where the good are humiliated, the meek assaulted, the honest crushed, and the pure of heart roundly mocked."
On Sunday he will celebrate Christ’s resurrection for the first time as pope.
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