Blessed Robert Schuman? The diocesan phase of the canonical process is over
by Edoardo Zin
On Saturday 29 May, the vigil of Pentecost, Monsignor Pierre Raffin,
archbishop of Metz (France), officially closed the process
Robert Schuman
On Saturday 29 May, the vigil of
Pentecost, Monsignor Pierre Raffin, archbishop of Metz (France), officially
closed the process for the beatification of Robert Schuman, the “father of
Europe”. A canonical investigation was requested by a group of French, German
and Italian Christian laity who, together in the Association “Saint Benedict,
patron of Europe”, founded on 15 August 1988, asked for a canonical process to
be opened to ascertain whether Robert Schuman had practiced the Christian
virtues in a heroic manner. The process opened on 9 June 1990.
After hearing about two hundred witnesses who had known and frequented Robert
Schuman, and after conducting a critical analysis of all the public and private
writings of the politician, the inquiry was transferred to a theological
commission charged with investigating whether a spiritual and moral
contradiction to the faith existed in these writings. «This work of rigorous,
almost scientific, investigation shows with what care the Church means to
proceed before committing its infallibility in a declaration of sainthood», -
said Monsignor Raffin. And he added: «the Church not only wants to propose to
the people of God incontestable models, but it wants the cult of the saints to
be guaranteed free of all error and reflect only the paschal mystery of
Christ». The volumes of the testimonies and
the writings, which fill 50 thousand pages and weigh 500 kilos, were
transferred to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints and will be
examined by theological censors. It is awaited that God, through the
intercession of Robert Schuman, bring about a miracle which will demonstrate
His omnipotence. Robert Schuman, French minister of Foreign
Affairs, on 9 May 1950, in a historical declaration, proposed that the States
which had been in combat during the Second World War should pool their
production of coal and steel, the cause of centuries of enmity between France
and Germany. From the reconciliation between these two countries the first
European Community was born and from it, successively, the actual European
Union. In this action, Schuman was helped by two fervent Christians, Konrad
Adenauer and Alcide De Gasperi, as well as by a layman who respected the
religious choices of the three: Jean Monnet. Robert Schuman exercised his political
commitment as an apostolate: he applied in public life the principles of his
private religious practise. Brought up in a two culture ambience,
French and the German, Schuman experienced in his own life the drama of
Franco-German hostility. The sad consequences of this absurd enmity were the
inspiring motives of his declaration of 9 May: «World peace cannot be
guaranteed without creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which threaten
it. To maintain peace the contribution of a vital and well-organized Europe is
indispensable». The commitment of Robert Schuman cannot be
understood, in the real depth of his being and doing, without an awareness of
his profound inner life. Christian faith and political action were a single
thing in him, despite the distinction between the two spheres: his faith
determined all his commitment and illuminated his political action.
Schuman with Monsignor Angelo Roncalli, Apostolic Nuncio to Paris, 5 February 1953
The spirituality that animated Schuman set
the Word of God which directed all his actions at its center.«From it», he
said, «I learn to think like God, instead of repeating the slogans of the
world». From the Eucharist, which he frequented every day, he drew comfort for
the difficulties of the day, from his mother he inherited an authentic fervor
for the Madonna. From contemplation and prayer he learned to feel himself an
instrument in the hands of God: «We are all instruments, even if imperfect, of
Providence which uses them for purposes which are above us», he wrote in 1960. Schuman had an active awareness of the
role played by Christianity in the formation of democracy. In the last book he
left, Pour l’Europe,he writes: «Democracy
owes its existence to Christianity. It was born the day man was called to
realize in his daily commitment the dignity of the human person in his
individual freedom, in the respect of the rights of everyone, and in the
practice of brotherly love towards all. Never, before Christ, had similar
concepts been formulated». In the European Parliament on 19 March
1958 he was to say: «All the European Countries are permeated by Christian
civilization. It is the soul of Europe which must be restored to it». And in Pour
l’Europe: «This
togetherness [of peoples] cannot and should not remain an economic and
technical undertaking. It must be given a soul. Europe will not live and will
not be saved except to the degree in which it has awareness of itself and of
its responsibilities, when it returns to the Christian principles of solidarity
and fraternity». We do not know whether Robert Schuman will
be venerated as a blessed and, successively, as a saint. When the Church
declares saints it does not offer “supermen”, it does not claim saints for
itself but it proclaims the only sanctity – that of God – which manifests
itself through the saints whom he bestows upon us, sanctity that is also
written in the life of every man, in all of his situations, in all of his
doings. The Church today has need of lay saints
who can serve as models for the faithful, of saints who have lived daily
sanctity according to the Gospel, without anything extraordinary manifesting
itself in their lives. Robert Schuman testifies for us that politics can also
be a path of sanctity. If today they are so denigrated, it is because sin,
rooted in the heart of man, warps them, as it warps everything.
