Europe is "dancing on a powder keg" - Cardinal Kasper

[Ioannis]

Cardinal Kasper compares modern Europe with "dancing on a powder keg"

Sibiu (Romania), September 7, Interfax - With the loss of fundamental values based on Christianity, Europe risks losing its own future, said Cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

"Today, Europe is in danger of not only betraying but also - in a banal way - simply forgetting her ideals," the Cardinal said at the 3rd European Ecumenical Assembly at Sibiu, Romania.

The primary danger is forgetting God and promoting individualism and indifference, he said. "It is almost as if we are dancing on a volcano or on a powder keg," Kasper said.

Europe needs not only economic and political unity, he said. "If she is to have any future, Europe needs a shared set of basic values," the Vatican official said.

"Europe, in other words, we, Christians in Europe, must eventually wake up; Europe must stand by herself, her history and the values that once made her great and are the only thing that can give her a new future," Cardinal Kasper said.

"One can argue against Europe's roots only if one has one's eyes closed," he said, adding that those people "should be invited to make a journey from Gibraltar across Spain, France, Germany, Scandinavia and Poland as far as Estonia or from Rome via Constantinople and Kiev to Moscow."

"There would meet extremely different people and hear the most varied languages, but everywhere they would find the cross and, in the center of all ancient cities, cathedrals," the Cardinal said.
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