Catholics and the Supra State

The European Union (EU) is a supranational and intergovernmental union of twenty-seven states and a political body. It was established in 1992 by the Treaty on European Union (The Maastricht Treaty), and is the de facto successor to the six-member European Economic Community founded in 1957. Since then new accessions have raised its number of member states, and competences have expanded.

The EU is one of the largest economic and political entities in the world, with a total population of 494 million and a combined nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of €11.6 (US$15.6) trillion in 2006.[1] The Union is a single market with a common trade policy,[2] a Common Agricultural/Fisheries Policy, and a Regional policy to assist underdeveloped regions.[3] It introduced a single currency, the euro, adopted by 13 member states. The EU initiated a limited Common Foreign and Security Policy, and a limited Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters.

Important EU institutions and bodies include the European Commission, the Council of the European Union, the European Council, the European Central Bank, the European Court of Justice, and the European Parliament. Citizens of EU member states are also EU citizens: they directly elect the European Parliament, once every five years. They can invest, live, travel, and work in other member states (with some temporary restrictions on new member states[4]). Passport control and customs checks at most internal borders were abolished by the Schengen Agreement.

Europe is one of the seven traditional continents of the Earth. Physically and geologically, Europe is the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, west of Asia. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Sea, to the southeast by the Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea and the waterways connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. To the east, Europe is generally divided from Asia by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, and by the Caspian Sea.

Europe is the world's second-smallest continent in terms of area, covering about 10,180,000 square kilometres (3,930,000 sq mi) or 2.0% of the Earth's surface. The only continent smaller than Europe is Australia. In terms of population, it is the third-largest continent (after Asia and Africa) with a population of 710,000,000 or about 11% of the world's population. However, the term continent can refer to a cultural and political distinction or a physiographic one, leading to various perspectives about Europe's precise borders, area, and population. Russia is Europe's largest country by area and population. Europe is the birthplace of the European Union, a union of twenty-seven independent states based on the European Communities and founded to enhance political, economic and social co-operation and integration.

Pope Pius XII (Latin: Pius PP. XII), born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (March 2, 1876 – October 9, 1958), reigned as the 260th pope, the head of the Roman Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from March 2, 1939 until his death.

Before election to the papacy, Pacelli served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio and cardinal secretary of state, in which roles he worked to conclude treaties with European nations, most notably the Reichskonkordat with Germany. After World War II, he was a vocal supporter of lenient policies toward vanquished nations and a staunch opponent of communism. His leadership of the Catholic Church during World War II and The Holocaust remains the subject of continued historical controversy.

One of the "Founding Fathers" of a Supranational Europe was Robert Schuman,a Luxembourg born ex Nazi prisoner and politician for France in 1948.
les of Nato's Article 5 were also repeated in the European Defence Community Treaty which failed as the French National Assembly declined to vote its ratification. Schuman was a proponent of an Atlantic Community. This was strongly resisted by Communists, ultranationalists and Gaullists.

Schuman later served as Minister of Justice and first President of the European Parliamentary Assembly which bestowed on him by acclamation the title 'Father of Europe'. In 1958 he received the Karlspreis, an Award by the German city of Aachen to people who contributed to the European idea and European peace, commemorating Charlemagne, ruler of what is today France and Germany, who resided and is buried at Aachen. He was also a knight of the Order of Pope Pius IX.

Celibate, modest and un-ostentatious, Schuman was an intensely religious man and Bible scholar. He was strongly influenced by the writings of Pope Pius XII, St. Thomas Aquinas and Jacques Maritain. It was announced on 15 May 2004 that the diocesan investigation of the cause of beatification would soon conclude; this might have as its result that Schuman will be declared "Blessed" by the Roman Catholic Church.
Pius is one of few popes in recent history to exercise his papal infallibility by issuing an apostolic constitution, Munificentissimus Deus, which defines ex cathedra the dogma of the Assumption of Mary. He also promulgated forty-six encyclicals, including Humani Generis, which is still relevant to the Church's position on evolution. He also decisively eliminated the Italian majority in the College of Cardinals with the Grand Consistory in 1946. Most sedevacantists regard Pope Pius XII as the last true Pope to occupy the Holy See. His ongoing canonization process progressed to the venerable stage on September 2, 2000 under Pope John Paul II.

Another founding father of the European Suprastate was Konrad Adenauer.
As a devout Roman Catholic, he joined the Centre Party in 1906 and was elected to Cologne's city council in the same year. In 1909, he became Vice-Mayor of Cologne. From 1917 to 1933, he served as Mayor of Cologne. He had the unpleasant task of heading Cologne in the era of British occupation following the First World War and lasting until 1926. He managed to establish faithful relations with the British military authorities and flirted with Rhenish separatism (a Rhenish state as part of Germany, but outside Prussia). During the Weimar Republic, he was president of the Prussian State Council (Preußischer Staatsrat) from 1922 to 1933, which was the representative of the Prussian cities and provinces.

When the Nazis rose to power in 1933, the Centre Party lost the "elections" in Cologne and Adenauer fled to the abbey of Maria Laach, threatened by the new government after he had refused even to shake hands with a local Nazi leader. The hosting of Adenauer for a year at this abbey was cited by its abbot after the war, when accused by Heinrich Boll and others of collaboration with the Nazis.

He was imprisoned briefly after the Night of the Long Knives. During the next two years, he changed residences often due to reprisals inflicted on him by the Nazis. In 1937, he was successful in claiming at least some compensation for his once confiscated house and managed to live in seclusion for some years.

According to Albert Speer in his Spandau: The Secret Diaries, Hitler expressed admiration for Adenauer, noting his building of a road circling the city as a bypass, and of a "green belt" of parks. However, both Hitler and Speer felt that due to Adenauer's principal political views and general stubbornness, he couldn’t possibly play any role within their movement nor be helpful to the Nazi party in any way.

After the failed assassination attempt on Hitler, in 1944, he was imprisoned for the second time, being known as an opponent of the regime. But no active role in the plot could be connected to him by the Gestapo and he was released some weeks later. Shortly after the war, the Americans installed him again as Mayor of Cologne, but the British administration dismissed him for his alleged incompetence.
Adenauer's achievements include the establishment of a stable democracy in defeated Germany, a lasting reconciliation with France, a general political reorientation towards the West, recovering limited but far-reaching sovereignty for West Germany by firmly integrating it with the emerging Euro-Atlantic community (NATO and the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation). Adenauer is also associated with establishing an efficient pension system, which ensured an unparallelled prosperity for retired persons, and - along with his Minister for Economic Affairs and successor, Ludwig Erhard - with the West German model of a "social market economy" (a mixed economy with capitalism moderated by elements of social welfare and Catholic social teaching), which allowed for the boom period known as the Wirtschaftswunder ("economic miracle") and produced broad prosperity. Thus Adenauer ensured a truly free and democratic society which had been almost unknown to the German people before - notwithstanding that more or less hopeless attempt between 1919 and 1933 (the Weimar Republic) - and which is today not just normal but also deeply integrated into modern German society. He thereby laid the ground for the western world to trust Germany again in spite of all the horrible crimes that had been committed in Germany's name under the Nazis. Precisely because of Adenauer’s former policy a later reunification of both German states was possible, the united Germany remaining part of the European Union and the Nato.


Tony Blair will declare himself a Catholic after he leaves Downing Street, according to a leading cleric.

Father Michael Seed, who has been a spiritual confidant to Mr Blair and his family for the last six years, made the prediction to friends at a recent memorial service.

Known for bringing high-profile politicians and aristocrats into the Catholic fold, Seed said that Blair was ‘a Catholic by desire’ and that this did not necessitate a formal conversion.

There has long been speculation that Mr Blair, an Anglican, would convert to Catholicism, the faith of his wife Cherie.

Meanwhile, Downing Street refused to comment on Blair's religious intentions. A spokesman said: "This story is always circulating in one form or another.

"The Prime Minister remains a member of the Church of England."

Anglican leader the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has recently praised Blair for defending religious values and differences during his time in office.

Dr Williams paid tribute to Blair's commitment to religious freedom: "Tony Blair has understood as well as any Prime Minister in recent times why religion matters, how faith communities contribute to the common good and why religious extremism should have no place in a progressive society.

"As a man of genuine personal faith, he has not shied away from the risk associated with confronting extremism, while respecting difference."