While European ministers are going on with their collective plans for providing an integral education for all, one was pleased to note that the head of the Vatican Delegation had addressed the participants in the Fourth Conference of European Ministers of the Bologna Process, held in Bergen, Norway, on May 19 and 20 on this educational reform in Europe.

It is the moral duty of all those responsible to recognise the central value of human dignity and its basic role in the society of the new Europe. It has to be acknowledged that Pope John Paul II had used the term "human ecology" to denote the set of basic values necessary to promote the integral growth of the human person. And in the very near future it will be Benedict XVI who will expand further in the same direction.

As John Paul II had stressed in his Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Europa (June 28, 2003): "There can be no doubt that the Christian faith belongs, in a radical and decisive way, to the foundations of European culture. Christianity in fact has shaped Europe, impressing upon it certain basic values. Modern Europe itself, which has given the democratic ideal and human rights to the world, draws its values from its Christian heritage...

"In the process of transformation, which it is now undergoing, Europe is called above all to rediscover its true identity. Even though it has developed into a highly diversified reality, it needs to build a new model of unity in diversity, as a community of reconciled nations open to the other continents and engaged in the present process of globalisation. To give new impetus to its own history, Europe must recognise and reclaim with creative fidelity those fundamental values, acquired through a decisive contribution of Christianity, which can be summarised in the affirmation of the transcendent dignity of the human person, the value of reason, freedom, democracy, the constitutional state and the direction between political life and religion." (Note 109)

Admittedly, Europe today is in the process of strengthening and enlarging its economic and political union, and seems to be suffering from a profound crisis of values. While its resources are on the increase, Europe gives the impression of lacking that much-needed energy to sustain a common project and to give its citizens new reasons for hope.

By highlighting the human search for truth, beauty and freedom, Europeans safeguard these basic values, which constitute the essence of our moral, spiritual and cultural growth.

As one learns from history, human values will only persist if they are rooted in a transcendental background. John Henry Newman, the well-known Oxford Fellow, author of The Idea of a University (and later Cardinal), said: "Mere natural virtue wears away, when men neglect to deepen it into religious principle".

No doubt, Pope Benedict XVI will use all his knowledge and his great influence while the Holy See gives its assurance that the 187 ecclesiastical Faculties in Europe will conform to the criteria of compatibility and comparability leading to the creation of a European Higher Education Area.

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