In the whole debate about the European Court of Human Rights ruling regarding crucifixes in Italian classes and the wave of Christophobia which is enveloping Europe, it cannot be really said that Jesus Christ has not come a long way since that day, 2,000 years ago, when one of his closest friends decided that enough was enough. Jesus had proved to be such a disappointment and a neat little sum of 30 pieces of silver would do no harm anyway. Now the learned judges at the European Court have decided that, taking everything into consideration, €5,000 are quite an adequate sum to do away with Him, hopefully to succeed where the Jewish leaders and Pilate did not.

It might however come as a shock to them and to other secularists to realise that the European Union flag has religious connotations of that Christianity which they have vowed to eradicate as much as possible from European hearts and minds.

The history of the flag goes back to 1955. At that time the European Union existed only in the form of the European Coal and Steel Community with just six member states. However, a separate body with a large membership had been set up several years earlier, the Council of Europe. The flag was designed by Arsène Heitz and Paul Lévy in 1955 for the Council of Europe as its symbol and in 1985 the flag was adopted by the European Economic Community (now the EU) as its own flag at the initiative of the European Parliament.

Lévy, a Belgian of Jewish descent, had vowed that if he should survive the war, he would convert to Christianity. He duly survived and became a Catholic. When the Council of Europe was established, he became chief of its Department of Culture. However, the design of the EU flag is mainly the work of Heitz. He was a devout Catholic and had a deep veneration for the Miraculous Medal of Our Lady of Rue de Bac, which medal had 12 stars on its reverse side. Inspiring himself from the lines of the Apocalypse 12:1 which describes a woman with a crown of 12 stars on her head, which traditionally has always been held to be the Mother of Christ as also Israel which later became the Christian Church, he decided to put this emblem on the flag of the Council of Europe having blue, the colour of Mary, as its background.

On October 21, 1956 the Council of Europe presented the city of Strasbourg, its official seat, with a stained glass window for the Strasbourg Cathedral by the Parisian master Max Ingrand. It shows a blessing Madonna underneath a circle of 12 stars on a dark blue background. Naturally secularists will deny the biblical interpretation as myth. However, facts remain facts and undeniable ones at that.

The conclusion to this is that the Son might perhaps be banished in the future from public places in EU countries but the flag, which His mother has inspired, will continue to fly high on EU buildings all over the continent. God's sense of humour indeed knows no limits.

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