With Fr. Julián Carrón, President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, we broaden our reflections on the crisis facing today’s society and the role of the Church, on which we have focused in the pages of this paper in recent weeks, to include all of Europe.

Giuseppe De Rita, in reflecting in these pages about the current crisis of Italian and European society, made reference to the past and the fact that in medieval times, good governance of a community rested on two authorities–the civil authority that guaranteed security and the spiritual authority that spoke to citizens about the meaning of existence. These two authorities cannot be concentrated in a single person, but Europe often tends toward a concentration of power. In this context, what do you think the role of the Church, and therefore her responsibility, should be?

In reality, these two things are intimately connected. In the hearts of many people, you see the shadow of a great fear and a deep insecurity. But what exactly is it? How can we confront it? If people do not find a radical response to their fears, they will overwhelm them and produce disordered reactions. Having said this, it is still entirely evident that politics is not capable of responding and cannot respond to all our anxiety about security or all the bewilderment people have inside of them. This reveals the real issue. Society–with all its institutions, parties, unions, schools of every kind and at every level, the lived realities, communities, the Church–is facing a challenge: Who can respond to this need for security that appears alongside the fear? To face the question, you cannot put your faith in walls of any kind: when the most hostile attitudes are circulating in society, when it seems to be “dog eat dog,” when any person or thing is a potential enemy, you can never reduce the answer to “police” or “walls.”

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